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Speaker 3: I'm John Favreum, I'm Dan Feiffer.
Speaker 1: On today's show, We're going to talk about how Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's revenge tour is backfiring in a way that just
Speaker 1: about everybody could have predicted, with everything from his ballroom
Speaker 1: funding to his insurrectionist slush funds now in Jeopardy. We'll
Speaker 1: also talk about how Trump may have made things even
Speaker 1: worse for US Party with his endorsement of Ken Paxton
Speaker 1: over John Cornyn in Texas, and then, just to prove
Speaker 1: that Republicans aren't the only ones stepping on rakes, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about the long awaited release of the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four DNC autopsy and whether Ken Martin's job as DNC
Speaker 1: chair is in jeopardy. We'll also talk about new results
Speaker 1: from this week's New York Times poll focused on what
Speaker 1: Democratic voters want from the Democratic Party. Then you'll hear
Speaker 1: Tommy's interview with California gubernatorial candidate Matt Mahon, and finally
Speaker 1: we'll explore the question none of us thought we'd have
Speaker 1: to ask, is Donald Trump gonna skip his son's wedding?
Speaker 1: Tune in to find out before we start. Go ahead
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Speaker 1: get to the news. It seems like just yesterday, because
Speaker 1: it was that the White House warned us to never
Speaker 1: again doubt Donald Trump's political power, and certain journalists proclaimed
Speaker 1: an incredible few weeks for the president's political operation. This
Speaker 1: is all because Trump's handpicked primary challengers defeated Louisiana Senator
Speaker 1: Bill Cassidy in Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massey. Well, twenty four
Speaker 1: hours later, here's a text from a Republican senator to
Speaker 1: punch Bowl News. Quote. Our majority is melting down before
Speaker 1: our eyes. So what happened? What happened? Well, the Senate
Speaker 1: was supposed to be voting on Trump's bill to fund ICE,
Speaker 1: but then he also demanded one billion dollars for his ballroom,
Speaker 1: and he announced that he's stealing two billion dollars from
Speaker 1: taxpayers so that he can potentially hand out cash payments
Speaker 1: to January sixth rioters who almost killed police officers, and
Speaker 1: basically anyone else he thinks has been mistreated by the
Speaker 1: justice system. Neither of these things sat very well with
Speaker 1: some Republicans, including people like Bill Cassidy, whose career Trump
Speaker 1: just ended, and after a reportedly tense meeting about the
Speaker 1: insurrection of slush fund with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche,
Speaker 1: where some Republicans proposed restrictions on the slush fund sent
Speaker 1: a majority. Leader John Thune canceled the vote entirely and
Speaker 1: told everyone to go home until June. Here's Blanche and JD.
Speaker 1: Vance earlier in the week, refusing to rule out taxpayer
Speaker 1: funded payouts for violent insurrectionists.
Speaker 3: You know who never.
Speaker 1: Ever gets an ounce of sympathy when it comes to
Speaker 1: disproportionate sentencing is people who voted for Donald Trump and
Speaker 1: participated in the January sixth protest.
Speaker 4: Well, individuals who assaulted Capitol Hill police officers be eligible
Speaker 4: for this fund.
Speaker 2: Well, as it makes plain, any just let.
Speaker 4: Me know if they're eligible for the fund.
Speaker 3: As as as was made plain yesterday, anybody in this
Speaker 3: country is eligible to apply.
Speaker 4: You're not gonna submit this proposal to any federal judge
Speaker 4: or there is no judge, any independent authority.
Speaker 2: That an independent What does that mean an independent authority?
Speaker 4: Well, it means not somebody who's getting to pick five
Speaker 4: of the members. Who is the president's former personal attorney.
Speaker 4: That would be somebody who would be independent on the
Speaker 4: acting attorney general. Okay, the fact that I used to
Speaker 4: be President Trump's lawyer is just a fact.
Speaker 2: But I'm the acting attorney general.
Speaker 4: So don't say the president's former personal lawyer will do
Speaker 4: something the acting attorney general will do. Sister Attorney general,
Speaker 4: you are acting today like the president's personal attorney. And
Speaker 4: that's the whole problem.
Speaker 3: That's the good shit right there.
Speaker 1: It's a good shit. What a winer. Uh So, after
Speaker 1: Senate Republicans were in revolts and the majority of melting down,
Speaker 1: Trump was asked about it in the Oval on Thursday.
Speaker 1: Here's what he said, Are you losing control on the
Speaker 1: Senate Center?
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I really don't know.
Speaker 2: I can tell you.
Speaker 3: I only do what's right.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: I don't need money for the ball and you're not
Speaker 2: making a gift to the ballroom. He's the biggest uh
Speaker 2: misreporting that I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, we'll dig into that in a little bit.
Speaker 1: An incredible week for Trump's political operation, Dan, It's incredible.
Speaker 3: Incredible, truly unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Uh, let's start with the slush fund. You and I
Speaker 1: talked about this on last Friday's episode, and we talked
Speaker 1: about how Trump potentially settling the IRS lawsuit by personally
Speaker 1: pocketing billions in taxpayer dollars was maybe the worst political
Speaker 1: move we could imagine. And then they did the slush
Speaker 1: fund right as we were finishing the recording, so we
Speaker 1: only briefly get to talk about it. What do you think?
Speaker 1: What do you think about the political move of instead
Speaker 1: of Trump just pocketing the cash, deciding to put it
Speaker 1: in a fund with no accountability whatsoever so they can
Speaker 1: secretly pay out whoever they'd like.
Speaker 3: Look, these brilliant fucking geniuses and the Trump political team,
Speaker 3: the same ones who spent twenty million dollars to defeat
Speaker 3: a congress Republican congressman a district that Trump won by
Speaker 3: thirty five points, really figured this one out. So instead
Speaker 3: of giving billions of dollars to one criminal, they're going
Speaker 3: to give one point seven to seven six billion, which
Speaker 3: is so clever to an untold number of criminals, many
Speaker 3: of whom committed violent offenses, assaulting the Capitol and assaulting
Speaker 3: police officers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a it is.
Speaker 3: It is a move so bad that even Republican senators
Speaker 3: can figure out that it's bad politically.
Speaker 1: Just so, I mean, part of this is it's such
Speaker 1: a politically bad move that I've been and shocked by it.
Speaker 1: I've been laughing about it because how could you be
Speaker 1: so stupid. It's fun watching the Republicans freak out about
Speaker 1: this and everything fall apart. But NPR did a story
Speaker 1: about it where they started going through some of the
Speaker 1: potential January sixth convicted felons or people who were going
Speaker 1: to be on trial until Trump pardoned them, to talk
Speaker 1: about how this would play out. This guy, Jake Lang,
Speaker 1: he admitted to using a bat to attack police. He
Speaker 1: was on trial for assault when Trump pardoned him. He's
Speaker 1: now a white power activist who's on video saying the
Speaker 1: N word and giving Nazi salutes. When NPR called to
Speaker 1: confirm that he plans to apply for a payout, which
Speaker 1: he did, he confirmed it. He answered the phone Jake
Speaker 1: Lang's office America's newest billionaire, and he said that the message.
Speaker 1: He told NPR that the message Trump was sending what
Speaker 1: the fund is. And this is a quote from the
Speaker 1: insurrectionist who beat police officers with a bat. Quote. If
Speaker 1: you do the right thing in the face of evil,
Speaker 1: you will be rewarded for your bravery and patriotism. That's
Speaker 1: what's happening there. That's what's happening. Another January sixth rider,
Speaker 1: Andrew Paul Johnson is currently serving a life sentence in
Speaker 1: prison for sexually abusing two children who he tried to
Speaker 1: keep quiet by promising them quote my Trump bucks that
Speaker 1: he expected to get as part of a restitution fund.
Speaker 1: And then that exchange we watch between Van Holland and Blanche.
Speaker 1: Van Hollend was asking about that case and asking Blanche
Speaker 1: to rule out that that fucking guy could apply for
Speaker 1: a payout from this slush fund. And you heard Blanche
Speaker 1: like he just he won't rule it out.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's pretty clear what happened here is Trump
Speaker 3: wanted his money. I think someone was able to convince
Speaker 3: him that him directly taking the money was probably a
Speaker 3: bridge too far politically, and plus he's made so many
Speaker 3: other billions from so many other crooked schemes that he
Speaker 3: could take a pass on this one. But he obviously
Speaker 3: wasn't going to let it go. And they were facing
Speaker 3: this deadline because if they didn't, because there's a quartered
Speaker 3: post deadline. So right the day before the court post deadline,
Speaker 3: they hatched together a poorly thought out plan that they
Speaker 3: thought would appeal to Trump, right, it's not as bad
Speaker 3: as Trump getting the money, although that is actually debatable,
Speaker 3: but would you know, it would still fit with his
Speaker 3: need for revenge, and it's print's like perfect Trump like
Speaker 3: these people, these are my people. I'm gonna help my people.
Speaker 3: I'm going to hook up my people. And they didn't
Speaker 3: think through any of the consequences. They just assumed every
Speaker 3: public would be for it. And they, as you said,
Speaker 3: they stepped on a rake, like an very obvious, very clear,
Speaker 3: very politically damaging rake. But they did it because they're
Speaker 3: kind of morons.
Speaker 1: And there's no oversight, no accountability over this fund whatsoever.
Speaker 1: We may never know who they pay, how much they
Speaker 1: pay them, who applies, who gets who gets accepted into
Speaker 1: this fucking slush fund, who gets denied, none of that
Speaker 1: because Trump picks the people on the board, except for
Speaker 1: one gets appointed by Congress, who you know, he can
Speaker 1: find a lackey in Congress to give him whoever he wants.
Speaker 1: Trump can fire them at any time. The report is
Speaker 1: not required to be released to the public in any way,
Speaker 1: shape or form. So the whole thing is just a
Speaker 1: fucking scam. And it seems like it's I mean I
Speaker 1: guess two January sixth police officers file the lawsuit to
Speaker 1: try to stop this, But there are are going to
Speaker 1: be I guess that's the best case they can make
Speaker 1: for standing right because they were police officers harmed in this.
Speaker 1: But the challenge is to have like who has standing
Speaker 1: to sue on this and the fact that it is
Speaker 1: a It is legal because Congress passed a law to
Speaker 1: give the Justice Department basically an unlimited fund for restitution
Speaker 1: in the event that people sue the US government, and
Speaker 1: then the Justice Department would have to pay it out,
Speaker 1: which is like, yeah, of course, right, if someone sues
Speaker 1: the federal government and they and they win, the federal
Speaker 1: government has to get the money from somewhere to pay
Speaker 1: them out. But I don't think anyone envisioned that the
Speaker 1: fund would be used in this way.
Speaker 3: Nope, just driving a corrupt truck through another giant loophole
Speaker 3: in our system.
Speaker 1: Here's a statement on the on the fund. So the
Speaker 1: nation's top law enforcement official is asking for a slush
Speaker 1: fund to pay people who assault cops. Utterly stupid, morally wrong.
Speaker 1: Take your pick. Guess who that came from.
Speaker 3: Dan, I think I know the answer, So I'm supposed
Speaker 3: to pretend like, I don't know that was that a
Speaker 3: resistance Democrat? Was that someone on MS? Now? Was that?
Speaker 1: Was? That?
Speaker 3: Was that? On Wednesday's episode of Only Friends with You
Speaker 3: and Tommy, it was subscribe now, Mitch McConnell.
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell, Well, Mitch, the reason we're in this place,
Speaker 1: by the way, is because of you. Nope, you would
Speaker 1: just just had the courage that could have could have
Speaker 1: been said, could have convicted him after January's sixth, and
Speaker 1: then none of these riders would be getting any money.
Speaker 1: How likely do you think it is that Congress will
Speaker 1: impose some kind of restrictions on the slush fund? Legislation
Speaker 1: was introduced today Thursday to ban the entire slush fund,
Speaker 1: not restrictions, just ban it was That was by introduced
Speaker 1: by Democrat Tom Swazi in the House and Republican Brian Fitzpatrick,
Speaker 1: who's in a swing district in Pennsylvania and who Trump
Speaker 1: just threatened yesterday with a primary challenge in response to
Speaker 1: a question he didn't like from Fitzpatrick's fiance. Fox News
Speaker 1: reporter Jackie Heiner.
Speaker 3: Well, it's really clever of Trump to threaten a primary
Speaker 3: challenge on Wednesday when the primary was Tuesday, which is
Speaker 3: also notable that all of a sudden, Brian Fitzpatrick has
Speaker 3: found his courage the day after his primary.
Speaker 1: Yeah do you think, I mean, I know that we
Speaker 1: were like not scheduled talking about this. But on that note,
Speaker 1: like I do wonder if a lot like we're suddenly
Speaker 1: going to see an outbreak of courage among Republicans now
Speaker 1: that most of the primaries have passed.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be an interesting political calculus. Like someone like Fitzpatrick,
Speaker 3: who is in he might be the most vulnerable Republican
Speaker 3: in the country, or.
Speaker 1: Definitely he is.
Speaker 3: He he is up there. We got some people who
Speaker 3: have been redistricted out of existence, but of the people
Speaker 3: who remain in their previous district, he's quite vulnerable. And
Speaker 3: but there is this challenge for Republicans which is, on
Speaker 3: one hand, Trump attacking you would seem favorable, like just
Speaker 3: hit if I was Fitzpatrick, I would think in that district,
Speaker 3: I think about taking the the footage of Trump saying
Speaker 3: that against all the time to put it in an
Speaker 3: ad most But the challenge is they also need Republican turnout,
Speaker 3: and if Trump is trashing you, are that people going
Speaker 3: to turn out for you, and that's the that's the
Speaker 3: real question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is a good point. Well, so then what
Speaker 1: do you think about getting restrictions on this slush fund,
Speaker 1: because it does seem like they're going for restrictions in
Speaker 1: this ice funding bill, which is reconciliation, which means that
Speaker 1: you would only need, you know, fifty one votes in
Speaker 1: the Senate.
Speaker 3: There's two things happening here. One is, as we mentioned,
Speaker 3: the Republicans recognize this is terrible politics and they don't
Speaker 3: want to vote for it, and they know how bad
Speaker 3: it is. They feel the same way about the ballroom,
Speaker 3: which were talking about a second. The other thing that's
Speaker 3: happening in the Senate is these people are just pissed
Speaker 3: a Trump like he took out Tom Tillis, and you know,
Speaker 3: Tom Tillis retired rather than face a primary challenge. But
Speaker 3: Roy Cooper is much more likely the next Senator of
Speaker 3: North Carolina because he's running against a anonymous RNC chair
Speaker 3: that Trump installed as the nominee. They took out Bill Cassidy.
Speaker 3: He just endorsed, as we'll talk about, just endorsed against
Speaker 3: John Cornan, the number two person in the Senate for Republicans,
Speaker 3: and so he's basically taking out other people. And so
Speaker 3: they're both pissed, like on this personal level that he
Speaker 3: keeps taking out their friends, but they're also he's making
Speaker 3: in almost all these cases, he's making it less likely
Speaker 3: they keep the majority. And so I think they're starting
Speaker 3: to get restive here and are looking for some place
Speaker 3: to show that they have some measure of spine. Now,
Speaker 3: are the restrictions that are going to put in be
Speaker 3: going to likely be pretty weak?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's that's the case. But I would
Speaker 3: be surprised. I would be surprised. And no one's ever
Speaker 3: made a lot of money betting on correstionional Republicans to
Speaker 3: do something brave, But I would be surprised if this
Speaker 3: bill passed without some measure of something that at least
Speaker 3: is a putative fig leave of restriction on the slush fund.
Speaker 1: The challenge here is I don't think they get any
Speaker 1: They're not going to get any Democratic votes for it, right,
Speaker 1: even though even though Democrats would want to ban this
Speaker 1: if it goes in the ice funding bill, the restrictions,
Speaker 1: Democrats aren't going to vote for the Ice.
Speaker 3: Well, you'll get it on the amendment in the in
Speaker 3: the voterama to put.
Speaker 1: Oh, so Democrats can get it in there and then
Speaker 1: not vote again. Okay, I just.
Speaker 3: Way outstripped my expertise on Senate budget procedure. But I
Speaker 3: think that's right.
Speaker 1: I think that's good enough. That's good enough for this episode.
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Speaker 1: billion dollars Trump wants for his ballroom, which he then
Speaker 1: just said he doesn't need. On Saturday, the Senate parliamentarian
Speaker 1: ruled that the money couldn't be included in the ICE
Speaker 1: funding bill because it doesn't comply with the Senate's budget rules.
Speaker 1: Trump then demanded that Republicans fire the parliamentarian, but Republicans
Speaker 1: decided to remove the funding instead of the parliamentarian, admitting
Speaker 1: that they didn't have the votes anyway, probably because enough
Speaker 1: of them realized that asking taxpayers to fork over a
Speaker 1: billion dollars for a ballroom no one asked for is
Speaker 1: fucking crazy. Trump meanwhile took reporters on a tour of
Speaker 1: the construction site this week, which is, you know, that's
Speaker 1: his passion, and he defended the project as a military necessity,
Speaker 1: and he said that the roof would be a drone
Speaker 1: port that protects all of Washington. Does he think it's
Speaker 1: is there like an iron dome? Over the White House
Speaker 1: now in Washington because of the because the that's what
Speaker 1: the ballroom is.
Speaker 3: He also announced how many stories deep the bunker would be,
Speaker 3: which is probably not a piece of information you just
Speaker 3: want to hand out to the public.
Speaker 1: No, No, is the ballroom in jeopardy, like does Trump?
Speaker 1: Trump then said he doesn't need the money. It seems
Speaker 1: like he wanted the money pretty badly, which is why
Speaker 1: he told them to fire the parliamentarian and is getting
Speaker 1: really pissed about this. Is he going to find a
Speaker 1: way to just steal the money from taxpayers like he's
Speaker 1: been doing now with this slush fund for insurrectionists, or
Speaker 1: maybe he just extorts more rich people with business before
Speaker 1: the government to just give donations.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's hard to say. I once again, it seems
Speaker 3: that no one in Congress wants to vote for a
Speaker 3: billion dollars for a ballroom, and they're going to truse
Speaker 3: Trump is trying to do the way I try to
Speaker 3: do it. Well, it's not really for the bar with
Speaker 3: the ballroom's paid for by all the rich people who
Speaker 3: were buying access in terms in exchange for the ballroom,
Speaker 3: but it's the security, the necessary security underneath the ballroom
Speaker 3: that is the cost a billion dollars. It's too late
Speaker 3: for that. It's the one billion dollar ball room. That's
Speaker 3: so everyone understands. It an actual impressive democratic messaging victory
Speaker 3: in this day and age. So we should applaud that.
Speaker 3: Maybe Elon Musk, fresh off the SpaceX IPO, comes in
Speaker 3: and gives a billion dollars to build the rest of it.
Speaker 3: But I don't know how they're going to get it.
Speaker 3: Doesn't seem like they're going to be able to get
Speaker 3: money out of Congress for this this year. No one
Speaker 3: wants to do this this close to the election. Maybe
Speaker 3: they can throw something into an end of the year
Speaker 3: deal after the election. I don't know, but.
Speaker 1: It seems hard and I don't think that. I think
Speaker 1: that the reason they asked for ask Congress for the
Speaker 1: money in the first place is they can't necessarily they
Speaker 1: can't use private donations to fund like services and security.
Speaker 3: But then that's as and southing. Before we did, I
Speaker 3: was gonna say, I mean, who do we let do
Speaker 3: we let Michael Dell pay our troops? Once?
Speaker 1: Did you see the news that he also said he
Speaker 1: doesn't need congressional approval to build his two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty foot uh arc.
Speaker 3: I have to say I've tried.
Speaker 1: Really we're calling it an arch or an arc arch.
Speaker 1: I think it's an arch arch and it's an art
Speaker 1: like the Arctic. Yeah, sorry, yes it is. We got arches,
Speaker 1: we got ballrooms, we got Katari jets, we got I
Speaker 1: don't know, I've lost track, we got can't we got
Speaker 1: new Kennedy Centers.
Speaker 3: We have new marble arm rest of the Kennedy Center
Speaker 3: right energy on that new helipad.
Speaker 1: We got a new helipad coming, the Drone Port.
Speaker 3: I've tried really hard to not focus on the arch
Speaker 3: as you call it. On the arch just seems I mean,
Speaker 3: it seems crazy. I don't know it. I finally today,
Speaker 3: because we're doing this on the podcast, I finally looked
Speaker 3: at where the arch was going to be is in Virginia,
Speaker 3: right across the river.
Speaker 1: But it also, like the New York Times did a
Speaker 1: good like sort of AI rendering of of what the
Speaker 1: views would be like, and it kind of just like
Speaker 1: it blocks the view of the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington Cemetery.
Speaker 1: It's like bigger than anything else in Washington.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's stupid.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, if I was a it was a
Speaker 1: DC resident, I'd be fucking annoyed.
Speaker 3: But well, like no one's asking for it.
Speaker 1: I don't forget we forgot the reflect Yeah we are also.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we are repainting the reflecting pool once again at
Speaker 3: taxpayer dollars. I believe it's.
Speaker 1: Just it declining empire ship.
Speaker 3: It just he is obsessed with home renovation projects like
Speaker 3: this is like that is his true passion. He cannot
Speaker 3: be bothered with a He like stealing money, revenge an
Speaker 3: interior designed.
Speaker 1: It's like the most cartoonish version of corruption by like
Speaker 1: an aging dictator. He's just stealing money cats, you know,
Speaker 1: smash and grab anywhere he can. He's just putting gold everywhere,
Speaker 1: ensconced in his fucking DC home that he's turning into
Speaker 1: fucking Versailles on the Potomac, you know, pardoning all of
Speaker 1: his friends, punishing all of his enemies, doing nothing else,
Speaker 1: decomposing before our eyes.
Speaker 5: It's just like.
Speaker 1: It's fucking great. It's fucking bleak man. One more vote.
Speaker 1: Trump's having trouble with in part because he ended the
Speaker 1: careers of Republicans whose support he needs a measure that
Speaker 1: would force him to end the war in Iran. On Tuesday,
Speaker 1: the Senate finally voted to take up the War Powers resolution,
Speaker 1: with newly defeated Senator Bill Cassidy flipping to vote in favor.
Speaker 1: The resolution now moves to the House, where retiring main
Speaker 1: Democrat Jared Golden says he now plans to flip his
Speaker 1: vote in favor as well. And all this comes as
Speaker 1: Iran is reviewing the latest US peace proposal, which Trump
Speaker 1: says he'll give them a few days to do. He
Speaker 1: also said that the US and Iran are quote right
Speaker 1: on the borderline between war and peace, and that he's
Speaker 1: quote in no hurry to make a deal. Is the
Speaker 1: price of gas inches towards five dollars a gallon? What
Speaker 1: do you make of the latest developments in Iran and
Speaker 1: the and the shift of Republicans now being in favor
Speaker 1: of the War Powers resolution?
Speaker 3: Just the cycle. It's every week we wake up on Monday,
Speaker 3: there is a either a true social or an axios
Speaker 3: post with multiple sirens that tells us that we're on
Speaker 3: the verge of a deal. We are right there. They're
Speaker 3: circling around it. That reality lasts like five hours. Then
Speaker 3: we are on the verge of war. Trump is right,
Speaker 3: We really are on the verge of both. Then we
Speaker 3: are making more plans, we're threatening to bomb people, we're
Speaker 3: ending civilizations. And then at the moment right before the
Speaker 3: bombing is set to begin, things get tacoed and we
Speaker 3: are back to stalemate. And it's just We've been rinse
Speaker 3: and repeat of the cycle for weeks now.
Speaker 1: I will say that each with each and each new
Speaker 1: draft of the peace proposal looks less like peace and
Speaker 1: more like a meaningless extension of a ceasefire.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well this, yeah, the latest one is.
Speaker 1: The latest one is just like this will be like
Speaker 1: a memo that gives thirty days for peace negotiations, but
Speaker 1: like nothing happens within those, like the strait doesn't open
Speaker 1: in those thirty days. It's basically just where we are
Speaker 1: right now, but a more formal ceasefire for another thirty days.
Speaker 3: Well, what have they been doing for the last thirty days?
Speaker 1: I know what's different.
Speaker 3: I don't even understand what the point of the memo is. Theoretically,
Speaker 3: people are talking somewhere, right, People.
Speaker 1: Are talking somewhere. People are talking somewhere well, and it
Speaker 1: seems like the Iranians, of course, have every incentive to
Speaker 1: continue to kick the ball down the road without having
Speaker 1: to give anything up because they don't want to get
Speaker 1: bombed again. Because Trump keeps Echine closer to resuming just hostilities,
Speaker 1: and BB is reportedly pushing him towards that as well.
Speaker 1: Apparently there's a tense call between Trump and net and
Speaker 1: Yahoo where Trump was like, give piece a chance and
Speaker 1: uh and net Yah, who obviously was like, no, let's
Speaker 1: bomb the shit out of them, and so yeah, like,
Speaker 1: would I be would I be shocked if this time
Speaker 1: we actually get some kind of a deal this weekend? No,
Speaker 1: but I would be shocked if it was actually a
Speaker 1: meaningful peace deal that ended the hostilities.
Speaker 3: And actually, what do you think is more likely this
Speaker 3: weekend we take a step towards peace? And I'm not
Speaker 3: a bit not peace, but even like some like a
Speaker 3: memo days or something, or are we invade Cuba?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: I think cub was highly more likely.
Speaker 1: Oh, I think peace. I think I mean, can I
Speaker 1: just say the memo? Yeah, I say memo, I say
Speaker 1: memo over Cuba.
Speaker 3: But when we're doing rapid response three hours after this
Speaker 3: uh REP response in the middle of its wedding about
Speaker 3: the Cuban.
Speaker 1: Invasion, yeah, they I will not be doing rapid response.
Speaker 3: The tom Tommy has to do. He's got to speak
Speaker 3: to that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, well, you know what, we'll be at the bar.
Speaker 1: We can wave to mommy or we have all right,
Speaker 1: one other rake Trump stepped on this week that we
Speaker 1: got to talk about. You mentioned this. The President has
Speaker 1: endorsed scandal plagued Ken Paxton over John Cornyn in the
Speaker 1: Texas Senate primary runoff, much to the delight of Democrats
Speaker 1: in dismay of Senate Republicans. Trump called Cornyn quote a
Speaker 1: good man, but said that he wasn't there for him
Speaker 1: when he needed him when times were tough, and then
Speaker 1: he dubbed Paxton a true MAGA warrior who would presumably
Speaker 1: vote for all the ballroom funding and insurrection A payouts
Speaker 1: that Trump.
Speaker 3: Asked for in the Save Act.
Speaker 1: That's the big one, Save Act, right, we remember the
Speaker 1: Save Act we talked about forever and then that's just
Speaker 1: that's dead. Yeah, I guess to Ken Paxton would revive
Speaker 1: it in the next Congress runoff is Tuesday. What do
Speaker 1: you make of Trump's decision?
Speaker 3: What insane? A truly insane decision. It's in the immediate aftermath.
Speaker 3: Let's just go back in time. A couple of months
Speaker 3: to the Texas primary, which honestly feels like ten years ago,
Speaker 3: but Cornyn did better than anyone expected. The assumption was
Speaker 3: that Trump said he was going to make an endorsement.
Speaker 3: Everyone assumed he was endorsed Cornyn Paxton was going to have.
Speaker 3: If Trump had done that, Paxton would have probably had
Speaker 3: to drop out, his campaign would have dried up, and
Speaker 3: Cornyn would be the nominee. Instead, he invaded iron instead
Speaker 3: of focusing on this, dithered for a long time. Could
Speaker 3: have just stayed silent and then endorsed Ken Paxton with
Speaker 3: a week to goo, almost ensuring that Ken Paxton will
Speaker 3: be the nominee. Ken Paxton is by every measure less
Speaker 3: electable than John Cornyn. We've seen this in the polling.
Speaker 3: There is a slice of Republicans who will vote for
Speaker 3: Cornyn over Tall Rico, but will vote for Tall Rico
Speaker 3: over Paxton. And just like he is so like this
Speaker 3: is the example, he's so focused on vengeance that he
Speaker 3: decided to go after John Cornyn were already we already
Speaker 3: just talked about the the consequences in the Senate, and
Speaker 3: just even more practically like this day, I think there
Speaker 3: were I think the Cook Political Report moved this to
Speaker 3: lean Republican. They said they will if they will, they
Speaker 3: will if if if Paxton is the nominee. But so
Speaker 3: they probably still have advantages here. But the n RSC
Speaker 3: all the superbacks are gonna have to spend ungodly amounts
Speaker 3: of money in this race to try to just win
Speaker 3: a state they should see they should have already won
Speaker 3: all because Trump just could not help himself.
Speaker 1: Could you make a political argument? And I realized it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be a good one. It's not one that I favor.
Speaker 1: That it's possible John Cornyan would be a weaker candidate
Speaker 1: to Ken Paxxon because like the Trump, like the hardcore
Speaker 1: MAGA base would be pissed and maybe stay home if
Speaker 1: Cornyan was the nominee, And so you would sort of
Speaker 1: and you need turnout in a midterm Like is that
Speaker 1: is that a thing?
Speaker 3: Maybe we would have made that argument of Cornyon. We
Speaker 3: may make that argument corn wins the primary on Tuesday,
Speaker 3: so stay tuned, tune in next week next week's Buller Coaster.
Speaker 3: I think that argument is hard to support.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, if you all the polling shows that
Speaker 1: Tallarico does better against Paxton than Cornyn, but only by
Speaker 1: a point or two in some of this polling, which
Speaker 1: in Texas could be everything, of course probably would be.
Speaker 3: Ever he's not winning by more than a pointer or two.
Speaker 1: FYI, right, right, right, But I thought that the delta
Speaker 1: between the two in the polling would be bigger than
Speaker 1: it has been now there haven't been that many polls,
Speaker 1: but you.
Speaker 3: Know, and then there's also in these polls there's you know,
Speaker 3: like ten to twelve percent undecided, and we have to
Speaker 3: look and see who makes up that undecided, but then
Speaker 3: decide if you are in Texas. I just I think
Speaker 3: that it's just it's like, let's not over complicate this.
Speaker 3: Ken Paxton is a man who is an absolute crucus
Speaker 3: serial adult are a fucking lunatic, and he's terrible at
Speaker 3: raising money.
Speaker 1: His own staff called the FBI on him, his own
Speaker 1: That to me is my that's my favorite things. Like
Speaker 1: how many people have their own staff called the FBI
Speaker 1: on him? No one here?
Speaker 3: Right, nice checking.
Speaker 2: Left.
Speaker 3: But Packson is such a perfect foil for tell Rico,
Speaker 3: this nice, thoughtful guy who can talks about his religions,
Speaker 3: faithful like you just they're the exact opposite of each
Speaker 3: other and that is that it really helps Telarco in
Speaker 3: a way. That is, it's not just Republican Democrats like
Speaker 3: a good person a bad person, and that that is
Speaker 3: going to help Telarco. There's we can bring. We can
Speaker 3: pretend like Cornyon because he sucks as a politician and
Speaker 3: isn't very good on the stump and it's kind.
Speaker 2: Of a.
Speaker 3: He puts on a cowboy hat every year for an
Speaker 3: ad and he looks fucking ridiculous in it. It looks
Speaker 3: like it's basically photoshopped on his head. But Paxton running
Speaker 3: Paxson is way better for tele Rico than Cornyan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I get you make the argument that
Speaker 1: Cornyan basically is generic Republican in a ballot and Paxton
Speaker 1: is less, is more vulnerable than a generic Republican because
Speaker 1: he again is committed bribery and corruption.
Speaker 3: And think about how close Betto came to beating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is what Ty and I talked about this
Speaker 1: on Only Friends, which I was like, there's there's like
Speaker 1: three factors here, right, It's three questions for does does
Speaker 1: Tallerrico win? Do you think the overall national environment is
Speaker 1: bluer than it was in twenty eighteen? Do you think
Speaker 1: taller Rico is a better candidate than Beto? And then
Speaker 1: do you think Paxton is a worse candidate than Ted Cruz.
Speaker 3: I think on all three measures, this is better for
Speaker 3: Tealraco than it was for Betto and be okay, within
Speaker 3: three points.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's probably right.
Speaker 3: Well, now those last three points, that is a long.
Speaker 1: Five mile I also said that that's where I came down.
Speaker 1: I'm like, and he could do better than Beto and
Speaker 1: still lose, like just a little. But you know, I
Speaker 1: think he's a I think he's a special candidate. I
Speaker 1: have for a long time. I know you do too,
Speaker 1: And like I think, you know everyone should.
Speaker 3: If anyone can do it is James Talerico right now
Speaker 3: in this environment against Can Paxton.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: All right, Dan, some breaking news this morning on the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four DNC autopsy, Ken Martin finally agreed to
Speaker 1: release the full text of the report, which CNN published
Speaker 1: after the uproar that followed his interview with US a
Speaker 1: few weeks ago. This is from Martin's statement, quote, I
Speaker 1: didn't want to create a distraction, but by not putting
Speaker 1: the report out, I ended up creating an even bigger distraction.
Speaker 1: For that, I sincerely apologize. He also said, quote, it
Speaker 1: does not meet my standards and it won't meet your standards.
Speaker 1: But I am doing this because people need to be
Speaker 1: able to trust the Democratic Party and trust our word. Well.
Speaker 1: I agree with him there. The one hundred and ninety
Speaker 1: two page report is riddled with inaccuracies, at times incoherent,
Speaker 1: ultimately incomplete. The section headlined conclusion comes with an annotation
Speaker 1: that says this section was not provided by the author.
Speaker 1: Still is all you need to know. There's also no
Speaker 1: mention of Biden's decision to run again his age Gaza inflation. Dan,
Speaker 1: you have some thoughts you'd like to share. I feel
Speaker 1: like I've said plenty on this.
Speaker 3: You'll have more to say. I hope this is so
Speaker 3: fittingly stupid. It was like, this is what we suspected
Speaker 3: all along, which is Ken Martin hired the wrong person
Speaker 3: to do the report. The wrong person did a terrible job.
Speaker 3: Instead of starting the report over or saying that Ken
Speaker 3: Martin just started lying, couldn't stop lying, and just got
Speaker 3: himself into this incredible hole. And then he doesn't get
Speaker 3: points or transparency here because that CNN got some parts
Speaker 3: they were able to get from some sources parts of
Speaker 3: the report. And once the CNN had that, then the
Speaker 3: DNC made the decision, which was the right decision, to
Speaker 3: release the rest of it. Like it's so it's it
Speaker 3: could not have been handled more poorly, just every part
Speaker 3: of it. So I'm going to go through a couple
Speaker 3: of things here. One, this is just a management disaster.
Speaker 3: This was supposed to be a huge priority for Ken Martin.
Speaker 3: He hired someone to work for free who no one
Speaker 3: in the Democratic Party would have picked for this role.
Speaker 3: There was no actual process set up. There was clearly
Speaker 3: no monitoring of the process or oversight or anyone working
Speaker 3: on or tracking what was happening. Because when he got
Speaker 3: he was shocked when he got the report, Well, why
Speaker 3: weren't you getting in? Where weren't their calls every week?
Speaker 3: Why wasn't someone on your staff in charge of doing this?
Speaker 3: Why wasn't there a committee of people. I can think
Speaker 3: of dozens upon dozens of very very qualified, very very
Speaker 3: smart Democrats who would have volunteered to be part of
Speaker 3: this process to do it right. And I know this
Speaker 3: because there have been a bunch of other autopsies that
Speaker 3: have come out where they've gotten really really smart people
Speaker 3: to do it and completed the work.
Speaker 1: Someone that we know reached out to me and said,
Speaker 1: we wrote a seven hundred page post mortem on the
Speaker 1: twenty twelve campaign, the Obama campaign, and it was done
Speaker 1: in January. Becaise she was in November.
Speaker 3: And so like that, just the just absolute management disaster.
Speaker 3: The second piece is the line like it's the biggest thing,
Speaker 3: the lining is so crazy. And I go back to
Speaker 3: the interview with you, which is we talked you talked
Speaker 3: about this when we did the interview, we talke about
Speaker 3: since I just want everyone to fully understand, we did
Speaker 3: not seek out Ken Martin for the purpose of talking
Speaker 3: to about the autopsy. We had no interest in talking
Speaker 3: to Ken Martin about the autopsy. He complained to you
Speaker 3: about tweets sent by someone who's not you.
Speaker 1: Nop. Yep, Ben Road's tweet. Ben Road's tweet kicked it off.
Speaker 3: And then he came up to you at the Grinder party. Yep,
Speaker 3: sure did and expressed his di met. You can talk
Speaker 3: about how he expressed it. And so the response was
Speaker 3: that he would come on the podcast and discuss it.
Speaker 3: He like sought out the opportunity to do it, to
Speaker 3: continue to push the lie because the argument that they
Speaker 3: were making. Ken Martin had two points in this about
Speaker 3: the autopsy. It's done, it was helpful, it has informed
Speaker 3: our playbook. He said the word playbook ten thousand times.
Speaker 3: I'd interview, and we can't release it because it would
Speaker 3: be a distraction and divide the party before the election.
Speaker 3: The last part is, yes, it would be a distraction,
Speaker 3: but the main reason that's released. It is embarrassing to
Speaker 3: Ken Martin or not to come come clean with why
Speaker 3: you didn't you you weren't releasing this because it would
Speaker 3: be embrassing to Ken Martin, not because it'd be bad
Speaker 3: for the party.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's and it is. If it was just
Speaker 1: the autopsy and this was like just one incident here,
Speaker 1: that would be one thing. But the fact that it
Speaker 1: goes to trust issues and credibility, and as Ken says
Speaker 1: in his statement, we need to be able to trust
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party and people need to be able to
Speaker 1: trust us. Again, it is indicative of a larger issue
Speaker 1: that he has had since taking this role as chairman
Speaker 1: at the DNC. And it looked no further than the
Speaker 1: April fundraising reports that came out the same day today
Speaker 1: that say, once again, the Democratic National Committee has negative
Speaker 1: three million dollars in the bank when you account for
Speaker 1: or the debts that they owe, and the Republican National
Speaker 1: Committee has one hundred and twenty four million dollars in
Speaker 1: the bank. And then when you look at the fundraising
Speaker 1: of the RNC versus the DNC, the RNC has raised many, many, many,
Speaker 1: many many more times the amount of money as the DNC.
Speaker 1: But when you look at the fundraising between the d
Speaker 1: Triple C and the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, when you
Speaker 1: the two House committees, you know the Republicans have outraised
Speaker 1: Democrats by little, but not as much as RNC versus DNC.
Speaker 1: Same thing with the Senate committees. So it's not a
Speaker 1: Democratic party wide problem fundraising problem. It's a DNC problem.
Speaker 3: And d in one of the reasons why the DNC
Speaker 3: is not able to raise money, and Ken Martin has
Speaker 3: disputed this, but many, many the owners have said otherwise
Speaker 3: is the autopsy, because the autopsy has bred just frustration
Speaker 3: the DNC didn't do it. Questions of trust about Ken Martin.
Speaker 3: What are we giving our money for for night getting it?
Speaker 3: And this is I mean bury the lead here. But
Speaker 3: this is why I think Ken Martin should step down.
Speaker 3: I think this is a bridge too far. He cannot
Speaker 3: repair the trust here. He's not Everything we've seen here
Speaker 3: is he's not the right person for the job. I'm
Speaker 3: sorry that seems like a harsh thing to say, but
Speaker 3: it is clear Will there's he is an impossible job
Speaker 3: being even under we have worked with many many DNC chairs,
Speaker 3: even under the best circumstances. The job sucks, ass. It
Speaker 3: is really really hard. No one has ever seen a
Speaker 3: successful dnch chair if people are hammered for it. But
Speaker 3: the thing is is that Ken Martin is now the
Speaker 3: distraction that he did not he was trying to avoid.
Speaker 3: And because you're the distraction, then you should go like
Speaker 3: he said it, Like he says in his post, my
Speaker 3: job is winning elections. Well, the best thing for the
Speaker 3: d for the Democrats who win elections is to have
Speaker 3: a fresh start at the DNC, both now and in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty eight, where the trusted issue matters so much more.
Speaker 3: Because the DNC is going to run the presidential primary.
Speaker 3: They're gonna pick, they're gonna set up the debates, they're
Speaker 3: going to pick the calendar, which is a huge thing.
Speaker 3: They are going to to make decision about how delegates
Speaker 3: are alligated. They're going to deal with states to try
Speaker 3: to jump the calendar. All of this matters, and when
Speaker 3: people don't trust the DNC, as happened in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: when all of the emails came out as part of
Speaker 3: the Russian hacks of DNC emails that show that people
Speaker 3: at the DNC were favoring Hillary over Bernie. People didn't
Speaker 3: trust the DNC. They didn't trust the process. They thought
Speaker 3: it was ragged, and it hurt. It hurt in the
Speaker 3: general election. We need people to trust the process. And
Speaker 3: I say that as a success fan, but we need
Speaker 3: people to trust the process.
Speaker 1: Well. And what he has opened up to now is
Speaker 1: any candidate who runs for president in twenty twenty eight
Speaker 1: who complains about unfairness to the DNC, whether those accusations
Speaker 1: are fair or not accurate or not. Like, no one's
Speaker 1: going to believe Ken Martin because he has this credibility issue, right,
Speaker 1: And same thing with the excuses on the money. Right.
Speaker 1: He did a whole thing with me in the interview
Speaker 1: about like you know, at we're actually fine and we're
Speaker 1: investing in state parties and you need to spend and
Speaker 1: all this kind off. But like, I don't know, can
Speaker 1: I believe that now? I don't know. He had this
Speaker 1: other lie for a long long time and tried to
Speaker 1: tried to hide it. I had to cover up this report,
Speaker 1: so yeah, I guess. After it was released today, there
Speaker 1: was a call for DNC members, a private colleges for
Speaker 1: the all the all the DNC members and talk to
Speaker 1: some people who are on the call, and he basically
Speaker 1: just read the statement that he gave CNN essentially and
Speaker 1: apologized again, and then also said that that Paul Rivera,
Speaker 1: who did who he put in charge of this report,
Speaker 1: is no longer helping out at the DNC, because part
Speaker 1: of the CNN story said that even after he fucked
Speaker 1: up the autopsy, Paul Rivera was still walking around the
Speaker 1: DNC like demoralizing staffers just by his presence because they
Speaker 1: all knew that he had fucked up so badly. So
Speaker 1: he said that Paul Vera is no longer working and
Speaker 1: then no questions on the call, no questions from many
Speaker 1: of the DNC members. After this, I also got something
Speaker 1: from someone of the DNC saying that a lot of
Speaker 1: the outlets are mistaken and saying that there's no pathway
Speaker 1: to removal for Ken, that it's actually just a simple
Speaker 1: majority vote of the DNC. So that's interesting. And there's
Speaker 1: at least one congressman, Representative Mark Vezi, said that it's
Speaker 1: time for Ken Martin to go. So I don't know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I tend to think, do you think his
Speaker 1: job is safe? Do you think he'll resign? Like it
Speaker 1: seems it seems like a tall order, But I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, I hope he would be willing to look
Speaker 3: at the reality situation and recognize that because of the
Speaker 3: mistakes that he made, that the best thing for the
Speaker 3: party would be two step down. I don't think he's
Speaker 3: going to do that. We're in this mess because he
Speaker 3: was trying to protect himself, not the party. So hard
Speaker 3: to say. I mean, you know, is the are we
Speaker 3: really going to take the even if it's easy, it's
Speaker 3: an extraordinary step to remove the DNCA chairs. They didn't
Speaker 3: want to do that five months before the midterms. I'd
Speaker 3: be surprised. And then I think if he doesn't that
Speaker 3: it's a real question before the twenty twenty eight calendar
Speaker 3: is set as to whether we have to do something
Speaker 3: thing different here.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Also, the other problem is no one seems to want
Speaker 3: the job.
Speaker 1: That's so you need someone else who would want the job.
Speaker 1: You need someone else who You need the donors to
Speaker 1: say that if someone else takes the job, then the
Speaker 1: money will start flowing again and they'll start donating, right
Speaker 1: because you don't want the new You don't want a
Speaker 1: new chair to still be stuck at the same problem financially,
Speaker 1: and it does. You know, people have been complaining this
Speaker 1: is a distraction. Distrection like it does at some point
Speaker 1: eat up a lot of time and energy, you know,
Speaker 1: as we're getting close to the midterms. But the challenges
Speaker 1: after the midterms happen. If they are as expected and
Speaker 1: things go well again, you can just you can hear
Speaker 1: the DNC taking credit for it in advance, and they
Speaker 1: will have nothing to do with the victory. Again. If
Speaker 1: things don't go well, it's still not the DNC's fault.
Speaker 1: They just don't have that much to do with with
Speaker 1: midterm elections at all. But as soon as the midterms
Speaker 1: are over, we're fucking into the presidential primary and people
Speaker 1: are gonna start putting their campaigns together and you're gonna
Speaker 1: need the calendars and all the stuff that you were
Speaker 1: just talking about. And so I don't know, it's just
Speaker 1: it's fucking mess, fucking mess. That's so stupid, And we're
Speaker 1: not digging into the actual autopsy because it's a joke.
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's not worth talking about anything in it
Speaker 1: because it's not endorsed by the DNC or anyone else.
Speaker 1: Is just like Paul Rivera's ramblings that are the basis
Speaker 1: of him talking to just some people involved with the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four campaign who aren't even most of the
Speaker 1: senior people on the campaign.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's been a lot, I would say, to people
Speaker 3: who are interested in what happened. There's been a lot
Speaker 3: of actual autopsies from outside groups. Way to Win has
Speaker 3: one Catalyst has their report. We talked about Rob Flaarerty's
Speaker 3: Bullwark piece the other day. There's one from uh I
Speaker 3: think the Shooting Victory Fund, if I'm saying that correctly,
Speaker 3: has has one. There's actually some pretty good, pretty exhaustive
Speaker 3: work about what happened twenty twenty four. That's that people
Speaker 3: want they should go look at. But looking at this
Speaker 3: version is not worth doing because you could look for
Speaker 3: you could try, I would say, read the executive summary,
Speaker 3: but that was also not provided.
Speaker 1: So right, right, all right, Well you think you'll come
Speaker 1: back on the pod?
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe open.
Speaker 3: Maybe you guys will meet up again at next year's grander.
Speaker 1: Party, fingers crossed. Maybe they'll be alcohol this time, all right.
Speaker 1: Speaking to democrats being unhappy with Democrats, the New York
Speaker 1: Times released new results from their latest poll that we
Speaker 1: talked about on Tuesday. This installment is focused on Democrats
Speaker 1: and independents who say they're planning to support Democratic candidates
Speaker 1: in the fall. Overall, more than half of these voters
Speaker 1: disapprove of the Democratic Party. More than half also said
Speaker 1: the party should move to the center rather than move
Speaker 1: to the left, in order to win the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: eight presidential election, but when asked that question about specific issues,
Speaker 1: the results were more varied. On economic issues, thirty six
Speaker 1: percent said move to the left, pretty competitive with the
Speaker 1: forty two percent who said moved to the center. And
Speaker 1: on healthcare, forty five percent of Democratic voters want to
Speaker 1: move to the left, compared to just twenty seven percent
Speaker 1: who said move to the center and twenty six percent
Speaker 1: who said don't move in either direction. Health Care was
Speaker 1: the issue where the biggest percentage of voters thought the
Speaker 1: Democratic parties should move to the left. And then I
Speaker 1: would say economy was next. And then when you get
Speaker 1: to issues like crime, I think was the top issue
Speaker 1: where the most the highest percentage of Democrats said that
Speaker 1: the party should move to the right or at least
Speaker 1: moved to the center. Sorry, and then immigration and actually,
Speaker 1: you know we can talk about this too, but trans
Speaker 1: issues was not as there weren't as many people and
Speaker 1: this would go against sort of the prevailing narrative. But
Speaker 1: there weren't as many Democrats who wanted the party to
Speaker 1: move to the center on trans issues as there were
Speaker 1: on crime and immigration is still the top two. So
Speaker 1: what did you make of this novel line of questioning
Speaker 1: in the poll which they did ask voters like, how
Speaker 1: do you personally feel about the direction of the party
Speaker 1: on these issues and what direction do you think the
Speaker 1: party should move in? And then they asked which direction
Speaker 1: you think the party should move to win? So they
Speaker 1: did both, but the move to win basically asking voters
Speaker 1: to be pundits is a is a new one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I generally hate that idea, like it's always it's
Speaker 3: just it's just I'm much rather more, much more interested
Speaker 3: in what voters actually think, because you would like to
Speaker 3: believe that that's what informs voting behavior. But I will
Speaker 3: say that this is a very interesting finding one. It
Speaker 3: just proves that among Democrats, the narrative that Democrats lost
Speaker 3: because we were too far the left, too woke to
Speaker 3: liberal has taken hold among Democrats that the you know, a
Speaker 3: plurality of Democrats believe that, at least on a core
Speaker 3: set of issues. And so it's just it's like, that's
Speaker 3: an interesting to out of point that that has. You know,
Speaker 3: there was this battle after the election. We were we
Speaker 3: two moderate or two left, and at least for the
Speaker 3: people responding to this poll, it was clearly the problem
Speaker 3: was we were too left, not left enough. And the
Speaker 3: other reason why I think this is somewhat informative is
Speaker 3: electability is become the pre eminent issue in democratic politics.
Speaker 3: You know, it was a huge issue in the Texas
Speaker 3: Senate primary. It was a huge issue in the main
Speaker 3: Senate primary before Janet Mills dropped out. It's a giant
Speaker 3: issue in the Iowa primary that happened a couple of weeks.
Speaker 3: And it's it's a big issue in the Michigan Senate
Speaker 3: primary that is in August. And so it's interesting to
Speaker 3: know what voters think makes someone electable or in this case,
Speaker 3: may make them think someone is less electable. You know,
Speaker 3: looking at the numbers, it.
Speaker 1: Is did you dive into the cross tabs?
Speaker 3: The cross stabs are not that they're not that surprising.
Speaker 1: I figured you did, but I did too. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was ready to nerd out about some crosstabs if people.
Speaker 3: Some real nuggets, but it's sort of it's what you is.
Speaker 3: The findings are kind of across the board. What would
Speaker 3: be interesting would be if there was one group who
Speaker 3: really thought they should move to the left, but really
Speaker 3: just come of across the board people or not move
Speaker 3: to the right or whatever it is, but that everyone
Speaker 3: kind of all feels the same way, just in varying degrees.
Speaker 1: The college split on these issues is notable to me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that non college voters tend to want the party to
Speaker 1: move towards the center, and college voters want the party
Speaker 1: to move to the left, and then it splits on
Speaker 1: racial and education lines in a very interesting way, which
Speaker 1: is non college black voters and non college Latino voters
Speaker 1: along with non college white voters very much want the
Speaker 1: party to move to the center. And really the only
Speaker 1: demographic group that most wants the party to move to
Speaker 1: the left is white college grads. Also some black and
Speaker 1: Hispanic college grads, but it's just a larger chunk of
Speaker 1: the electorate is white and more with.
Speaker 3: Younger people all sq younger.
Speaker 1: And all these Yeah, and particularly on issues again against
Speaker 1: the prevailing narrative on issues of immigration, and crime. Yep,
Speaker 1: you see you see that, you see black and you know,
Speaker 1: non college Democratic voters say they want the party to
Speaker 1: move to the center.
Speaker 3: Oh, yes, yes, I mean that is the I guess
Speaker 3: I thought I felt like we were past that prevailing
Speaker 3: narrative or that even that narrative is kind of but
Speaker 3: I guess, I guess it depends on where you're getting
Speaker 3: your news these days.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, just way till we get to the next primary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and it's like, obviously liketability is going
Speaker 3: to hang over the twenty twenty eight primary in a
Speaker 3: massive way, and so this this will inform that. I
Speaker 3: think the healthcare one is very interesting. On economic issues,
Speaker 3: it's only a six point spread, which I think is
Speaker 3: also notable. And then what I found also interesting is
Speaker 3: that there is they ask people if they asked Democrats
Speaker 3: if they thought the economic system in the country was
Speaker 3: generally unfair to most Americans eighty eight percent yes, only
Speaker 3: eleven percent said fair to most Americans, and whether the
Speaker 3: political and economics system needs to be changed in maybe eighties,
Speaker 3: So sixty three percent said major changes, twenty percent said
Speaker 3: torn down completely, in fifteen per sense said minor or
Speaker 3: minor changes. And one percent said no changes. Who that
Speaker 3: person is which Democrat thinks there has no changes, I'll
Speaker 3: be interested in. But I think there is this paradox here,
Speaker 3: which is you have people saying we think the party
Speaker 3: should move right on certain issues, but there is an
Speaker 3: appetite and it for big, bold ideas on the economy
Speaker 3: and healthcare and like, people want real change, and so
Speaker 3: nibbling around the edges is not going to be sufficient.
Speaker 3: Both in the Democratic primary and the general people want
Speaker 3: to see that you understand the scale of the problems
Speaker 3: affecting their lives, the ways in which the system is
Speaker 3: broken and corrupt, and you have big ideas. So the
Speaker 3: sort of you know, not to pick on Kamala Harris's
Speaker 3: economic team, but like this is what not to do.
Speaker 3: Is we're going to offer credits tax credits for home
Speaker 3: for first time home buyers. It's a good policy theoretically,
Speaker 3: but it just seems small compared to what people actually want.
Speaker 1: Build more houses would be a better problem.
Speaker 3: Well, that would be a better That would be a
Speaker 3: better policy.
Speaker 1: You can do both, Yeah, you can do both. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there was a line in here in the
Speaker 1: in the right up of the piece of the poll,
Speaker 1: which was when presented with two opposing economic visions, more
Speaker 1: than two thirds of Democratic supporters now sixty five sixty
Speaker 1: six percent said they favored a candidate who would go
Speaker 1: after corporate monopolies and price gouging. Well, just thirty percent
Speaker 1: preferred candidate who promised to lower prices by easing housing
Speaker 1: regulations and expanding energy production. Now you know some of
Speaker 1: this is in wording that that doesn't that doesn't sound
Speaker 1: very exciting to ease housing regulations and expand energy production,
Speaker 1: but just to get people a baseline, because I thought
Speaker 1: this was interesting, So they asked, like, where do you
Speaker 1: how do you think about the party? Is it too
Speaker 1: far left, is it too far right? Or is it
Speaker 1: not too far either way? Fifty five percent said not
Speaker 1: too far either way, twenty percent said too left, seventeen
Speaker 1: percent said to right. So right there, you're a candidate
Speaker 1: trying to win the party's nomination. You got like a
Speaker 1: little more than half of the electorate that you're trying
Speaker 1: to get who thinks the party is ideologically good where
Speaker 1: it is right now, and then you've got almost similar
Speaker 1: percentages on either side. So that is a tough thing
Speaker 1: to navigate. I also thought the delta between when they
Speaker 1: ask people what would you personally liked where would you
Speaker 1: personally like to see the party move and to win,
Speaker 1: where would you like to see the party move was
Speaker 1: actually not that different. So twenty eight percent said they
Speaker 1: personally like to see the party move to the left,
Speaker 1: and twenty five percent said that to win, the party
Speaker 1: should move to the left. And then forty seven percent
Speaker 1: said they personally wanted to move to the center, and
Speaker 1: fifty two percent said to win, they want to move
Speaker 1: to the center. So you do have a percentage of
Speaker 1: people who were saying, oh, personally, I want the party
Speaker 1: to be more left, but to win it should move
Speaker 1: to the center. But not a ton It's the delta
Speaker 1: wasn't as big as I thought it would be.
Speaker 3: Well, it's I mean for the reasons we talked about
Speaker 3: for many years, which is the media and Democrat is
Speaker 3: a as a voter that didn't go to college, and
Speaker 3: it's more moderate than most people listening to this podcast,
Speaker 3: and we are personally and that that's the party that
Speaker 3: nominated Joe Biden in twenty twenty, and that that remains true.
Speaker 3: I think these questions are a little confusing and how
Speaker 3: they're awarded like, but it is. It is just notable
Speaker 3: that fifty hid percent are generally okay with the direction
Speaker 3: of the party. Is now, how many of those fifty
Speaker 3: percent can name what the direction of the party actually
Speaker 3: fucking is right now?
Speaker 1: Well, it's good. I was just gonna say. The other
Speaker 1: thing that stands out in some of the questions that
Speaker 1: they asked is, and we always talk about this, but
Speaker 1: it's a good reminder for everyone, is how like, those
Speaker 1: of you listening to this podcast, you are so different
Speaker 1: than like seventy percent of the rest of the electorate
Speaker 1: in that you pay closer attention to politics and know
Speaker 1: more about what's going on in politics day to day
Speaker 1: than most of the people who will show up and
Speaker 1: vote in elections. So they asked about Schumer and Schumer's
Speaker 1: approval rating in this poll among just Democrats and independence
Speaker 1: that they're going to vote Democrat is twenty six percent
Speaker 1: in favor, thirty one percent opposed. And you're like, well,
Speaker 1: that's kind of low. Thirty five percent never heard of
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer, Joe Rogan eleven percent approved, forty eight percent disapproved,
Speaker 1: the rest never heard of Joe Rogan, Nick what is it?
Speaker 3: Nine percent approve approved.
Speaker 1: I didn't even see Fuentas in there. Yeah, is in
Speaker 1: the crosstabs they asked, I guess, just for fun, have
Speaker 1: you heard maybe Ezra got this question? And have you
Speaker 1: heard of the abundance movement? Ninety one percent of people
Speaker 1: in that they pulled, all of whom again, all these
Speaker 1: people said they're going to vote in the midterms. Ninety
Speaker 1: one percent never heard of the abundance movement. So it's
Speaker 1: just it's it's a good a good reminder that people
Speaker 1: who are even in Democratic even in mid terms, right,
Speaker 1: which is a more engaged electorate, even mid term voters,
Speaker 1: are just not paying as much attention to all the
Speaker 1: shit that we talk about every week. These are registered voters, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: but registered voters who said they're going to vote in
Speaker 1: the midterm. The Israel numbers crazy. Only twenty percent favor
Speaker 1: more aid to Israel, seventy four percent do not, fifteen
Speaker 1: percent sympathize with Israel over the Palestinians, and sixty percent
Speaker 1: Palestinians over Israeli's The highest group of support for Israel
Speaker 1: of any demographic is sixty five plus. Unsurprising, there even
Speaker 1: that group sixty five plus only twenty seven percent, so
Speaker 1: that they have more sympathy for Israel than the Palestinians.
Speaker 1: That is just a just a massive shift on that issue.
Speaker 3: Thank Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and BBNET Yaho for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is true. And then forty nine percent favor socialism,
Speaker 1: twenty two percent no socialism, and then the rest had
Speaker 1: no opinion.
Speaker 3: Every age group of Democrats has a favoralle opinion, so
Speaker 3: they'll support socialism. They have a favorable opinion of it.
Speaker 1: That's which I think, thank you, Which is that is important.
Speaker 3: That maybe a distinction a lot of difference in the
Speaker 3: ads that will be running, but I think it does
Speaker 3: matter on what people say. But yeah, even voters over
Speaker 3: sixty five, if I remember correctly, Democrats over sixty five
Speaker 3: by a more narrow margin, have a favorable view of socialism.
Speaker 1: Oh, last one, I wanted to ask you about forty
Speaker 1: nine percent of voters that it was important to choose
Speaker 1: leaders with a fresh approach. Forty eight percent want to
Speaker 1: choose leaders with proven experience.
Speaker 3: It's a real.
Speaker 1: And guess which guess what young people wanted experience? Yeah,
Speaker 1: by like a lot more than other age groups. It
Speaker 1: was a sort of like I think that.
Speaker 3: This one is. I think this is a confusing question,
Speaker 3: and I don't think it says exactly what you think
Speaker 3: it says. I think the backdrop for this is our
Speaker 3: reality TV show president who has no real experience in
Speaker 3: his fucking app leftion right every single day, and so
Speaker 3: I think I think the better of the question that
Speaker 3: will be more interesting as we think about the twenty
Speaker 3: twenty eight Democratic crimeries inside do you want someone who
Speaker 3: is a part of the establishment or agn'tscy establishment? I
Speaker 3: think that's a because everyone is, everyone who's running is
Speaker 3: going to have some answer on experience. It's just what
Speaker 3: experience means, Like we saw this in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 3: Like everyone can define experience the way they do, and
Speaker 3: then you either sell it or you don't, because if
Speaker 3: you don't, no one wants someone with insufficient experience.
Speaker 1: That is true. That is true. While we're on this topic,
Speaker 1: there's a bit of a mess brewing in the Democratic
Speaker 1: primary in Texas's redrawn thirty fifth district, where sheriff's deputy
Speaker 1: Johnny Garcia is now in a runoff with a sex
Speaker 1: therapist named Maureen Galindo, who has posted wildly anti Semitic
Speaker 1: comments online. Including calling Judaism the Synagogue of Satan and
Speaker 1: promising to turn an ICED attention center into quote a
Speaker 1: prison for American Zionists and former ICE officers, adding quote
Speaker 1: it will also be a castration processing center for pedophiles,
Speaker 1: which will probably be most of the Zionists. Disgusting. I'm
Speaker 1: a serious superPAC called Lead Left, which was formed earlier
Speaker 1: this month and whose website initially linked to the Republican
Speaker 1: platform win Red, has now spent about six hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars to boost Galindou. Demoline super PACs have now just
Speaker 1: about matched that spending to defeat Galindo, and everyone from
Speaker 1: James Tellerico to Hakim Jeffreys to AOC has condemned her.
Speaker 1: What do you make of this?
Speaker 2: Uh, it's a mess.
Speaker 3: It's an absolute mess. I mean, good for everyone for
Speaker 3: speaking up and trying to defeat this person. The Republicans
Speaker 3: are pretty devious in what they're doing. They're going to
Speaker 3: do this in multiple places around the country. I've already
Speaker 3: tried to do it in a couple of states, including Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3: I mean, we have been involved in democratic groups, have
Speaker 3: been involved in primaries before, so this is not beyond
Speaker 3: the bound beyond the bounds of what's acceptable or what's appropriate.
Speaker 3: But add us to the list of people condemning her
Speaker 3: and hoping she does not win.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you are in that district, if you're
Speaker 1: a voter in that district, if you know voters in
Speaker 1: that restrict, like tell them to go vote for Johnny Garcia.
Speaker 3: She got more votes in the primary.
Speaker 1: I know, I know, that's what That's what we're all
Speaker 1: worried about. This is on this is on Tuesday. She
Speaker 1: got so this is the runoff, and she got more
Speaker 1: votes than him the first time around, and so, you know,
Speaker 1: I think I can't even begin. The most generous explanation
Speaker 1: is that people who voted for her did not know
Speaker 1: about all the comments and all the positions I hope,
Speaker 1: and that maybe and that she obviously had a lot
Speaker 1: of money and spending behind her, so her name ID
Speaker 1: was better than Johnny Garcia, so he needs better name ID.
Speaker 1: Maybe this controversy getting kicked up will help sort of
Speaker 1: focus people, and people in that thirty fifth district will
Speaker 1: we'll hear about this and be like, oh, that's crazy,
Speaker 1: We've got to vote for Johnny Garcia. But anyway, we
Speaker 1: should everyone should get the word out, because this isn't
Speaker 1: just someone who's like crazy lefty, this is like a
Speaker 1: fucking concentration camps for Zionists. Are you fucking kidding me?
Speaker 1: Like it's awful? And Republicans of course are so fucking
Speaker 1: say and having a field day with this and being like, oh, Democrats,
Speaker 1: Democrats are the ones voting for the anti Semites and
Speaker 1: the people who want to put Jews in camps, not Republicans.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, of course not saying anything about the fact
Speaker 1: that there's this like mysterious super pac linked to the
Speaker 1: Republican group when read that is spending too on this race,
Speaker 1: which is just crazy. So Johnny Garcia go check it out.
Speaker 1: All right, One last topic today. There are two very
Speaker 1: notable weddings taking place this Memorial Day weekend. As we've said,
Speaker 1: One is our own John Lovet and Ari Schwartz, which
Speaker 1: we're all very excited to attend. The other is Donald
Speaker 1: Trump Junior and Palm Beach socialite Bettina Anderson, which Donald
Speaker 1: Trump Senior is maybe skipping. Let's listen to what he
Speaker 1: said in the Oval.
Speaker 3: Having your son's buddy in this movie, by the way,
Speaker 3: he'd like me to go.
Speaker 1: But it's going to be just a small, little private affair,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to try and make it.
Speaker 3: I'm in the midst, I said, you know, this is.
Speaker 4: Not good timing for me. I have a thing called
Speaker 4: the rad and other things.
Speaker 3: That's when I can't win on. If I do attend,
Speaker 3: I get killed. If I don't attend, I get killed.
Speaker 1: What don him still I saw this this morning. I
Speaker 1: am it is four o'clock in the afternoon. I'm still
Speaker 1: stunned by this.
Speaker 3: I mean, we have joked for many, many years about
Speaker 3: how Donald Trump does not love his children and they
Speaker 3: act this way because he does not love them and
Speaker 3: he can barely identify them and really did no parenting.
Speaker 3: This kind of proves the point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just generational trauma, just in action. We're just we're
Speaker 1: just watching it unfold right in that clip.
Speaker 3: It's just also, you know, I.
Speaker 1: Got to know. Donald Trump's famous for skipping festivities and
Speaker 1: any kind of leisure activity because he likes to be
Speaker 1: focused on the nation's business. He's well known for that.
Speaker 3: No one would kill him for going to his son's wedding.
Speaker 3: That's one. Like he does a lot of dumb show golf.
Speaker 3: This this would free pass for this one.
Speaker 1: It's in the Bahamas. I guess he can't. Like air
Speaker 1: Force one can go to the Bahamas.
Speaker 3: He can go anywhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can go anywhere. They could bring a fucking.
Speaker 3: Is not at mar A Lago because he wanted to
Speaker 3: charge his son.
Speaker 1: That is I can't even imagine. I can't imagine married.
Speaker 1: And also not like he also wasn't even It would
Speaker 1: have even been different if he was like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: so like, I can't make it, you know, like he
Speaker 1: was definitive and he had the excuse. But he did
Speaker 1: the worst of all worlds was to just be like, Eh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to make it, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's not good. I told him, it's yeah,
Speaker 1: not good timing for me. Not good timing for me.
Speaker 1: It's really it's your fault. I'm not coming to your
Speaker 1: wedding son. Good stuff anyway. Anyway, Congrats to John Junior.
Speaker 1: Congrats to John Junior well and and John Love. Yes,
Speaker 1: just cut from the same cloth. When we come back.
Speaker 1: California gubernatorial candidate Matt Mahon.
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Speaker 2: f o l dot com promo code crooked. My guest
Speaker 2: today is the mayor of San Jose. He's running to
Speaker 2: be the next governor of the great state of California.
Speaker 1: That man.
Speaker 2: Great to see you, Thanks for me, Thank you for
Speaker 2: coming into the Crooked Media Grand offices.
Speaker 1: What do you think it's beautiful?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I love the art.
Speaker 2: I'm really digging compliments today. All right, let's cut to
Speaker 2: the chase. So I got a motley, crowded field. The
Speaker 2: candidates in this race. Election days fast approaching, people already voting.
Speaker 2: I got my ballot at the house. I'm an undecided voter.
Speaker 2: I want to talk to you about it in a bit.
Speaker 2: Why are you the best candidate to lead this state?
Speaker 5: Well, thanks for having me on. I think I'm the
Speaker 5: best candidate to lead the state because I'm the only
Speaker 5: Democrat in the race who has a track record of
Speaker 5: challenging the establishment within my own party to make our
Speaker 5: government deliver for people. And at a time when we've
Speaker 5: got authoritarian president who is trying to take the country
Speaker 5: in a very dangerous direction, we need Democrats who can
Speaker 5: govern and make people's lives better. The way we win
Speaker 5: in the long run is proving that we can implement
Speaker 5: policies that make people's neighborhoods safer and cleaner, their schools better,
Speaker 5: make housing more affordable. If we're delivering bad outcomes and
Speaker 5: people are dissatisfied with our leadership, it becomes very hard
Speaker 5: to fight for democracy and get people to care about
Speaker 5: climate change and many of the kind of longer term
Speaker 5: goals that we have.
Speaker 2: So I agree with a lot of what you're saying.
Speaker 2: But just you know, we're in LA we have this
Speaker 2: mayoral race happening that's kind of goofy. Sure you've seen.
Speaker 2: We got Karen Bastian come into the Democrat just got
Speaker 2: a challenge from the left from Nythia Rahman, and then
Speaker 2: a challenge from the right from like a washed up
Speaker 2: reality TV participant I don't even want to call him
Speaker 2: a star, Spencer Pratt, who lost his home in the
Speaker 2: Palisades fire, and I think has channeled very understandable anger
Speaker 2: about the response into a surprisingly effective campaign, and he's
Speaker 2: like tapped into this rage at the government, rage at
Speaker 2: the system I think was bubbling below the surface for
Speaker 2: a lot of people and like not just you know,
Speaker 2: people who are feeling like the economic pinch, Like a
Speaker 2: lot of rich, powerful people in this city are like
Speaker 2: pro Pratt.
Speaker 3: Now, are you hearing.
Speaker 2: That anger on the campaign trail? And if so, how
Speaker 2: did Democrats address it and speak to it? Like when
Speaker 2: we're in charge of everything here and have been for
Speaker 2: a while, I.
Speaker 5: Am here in that frustration and in some cases outright anger.
Speaker 5: And that's exactly what I'm talking about. When I ran
Speaker 5: for mayor of San Jose, which is the third largest
Speaker 5: city in the state. I was hearing deep frustration with
Speaker 5: the most basic things. There's crime in my neighborhood, sprawling,
Speaker 5: tent encampments, our schools are failing. I can't afford the rent.
Speaker 5: I mean the stuff that really keeps people up at
Speaker 5: night and affects them in their daily lives. And I
Speaker 5: realized very quickly when I was out knocking on doors
Speaker 5: and talking to people, that we have to own those
Speaker 5: shortcomings and offer people change that is pragmatic and responsible.
Speaker 5: I believe we are almost continuously in a change election
Speaker 5: mode because government today is failing to get the basics right.
Speaker 5: In San Jose, I focused on things that are very
Speaker 5: simple but have an outsized impact. Speeding up permitting, creating
Speaker 5: a neighborhood quality of life unit within our police department,
Speaker 5: building basic dignified interim housing, and when it's available, requiring
Speaker 5: people come indoors, partnering with our county to get more
Speaker 5: people into drug treatment. By focusing on very basic issues
Speaker 5: that people see and feel every single day, that you
Speaker 5: sadly see go viral on next door and everywhere else,
Speaker 5: we've increased trust in city hall by forty percent in
Speaker 5: my time as mayor. I think that's the playbook. It'll
Speaker 5: look different in different cities and different states. But again,
Speaker 5: I go back to this core premise that we have
Speaker 5: to be outcome focused. We have to look at the
Speaker 5: outcomes that matter most to voters. And they're pretty clear.
Speaker 5: They're telling us it's how it's cost of living, it's
Speaker 5: quality of schools, it's public safety issues, it's it's very
Speaker 5: basic issues. Now it's the cost of gas. And yeah,
Speaker 5: we could spend all of our time arguing how much
Speaker 5: of the cost of gas is Trump's war A lot
Speaker 5: of versus a lot of it. Yeah, the last dollar
Speaker 5: and a half two dollars something like that is thanks
Speaker 5: to Donald Trump. But the dollar fifty before that is
Speaker 5: largely our own policy decisions, and we need to be
Speaker 5: honest about that. I've argued that the gas has and
Speaker 5: California has become the most regressive tax. It affects people
Speaker 5: living in the kinds of communities I grew up, and
Speaker 5: I grew up in a small farming town on the
Speaker 5: Central Coast. People who can't afford an ev Californians who
Speaker 5: are driving farther because they live in rural communities are
Speaker 5: out in the suburbs and they're commuting every day, and
Speaker 5: we should keep it, but we should right size it.
Speaker 5: In fact, I would convert it into a flat fee
Speaker 5: that makes sure ev owners are paying their fair share.
Speaker 5: That would be fair. You'd provide some relief to people,
Speaker 5: and you'd show that the Democratic Party is still fighting
Speaker 5: for working people and trying to make a real impact
Speaker 5: in their daily lives.
Speaker 2: Lend me annoying and ask a process question and we'll
Speaker 2: get geek out a little bit. So you got into
Speaker 2: their race pretty late. It was a crowded field.
Speaker 3: But now you've been.
Speaker 2: Running for a couple months and there was a poll
Speaker 2: out earlier this week that had you at four percent
Speaker 2: of the vote. How do you turn things around if
Speaker 2: that poll is accurate between now an election day, when
Speaker 2: it's what a month out less less?
Speaker 5: I mean, look, there's a lot of fluidity in the polls.
Speaker 5: We also recently had a poll that showed us at
Speaker 5: ten percent. I'd mean, look, when it's a low turnout
Speaker 5: race and voters are holding onto their ballots, it means
Speaker 5: there's a lot of uncertainty and therefore variability in terms
Speaker 5: of what can happen. I believe people are listening they're
Speaker 5: not thrilled with the choices that they perceive to be
Speaker 5: the front runners today because they have some very legitimate
Speaker 5: concerns about Tom Steyer and Javierbasera and certainly Steve Hilton,
Speaker 5: and I'm offering an alternative that is resonant with those
Speaker 5: who have heard it. What we see in our data
Speaker 5: is when people have seen our ads and heard our message,
Speaker 5: we go above twenty percent and we're in the top two.
Speaker 5: So my focus is on communicating directly with voters through
Speaker 5: every possible channel, including thank you very much, this is
Speaker 5: opportunity today. I want to talk to people about what
Speaker 5: we've done to get housing under construction, to make San
Speaker 5: Jose the safest big city in the country, to reduce
Speaker 5: homelessness faster than any other city in the state of California,
Speaker 5: and off a different view of how we make Sacramento
Speaker 5: work for them. I mean, we have to own as
Speaker 5: Democrats the fact in the last six years we have
Speaker 5: increased spending in Sacramento by seventy five percent. That's one
Speaker 5: hundred and fifty billion dollars per year more than we
Speaker 5: had six years ago, and none of the outcomes that
Speaker 5: people care most about have gotten better. That is a
Speaker 5: systemic breakdown, and that's why I'm trying to offer very
Speaker 5: concrete solutions. Fun Prop thirty six expand treatment capacity, do
Speaker 5: high dosage tutoring when children are falling behind, to make
Speaker 5: sure every child's on grade level for reading by the
Speaker 5: end of third grade. These are things that work that
Speaker 5: we have not done, largely because of special interest capture
Speaker 5: in Sacramento. We don't build condos in the state of
Speaker 5: California anymore because the trial lawyers like the fees they
Speaker 5: collect from using construction defect laws to sue builders of condos.
Speaker 5: So the city of Miami builds more condos every year
Speaker 5: than the entire state of California. Why does that matter.
Speaker 5: That's the most accessible form of homeowner ship for young people,
Speaker 5: and we wonder why people are getting priced out of
Speaker 5: our state. So I'm running against the special interest capture
Speaker 5: and Sacramento and the status quo. I've done that as
Speaker 5: the mayor of a large city, and it's worked. We've
Speaker 5: delivered meaningful outcomes.
Speaker 2: I want to ask you more about home ownership and
Speaker 2: young people in the state. Just one more process thing,
Speaker 2: which is like, look, I'm literally an undecided voter in
Speaker 2: this race in part because, as you know, we have
Speaker 2: this stupid fucking jungle primary system here where there's a runoff.
Speaker 2: There's a first round in June, second the top two
Speaker 2: candidates go to the runoff, So that leads to strategic voting.
Speaker 2: Right there was all this anxiety about Democrats splitting the
Speaker 2: vote to Republicans ascending, and right then we have a
Speaker 2: defecto Republican governor. That probably won't happen now because the
Speaker 2: Chad seems to touch cuckoo and Trump has chosen the
Speaker 2: British Shortking is his guy in shocking what's going on there?
Speaker 2: I guess Fox. But then but then there's people like
Speaker 2: me who are just like overthinking it, right because I
Speaker 2: have candidates that appeal to my heart, and I worry
Speaker 2: though that if they can't win, then maybe I'm doing
Speaker 2: a harm reduction vote because I have candidates that I
Speaker 2: think are bad and I want to vote for someone
Speaker 2: to displace them. Why do we have this dumb system?
Speaker 2: I hate it?
Speaker 5: Well, I hope I'm speaking to your heart.
Speaker 2: We we'll find out. We have but fifteen more minutes.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you let me know at the end. I don't
Speaker 5: think people should overthink it it is almost statistically impossible
Speaker 5: for two Republicans to get through. There are not that
Speaker 5: many Republican votes in the state of California. Donald Trump
Speaker 5: is not on the ballot, which means turnout will be
Speaker 5: lower than it would otherwise. Be Bianco is hanging in
Speaker 5: there with his third of the Republican Party, but not
Speaker 5: any more than that. And I just I think it's
Speaker 5: more likely we'll have two Democrats then we will have
Speaker 5: two Republicans. By far, it's just not going to happen.
Speaker 5: So I think people should vote for the Democrat who
Speaker 5: they believe will do the best job, and.
Speaker 2: I get rid of this process at some point, though
Speaker 2: the voters can.
Speaker 1: They can.
Speaker 2: It's annoying. No one likes this. Who is this four?
Speaker 5: Well? The theory I do want try articulated because look
Speaker 5: that they're trade offs. Partisan primaries also tend to drive
Speaker 5: candidates to the extreme. Agreed, And so I don't know
Speaker 5: that there's a I've heard another interesting alternative, which is
Speaker 5: I know this is going to sound crazy, but I
Speaker 5: was intrigued when someone pitched me on this the other day.
Speaker 5: Having the top three or four candidates advance and then
Speaker 5: in the final the second round, do rank choice photo.
Speaker 2: I would do rank choice for sure. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 2: feel like that solves the problem.
Speaker 5: If you if you winnow the field from sixty two,
Speaker 5: which is literally what we have on our ballot today, which.
Speaker 2: Isn't someone named Barack Obama, I believe, Yeah, yeah, good
Speaker 2: move on his well plates are.
Speaker 5: Yeah, if you narrow it to say the top four,
Speaker 5: then you're almost certain to have ideological and partisan variety.
Speaker 5: And then because it would then theoretically if you did
Speaker 5: rank choice, you would then optimize for whoever's kind of
Speaker 5: the best overall choice. So I'm orson something like that.
Speaker 5: I worry if you go back to a partisan primary,
Speaker 5: you get the most extreme Republican, the most extreme Democrat.
Speaker 5: It's a it's all just in the primary. And that's,
Speaker 5: by the way, looking at the other side, that's how
Speaker 5: you ended up with the Ted Cruz in Texas. He
Speaker 5: got five percent of the vote, but because it was
Speaker 5: enough to make him the top candidate in a hyper
Speaker 5: partisan Republican primary in a red state, he became the
Speaker 5: de facto senator for years to come.
Speaker 2: Well, he has a very appealing human being, so I
Speaker 2: can see that for that five percent drew that five
Speaker 2: percent in you have come out against this proposed one
Speaker 2: time billionaires tax of five percent, well tax on billionaires
Speaker 2: in California. This could be on the ballot this fall.
Speaker 2: Why what's your opposition to this plan?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so it's not because I don't think billionaires should
Speaker 5: shouldn't be paying more. I mean, look, I think there
Speaker 5: are a lot of loopholes in the tax code we
Speaker 5: should close. I'll give you one example. Today, very wealthy
Speaker 5: people can borrow against their stock options or other assets
Speaker 5: that they have not yet paid capital gains on, and
Speaker 5: then deloy use those dollars as a way of funding
Speaker 5: their lifestyles, their investments, and then never having to pay
Speaker 5: capital gains. That's a loophole we should close that. Actually,
Speaker 5: give you one more Elon Musk, if you were to
Speaker 5: die today, would pass his stock onto his heirs five
Speaker 5: hundred billion or whatever it is, and it would automatically
Speaker 5: get repriced at market rate, meaning they even if they
Speaker 5: turned around and sold it the next day, would never
Speaker 5: pay capital gains on It. Fundamentally unfair. So there are
Speaker 5: a whole bunch of things in the tax code I
Speaker 5: would fix. I also think with automation, capital gains will
Speaker 5: probably need to go up so that we can lower
Speaker 5: income tax on those who are working for a living.
Speaker 5: But when it comes to this wealth tax, the concern
Speaker 5: I have is it's going to punish the middle class.
Speaker 5: In California, we've seen about a trillion dollars of capital
Speaker 5: flight from the state already. And this is right in
Speaker 5: line with what we've seen in every other place that's
Speaker 5: try a wealth tax.
Speaker 2: Trillion dollars in wealth asset value val right, not taxation.
Speaker 5: Correct, A trillion dollars worth of wealth of assets that
Speaker 5: people hold that no longer reside within the state of
Speaker 5: California because their owner now has a primary residence in another.
Speaker 2: State like Arino or something.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, Nevada, Florida, Texas, whatever. And that's what we've seen.
Speaker 5: So there are fourteen European countries that have tried wealth
Speaker 5: taxes at the national level, not even the provincial or
Speaker 5: state level, and what they have generally rolled them back
Speaker 5: or had to significantly modify them for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 5: One they have seen the overall tax based shrink is
Speaker 5: they've had capital flight, people with high, very high networths
Speaker 5: moving their assets and their primary residents out of the
Speaker 5: country or out.
Speaker 1: Of the state.
Speaker 5: The other is to assess people's wealth is not a
Speaker 5: trivial thing. You actually need to have an army of
Speaker 5: assessors go out and go through people's belongings and figure
Speaker 5: out what all these things worth and value them and
Speaker 5: then tax them. And there's a lot of distortionary effects.
Speaker 5: I'm I just think it's likely to backfire. It's like
Speaker 5: going to be very costly, and ultimately, I think it's
Speaker 5: the middle class that's going to be left holding the.
Speaker 2: Bag because there will just be less revenue.
Speaker 5: You think so, And that's not just me. The Legislative
Speaker 5: Analyst Office, the Independent Policy Shop in Sacramento says that
Speaker 5: we've probably already taken ten billion a year off of
Speaker 5: our future revenues based on the capitol that's already left
Speaker 5: the state.
Speaker 2: Right, But if we could recoup that with this one
Speaker 2: time tax, I mean, there's estimates that it could bring
Speaker 2: in up to one hundred billion. I mean, it's hard
Speaker 2: to pencil out the math, right, because we just don't
Speaker 2: know how many people will leave. As I feel like
Speaker 2: there's this concert we're talking about like two hundred people, right,
Speaker 2: like two hundred billionaires in California. If they all left
Speaker 2: the state, do they all really have that much income
Speaker 2: that gets taxed? Like Jeff Bezos famously pays himself eighty
Speaker 2: grand or something and has since nineteen ninety eight, but
Speaker 2: all of his wealth is in often unrealized gains in
Speaker 2: Amazon stock, right, which is not getting tax no matter
Speaker 2: what happens. It's like, how do we get at that money?
Speaker 5: Well, that's why I point to those other to reforms
Speaker 5: that I think make a lot more sense. One is,
Speaker 5: if he's borrowing against those unrealized gains at there should
Speaker 5: be a cut off at which point it's considered realized
Speaker 5: and you have to you can't just endlessly borrow against
Speaker 5: your realized assets. I think that's a way smarter way
Speaker 5: to do it, that's less distortionary, and I would, I
Speaker 5: mean really ideally that would be a federal policy. The
Speaker 5: other is inheritance. The best wealth tax is a one
Speaker 5: time inheritance tax when you pass things on. And if
Speaker 5: you don't want to actually force people to sell assets
Speaker 5: because it's a family business or a farm, that's fine,
Speaker 5: but don't re base the value of it at market
Speaker 5: rate at the moment the person dies. Leave the original
Speaker 5: cost basis, so that when your airs sell, they pay
Speaker 5: capital gains. That seems only fair.
Speaker 2: Yes, And there's so many carve outs for farms, and
Speaker 2: it's like tens of millions of dollars is already exempted
Speaker 2: from the wealth tax. It's insane that we are not
Speaker 2: focusing more on that. So you're in the Nerve, a
Speaker 2: city at the heart of the American tech industry. In
Speaker 2: a past life, you worked tech industry. Americans I think
Speaker 2: increasingly have a negative view of a lot of tech companies, right,
Speaker 2: I mean as recently as twenty fifteen, Pugh found that
Speaker 2: seventy one percent of Americans thought technology companies had a
Speaker 2: positive effect on the country. By twenty nineteen, that was
Speaker 2: down to fifty percent. Now you're seeing like AI explode
Speaker 2: onto the scene. People are worried about the data centers.
Speaker 2: There's polling that finds an increasing number of Americans are
Speaker 2: more concerned than excited about AI. You've got people getting
Speaker 2: booed for mentioning AI at college commencements this past weekend.
Speaker 2: What would you say to voters who are furious at
Speaker 2: Silicon Valley because you know certain, you know, tech CEOs
Speaker 2: got fabulously wealthy while they did not. The news media
Speaker 2: got hollowed out. They feel like harms were done by
Speaker 2: social media, and now it just feels like the same companies,
Speaker 2: the same people they're getting to run it back with AI,
Speaker 2: which we're all told is this unbelievably powerful, like step change,
Speaker 2: new thing. And I don't trust those people. I don't
Speaker 2: trust Elan or Mark Zuckerberg or Sam Altman to be
Speaker 2: in charge of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it's a very real fear, and I
Speaker 5: understand it, and on some level I share it. I
Speaker 5: don't I have little kids. I don't want them on
Speaker 5: social media or AI. I've argued that, and as governor
Speaker 5: I would fight for policies that require parental consent for
Speaker 5: using social media, ban cell phones in public schools. I've
Speaker 5: actually got experience with regulating technology because as a mayor,
Speaker 5: our city is procuring and using technology and constantly thinking
Speaker 5: about the trade offs. New tools can give us new
Speaker 5: capabilities to improve things. We've sped up our public buses,
Speaker 5: We've improved language translation in our meetings, We're identifying potholes proactively.
Speaker 5: We've done a number of things that are making government
Speaker 5: more responsive and efficient, which is great. That's really cool stuff.
Speaker 5: On the other hand, people's fears around privacy, manipulate of elections,
Speaker 5: and just misinformation. More broadly, job loss, environmental destruction are
Speaker 5: all very legitimate, and that's why we created something called
Speaker 5: the gov AI Coalition. San Jose is the founding member
Speaker 5: of a platform that helps over nine hundred public agencies
Speaker 5: navigate technology adoption. And it's all about the ethical and
Speaker 5: responsible use of AI. So we use license plate readers,
Speaker 5: but we don't allow facial recognition. We don't sell data
Speaker 5: to third parties. We don't even share it with the
Speaker 5: federal government because we don't trust how they will use it.
Speaker 5: We delete it every thirty days. On the other hand,
Speaker 5: it's helped us solve murders and kidnappings and rapes and
Speaker 5: all kinds of horrible crimes. So striking that balance of
Speaker 5: how do we harness the value of tools, and I
Speaker 5: think we want to continue to be a state that
Speaker 5: is innovative and that is at the cutting edge, but
Speaker 5: we have to regulate and protect people from these changes
Speaker 5: data centers you mentioned. I believe this should be a
Speaker 5: national standard, but certainly for California, any new data center
Speaker 5: needs to pay the full cost of the infrastructure, they require,
Speaker 5: the full cost of energy. They should be required to
Speaker 5: use the cleanest energy. Their investment should help facilitate the
Speaker 5: clean energy future that we all want. They should have
Speaker 5: to use recycled water. So I think that we can
Speaker 5: praise the bar. Some people want to pause on building those,
Speaker 5: so that's too far from and that's kind of my point.
Speaker 5: You have this sort of much more laisse fair approach
Speaker 5: on the right that is sort of like, oh, you know,
Speaker 5: business is good, capitalism is always good, and let's just
Speaker 5: have this sort of unbridled capitalism and see what happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, David Sachs approach. We're laissez faire until Silicon Valley
Speaker 2: Bank is going to collapse and then.
Speaker 5: We're screening welfare. Yeah, exactly. So I reject that mindset
Speaker 5: and approach. I also think, though, that there is a
Speaker 5: more extreme version within my party that wants to just
Speaker 5: hit the brakes, and I think I just believe we
Speaker 5: were better served and I think historically we have been
Speaker 5: better regulating, managing shaping technological change. But having the authority
Speaker 5: to do that then just saying no and having it
Speaker 5: happen elsewhere, and I think there's a balance to strike there.
Speaker 5: I put out an AI accountability plan that's all about
Speaker 5: striking that balance. It's about investing in workforce development, putting
Speaker 5: strict guardrails on the way that children interact with technology,
Speaker 5: accountability for data centers and robotics companies. We need to
Speaker 5: have an AI shared prosperity fund. That is pain that
Speaker 5: is taking tax revenue from these hyperscalers, these big tech companies,
Speaker 5: and pain for the upskilling and reskilling. We need to
Speaker 5: make sure that people are prepared for the jobs of
Speaker 5: the future. And look, if it gets really dire. We
Speaker 5: haven't seen this yet, but we should have a plan
Speaker 5: b if if job loss increases, we're going to have
Speaker 5: to talk about things like a UBI. We need to
Speaker 5: have a whole other set of tools, a totally different
Speaker 5: safety net. If this plays out in a way that
Speaker 5: some of us.
Speaker 2: What's your what's your AI drug? A choice? You a
Speaker 2: groc guy, Claude, chat GPT, What do we using?
Speaker 5: I go between Claude and Chat and yeah, chat GPT mostly,
Speaker 5: although I end up by default on Gemini a lot,
Speaker 5: just because of the browser.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but then it's always wrong. You know, you're just
Speaker 2: getting bullshitted. I'm a Claude guy. I was using Chat
Speaker 2: GPT and then Sam Mamma did something shitty when he
Speaker 2: when he swooped in, was like, I'll take your Pentagon
Speaker 2: contract to build the autonomous killer robots. I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm out.
Speaker 5: And then you went to Claude and see you buddy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, who's just secretly building the autonomous killer robots? Who knows?
Speaker 2: So you raised a bunch of money from folks in
Speaker 2: the tech world.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: Ceo is a Google, drop Box, Snapchat, Twitch. I think
Speaker 2: some prominent venture capitalists. What's your response to people who worry, look,
Speaker 2: when you take all that money, there are strings and
Speaker 2: it could make you beholden to the tech industry.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean it's a very fair question, and my response
Speaker 5: is one I've regulated tech and as an elected official
Speaker 5: over the last six years, I have never done one
Speaker 5: thing to benefit the biggest employers in Silicon Valley over
Speaker 5: the people of San Jose, and I sure as heck
Speaker 5: I'm not going to do that in Sacramento. I'm actually
Speaker 5: running against special interest capture in Sacramento, and I'm not
Speaker 5: going to replace one set of interest with another. I
Speaker 5: have been very willing and have consistently put restrictions on
Speaker 5: how we use technology, how we interface with tech, companies.
Speaker 5: I think the honest reason that there are tech employees,
Speaker 5: tech leaders, investors, etc. Who have contributed to the campaign
Speaker 5: is I lead the largest city in Silicon Valley and
Speaker 5: they've seen that we have led the state in reducing crime,
Speaker 5: reducing homelessness, building housing, fixing our problems. And I think
Speaker 5: people are drawn to results in competent leadership. And I'm
Speaker 5: just better known in the Bay Area where we have
Speaker 5: a number of tech companies. But that's why I'm spending
Speaker 5: so much time traveling around the state, getting to know
Speaker 5: people in other places and really making the case for
Speaker 5: good government. But I put out a very clear AI
Speaker 5: accountability plan that is based on everything I've done in
Speaker 5: San Jose over the last six years and is where
Speaker 5: I am on these issues. And I put that out
Speaker 5: transparently for everyone from voters to my donors to see it.
Speaker 5: And if donors don't like it, they can find another candidate.
Speaker 2: One donor name that surprised me was a guy named
Speaker 2: Joe Lonsdale. He's a co founder Palenteer, big Republican mega donor.
Speaker 2: He's like a big Elon stand gave a million to
Speaker 2: Elon's like pro Trump superpack maxed out to you, what's
Speaker 2: up with that guy? He seems a little crazy.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 5: You'd have to ask him. I mean I have I
Speaker 5: have probably thousands of doors.
Speaker 2: He's not like someone you do back in the day
Speaker 2: when he's a Palenteer or something.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 5: I know he's from He's from the Bay Area, and
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I Look, he's just an aggressive tweeter. I've we've come,
Speaker 2: We've crossed paths.
Speaker 5: That's what you guys have been tweeting at each other.
Speaker 2: You know, Look, we all have our weaknesses, and that's
Speaker 2: one of mine. It does feel like though, like the
Speaker 2: there was a time, look I was in the Obama
Speaker 2: in and like the kind of eight through twenty thirteen
Speaker 2: phase of like the there's a lot of excitement around tech.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of cooperation between the administration and tech industry,
Speaker 2: probably too much to our you know, discredit in the
Speaker 2: Obama world. Now it seems like a lot of the
Speaker 2: tech industry guys are like, gloves are off, Fuck this,
Speaker 2: We're battling regulation right, like Indrease and Horowitz. According to
Speaker 2: The New York Times, is made more than one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty million, one hundred and fifteen million dollars worth
Speaker 2: of disclosed federal contributions to candidates or entities working on
Speaker 2: the upcoming midterms. That's like fifty mil for like a
Speaker 2: AI pack, another forty seven million for crypto super pack. Like.
Speaker 2: Does that wor you? Does that disgust you that like
Speaker 2: this one VC firm can dump one hundred million to
Speaker 2: advocate for like its you know, book of portfolio companies.
Speaker 5: Yeah? Absolutely, I mean I'm I'm worried about concentrated power
Speaker 5: and politics in all forms. The biggest donor and tech
Speaker 5: now is becoming one of the largest industries or donor
Speaker 5: bases in the country of any industry you've had oil
Speaker 5: and gas in the state of California. It is worth
Speaker 5: noting there are other groups as well, from public sector
Speaker 5: unions to trial lawyers, who spend a tremendous amount of money,
Speaker 5: sometimes for things I agree with that I think are
Speaker 5: generally good for society, Sometimes for narrow or interests are
Speaker 5: that are not always good for society. I actually got
Speaker 5: involved in the way I ended up in tech was
Speaker 5: building tools for grassroots organizing. The early petitions like the
Speaker 5: change dot org tools, early fundraisers, go fundme, These kinds
Speaker 5: of early tools to try to basically help people organize
Speaker 5: at a grassroots level and make the system more accountable
Speaker 5: to the people than to the donors. I've always been
Speaker 5: worried about the influence of concentrated money and power and
Speaker 5: our politics, so it does worry me. I do think think, though,
Speaker 5: that the Democratic Party has to also recognize there's a
Speaker 5: split within the party right now, and we have also
Speaker 5: driven away many people who are have started companies. All right,
Speaker 5: I'm not just talking about in tech. I mean generally speaking,
Speaker 5: as I go around the state, just set tech aside
Speaker 5: when I go talk to people in agriculture, in Hollywood,
Speaker 5: in manufacturing, in a wide range of industries. The regulatory
Speaker 5: burden in California is a real issue, and I think
Speaker 5: we become very dismissive of it as deregulation is a
Speaker 5: Republican thing that's just because they want more profit. I
Speaker 5: don't think that's the case. I mean, we broke the
Speaker 5: housing market by overregulating it in California. That's building more
Speaker 5: housing and creating room for new people for future generations.
Speaker 5: Making housing more affordable is actually a very progressive aim.
Speaker 2: I totally agree, but I feel like we're just so
Speaker 2: far from over regulating social media companies. I think Australia
Speaker 2: is banning accounts for kids under sixteen, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: we're just we're doing.
Speaker 5: Nothing right, and that's part of my proposal is actually
Speaker 5: to require at least parental consent up to up to sixteen.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I think that's I think that's fair. But
Speaker 5: I do think we risk losing natural allies of the
Speaker 5: party if our answered every problem is another regulation and
Speaker 5: other attacks. And I think look within tech, maybe it's appropriate.
Speaker 5: The regulatory environment is not very mature at this point,
Speaker 5: but there are plenty of other industries like housing and agriculture,
Speaker 5: where you could argue we're punishing, we're actually restricting economic
Speaker 5: opportunity and pushing people out of state.
Speaker 2: You've criticized government avenues for the kind of focusing too
Speaker 2: much on trolling Donald Trump. I think you said he
Speaker 2: made a quote blind leap into Memeland. Gavin and Trump
Speaker 2: have kind of a ross and Rachel will they won't
Speaker 2: they frenemies? You know, antagonistic thing going. It's probably unique
Speaker 2: to them, right, They're big, larger than life people. But
Speaker 2: Trump and the conservative media they love to beat up
Speaker 2: on California. Right, Fox News all day is like some
Speaker 2: video of something that happened on the street. So I
Speaker 2: don't think that Trump attacks end when Gavin is gone.
Speaker 2: How would you manage that relationship differently than him or
Speaker 2: or continuity would I.
Speaker 5: Mean, the way I think about it is there's a
Speaker 5: set of things that are just redlines for me and
Speaker 5: for the state of California. We're going to fight to
Speaker 5: protect our vulnerable neighbors. We're going to push back on ICE.
Speaker 5: We're going to fight to protect constitutional freedoms. We're going
Speaker 5: to fight for our fair share federal funding. There are
Speaker 5: a number of areas where, unfortunately, we are going to
Speaker 5: have to fight fire with fire, As Governor Newsom has said,
Speaker 5: and in San Jose, I've led us to sue the
Speaker 5: Trump administration multiple times. We've used our budget to backfill cuts.
Speaker 5: We've were funding legal services for immigrant neighbors who are
Speaker 5: at risk of deportation. We've banned ICE's use of masks
Speaker 5: and their use of public property. So I will use
Speaker 5: every tool in the toolbox, legal, budgetary, bully pulpit, whatever
Speaker 5: tools we have to fight back. I do want to
Speaker 5: go back to the place I started, which is I
Speaker 5: also think that we've got to take ownership of our
Speaker 5: shortcomings and start solving highly visible and visceral problems that
Speaker 5: affect people every day. I mean this may sound superficial,
Speaker 5: but when people drive around Los Angeles and see the
Speaker 5: state of the freeways and see thousands of people living
Speaker 5: outside in misery and tents and trash and fires and graffiti,
Speaker 5: it just undermines our credibility. It underminds trusting government. It
Speaker 5: makes it that much harder to stand for something different
Speaker 5: that people can believe in. And I'm not pretending that
Speaker 5: the Republicans have got it all right. They've got plenty
Speaker 5: of problems, and Red states have plenty of problems. We
Speaker 5: do a better job in many ways at being economically
Speaker 5: inclusive and certainly more welcoming socially and politically. But I
Speaker 5: just I think we've got to also fix our fundamental problems,
Speaker 5: starting with the high cost of housing. Until we grapple
Speaker 5: with that, I don't think we're going to be a
Speaker 5: very effective resistance.
Speaker 2: Yeah. My last question for you is about housing, which
Speaker 2: is in California, we have something called Prop thirteen. I'm
Speaker 2: sure you know about it. Listeners naturally don't as passed
Speaker 2: in the late seventies, Younger Californians mostly hate it because
Speaker 2: it means that new home buyers pay much higher property
Speaker 2: taxes on like the identical house to someone who bought
Speaker 2: it forty years earlier. You can correct me if I'm
Speaker 2: getting the deatos or I'm shorthanding this. It creates this
Speaker 2: general unfairness and it can lock up housing supply because
Speaker 2: if you're a senior, you're not going to downsize if
Speaker 2: that means you're going to pay a much higher property tax, right,
Speaker 2: you want to lock in that privileged tax rate over time.
Speaker 2: Prop thirteen is gutted revenue for California's public schools, and
Speaker 2: like smart, kind of wonky people I know almost literally
Speaker 2: will blame it for like all of California's problems. Right,
Speaker 2: there are number of books to that, yes, and so
Speaker 2: like Sadly, it feels politically impossible to repeal the thing
Speaker 2: because propensity to vote. Seniors like it because it keeps
Speaker 2: their property taxes low. So like, what do we do here?
Speaker 2: How do we bring some fairness to property tax collection
Speaker 2: and unfreeze the housing market with this anchor around our neck?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: How many hours do you have?
Speaker 2: I mean Thursday?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I think one is just across the board. Our housing
Speaker 5: issues come down to a lack of supply, so we
Speaker 5: need to build more housing, and that will slow down
Speaker 5: the rate at which the value of housing goes up,
Speaker 5: which will help moderate property tax increases. The reason Prop
Speaker 5: thirteen was passed was property tax increases were happening so
Speaker 5: fast that people were literally getting pushed out of their
Speaker 5: homes because they couldn't keep pace with the rising costs.
Speaker 5: So it doesn't freeze it, but it caps it at
Speaker 5: a one and a half percent increase per year, which
Speaker 5: you could argue is too low. Maybe to properly have
Speaker 5: a more functioning market, it should be higher, Right, That's
Speaker 5: a debate you could have. I think there are some
Speaker 5: pragmatic things that it could be politically feasible. One is
Speaker 5: we should enable older residents to take their property tax
Speaker 5: benefit with them if they downsize, so that we can
Speaker 5: free up that housing stock. So if you're an older couple,
Speaker 5: or you're living alone and you've got four bedrooms and
Speaker 5: a suburban neighborhood somewhere, if we could incentivize you to
Speaker 5: capture that benefit and continue to have low property taxes
Speaker 5: by moving into a condo by the beach, like great
Speaker 5: we should allow for that flexibility and fluidity in the market.
Speaker 5: Another thing that could be done is you could say, well,
Speaker 5: having property taxes go up more than one and a
Speaker 5: half percent per year could price people out. But what
Speaker 5: if some of that actually accrued over time and then
Speaker 5: was assessed at the time that you sold the home,
Speaker 5: And so that way you're not getting hit each year
Speaker 5: with a larger, larger property tax bill that you can't
Speaker 5: afford when you're raising kids or whatever else you're doing.
Speaker 5: But when you eventually sell the house, presumably the house
Speaker 5: has appreciated. That's why your property taxes are going up.
Speaker 5: That then gets paid back in. But I would also
Speaker 5: just note I don't I think Prop thirteen reform is
Speaker 5: about fairness and distortions in the market. I think it's
Speaker 5: a mistake for Democrats to make it a big revenue generator,
Speaker 5: because the truth is, while it did reduce revenues to
Speaker 5: the state and to school districts, after it passed, we
Speaker 5: went and found a bunch of other sources of revenue.
Speaker 5: We created an income tax, we tax capital gains, we
Speaker 5: tax businesses, We tax everything. So our overall tax burden
Speaker 5: is the second highest or third high, depending on you
Speaker 5: measure it third highest in the country I've noticed. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: so you're experiencing it. We found other ways to tax.
Speaker 2: You're right, we could talk about this forever, but you
Speaker 2: had a lot of things to do. Where can people
Speaker 2: find your campaign if they want to get involved, support you, knockdoors,
Speaker 2: donate whatever.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. I appreciate all great questions.
Speaker 5: And my website is Mayhean Maha n for California dot com.
Speaker 5: You can find me on social media. If you have
Speaker 5: any follow up questions to this interview, shoot me an email. Otherwise,
Speaker 5: hope to see folks out there.
Speaker 2: Excellent, mister Mary, thank you so much for coming.
Speaker 5: In, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks to Matt Mahon for
Speaker 1: stopping by. Alex will be back on the feed on
Speaker 1: Sunday with a conversation with our buddy norm Eiazen about
Speaker 1: the slush fund and all of Trump's other self dealing.
Speaker 1: Check it out everyone else, have a.
Speaker 3: Good weekend by everyone.
Speaker 1: Positive America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is
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Speaker 1: Safari with Reed Jerling, Elijah Cone and Adrian Hill. Our
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