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Speaker 2: I'm Jon Favre, I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
Speaker 1: On today's show, Donald Trump has fled to China after
Speaker 1: admitting he doesn't think about American's financial situation, not even
Speaker 1: a little bit. We'll talk about all the follow up
Speaker 1: from that fun little gaff and the possibility that Trump
Speaker 1: may personally pocket billions in taxpayer dollars because of a
Speaker 1: lawsuit he filed that his own Justice Department is on
Speaker 1: the verge of settling. We'll also talk about the Democrats'
Speaker 1: latest plan to fight the Republican jerrymanderspree, more updates on
Speaker 1: the DNC and it's phantom twenty twenty four autopsy, and
Speaker 1: of course, why the new twenty two foot golden statue
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump at his golf club, blessed by his
Speaker 1: spiritual advisor, is definitely not a golden calf. Before we
Speaker 1: get into any of that. If you're a Friend of
Speaker 1: the Pod subscriber, which if you aren't, you should be,
Speaker 1: you can now buy tickets for this year's Crooked Con
Speaker 1: special pre sale just for subscribers, So go get your
Speaker 1: ticket now. If you're not a subscriber, which must be
Speaker 1: because you hate pro democracy media and love podcast ads,
Speaker 1: you can buy crookeed Con tickets starting next week on
Speaker 1: May nineteenth, Tuesday, May nineteenth. Either way, it's going to
Speaker 1: be a big fun party after the midterms November fifth
Speaker 1: through the seventh. I am sticking with big fun party, Dan.
Speaker 2: Okay, luck you won.
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Speaker 1: to become a Friends of the Pod subscriber, in which
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Speaker 1: go check it out, become a subscriber, and buy your
Speaker 1: Crooked Con tickets Crickedcon dot com. All right, the president
Speaker 1: is in China glazing Shijinping. He called the communist dictator
Speaker 1: a quote great leader while dropping some knowledge on his
Speaker 1: Chinese hosts.
Speaker 3: Chinese restaurants in America today outnumber the five largest fast
Speaker 3: food chains in the United States all combined.
Speaker 2: That's a pretty big statement.
Speaker 1: Pretty pretty big statement, pretty big statement. Glad he glad
Speaker 1: he gave them that one. The Beijing leg of Trump's
Speaker 1: affordability tour puts him out of the country at a
Speaker 1: moment when the president has never been less popular. After
Speaker 1: starting a war he can't seem to end that's led
Speaker 1: to inflation he doesn't seem to care about, which, for
Speaker 1: some reason he won't stop telling us.
Speaker 2: Can bring up play down is now at its highest
Speaker 2: level in three years.
Speaker 1: Are your policies not working? What's happening? Need be working? Incredibly,
Speaker 1: we have a ballroom that's under budgets. We're right now
Speaker 1: on budget, under.
Speaker 2: Budget and ahead of sketch I double the size of
Speaker 2: a new dumb person. We're already deluctiating with the rhyme
Speaker 2: under preject one extent.
Speaker 1: Are mair case financial maintence motivating you to make.
Speaker 2: It meal, not even a little bit. I don't think
Speaker 2: about American financial situation.
Speaker 1: I don't think about anybody. The best part of that is,
Speaker 1: like it would have been bad enough if he had
Speaker 1: just stuck with not at all, because then like, that's
Speaker 1: still bad. But then you would have had to, like,
Speaker 1: you know, make sure you heard the reporters question. But
Speaker 1: then he like does the quote as if it was like,
Speaker 1: here's the line that if you say it will be
Speaker 1: a major gaff, and he's like, I will do the
Speaker 1: whole line. I will just say it. I do not
Speaker 1: think about american's financial situation. I don't think about anybody.
Speaker 2: The only thing would have been worse if he'd asked
Speaker 2: them to turn the helicopter engines off first, to could
Speaker 2: say it.
Speaker 1: So the audio Okay, folks, I'm gonna do one more take.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say a little louder and two camera just
Speaker 1: so it looks better.
Speaker 2: Let me hold this big box of gold right now?
Speaker 1: Why can you get the can you get the unfinished
Speaker 1: ballroom in the back front shot? In fairness, the one
Speaker 1: group of Americans whose financial situation Trump keeps improving are
Speaker 1: democratic ad makers. In the pantheon of gaffes, where do
Speaker 1: you rank this one?
Speaker 2: Donald Trump has said many offensive and morally odious things
Speaker 2: over the years, but from a political perspective, this is
Speaker 2: the worst thing he has said by far, hands down,
Speaker 2: not even close.
Speaker 1: Do you think so? I mean, god, I can't remember,
Speaker 1: it's been ten years, but yeah, it's up there for sure.
Speaker 2: It absolutely has to be. And here here's why. Because
Speaker 2: a lot of Trump's like though terrible things he says,
Speaker 2: like Nazis are fine people, I trust the Russian intell
Speaker 2: your trust Russia over our own intelligence agents. All those
Speaker 2: things which are really really bad things for president to
Speaker 2: say on every level, are a field from the thing
Speaker 2: Americans care most about. So right here he is doing
Speaker 2: the worst kind of gafs are when you say the
Speaker 2: truth out loud. And that's what this is because what
Speaker 2: he said was the exact thing that the people who
Speaker 2: voted for Trump, who have grown disillusion with him and
Speaker 2: are thinking voted for Democrats fear most that he does
Speaker 2: not give a shit about them. Yeah, it's like he said,
Speaker 2: the whole thing, and you just that is our message,
Speaker 2: like somewhere on a whiteboard and a Democratic superpack is
Speaker 2: Trump does not care about American people's financial situations. And
Speaker 2: then he said it. He set our message on camera
Speaker 2: that's bad.
Speaker 1: Remember, Kamala is for they them, Trump's for you. I
Speaker 1: guess Trump is not for you.
Speaker 2: No, Trump is not for you. But this is this
Speaker 2: is see you. This is like when Kamala Harris the
Speaker 2: two quotes which we'll get to this later, but when
Speaker 2: Kamala Harris said that Biden nomics were working and when
Speaker 2: she had no ways in which she was separated herself
Speaker 2: from Joe Biden. Similar right, when you make a gaff
Speaker 2: that fits with people's greatest fear about you, those are
Speaker 2: the gaffs that hurt the most.
Speaker 1: I was thinking whether this was even the worst gaff
Speaker 1: within the context of all of the terrible, politically stupid
Speaker 1: gas he's made, within the context of the just affordability,
Speaker 1: just in that category, because it was like, affordability is
Speaker 1: a hoax, it's bullshit, it's bullshit, everything's fine, people are okay.
Speaker 1: If it could be worse gas prices, I mean, there's
Speaker 1: just so many of them. I do think this nicely
Speaker 1: encapsulates that aside from anyone policy or him being out
Speaker 1: of touch with how people are feeling, he actually just
Speaker 1: doesn't think about.
Speaker 2: It, does not care, could not care less.
Speaker 1: Back to the ballroom, there it's like the advisors are saying, well,
Speaker 1: he was talking about it was talking about this in
Speaker 1: the context of Around having a nuclear weapon, and what
Speaker 1: he was saying is that he doesn't think about America's
Speaker 1: financial situation in a way that would stop him from
Speaker 1: doing what he needs to do to stop around from
Speaker 1: getting a nuclear weapon, which is also funny because he
Speaker 1: hasn't done that either.
Speaker 2: They still have the uranium dust and our gas prices
Speaker 2: are really high.
Speaker 1: Zero progress, zero progress since this war. The latest war
Speaker 1: began in February of twenty eight. Whatever he bombed over
Speaker 1: last summer is one thing, but like nothing on the
Speaker 1: nuclear dust since since this war started, so hasn't figured
Speaker 1: that out. Doesn't think of American's financial situation. It has
Speaker 1: been funny to watch Republicans respond to this one, which
Speaker 1: so many of them have been asked to do, including
Speaker 1: the Vice President and the Speaker of the House and
Speaker 1: random members of Congress. Let's listen.
Speaker 2: Yes, the President was asking about whether American's financial concerned
Speaker 2: for motivating to make a deal with the wrong His
Speaker 2: response was, I don't think about americans financial situations. That's
Speaker 2: the right message. He doesn't should be considering the financial
Speaker 2: tool I don't know the context in which he made
Speaker 2: that comment, but I can tell you the President thinks
Speaker 2: about the American's financial situations. I'd talked to him on
Speaker 2: average twice a day, sometimes three or four times a day.
Speaker 2: I could just kind of give a little clarity to
Speaker 2: what I think President Trump was saying is, look, he
Speaker 2: does care about the American people. He does care about
Speaker 2: the price of the pump.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't think the President said that.
Speaker 2: I think that's a misrepresentation to what the President said.
Speaker 1: So good, so good. I like, let me just clarify,
Speaker 1: let me just clarify. When the President said he doesn't
Speaker 1: think about americans financial situation, what he actually meant was
Speaker 1: that he cares about America's financial situation.
Speaker 2: It's like, look, he's an older gentleman, isn't get a
Speaker 2: lot of sleep. He gets confused sometimes.
Speaker 1: I like that Mike Johnson went to I mean I
Speaker 1: talked to him two three times a day. It's like,
Speaker 1: what does that have to do with him caring about
Speaker 1: American's financial situation. I also enjoyed that there's the question
Speaker 1: was do you think that's a good message?
Speaker 2: And I don't know the context, but like no one
Speaker 2: has a narrow media diet than Mike Johnson.
Speaker 1: I feel like every Democratic candidate on the ballot in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six should make their Republican opponent.
Speaker 2: Answer for this. Right, it feels like a leading question.
Speaker 1: John I'm just saying, like why I haven't I've mean
Speaker 1: trying to figure out, like why I haven't seen more
Speaker 1: of that yet. I mean, I guess you can only
Speaker 1: really do that in a I guess the place to
Speaker 1: do that is in a debate, because if you do
Speaker 1: some video where like I call on my opponent to
Speaker 1: you know, no one's gonna no one's gonna actually do that.
Speaker 1: That's not going to get you very far. But I
Speaker 1: do think would be a good debate moment.
Speaker 2: So I think the way we generally think about this,
Speaker 2: with the way that question is framed, is like basing
Speaker 2: this other world of politics that you and I came
Speaker 2: up in, where these Republicans are out there on the
Speaker 2: campaign trail. They're being trailed by a pack of experienced
Speaker 2: local reporters who are waiving recorders and notepads at them,
Speaker 2: demanding answers sort of like, yeah, well it's that doesn't
Speaker 2: that's not how the world works anymore, And so that's
Speaker 2: not like I would like a world like I want
Speaker 2: every Republican walking down the halls of Congress to be
Speaker 2: swarmed by the staff of punch Bowl News and demand
Speaker 2: it they can't leave the Senate subway until they answer
Speaker 2: this question, Like I would like that. That is good
Speaker 2: karmic justice. What it's it's and people should use it
Speaker 2: in debates. The better thing to do here in this
Speaker 2: media environment is you take the Trump clip, you mix
Speaker 2: it with a that you then followed up with a
Speaker 2: bunch of policies that this Republican member supported or is
Speaker 2: fine with, or has done, or they themselves said that
Speaker 2: illustrate this larger point that Trump and his Republican flunkies
Speaker 2: do not give a shit about your financialransituation and to
Speaker 2: focus on all these other things. And I think that's
Speaker 2: sort of the way it happens now, like in a campaign,
Speaker 2: I just like you hear this all the time. I
Speaker 2: think about this. I always like, why is no one
Speaker 2: forcing these can'ts ask about it? Because there was no
Speaker 2: one to force them to do it anymore? Right, there's
Speaker 2: maybe one reporter trailing them in some of these places.
Speaker 1: You know, I watched the I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: watched any of these. This is sort of off topic,
Speaker 1: but I watched the last California gubernatorial debate.
Speaker 2: It seems like they're the CNN one or the Buffy
Speaker 2: Wicks one.
Speaker 1: Neither the local NBC affiliate one that came after the
Speaker 1: LA mayor ol debate.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah, I watched the CNN one and I
Speaker 2: watched the Buffy one. Yeah. None of the Buffy Buffy
Speaker 2: Wick sponsored to housing debates. I know that. I will
Speaker 2: say that Buffy Wicks is an assembly member California in
Speaker 2: a friend of ours.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I will say that neither the LA mayor
Speaker 1: Aal debate or the California gubernatorial debate that I watch
Speaker 1: was very inspiring.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you've done if you've done local races, the
Speaker 2: and it's been a long time, seve have done that.
Speaker 2: But like these debates are never they're not presidential debates.
Speaker 1: No, they're really not.
Speaker 2: There is not a hard follow up. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 2: lot of rules.
Speaker 1: Sort of But anyway, anyway, for other people running for Congress,
Speaker 1: I do think that could be a good moment. But
Speaker 1: you're right now, I think you throw it in an ad.
Speaker 1: I think you could be creative whatever we could talk
Speaker 1: about that forever.
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Speaker 1: The President may not be thinking about American's financial situation,
Speaker 1: but he's always thinking about his own, and he continues
Speaker 1: to use the presidency to make himself richer in cartoonishly
Speaker 1: corrupt ways. Remember the ten billion dollar lawsuit Donald Trump
Speaker 1: filed against the IRS over his tax returns leaking well.
Speaker 1: The New York Times reports that Trump's Justice Department might
Speaker 1: settle the lawsuit any day now, and that quote a
Speaker 1: settlement payment even a fraction of the size of mister
Speaker 1: Trump's requested ten billion dollars could be much larger than
Speaker 1: his other attempts at private gain potential doubling his net
Speaker 1: worth with our tax dollars.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of these corruption stories are a
Speaker 1: bit complicated, but this would just be Trump literally just
Speaker 1: taking the tax dollars we send the government and putting
Speaker 1: them directly into his pocket. First of all, before we
Speaker 1: get into like the political implications of this, do you
Speaker 1: think they'll actually do something so brazenly stupid as this,
Speaker 1: even by Trump's standards.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they might, and I think they'll justify
Speaker 2: it by saying, look, it's that we didn't do it
Speaker 2: for ten billion, and we did it for one billion
Speaker 2: or two billion.
Speaker 1: You think so you'll. Yeah. The other thing that they
Speaker 1: kind of floated in the story and I couldn't tell.
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell if this was you know, some reporting
Speaker 1: that didn't they couldn't bear out yet, which was there's
Speaker 1: a possibility they might just say no, no financial award
Speaker 1: goes to Trump from Trump's Justice Department, but that somehow
Speaker 1: he gets protected from ever being audited again, seems, which
Speaker 1: is also incredibly corruptive. Course. Yes, but I do think
Speaker 1: any kind of dollar amount is who fucking nuts, man it.
Speaker 2: I mean, it would have to be let's say it's
Speaker 2: a let's say it's one million dollars, right, Let's say
Speaker 2: it's let's say just still stealing. This is a lawsuit
Speaker 2: where Donald Trump sued Donald Trump, and now Donald Trump
Speaker 2: is going to settle with Donald Trump to give Donald
Speaker 2: Trump money, our money.
Speaker 1: Our money.
Speaker 2: He's basically just backing up a truck to the Treasury
Speaker 2: department and taking our money and giving it to himself.
Speaker 2: And he's gonna say he's giving it to charity. That's
Speaker 2: what he said when he was pushed on this in
Speaker 2: an NBC interview earlier this year. Donald Trump's been lying
Speaker 2: with giving money charity his whole life. Like this would
Speaker 2: be the greatest example of presidential coruption in American history
Speaker 2: by a factor of a thousand. It's just stealing money.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, the easiest to explain. Don't fucking
Speaker 1: get out your message box on this one, Dan.
Speaker 2: Oh, don't worry, I'll be a message boxing let me.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you. It's just like, uh, he's stealing
Speaker 1: from us. You go to work, you get a paycheck,
Speaker 1: they take taxes out of the paycheck. It goes to
Speaker 1: the government. Now those taxes go in Donald Trump's pocket.
Speaker 1: He's a thief. He is stealing from US ten billion dollars.
Speaker 1: He is a crook. That's it.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's wild.
Speaker 1: Really. It's also it's like a lawsuit that I mean
Speaker 1: not to get into the details here, but now that
Speaker 1: that we've done our top line message, like an IRS
Speaker 1: contractor leaked all these tax returns of a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of wealthy people, including Donald Trump to pro Publica. Apparently
Speaker 1: the guy went to jail for five years over this,
Speaker 1: and others who had their tax tax returns leaked sued.
Speaker 1: None of them got any damages. Ken Griffin, the billionaire,
Speaker 1: he was one of them. He got like a public
Speaker 1: apology from the irs. There's all kinds of problems with
Speaker 1: the lawsuits. It's for way too much money. First of all,
Speaker 1: he doesn't seem to have filed it at the right time,
Speaker 1: and so there's.
Speaker 2: Only one party of the lawsuit. Well that's the big thing.
Speaker 1: But no, no, I think the big thing is it
Speaker 1: is It's also clear that if it was Donald Trump
Speaker 1: suing Joe Biden's federal government or some other president, this
Speaker 1: lawsuit would he would never get anything from this because
Speaker 1: it's a fucking phony lawsuit. And the only reason he
Speaker 1: would win the lawsuit is because he decides the lawsuit,
Speaker 1: because he is the Justice Department, because the Justice Department
Speaker 1: is an independent and so he tells them, hey, settle
Speaker 1: this lawsuit that I filed against us, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to pocket the cash or I'm going to pretend that
Speaker 1: I give it to charity. It is unfucking believable. I
Speaker 1: can't wait. I hope he does it.
Speaker 2: I dollars in taxpayer money, I will you.
Speaker 1: I'll write some kind of a check itself. Not for
Speaker 1: that much, but I would. I mean, this would be
Speaker 1: the greatest political gift. Now this is the easiest one.
Speaker 1: But I know you have thoughts on just in general,
Speaker 1: how Democrats should be talking about corruption over these next
Speaker 1: couple months leading into the midterms.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, way back in twenty twenty, what am
Speaker 2: I argument was that the way down before we before
Speaker 2: Biden was a nominee, were was beginning to run of
Speaker 2: with Trump twenty nineteen, twenty twenty. My argument was that
Speaker 2: Democrats should frame the argument against Trump around chaos and corruption.
Speaker 2: And you were in some of these meetings. Polsters would
Speaker 2: come to us and they would say, corruption does not work,
Speaker 2: We've tested it. Voters do not buy the idea or
Speaker 2: something I don't buy the idea that Trump is corrupt
Speaker 2: is that it does not move them. It's not new
Speaker 2: information to them. They are willing to accept a baseline
Speaker 2: of corruption from Trump is kind of priced into their baseline,
Speaker 2: and they kind of think all politicians are corrupt. Flash
Speaker 2: forward to now, even as recently, as early last year,
Speaker 2: as when Trump was really doing a lot of all
Speaker 2: this crypto stuff. We heard the same thing in the
Speaker 2: same polsters that corruption was not a message that worked
Speaker 2: with swimming voters. And I believe these posters. I believe
Speaker 2: their data. I just think they are tactically correct and
Speaker 2: strategically wrong. And there's two things here. The first is corruption.
Speaker 2: This is a different backdrop. People may be okay with
Speaker 2: Trump dipping his beak when gases under two dollars a
Speaker 2: gallon and prices are low and the economy is going good.
Speaker 2: They feel very differently about it when gas is four
Speaker 2: to fifty a gallon and the economy sucks. That's a
Speaker 2: very different There's a very different backdrop to this. That's
Speaker 2: one two. I think how we use corruption is very
Speaker 2: important here because I think too often Democrats treated as
Speaker 2: if we were in a court of law, like we
Speaker 2: are going to present this evidence. There is the Katari jet,
Speaker 2: there is the theft of the ten billion dollars. Look
Speaker 2: at the crypto schemes. We've presented this evidence. Jury of
Speaker 2: my voter peers, please tell me whether you find the
Speaker 2: president corrupt, and if you find him corrupt, then we're
Speaker 2: going to get rid of them. But that's not how
Speaker 2: it works. Right. The way to think about corruption is
Speaker 2: to understand that it's a treat corruption as an explanation
Speaker 2: for why everything sucks. It is the keystone to explain
Speaker 2: why rich people are getting richer, politically connected people are
Speaker 2: getting pard ins and gifts and access, and you're getting
Speaker 2: kicked off your healthcare, you're getting kicked off your food assistants,
Speaker 2: Why nothing works, why corporations are getting richerf small businesses
Speaker 2: are hurting, things costing more. It is all because of corruption.
Speaker 2: Is a corrupt system. It is bigger than Trump. Trump
Speaker 2: is a part of that system. He is exploiting that system.
Speaker 2: And if we don't talk about corruption as a party,
Speaker 2: then what we are doing is we are implying to
Speaker 2: voters that we're okay with that system because they think
Speaker 2: we're part of it too.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of Democrats have to do
Speaker 2: in terms of the positions we have, the policies we
Speaker 2: advocate for that show that we're willing to take on
Speaker 2: that system. But if you just refuse to acknowledge this
Speaker 2: giant elephant in the room that people believe the system
Speaker 2: is corrupt and it is correct because Donald Trump is
Speaker 2: showing us every single day. Then you're just leaving so
Speaker 2: much money on the table, no pun intended.
Speaker 1: How much do you think an actual reform agenda should
Speaker 1: be part of that?
Speaker 2: I don't think it is credible for the Democratic Party
Speaker 2: running in twenty twenty six to have a this is
Speaker 2: our reform agenda. I don't think anyone's going to believe that.
Speaker 2: I think individual candidates should be running on it, obviously.
Speaker 2: Like the biggest layup ever that we seem incapable of accomplishing,
Speaker 2: is banning members of Congress from trading stocks like truly,
Speaker 2: one of the biggest mistakes of the Biden era was
Speaker 2: not getting that done when we had the majority. You know,
Speaker 2: dark money, you know the AOC, And I think, I
Speaker 2: hate to say this, I think Ted Cruz have this
Speaker 2: bill that says that members of Congress can't become lobbyist
Speaker 2: when they leave, Like I think indusial people should have
Speaker 2: their own to show that they're taking on that system.
Speaker 2: I think it should be a big part. Like I
Speaker 2: want our twenty twenty eight candidate to be seen as
Speaker 2: a reformer, like us Off is doing that in his stuff, right, now,
Speaker 2: but I don't think there's like a Democratic Party agenda
Speaker 2: when we get in. If we take the House, one
Speaker 2: of the things we should do is pass a government ethics,
Speaker 2: campaign finance reform bill. We know it's going nowhere, but
Speaker 2: we should show that we want to deliver on it.
Speaker 1: I kind of think that, And I don't know if
Speaker 1: this is for if we take the House and then
Speaker 1: just want to pass a bill that is sitting there
Speaker 1: ready for a Democratic president, or this is the candidates
Speaker 1: who run in twenty twenty eight who do this. But
Speaker 1: I think you need a few very big, ambitious, haven't
Speaker 1: heard before reform ideas that people can grab onto. Both
Speaker 1: because that's what it takes to get attention in this
Speaker 1: information environment. And like the stock trading ban is great
Speaker 1: and obviously pulls through the roof. We get that, but
Speaker 1: like people have been talking about it for so long,
Speaker 1: like when is it going to happen? I think the
Speaker 1: next thing that's going to get attention to someone actually
Speaker 1: fucking passing the stock trading ban. But how would you
Speaker 1: stop the corruption we just talked about Donald Trump stealing
Speaker 1: from the treasury because he controls the Justice Department. Like
Speaker 1: we're going to figure out a way like this is
Speaker 1: again this is another conversation, but like the idea that
Speaker 1: the next Democratic president is just going to be like, well,
Speaker 1: the Justice Department is independent again and that's gonna prevent
Speaker 1: the next Trump from doing what he has done with
Speaker 1: the Justice Department seems a bit fanciful to me. I'm
Speaker 1: talking like like his story, like we have gone through
Speaker 1: in these last this term, especially like historic levels of
Speaker 1: corruption we have never seen in the United States of America,
Speaker 1: and so it seems like you'll need reform that is
Speaker 1: also will be reform for the history books that we've
Speaker 1: never seen in the United States of America too, And
Speaker 1: I worry that you'll get this like fucking mealy mouth,
Speaker 1: like you know, just bit by bit reform agenda that
Speaker 1: is just recycled from Democratic campaigns past.
Speaker 2: I think there's sort of two things in a play
Speaker 2: here that sometimes get conslated. One and I would say
Speaker 2: they are related to. One is reforming campaign finance, law
Speaker 2: lobbying just like government ethics, right, like akin to a
Speaker 2: version of what Obama ran on in a weight And
Speaker 2: when Democrats actually passed in two thousand and seven, I
Speaker 2: think they're six or seven we p and then there
Speaker 2: is like what do we do with the fact that
Speaker 2: we that our system is so filled with Swiss cheese
Speaker 2: that a bad person can exploit it with no consequences?
Speaker 2: Like how do you ran that in? What can you
Speaker 2: do to reign in presidential power? Like will a democratic
Speaker 2: president come in and be willing to rein in their
Speaker 2: own power in ways that would put them under more screen?
Speaker 2: And it's hard because the Supreme Court immunity decision makes
Speaker 2: it hard. Like you say, like what is the Like
Speaker 2: you could put in place a bunch of different disclosure
Speaker 2: laws or conflict ind interest laws that apply to the president.
Speaker 2: You make the Hatch Act apply to the president doesn't
Speaker 2: currently do There are things like that you could do,
Speaker 2: and it is but what do you do? What are
Speaker 2: the teeth right if the president just says fuck you?
Speaker 2: Like what actually can you do in a world in
Speaker 2: which the impeachment system does network. When I wrote my
Speaker 2: book on Trumping America in twenty twenty, I guess it
Speaker 2: came out twenty twenty, Yeah, right before the pandemic and
Speaker 2: before the pandemic, and one of the things like this
Speaker 2: is a big spend a lot of time working on
Speaker 2: this and why I thought Democrat, both politically, for the
Speaker 2: for the sake of the party, in the sake of
Speaker 2: the country. The next Democratic president should do this. The
Speaker 2: next Democratic president did not do this. But one of
Speaker 2: the things was repealing the OLC memo, the obviously legal
Speaker 2: countsl member that said that the president could not be indicted.
Speaker 2: Now the Supreme Court has because that that's one of
Speaker 2: the Then the Supreme Court just made that memo case
Speaker 2: law now, so you can't do that. But we do
Speaker 2: need to think, like this should be a big part
Speaker 2: of Project twenty twenty nine or whatever, is thinking about
Speaker 2: how we how we what like what lessons can we
Speaker 2: learn from all the bad shit Trump did and how
Speaker 2: can we stop future president because the system never anticipated
Speaker 2: someone is craven and corrupt as Trump.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the the easy way to say it and not
Speaker 1: the message you way to say it. But it's like
Speaker 1: you got to all the norms got to become laws
Speaker 1: codify the.
Speaker 2: President. Then that's that's the question. Like you can make
Speaker 2: the people around him, like there are all these things
Speaker 2: that you would want to do that are very hard constitutionally.
Speaker 1: What you have to do is is I think right
Speaker 1: into law because the loophole that the Supreme Court decision
Speaker 1: gives you is anything that is clearly not an official
Speaker 1: act he can be prosecuted for. And so you would
Speaker 1: have to make sure that certain things you have to
Speaker 1: put into a lot, that certain things that the president
Speaker 1: does are not are obviously not official acts in the legislation.
Speaker 1: I think that's I'm not a lawyer, obviously it's good
Speaker 1: enough for me. It feels like by then some smart
Speaker 1: lawyers and maybe Claude can help us figure this out.
Speaker 2: Anthropics, you really start paying for this?
Speaker 1: All right, Dan, we're gonna move on. But there's some
Speaker 1: breaking news on this IRS thing, right from me?
Speaker 2: A draft the case.
Speaker 1: Well, so ABC News is reporting that Trump is poised
Speaker 1: to settle the case and instead of the ten billion dollars,
Speaker 1: it's going to be one point seven billion dollars that
Speaker 1: he still gets. But he's saying it's going to turn
Speaker 1: into a one point seven billion dollars weaponization fund, so
Speaker 1: that people, I guess, can sue people who weaponized the
Speaker 1: government against Trump allies. And I'm sure there'll be a
Speaker 1: strict oversight over such a fund that of course does
Speaker 1: go to Donald Trump, and that's that's what will happen there.
Speaker 2: So it's a slush fund for Trump potentially his family
Speaker 2: and his friends. Uh yeah, that is about right, That
Speaker 2: is about right, good tax parent dollars.
Speaker 1: The compensation fund is believed to be the main condition
Speaker 1: for Trump to drop a series of legal blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: The settlement terms are expected to prohibit Trump from directly
Speaker 1: receiving payments related to those claims. However, entities associated with
Speaker 1: Trump are not explicitly barred from filing additional claim sources
Speaker 1: like his.
Speaker 2: Family and his business who also had their tax releases.
Speaker 1: The proposed funds, which would face significant legal hurdles, would
Speaker 1: draw money from the Treasury Department's judgment funds. One point
Speaker 1: seven billion dollars will be coming out of the Treasury
Speaker 1: in this scenario, going into some slush fund the Donald
Speaker 1: Trump controls is what.
Speaker 2: You need to know.
Speaker 1: Cool about christ So it is it is some combination
Speaker 1: of what we what we thought it might be and
Speaker 1: still yeah, yeah, it's still bad. Still a lot of money.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of money, one point seven billion dollars,
Speaker 1: just taking it out of their treasure.
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Speaker 1: So despite all of this, Republicans are still projecting confidence
Speaker 1: about the midterms, which of course could be bullshit. Of
Speaker 1: course they project confidence, but the one thing they can
Speaker 1: legitimately point to is the success they're having gerrymandering the
Speaker 1: maps courtesy of again the Supreme Court. Some new developments there.
Speaker 1: South Carolina now looks like it will redistrict, even though
Speaker 1: a handful of Republicans joined Democrats to vote down the
Speaker 1: idea earlier this week. The governor's going to call a
Speaker 1: special session that will apparently require only a simple majority.
Speaker 2: So that's not good news.
Speaker 1: Louisiana advanced its Plan two, but they're getting rid of
Speaker 1: one democratic district, not too so slight good news there
Speaker 1: on the democratic side. Maryland may now move to redistrict
Speaker 1: the cycle. After all, the Senate president there, who would
Speaker 1: oppose the idea is now and talks about it with
Speaker 1: Governor Wes Moore. So fingers crossed there. Mississippi and Georgia
Speaker 1: will both redraw their maps, but not till twenty twenty eight,
Speaker 1: so that's temporary. Good news, would be. Speaker Hakeem Jeffries
Speaker 1: has announced a no more mister nice guy approach, pushing
Speaker 1: every blue state to redistrict by twenty twenty eight and
Speaker 1: promising to shame any Democrat who resists. And he also
Speaker 1: is sharpening the rhetoric on Republicans. He promised this week
Speaker 1: to quote crush their souls. Okay, then there's Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: who popped up on an organizing call about redistricting with
Speaker 1: this advice.
Speaker 3: I think that we need an expanded playbook. This is
Speaker 3: a moment where they're are no bad ideas, no bad idea.
Speaker 2: Brainstorm is what I'd like to call it.
Speaker 3: We talk about what we need to do and think
Speaker 3: about doing around the electoral College. We talk about the
Speaker 3: idea of Supreme Court reform, which includes expanding the Supreme Court.
Speaker 3: We invite a conversation about multi members districts. Let's talk
Speaker 3: about state look for Puerto Rico and DC. We've got
Speaker 3: to neutralize these red states from cheating, including blue states
Speaker 3: expanding their maps.
Speaker 1: So that was Kamala Harris zooming in from nowhere. Let's
Speaker 1: have a let's have a no bad ideas brainstorm, Dan, Okay,
Speaker 1: do you have you.
Speaker 2: Been a part of many of them that it's not
Speaker 2: possible there are bad ideas in a brainstorm. I've heard
Speaker 2: many of them.
Speaker 1: There are many many Sometimes they sometimes they leave the
Speaker 1: brainstorm and then we're sat.
Speaker 2: In fact saying that just usuallylicits more bad ideas. People
Speaker 2: should have a little bit of fear of what they
Speaker 2: said just in a meeting.
Speaker 1: What is anyway talk to talk to Kamala Harris's team
Speaker 1: about the back draw anyway, This was.
Speaker 2: Not a media event. She was zooming into UH right Urge,
Speaker 2: which is an organization that recruits in trans women candidates.
Speaker 1: I believe so good she's out there chatting, we like it.
Speaker 1: What do you make of both the democratic counter attack
Speaker 1: plan in the short term and then some of the
Speaker 1: longer term UH stuff that Kamala was talking about there.
Speaker 2: We have to recognize that we are now because of
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court, we are now in a state of
Speaker 2: perpetual political warfare. The maps will be redrawn every cycle
Speaker 2: and at every time when there's a change in power.
Speaker 2: So if we have a traffect in Oregon now and
Speaker 2: we redraw the maps, Republicans get a triffective two years,
Speaker 2: four years, six years later, they'll redraw the maps again,
Speaker 2: and we're just going to live like this and it's
Speaker 2: going to be that way up until the moment Congress
Speaker 2: passes a ban on partisan jerry mannering. And so we
Speaker 2: have to approach this fight with the attitude I think
Speaker 2: he King Jarvison is bringing in it, which is we
Speaker 2: need a maximum approach. We have to use every single
Speaker 2: lever of power we have. If you if there's an
Speaker 2: opportunity to draw more Democratic districts and one of these
Speaker 2: blue states, we have to do it. If we have
Speaker 2: to repeal or find clever legal workarounds for anti jerry
Speaker 2: mandering laws and amendments, then we must do that, because
Speaker 2: as we can already see, Republicans are wasting no time.
Speaker 2: They're leaving no stone unturned to find extra seats. And
Speaker 2: we hate your I hate jerry manoring. You hate Jerry mannering.
Speaker 2: Democrats hate jerry mannering. This sucks like so the you
Speaker 2: know you guys joked about the or you discussed and
Speaker 2: joked a little bit about the the plan in Virginia
Speaker 2: to retire all the justices and put new ones in.
Speaker 2: And that does seem extreme, and was I think for
Speaker 2: a variety of reasons, uh, logistically unworkable this time.
Speaker 1: Honest reasons.
Speaker 2: Apparently yes, yes, but even I yes, it's confusing. But
Speaker 2: either that sort of idea, I hate to say, this
Speaker 2: has to be on the table. That idea is no
Speaker 2: dumber or worse than just packing the Supreme Court ads
Speaker 2: they've done in Florida and Utah in other places.
Speaker 1: Or like throwing out votes in an election that had
Speaker 1: already happened in Louisiana.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's like we just I don't want to
Speaker 2: do those things, but we have to be we have
Speaker 2: to think like that because we are. We're now in
Speaker 2: a total war for democracy. The Republicans are trying to
Speaker 2: they're just they're just eliminating black districts across the country.
Speaker 2: You know, when this is all said and done, thirty
Speaker 2: percent of the Black Caucus could either just they didn't
Speaker 2: lose election, their districts just be written out of existence.
Speaker 2: Because the pre Supreme Court says that racial jerrymandering was okay,
Speaker 2: and we have to have a very aggressive attitude a bed.
Speaker 2: So that's the short term. Over the long term, you know,
Speaker 2: this gets into the conversation we just had about how
Speaker 2: you reign in political power from you know, incruption from
Speaker 2: Trump is we do need to think about how when
Speaker 2: we have power, how to use that power to protect
Speaker 2: democracy and fight fascism. And the way to do that
Speaker 2: you have to make the country more democratic. That means
Speaker 2: getting rid of the filibuster. That means giving DC statehood.
Speaker 2: It means giving Puerto Rico the opportunity for state of shit.
Speaker 2: If the people of Venezuela want to join America. Giving
Speaker 2: Trump's report ratings right there, we'll take them too.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: The cool it is, you know, court reform, as Kama
Speaker 2: Harris mentioned, including an expansion or certainly turn limits, would
Speaker 2: be very helpful. And there are creative ways that I
Speaker 2: think you can get around some of the constitutional language
Speaker 2: on turn limits. But we all these things should be
Speaker 2: on the table because Republicans are exploiting the loopholes in
Speaker 2: our system, and they're doing it ruthlessly and relentlessly, and
Speaker 2: we have to find ways to and the system cannot work.
Speaker 2: The whole thing falls apart if the popular will of
Speaker 2: the people is denied because of a handful of justices
Speaker 2: who are put on the court by Donald Trump, a
Speaker 2: guy who only won the popular vote once. Over the
Speaker 2: course of you know, they're still ruling this way decades later. Like,
Speaker 2: we have to think really hard about how we reform
Speaker 2: our system and fix our democracy, and we should be
Speaker 2: willing to expand political capital to do that.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I don't think we should run on that message right now,
Speaker 2: That's not what I'm arguing, But I think when we're
Speaker 2: in power, we have to look at that very seriously.
Speaker 1: Well. But I also think there's an expectation setting here
Speaker 1: too that I think is a challenge because we just
Speaker 1: talked about and you just talked about sort of jerrymandering
Speaker 1: or redrawing maps. If we have a trifecta in a
Speaker 1: blue state and like the same breath as you know,
Speaker 1: Supreme Court expansion, right, And I think that we have
Speaker 1: to divide all of these reforms into reforms that we
Speaker 1: can do because we have power now in certain places,
Speaker 1: and reforms that we can only do if we a
Speaker 1: mass power that is much more power than we have
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 2: Which we can only do if we do the We
Speaker 2: can only do the latter if we do the former.
Speaker 1: Well, right, well, that's also true. I mean they go
Speaker 1: hand in hand. But like you know, you really can't
Speaker 1: blame any Blue states right now for except for Maryland.
Speaker 1: This this one guy in Maryland who's like the state
Speaker 1: Senate president I think, yeah, who has refused to do this.
Speaker 1: So as of right now in the calendar, like he's
Speaker 1: the only one who's not doing what he could do
Speaker 1: with the power that they have in Maryland. Right then
Speaker 1: you sort of wonder, like if you're looking back and
Speaker 1: it's too late now, but could Illinois have done redistrict
Speaker 1: in this time around if they jumped on it maybe
Speaker 1: like did Pritzker make a mistake there? I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know why they didn't do it, but like
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's too late now, but like that
Speaker 1: was one state Colorado too, Like did they miss the
Speaker 1: miss the chance on this? I do think there's a series.
Speaker 1: And then New York. I think there was like more
Speaker 1: of a legal thing. But look for between now and
Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight. You think I get yet New York,
Speaker 1: you got Illinois?
Speaker 2: I think you got.
Speaker 1: Wisconsin maybe, which is gonna be tougher because there's a
Speaker 1: Republican legislature there, But I don't know what Evers can do.
Speaker 1: Or Pennsylvania is an option, Pennsylvania is an option, Colorado
Speaker 1: will be an option.
Speaker 2: It's Maryland, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Colorado, New York, New Jersey maybe. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think I may be missing. Well, there's a list
Speaker 2: of state I think you'll get you well over a
Speaker 2: dozen new seats.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so all that, all those all those states
Speaker 1: got to move, for sure, And if they don't move,
Speaker 1: then they deserve all the pressure and all the criticism
Speaker 1: that they have coming to them for sure.
Speaker 2: This is hard because what happens sometimes when you redraw
Speaker 2: the districts is you take these compacted districts that off
Speaker 2: that are largely their urban districts, usually made up of
Speaker 2: a large segment of the black population they have, and
Speaker 2: then you you basically do the reverse of what Republicans do,
Speaker 2: which and then you divide that district in several ways
Speaker 2: and put some of those black voters into the into
Speaker 2: these these swing districts and make them more democratic. And
Speaker 2: you do and this is one of the things that
Speaker 2: has even New York has already set who already been
Speaker 2: reporting that New York may not take a maximus approach
Speaker 2: to this in twenty twenty eight because there's fear that
Speaker 2: will reduce New York's black representation in Congress. So we
Speaker 2: really have to wrestle with that and figure that out.
Speaker 2: But ultimately it's not good for anyone if Republicans just
Speaker 2: call control Congress add infinitum, because we don't draw the
Speaker 2: districts in the right way. Yeah, because you know, like
Speaker 2: you guys are doing the math on Tuesday's podcast, and
Speaker 2: you know, and I like, the political environment still suggest
Speaker 2: Democrats will take the majority, but this is a historically
Speaker 2: good political environment. We're not going to have that every time.
Speaker 2: And if we can only have the House when the
Speaker 2: president is at the Republican president's at thirty eight percent
Speaker 2: and saying insane shit all the time while involved in
Speaker 2: it protracted more in the Middle East, we're not going
Speaker 2: to have the House that often, which means we're not
Speaker 2: going to govern that often. It reduces the chance that
Speaker 2: a democratic president has a governing trifect to actually get
Speaker 2: shit done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I was, I was doing the math
Speaker 1: on this before we started, and I looked at the
Speaker 1: cook political and you tell me if my calculation is
Speaker 1: wrong on this. But if we if Democrats win all
Speaker 1: the toss ups and all the lean ours, which is
Speaker 1: pretty be pretty good. But like in a big blue
Speaker 1: you know, that means we get thirteen seats, We flip
Speaker 1: thirteen seats. And for that I was saying that if
Speaker 1: that's if Republicans then win all the likely ours and
Speaker 1: all the solid rs. And of course there are now
Speaker 1: some blue seats in solid R and likely are because
Speaker 1: of the because of the redistricting. But so like winning
Speaker 1: all the toss ups and all the lean ours and
Speaker 1: only netting thirteen seats is like not, it's not great.
Speaker 2: We didn't win all the lean rs and all the
Speaker 2: toss ups in twenty.
Speaker 1: Eighteen, right exactly, so it'd have to be a better
Speaker 1: environment than twenty eighteen, which it might be. But like
Speaker 1: still now to your to the broader national reforms, which
Speaker 1: again like we are not going to win this on
Speaker 1: a long term, on a state by state basis, Like
Speaker 1: you have to have national reforms. National reforms the only
Speaker 1: way now you know, federal legislation is the only way
Speaker 1: to stop jerry mandering everywhere it's the only way to
Speaker 1: change the electoral College, it's the only way to change
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. And in order to do that, it
Speaker 1: really comes down to, like, can we field candidates that
Speaker 1: win Senate seats in this cycle at least Alaska, Texas, Iowa, Ohio.
Speaker 1: And people might say, oh, those are some hard states.
Speaker 1: It doesn't get easier than those doesn't get easy. And
Speaker 1: so if we're fielding candidates who can't figure out a
Speaker 1: way to win in those states, and we're not focused
Speaker 1: on how to win in those states, then no one
Speaker 1: should be talking about all the other reforms because they're
Speaker 1: never going to get done. And one thing I do
Speaker 1: worry about is that for people who don't pay those
Speaker 1: attention to politics, they're like, well, why won't the Democrats
Speaker 1: pack the court? Why won't the Democrats do this? Why
Speaker 1: want the Democrats do this? Well, they can't because we
Speaker 1: didn't win the Senate, and we didn't win the Senate
Speaker 1: because we couldn't have a can We didn't get a
Speaker 1: candidate who could win Texas or could win Iowa, or
Speaker 1: so I only say that to tell people that, like,
Speaker 1: we really have to focus on winning very difficult states,
Speaker 1: which we have a good chance of doing this in
Speaker 1: this environment with these candidates Mary Peltola and Alaska and
Speaker 1: James Hillerico in Texas. You can go on and on,
Speaker 1: but like those are the kind of those are the
Speaker 1: states that aren't just nice to win, like we have
Speaker 1: to win if we ever hope to have these national reforms.
Speaker 2: There's a longer conversation and it's a quite depressing conversation
Speaker 2: about the state of the Senate map because if you
Speaker 2: sort of look at it.
Speaker 1: But it's like that's everything. That's all the stuff we're
Speaker 1: talking about, all the anger over the vs. The Voting
Speaker 1: Rights Act and the Supreme Court, all this shit, it
Speaker 1: all comes down to the Senate.
Speaker 2: Nop and I mean exactly right. And so if you
Speaker 2: look at the Senate map, I'm doing this off the
Speaker 2: top of my head, but there are only two Republicans
Speaker 2: in states like in set remaining in truly swing states,
Speaker 2: and it's Ron Johnson and Wisconsin and Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania. Yep.
Speaker 2: Because we have both senators in Michigan, we have both
Speaker 2: senators in Arizona, we have both senators in Georgia.
Speaker 1: And it's like, and this is the map in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six, where we are expanding into Alaska. This is
Speaker 1: why I think Mary Potola's race is so important. Like
Speaker 1: if we can now put Alaska in the column, then
Speaker 1: perhaps then if Murkowski retires at some point, maybe we
Speaker 1: can get the other seat there.
Speaker 2: So now we have that.
Speaker 1: But like it's it's everyone's looking at Texas, like, oh,
Speaker 1: Democrats always they always dream about Texas, but it never happens,
Speaker 1: and it's a lot it's really expensive. So it was like, well,
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of other options.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, like we're.
Speaker 1: Going to have to win Texas if we hope to
Speaker 1: survive as a democracy. Fortunately in Florida too, Like I mean,
Speaker 1: this is just unless we want a bunch of liberals
Speaker 1: move into Wyoming and fucking Montana.
Speaker 2: Which honestly, it's the highest leverage play that Democrats could do.
Speaker 2: Them just to move to Wyoming, move fifty thousand, one
Speaker 2: hundred thousand Californians to look Jackson's beautiful there to Wyoming,
Speaker 2: do it after the twenty thirty census is completed, so
Speaker 2: that we don't lose even more electoral votes, and then go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a you know what, No, hey, you know
Speaker 1: what this was a no bad ideas brainstorm there.
Speaker 2: You know, there could have been bad ideas, but there weren't.
Speaker 1: At least well, that's what we're gonna call it, that
Speaker 1: they could be bad ideas in there.
Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 1: one of the architects of the redistricting strategy, Trump political
Speaker 1: director James Blair, is about to take a leave from
Speaker 1: the White House to run the midterm operation full time.
Speaker 1: Like any good Beltweit strategists, He marked the occasion by
Speaker 1: conducting a lengthy interview with Dasha Burns at Playbook about
Speaker 1: his plans, which were then transcribed and he summed them
Speaker 1: up as attack, attack, attack, and his key quote swing
Speaker 1: voters already think the Democratic Party is too far left,
Speaker 1: and we're going to make sure voters know just how
Speaker 1: far left they are. They are woke, weak, and way
Speaker 1: too liberal. You get three w's, you always need a literation.
Speaker 1: He knew that liberal one at the end needed a
Speaker 1: way because you need the three w's. That's otherwise it's
Speaker 1: not a good slogan, and the whole country be reminded
Speaker 1: of that. He also told Doctor Burns that Democratic primaries
Speaker 1: and infighting are doing real damage to the party and that.
Speaker 2: He plans to capitalize on that.
Speaker 1: Seems like that's a play for social media to get
Speaker 1: everyone fighting even more, but we can leave that aside.
Speaker 1: If I'm not mistaken. Message box pro subscribers have already
Speaker 1: seen your take on this, Dan, But for those who
Speaker 1: have not visited messageboxpro dot com to lock in the
Speaker 1: special early sign up price before it's too eight of
Speaker 1: that for a organic plug.
Speaker 2: That's organic, and I'm going to make even organic in
Speaker 2: a second.
Speaker 1: Yes, how do you think Democrats should be prepared to
Speaker 1: respond to the week woken, way too liberal attack?
Speaker 2: Well, John, great question and great opportunity to talk about
Speaker 2: mesae box pro, So thank you for that. Wonderful. Some
Speaker 2: of you may remember a few weeks ago I lauched
Speaker 2: message box Pro, which is a subscription service for people
Speaker 2: who are working politics and communications at any level. And
Speaker 2: subscribers get weekly strategy memos from me, data driven insights
Speaker 2: on what to say, advice on how to get your
Speaker 2: message heard, pulling analysis, and access to a community of candidates, operatives,
Speaker 2: activists and organizers nerds, nerds. Some are nerds, some are
Speaker 2: quite cool. The real nerds are not subscribers for the
Speaker 2: word and we are up and running. We've already have
Speaker 2: strategy memos out on where swing voters get their information
Speaker 2: on how to construct a narrative, for a coherent, cohesive
Speaker 2: narrative for this election. You know what the latest pulling
Speaker 2: on the economy says.
Speaker 1: And what to do with it.
Speaker 2: And the message box Pro community is up and running,
Speaker 2: and it's truly amazing. If all these people in there
Speaker 2: every day, connecting, sharing best practices, They're posting their questions
Speaker 2: for me, I'm answering them every day. It's like, it's
Speaker 2: really awesome. I'm really excited about it. And as you mentioned,
Speaker 2: there is a special founding members discount of price of
Speaker 2: forty nine to ninety nine a month forever. It locks
Speaker 2: in forever, no matter how much Trump's racist prices and
Speaker 2: everything else. You get to lock this in this price in.
Speaker 2: They're only a handful of those left, so there is
Speaker 2: no better time to sign up than now. So go
Speaker 2: to message boxpro dot com. End of quasi organic plug.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm going to give a quasi organic plug on a
Speaker 1: plug here. I was doing a fundraising event where I
Speaker 1: was moderating for a couple house candidates in this cycle,
Speaker 1: and and they're in the you know, the red to
Speaker 1: Blue program, and they could they could flip their seats.
Speaker 1: And they said to the crowd that because the like,
Speaker 1: you know, the D trip offers them financial support and
Speaker 1: all the support that the D trip can, but like
Speaker 1: they're not getting detailed campaign advice. They're not getting detailed
Speaker 1: strategy advice. It is hard to hire polsters strategists, right,
Speaker 1: You've got your like very small team if you're running
Speaker 1: a house campaign. And so they were like, we listened
Speaker 1: to podzave America a lot to try to get like
Speaker 1: we to try to get advice. And I'm like, oh gosh, now,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, we gonna We're gonna make sure we get
Speaker 1: some no if we can't have too many no bad
Speaker 1: ideas brainstorms here. But our friend Dan here doesn't just
Speaker 1: spout off ideas on the pod. He's going to write
Speaker 1: them down in memos, precisely for candidates like this who
Speaker 1: can't afford to hire fancy consultants. But Dan can provide
Speaker 1: his wisdom in written form to all of you who
Speaker 1: are running for office, especially and that's our house candidates.
Speaker 1: What about people whore running for like local office and
Speaker 1: races that are even smaller than that, and and and
Speaker 1: they definitely can't afford to have these consultants. So I
Speaker 1: think it's a fantastic service that you're doing this. I
Speaker 1: think it's very much needed. And if you are someone
Speaker 1: who's running for office out there or working for someone
Speaker 1: who's running for office and think this would be a
Speaker 1: very very valuable use of your money.
Speaker 2: Well thank you for that double on quasi organic pluck.
Speaker 2: But now now I ask your original question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I forgot, forgot I ask the question.
Speaker 2: So let's the question relates to James Blair. Yes, woke
Speaker 2: week and way too liberal, that's it. And so basically,
Speaker 2: what James Blair is doing here other than just puffing
Speaker 2: his chest in a political interview, is trying to rerun
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty four strategy in twenty twenty six. Now
Speaker 2: I have bad news for mister Blair. Is not twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four anymore. The world has changed. His views of
Speaker 2: Trump have changed. In twenty twenty four, Trump was seen
Speaker 2: as strong. I'm seen as much stronger than Biden, much
Speaker 2: stronger than Kamala Harris. Democrats were seen as the extreme
Speaker 2: party that has flipped. Pluralities of voters now described Trump's
Speaker 2: leadership as weak. There's a Tip poll from last week
Speaker 2: which shows that a large number of Independence describe his
Speaker 2: leadership as week. He has not seen as a strong
Speaker 2: man anymore, in part because he is doddling around out there.
Speaker 2: He's not getting anything done, he's sleeping at events. He
Speaker 2: just seems distracted enough. He doesn't seem like a strong
Speaker 2: figure because he promised to take on the system and
Speaker 2: he really didn't do any of that. And even while
Speaker 2: I'm not saying the Democrats have we are associated with
Speaker 2: American flags, baseball, and apple pie right now, but voters now,
Speaker 2: because of the way Trump is governed, voters now see
Speaker 2: the Republican Party is more extreme In the Cook Political
Speaker 2: Report poll of the thirty two battleground districts, more voters
Speaker 2: are worried about Republican extremism than Democratic extremism. So, like,
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that this that this strategy can't have
Speaker 2: some some effect. It can. It's more likely to have
Speaker 2: an effect in ginning up GEOP turnout then persuading swing voters,
Speaker 2: but it is not. Maybe it's the only strategy available
Speaker 2: to them with a president with these approval ratings, saying
Speaker 2: on the dumb shitty saying, but it's not necessarily a
Speaker 2: winning strategy.
Speaker 1: You get one of these attacks if you're running in
Speaker 1: a Senate race or a house race, run a bunch
Speaker 1: of ads that you, you know, some crazy position you've
Speaker 1: taken in the past, and you're weak and you're two
Speaker 1: woke and all that kind of shit. Do you how
Speaker 1: do you respond? You respond to the attack, you ignore
Speaker 1: the attack, or you do the They're just doing this
Speaker 1: because they have nothing to say about the fact that
Speaker 1: you can't afford gas and rent and your mortgage.
Speaker 2: You don't do that last one. But I think the
Speaker 2: way to think about this is they we're six months
Speaker 2: from the election, there aren't really adds on the air.
Speaker 2: In any of these races. They've told us what the
Speaker 2: plan is, so you can prepare for it. So you
Speaker 2: spend that between now and then inoculating yourself against that attack.
Speaker 2: And there are a couple of ways to do that.
Speaker 2: One is, this is an attack on generic Democrats. Don't
Speaker 2: be a generic Democrat. Find ways to separate yourself from
Speaker 2: the party. You can do that going to the middle.
Speaker 2: You can do that, going to the left. Depending on
Speaker 2: your district, you can do that by criticizing the former president.
Speaker 2: You can do that by criticizing the leadership. Run again.
Speaker 2: Be willing to run against the democratic establishment. That will
Speaker 2: help inoculate you against an attack on generic Democrats. So
Speaker 2: that's one. Two is the way you demonstrate strength is
Speaker 2: not trying to talk tougher on immigration or crime than Trump,
Speaker 2: although you should. Those are issues in your race. You
Speaker 2: should have positions on them that show that you take
Speaker 2: people's concerns about them seriously. The way you show strength
Speaker 2: is to show that you are a fighter right. How
Speaker 2: you fight is more important than whether you fight after,
Speaker 2: you fight right or you fight middle. It is that
Speaker 2: you are fighting for something, So look for ways to
Speaker 2: highlight that. About yourself and go on offense and attack
Speaker 2: the other side as extreme and demonstrate their extremism.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, good advice and gets more of that
Speaker 1: advice at message box per dot com. All right, while
Speaker 1: we're talking about democratic strategy, there's been some developments around
Speaker 1: the DNC autopsy report in which we have taken great interest.
Speaker 1: The chair of the DNC less so The AP reporter
Speaker 1: on Wednesday that quote, Democratic operatives have begun informal discussions
Speaker 1: about recruiting a new chair, and that senior strategists have
Speaker 1: even approached our pal, Amanda Littman, founder of Run for
Speaker 1: something about the job, though she has declined. They also interviewed.
Speaker 1: The AP also interviewed current and former party officials who
Speaker 1: defended Ken Martin said his job is safe and are
Speaker 1: apparently mad at us for asking him why he hasn't
Speaker 1: kept his promise to release the autopsy. Then on Thursday,
Speaker 1: our friends at The Bulwark published a piece from former
Speaker 1: Biden Harris deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty titled Here's what
Speaker 1: I told the d n C autopsy. We've talked to
Speaker 1: Rob before. He's been on an offline. I feel like
Speaker 1: he's been on the pot at some point. Ye, it's
Speaker 1: a long piece, long long piece, but especially if you're
Speaker 1: working on campaigns, if you're an operative, if you're in
Speaker 1: the field, if you're volunteers. Plenty of interesting insights that
Speaker 1: we can get into, but one notable thing I want
Speaker 1: to highlight. Rob writes that his understanding of the autopsy
Speaker 1: mystery is that quote, no autopsy was released because there
Speaker 1: is no actual autopsy. The members of the autopsy team
Speaker 1: were in over their heads and struggle to put the
Speaker 1: thing together. What they produced was a loose summary of
Speaker 1: a bunch of interviews that were largely done without talking
Speaker 1: to the campaign or the big spenders.
Speaker 2: End quote.
Speaker 1: Now, Tommy and love it and I sort of talked
Speaker 1: about this a little after the Ken Martin interview. Tommy
Speaker 1: had heard similar reports. I had heard similar reports from
Speaker 1: people from different people. So this is just more corroboration
Speaker 1: of that from Rob who was interviewed by the autopsy
Speaker 1: team and then his autopsy. We know what he told
Speaker 1: him was never win anywhere, and so he published this piece.
Speaker 1: Your reactions to Rob's piece and also the continued frustrations
Speaker 1: with Ken Martin and the missing autopsy.
Speaker 2: This is the great title for a Hardy Voice Book.
Speaker 2: The Autopsy DNC Ken Martin conversation is so frustrating because
Speaker 2: it's very clear what happened here right like there is
Speaker 2: Ken Martin promised to do an autopsy. The people who
Speaker 2: he picked through the autopsy did a piss poor job.
Speaker 2: There is no autopsy. He looked at that. What that
Speaker 2: was say we cannot release this, it would be embarrassing.
Speaker 2: And now he's under He's out there saying we can't
Speaker 2: release the autopsy, but there's no autopsy, so we can't
Speaker 2: solve the problem because what he can't do because he
Speaker 2: has not been Like the easiest thing to do would
Speaker 2: be to say to do it right the first time,
Speaker 2: which would have been cool.
Speaker 1: That's number one, Yeah, number one.
Speaker 2: Failing that, to just be honest and say it needs
Speaker 2: more time, and you would have taken some shit for that,
Speaker 2: but that is better. But then to say it's finished,
Speaker 2: it's in a drawer. It's incredibly useful. Look at the
Speaker 2: playbook we use based on it, Well, will you release it? Well,
Speaker 2: we can't release it because it doesn't exist, and so
Speaker 2: we're just like it's a never anything. He's he's basically
Speaker 2: lied himself into a corner. Here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah he has. And this is what this is
Speaker 1: what's so enraging about it, because, like you said, would
Speaker 1: he have taken some shit if when they said the
Speaker 1: autopsy was going to be released he said, you know what,
Speaker 1: it's it's not ready. We need more time. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a whole Yeah. But like if I had interviewed
Speaker 1: him then and he said that to me, even if
Speaker 1: he said it to me when I interviewed him a
Speaker 1: couple weeks ago, if he was like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I know, I said, we were going to release it.
Speaker 2: I know people want it.
Speaker 1: We're gonna the midterms are coming and we're going to
Speaker 1: be working on it, and then you know, the day
Speaker 1: after the midterms we will release full one because it'll
Speaker 1: be you know, we're going to head into primary season
Speaker 1: then and then for campaign running for president. They can
Speaker 1: learn lessons then and we're gonna do that. I would
Speaker 1: have been like, oh, okay, cool, instead of what he's
Speaker 1: dealing with right now. And it is the thing that
Speaker 1: everyone's like, oh, the autops the autopsy. Who's obsessedive the
Speaker 1: autopsy is not the fucking I mean, it is the point,
Speaker 1: because I think it is. It is very useful but
Speaker 1: it is the like the theoretically useful, but it's the
Speaker 1: dishonesty that is that is really crazy right now, and
Speaker 1: on on Rob's thing, like, so what we have here
Speaker 1: and this is Rob's thing in relation to to Ken's answers,
Speaker 1: we have a single senior Biden Harris official wrote his
Speaker 1: own autopsy that includes more info and more lessons than
Speaker 1: anything Ken Martin's DNC has released. And you know, contrary
Speaker 1: to what Ken tried to tell me, like the world
Speaker 1: hasn't ended, Democrats aren't tearing themselves apart over it. Rob
Speaker 1: writes that some of his own colleagues like disagree with
Speaker 1: some of the things that he concluded in there. Fine,
Speaker 1: they can write their own people can debate it, figure
Speaker 1: out the best way to move forward so we can win.
Speaker 1: We're all big boys and girls like we can all
Speaker 1: be trusted with the information. And what it seems like
Speaker 1: for every time Ken Martin talks about this and now
Speaker 1: some other DNC officials former and current that are defending him,
Speaker 1: is that like they don't believe that we should be
Speaker 1: trusted with the information. They don't think that we should
Speaker 1: have it. They they in Kemarton either things that we're
Speaker 1: stupid or that we don't deserve the full truth, and
Speaker 1: either option is completely unacceptable for the person who's running
Speaker 1: the Democratic National Committee. You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so the whole thing is just so stupid
Speaker 2: and pointless because we didn't have to be here, Like
Speaker 2: what matters? A lot of people say, like, what are
Speaker 2: you going to learn from this autopsy? But even it
Speaker 2: was perfectly done, that's to me beside the point. Yes,
Speaker 2: what bothers me about this is that the way the
Speaker 2: autopsy has been handled is indicative of the larger problems
Speaker 2: at the DNC. And you hear this from a lot
Speaker 2: of people in the party, donors, operatives, elected officials. Very
Speaker 2: few people are happy with the way things that are
Speaker 2: going to the DNC. They're not happy with how the
Speaker 2: money's been spent, and I'm happy with little's being raised
Speaker 2: and we, like Ken Martin with you can debate all
Speaker 2: the factors of it, but there is dissatisfaction. There is,
Speaker 2: and there are challenges in the leadership and is formas
Speaker 2: a topics, So like what do you do about that?
Speaker 2: Can you get a new DNC chair? I don't know,
Speaker 2: It's not a particularly easy thing to do. Apparently the
Speaker 2: big problem is not the rules in getting rid of
Speaker 2: the DNC chair. It's finding someone who will take the
Speaker 2: job because the job sucks and it's very very hard,
Speaker 2: and Ken Martin was delt a very very very tough
Speaker 2: hand with and you know, it's just the whole thing
Speaker 2: is dumb.
Speaker 1: Well, I think the problems with the DNC and the
Speaker 1: lack of transparency and the dishonesty from Ken are also
Speaker 1: I think emblematic of a larger issue with the Democratic establishment.
Speaker 1: And this goes back to Rob's piece. Rob, who was
Speaker 1: one of Biden's most senior staffers, writes in the piece,
Speaker 1: quote President Biden never should have run for reelection in
Speaker 1: the first place.
Speaker 2: End quote.
Speaker 1: Now, like credit to Rob for admitting that, and also
Speaker 1: for ignoring that when he publicly made the case after
Speaker 1: the Biden Trump debate that Biden was still the only
Speaker 1: person who could beat Trump. And the rest of us
Speaker 1: who thought otherwise were you know, self important, bedwetters, self.
Speaker 2: Important podcasters were all civic words, and.
Speaker 1: I was combining to it was also and then everyone
Speaker 1: else is the bed wedding brigade. So beyond podcasters, anyone
Speaker 1: who thought that, anyone who thought that maybe that debate
Speaker 1: was bad and maybe Joe Biden should set aside was
Speaker 1: part of the bed wedding brigade, which I guess included
Speaker 1: most Americans and basically and robbed his credit. And the
Speaker 1: thing says he was basically just trying to be a
Speaker 1: team player because he was on the campaign. It's like,
Speaker 1: that's fine. But the recenting I bring that up is
Speaker 1: I promise not to relitigate old beefs, but I don't think.
Speaker 2: Let's do Let's do this entire section on Ken Martin
Speaker 2: and the guy who wrote the email that called this
Speaker 2: self important podcasters. But the goal is not to relitigate
Speaker 2: on beat.
Speaker 1: No, and this is what everyone should read, right. And
Speaker 1: I want to talk about some of robs insights because
Speaker 1: I think they're great, and Rob and I have talked
Speaker 1: about it privately, so it's not like this is the
Speaker 1: first time this is happening. But I do not think
Speaker 1: that the Democratic establishment has fully reckoned with the magnitude
Speaker 1: of the credibility problem that it has with voters. And
Speaker 1: a big reason why is that a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: them tried to tell us with a straight face that
Speaker 1: Joe Biden was fine and the debate wasn't that bad,
Speaker 1: and he was still the only person who could beat
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. And now Ken Martin is trying to tell
Speaker 1: us with the state straight face that actually he has
Speaker 1: been releasing the lessons from twenty twenty four and we're
Speaker 1: all assholes for wanting the full autopsy. And the DNC's
Speaker 1: finances are totally fine. And if people in the Democratic
Speaker 1: establishment who work on campaigns, candidates, officials, if they want
Speaker 1: to keep doing that shit, fine, But don't be surprised
Speaker 1: when people don't believe what you say about politics. It's
Speaker 1: just like and like it's like there is a credibility
Speaker 1: problem here. And I get we've been on the inside
Speaker 1: and I get it, and you're on a team and
Speaker 1: you just you've got to like anyone who criticizes you,
Speaker 1: their bedworders and all that bullshit, but like you have
Speaker 1: to forget about the people criticizing. You have to think
Speaker 1: about beyond that what the voters think, and don't treat
Speaker 1: voters like they're stupid. Like people know when you're lying
Speaker 1: to them. Like everyone, like everyone knew that Ken Martin
Speaker 1: wasn't telling the truth in that interview. It was pretty obvious.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that there's there are two different things. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that was the big problem. There's a different way in
Speaker 2: which the interview goes, where Ken Martin comes on. He
Speaker 2: gives his answer and is not defensive about it and
Speaker 2: and doesn't keep trying. He basically kept trying to tell
Speaker 2: you that he actually, for all intents and purposes released
Speaker 2: the autopsy, so you should stop asking about it. And
Speaker 2: that's that's how he ended up down this rabbit hole
Speaker 2: which you can kno get himself out of. I guess
Speaker 2: the only thing I would add this and if you
Speaker 2: want to talk, if you want to talk about the
Speaker 2: recommendtions and Rob's report, which I think it is quite good,
Speaker 2: but I just think the one just to put a
Speaker 2: button on it. And I say this and with good nature,
Speaker 2: is that Rob who call this self important podcasters in
Speaker 2: that email discuss the autopsy today on his podcast.
Speaker 1: Which Rab is self aware enough to make jokes about,
Speaker 1: which is great. Yes, which is which is totally fine. Again,
Speaker 1: it's call us whatever the fuck you want, but it's
Speaker 1: just weird about that.
Speaker 2: The whole, the whole great for us in the long run, right.
Speaker 1: Joe Biden not stepping aside cost us all a lot, right,
Speaker 1: all of us and not forget about us, but lots
Speaker 1: of people. I'm fine, but like the whole country collectively, collectiveness,
Speaker 1: and that's what I met, Yes, collectively, And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, part of the autopsy is not like, oh
Speaker 1: well Biden's gone whatever, but it is the the Ken
Speaker 1: Martin thing. And I think the reason I was so
Speaker 1: exercised about it is that, like it was like PTSD
Speaker 1: from twenty twenty four, where the Democratic Party is like,
Speaker 1: all is fine, don't believe your eyes, everything is good here,
Speaker 1: leave it to us, we got it, and you're all
Speaker 1: you're all bedwetters. So what do you think some of
Speaker 1: some of their recommendations and insights from Rob's memo, Like
Speaker 1: what's what stood out at you?
Speaker 2: So what I worried a little bit about just sort
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty four lessons in general in the autopsy
Speaker 2: is twenty twenty four is somewhat of a black Swan event. Right.
Speaker 2: You have Biden, you have this older candidate who does
Speaker 2: not leave, then face plants on a debate stage, and
Speaker 2: then they just throw the vice president with one hundred
Speaker 2: seven days to go against someone like Donald Trump, who
Speaker 2: then gets shot in the ear.
Speaker 1: Like you know, it's just you know, like every like
Speaker 1: a tough series of events, tough.
Speaker 2: Series events that are not gonna you know, knock on
Speaker 2: what happened again? And so like, there is this world
Speaker 2: in which you could take the wrong lessons from something
Speaker 2: like that, or you could just throw up your arms
Speaker 2: and say it was one hundred and seven days we
Speaker 2: were fucked. Inflation was high. What I thought was useful
Speaker 2: about Rob's was I think some of the lessons in
Speaker 2: there are useful for campaigns going forward in terms of
Speaker 2: how you think about communicating in this media age, Like
Speaker 2: even in you know, even he makes a point that
Speaker 2: the campaign spent half as much on digital s on TV,
Speaker 2: which was a dramatic shift from twenty twenty when it
Speaker 2: was seventy thirty digital seventy thirty TV digital, I believe.
Speaker 2: But TV was sort of the sort of the still
Speaker 2: the dominant medium, right. It was really how it drove
Speaker 2: is where the campaigns, the messaging they truly believed in went.
Speaker 2: It sort of was how they thought about the campaign strategy.
Speaker 2: And I thought just thinking about like, you know, almost
Speaker 2: not not getting rid of all TV ads, but shifting
Speaker 2: the focus more digital. The one thing I thought he
Speaker 2: said the end that was very smart was and this
Speaker 2: is something that I think it's smart because I agree
Speaker 2: with it, have been arguing for it for years. Is
Speaker 2: that you have to digital. Should no longer be an
Speaker 2: apartment in a campaign. It's all digital, and I think
Speaker 2: that we really have to just think that way. And
Speaker 2: there's a lot of very specific things about how you
Speaker 2: deal with creators and how to think about branding and
Speaker 2: all of that, and something that there are unanswerable questions
Speaker 2: about how and we're getting really nerd to hear how
Speaker 2: you think about digital persuasion in an algorithmically powered world
Speaker 2: that only shows people on the content they already agree with.
Speaker 1: Yes, we had the debate and million times throughout the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four campaign about what is polling well and
Speaker 1: testing well? And the people who test these ads and
Speaker 1: they test it with like not just three hundred voters
Speaker 1: in some shitty public poll, but like thousands and thousands
Speaker 1: of voters and like with you know, and they're like,
Speaker 1: these are these are really great testing messages. And yet
Speaker 1: you know, Kamala Harris talking about fascism or this or
Speaker 1: that or brat summer all the bullshit, and Rob talks
Speaker 1: about this in terms of brand and I hate the
Speaker 1: word brand. It's icky, but I think it is useful
Speaker 1: in this context. Yeah, yeah, I get it, but he says,
Speaker 1: at one point, you know, we could have focused more
Speaker 1: on prescription drugs or whatever the top polling issue was,
Speaker 1: but that would have been driving a message when we
Speaker 1: should have been building a brand. A brand is a
Speaker 1: story about who you are and what you believe. That
Speaker 1: everything else, the ads, the organic contact, the surrogates, the
Speaker 1: creator appearances, the events levels up to I think this
Speaker 1: is I think that is so important, and I worry
Speaker 1: sometimes that when we and this is like I think
Speaker 1: a legacy of when we grew up in politics, which
Speaker 1: was like you get the polling back, you get the messaging.
Speaker 1: These are the top polling messages. We must get these
Speaker 1: messages out because they work with voters. But voters are
Speaker 1: never going to fucking hear these messages anymore if they
Speaker 1: are boring, if they don't tell a story about the candidate.
Speaker 1: Maybe they'll hear the messages, but they won't be persuasive
Speaker 1: as to voting for the actual candidate because they may
Speaker 1: like the message, but they may not like the candidate
Speaker 1: delivering the message, or may not trust the candidate delivering
Speaker 1: the message, and so everything has to level up to
Speaker 1: who is this person, what do they stand for? Why
Speaker 1: are they running for president? So much of what Rob's
Speaker 1: memo made me think is that like just the importance
Speaker 1: of the candidates themselves.
Speaker 2: Like.
Speaker 1: I know, I know, but like you think that's fucking obvious, Dan,
Speaker 1: but it's clearly not. It's clearly not in our party
Speaker 1: because we do all this stuff around the candidates, give
Speaker 1: them good ads, good messaging, this that the campaign staff
Speaker 1: we blame for this, that, But it's like if you don't,
Speaker 1: I mean, at one point he talks about he says,
Speaker 1: digital presence is a direct reflection of a candidate's brand.
Speaker 1: It's how voters come to understand who a candidate is.
Speaker 1: For this to work, the candidate needs to be actively
Speaker 1: engaged in the planning and execution of their social media presence.
Speaker 1: And Rob tells a story about when AOC endorse Biden.
Speaker 1: He like talked to AOC for like forty five minutes
Speaker 1: about and she had like detailed ideas about digital, about
Speaker 1: how she wanted her, the videos they did with her,
Speaker 1: what she wanted to say, all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And then he said, when he worked for Beto back
Speaker 1: when Beto ran, Beto was like the same way when
Speaker 1: when Beto was like going viral and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. And this is the same thing that I
Speaker 1: say a million times with speechwriting, right, which is like,
Speaker 1: because Barack Obama was so involved in his speeches and
Speaker 1: because I spent enough time with him, that's the only
Speaker 1: reason I was able to help him deliver good speeches.
Speaker 1: And I think on a lot of campaigns the candidate
Speaker 1: looks to the staff and the consultants and is like,
Speaker 1: all right, make me a winner. And I just don't
Speaker 1: think you can do that now. I think if you
Speaker 1: were going especially if you're going to run for president,
Speaker 1: you need to know exactly what you believe, exactly why
Speaker 1: you want to be president, and you need to be
Speaker 1: able to communicate that, if not first to the American people,
Speaker 1: to at least your staff on a regular basis.
Speaker 2: And I just don't think that has happened in a while.
Speaker 2: This has been an unpopular suggestion that I often offered
Speaker 2: a candidate's when I talk to him, and this tries
Speaker 2: the staff fucking bananas. But if you were thinking of
Speaker 2: running for president right now, and you do not have
Speaker 2: TikTok Instagram on your phone and you're not going to
Speaker 2: YouTube and just watching it, then you should not run.
Speaker 2: And maybe you want to put on a burner becase
Speaker 2: you don't necessarily want the Chinese government Sociallarry Elson to
Speaker 2: have all your shit. But point bing is you have
Speaker 2: to be you have to be fluent in the language
Speaker 2: of today's media ecosystem to understand it. And it can't
Speaker 2: just be that you're you know, Rob makes this in
Speaker 2: the point, You can't. It can't just be that your
Speaker 2: staff walks in and gives you a quick five minute
Speaker 2: briefing and a memo on what you're supposed to do
Speaker 2: because you don't understand it. When they relaunched the hqbak
Speaker 2: out as Headquarters or whatever it is now, that was
Speaker 2: the Kamlay HQ and Kamala Harris did this briefing, she
Speaker 2: did a video for it. She clearly had no idea
Speaker 2: what it was or what it was going to do.
Speaker 1: But that is unfortunately, that is a lot of Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris's appearances.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to swim in the sometimes very rough
Speaker 2: and dirty seas of today's Internet to be able to
Speaker 2: truly communicate.
Speaker 1: I was going to say when you said, sit down
Speaker 1: and make sure you have all those on your phone. Yes.
Speaker 1: I think the other thing you need to do is
Speaker 1: before you even meet with your advisors. Like, and this
Speaker 1: sounds maybe cheesy and a little antiquated, but I don't know,
Speaker 1: write down, type out why you want to be president,
Speaker 1: what you want to do. Do you have a few
Speaker 1: big ideas, like actual big ideas, not like I want
Speaker 1: to grow the middle class. I want I want to
Speaker 1: bring down costs?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: No, like like people didn't like it. It was controversial.
Speaker 1: Everyone knew what it was. By the end, freeze the
Speaker 1: rent free public buses like like, uh, if you want
Speaker 1: someone more moderate, Gretchen Whitmer when she was running in Michigan,
Speaker 1: fix the damn roads, right, Like, just pick fucking something
Speaker 1: that you actually want to do that you will be
Speaker 1: able to talk about and communicate about in an authentic
Speaker 1: way on all of those platforms that you are also
Speaker 1: watching because they're on your phone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you do not know why you're running, you
Speaker 2: can't answer that. What the what is known once known
Speaker 2: as the Ted Kennedy question because he failed to answer it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: in the eighty race, then you shouldn't run but then
Speaker 2: then all the time will tik. That's not gonna help you.
Speaker 1: Then you're just consuming content, You're just doom scrolling. Anyway,
Speaker 1: go read it. It's at the bulwark. I'm glad Rob
Speaker 1: did it. Good for him, and other people should do
Speaker 1: the same, because I guess we're not going to get
Speaker 1: it out of the DNC. All right, one last story
Speaker 1: before we go. The new gold statue of Donald Trump
Speaker 1: that was gifted to the president by crypto grifters and
Speaker 1: blessed by his spiritual advisor and pastor, who has repeatedly
Speaker 1: claimed that quote, this is not a golden calf, but
Speaker 1: rather a symbol of resilience and gratitude to God for
Speaker 1: sparing Trump's life from a sniper's bullet in Butler, all
Speaker 1: of that is real. That is a real thing that happened.
Speaker 1: And earlier in the week, Trump himself couldn't make it
Speaker 1: to the statue dedication, which was I believe it his
Speaker 1: durl golf Club, but he did call into the ceremony
Speaker 1: with this observation.
Speaker 4: It's everybody who's taking pictures of it, everybody who's people
Speaker 4: told me that it's unbelievable.
Speaker 2: All day long, they're taking pictures.
Speaker 4: They stand up next to it and they have been
Speaker 4: picture taking.
Speaker 1: It is unbelievable. He is correct about that. I would
Speaker 1: definitely take a picture next to it. The Palm Beach
Speaker 1: Post interviewed a bunch of PGA pros who were at
Speaker 1: Durrell for a tournament. Best response, it's big and gold
Speaker 1: about all I got. It's his place. He can do
Speaker 1: whatever he wants.
Speaker 2: I guess that's true. It's big and gold. He can
Speaker 2: do whatever he wants.
Speaker 1: What did you think of this one?
Speaker 2: Just so fucking weird. It's so weird, Like I want
Speaker 2: every person in America to see this, like it is
Speaker 2: a just the idea that the president just I want
Speaker 2: you to think about this for a second. We're at war,
Speaker 2: prices are high, going great. Generally, presidents, even in the
Speaker 2: best of times, are pretty busy. So there's a scheduling meeting.
Speaker 2: They talk about the things the president could do. And remember,
Speaker 2: when you're scheduling Trump, you have to scheduled around six
Speaker 2: to eight hours.
Speaker 1: Of Fox News viewing and truth socially and truth.
Speaker 2: Well, the true Schols really happens after working hours when
Speaker 2: he might be sleep and you decide this request comes
Speaker 2: and you're like, you know what could be good use
Speaker 2: to the president's time. You know what wouldn't be fucking
Speaker 2: weird at all? You know what would not would definitely
Speaker 2: be good politics and not at all contribute to the
Speaker 2: idea that he's a narcissist who cares only about himself.
Speaker 2: Let's have him call into the ceremony about the gold
Speaker 2: statue delivered from God of the President at his golf club.
Speaker 1: It's so many parts of the story are funny. They like,
Speaker 1: the people who did the statue, created the statue, used
Speaker 1: it to sell a mean coin called Patriot Coin. This
Speaker 1: is the crypto time. And then the pastor, who's a
Speaker 1: hit I guess, became his spiritual advisor.
Speaker 2: I just did itat doing a bang up job of that.
Speaker 1: Sign me up. Just did an Isaac Chottner interview, which,
Speaker 1: oh man, he asked him, like, how'd you get into this?
Speaker 1: How'd you get to become a Trump supporter? And he
Speaker 1: said so early on, I was there and the Lord
Speaker 1: told me. Then the first thing the Lord told me
Speaker 1: was to show the world that this man's not racist.
Speaker 1: And then and then at the end Isaac asim asks
Speaker 1: them about the the ai image of Jesus and what
Speaker 1: he thought about that. And he said, well, again, I
Speaker 1: was one of the first people to reach out to
Speaker 1: the president and say that was bad. Please take that
Speaker 1: down as fast as possible. And Isac said, what did
Speaker 1: he say? He said he thought it was a doctor,
Speaker 1: but again he's no theologian. And then Isaac says, I'm
Speaker 1: not a theologian and I knew it wasn't a doctor.
Speaker 1: And the pastor just goes great, great.
Speaker 2: So good. So I'm so glad we can last still laugh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, just throw the statue up there with
Speaker 1: the ballroom in the arch and the four hundred million
Speaker 1: dollar Katari jet and the ten billion dollars he's putting
Speaker 1: in his pocket from the irs.
Speaker 2: Just oh good, free idea for democratic tatro consultants is
Speaker 2: of all a little ai so.
Speaker 1: Okay, follow your local cot your pearls.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: Also, it is illegal in some states, but we need images,
Speaker 2: and maybe it's mean you just need a fucking photoshop.
Speaker 2: You just need images of vulnerable Republicans worshiping at the
Speaker 2: Trump statue. It's a good idea, I think Jade Vance
Speaker 2: and or Marcot Rubio and you know what, not even
Speaker 2: message back pro that shit's free.
Speaker 1: I mean it is now you just said it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're not putting this behind the paywall. Lucky you guys.
Speaker 1: All right, that's our show for today and uh, in
Speaker 1: case you want more Dan and more great advice, He's
Speaker 1: back in your Feet on Sunday with our pal David Axelrod.
Speaker 1: I can't wait for that episode.
Speaker 2: Excited.
Speaker 1: Have a good weekend, everyone by Everyone Podsive America is
Speaker 1: a Crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher,
Speaker 1: Saul Ruben, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari, with Ree Cherlin,
Speaker 1: Elijah Cone and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt de Groate,
Speaker 1: Ben Hefcote, Jordan Cancer, Charlotte Landis Krol pel Avive, David Toles,
Speaker 1: Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is
Speaker 1: probably unionized with the Writers Guild of America East