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Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau, I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
Speaker 2: On today's show, Donald Trump's had some major accomplishment on affordability,
Speaker 2: as only he knows how by canceling it. We'll talk
Speaker 2: about why and why the President is fighting again with
Speaker 2: Republicans in Congress. We'll also talk about Zoron Mamdani's House
Speaker 2: candidates going three for three in New York's primaries on
Speaker 2: Tuesday and why that's causing some Democrats to panic and
Speaker 2: Republicans to smile. We'll do a quick check in on
Speaker 2: JD Vance's charm offensive and whether it's winning over his wife.
Speaker 2: And then Gina Inojosa, the Democrat running to be governor
Speaker 2: of Texas, stops by to talk about her race against
Speaker 2: Greg Abbott and why she might become Texas's first Democratic
Speaker 2: governor in nearly forty years. Before we start, please consider
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Speaker 2: You get ad free episodes of this pod and all
Speaker 2: your favorite Crooked pods. Plus you get subscriber only shows
Speaker 2: like Polar Coaster with the One and Only Dan Pfeiffer
Speaker 2: and I hear you guys are back at it. You
Speaker 2: did another Polar Coaster this week, Right, we.
Speaker 3: Did it came out this week. We talked a little
Speaker 3: bit about the New York racis You and I we
Speaker 3: also going to talk about We also talked about the
Speaker 3: politics of abortion four years after Dobs.
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Speaker 2: check it out Crooked dot com slash friends. All right,
Speaker 2: let's get to the news. Donald Trump made some real
Speaker 2: progress this week trying to sabotage his Republican majority in Congress.
Speaker 2: Minutes before he was scheduled to appear at a signing
Speaker 2: ceremony for a landmark housing affordability bill that passed with
Speaker 2: huge bipart some majorities, the President announced that it was
Speaker 2: canceled and that he won't be signing the housing legislation
Speaker 2: until Congress passes the Save Act which is the bill
Speaker 2: that would require all Americans to show passports or birth
Speaker 2: certificates in order to register to vote, and has failed
Speaker 2: to pass in the Senate five times now. The housing
Speaker 2: bill would reduce barriers to building new homes and limit
Speaker 2: the ability of big investors to buy up single family homes,
Speaker 2: ideally lowering the price of housing down the road. But
Speaker 2: alas Trump doesn't want to give anyone the impression that
Speaker 2: he and his party are focused for even a second
Speaker 2: on affordability, so no housing bill this week. Trump elaborated
Speaker 2: on his thinking in an Oval Office appearance a little
Speaker 2: later in the day. Let's listen.
Speaker 4: Basically, it's the Save America Act. Everybody wants it. Everybody is,
Speaker 4: including Democrats. I'd set them on signing the housing bill.
Speaker 4: I want to see what happens. We say, Look, the
Speaker 4: housing bill is, how's it? I made billions of dollars
Speaker 4: with housing. I know housing better than anybody maybe anywhere.
Speaker 4: It's all about the interest rate. Lower the interest rates.
Speaker 4: You can have all the housing you want. You have
Speaker 4: to understand I don't want to have I don't want
Speaker 4: to hurt people that own houses too. Affordability. We're doing great.
Speaker 4: The Democrats gave us a tremendous affordability problem, and we're
Speaker 4: reducing prices.
Speaker 2: Over I'm a billionaire. I made a fortune on housing,
Speaker 2: and we got to keep We got to help other
Speaker 2: people who already own homes.
Speaker 3: Take it from me, successful slum lord on how to
Speaker 3: deal with housing prices.
Speaker 2: So, considering that the housing bill will become law in
Speaker 2: ten days even without Trump's signature, and that if he
Speaker 2: does decide to veto it, Congress has the numbers to
Speaker 2: override a veto. What was Trump thinking when he decided
Speaker 2: to do this? What's the what's going on here? Dan?
Speaker 3: You know there's been this debate over the years. Trump
Speaker 3: is crazy. You're crazy like a fox. This is just crazy. Like,
Speaker 3: just put yourself in the position of Republicans, right, you're
Speaker 3: a vulnerable Republican. You're like a Susan Collins or a
Speaker 3: Dan Sullivan, or you're one of these Republicans like Mike
Speaker 3: Lawler in a purple district. You wake up on Wednesday morning,
Speaker 3: here's what your day looks like. Democrats in the middle
Speaker 3: of a giant fight because we've elected some socialists in
Speaker 3: New York City that you're about to have a signing
Speaker 3: ceremony for a massive bipartisan bill that would they would
Speaker 3: be signed by Donald Trump, but written in part by
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Warren that will address housing prices. It'd be a real,
Speaker 3: actual tangible accomplishment. You could take the voters to say, like,
Speaker 3: I'm trying to do something to deal with your cost
Speaker 3: of living crisis. And instead of that, Donald Trump, just
Speaker 3: minutes Beforehandson's had an insane truth demand cancer in the
Speaker 3: signing ceremony, stopping on both the democrats bad message the
Speaker 3: Republican's good message, because he has a near fatal attraction
Speaker 3: to a bill that no one likes and if it
Speaker 3: were to pass, we make it harder for Republicans wh
Speaker 3: win elections.
Speaker 2: It is, it is wild, and that he just keeps.
Speaker 2: First of all, let's just talk about the Save America Act,
Speaker 2: which he has called it. It was the Save Act,
Speaker 2: then he changed it to the Save America Act. It's
Speaker 2: also supposed to like ban mail in voting nationwide. I
Speaker 2: think that's part of it too, or that's like one
Speaker 2: of the add ons that he included himself. So I
Speaker 2: don't know why he's so, I mean, I know why
Speaker 2: because he thinks that like it's going to help them
Speaker 2: rig the elections and win. But it is wild to
Speaker 2: me that no one has told him, None of his
Speaker 2: political advisors have told him that actually, this bill would
Speaker 2: probably hurt Republicans because it would make it harder for
Speaker 2: the lower income Americans, much of many of whom vote
Speaker 2: for Donald Trump and vote for Republicans now to register
Speaker 2: to vote because not everyone has their passport, lying around,
Speaker 2: not everyone has their birth certificate, lying around. Republicans run
Speaker 2: around saying that this is only about like showing your
Speaker 2: license and showing some form of ID, and isn't that
Speaker 2: easy to do? And that's not actually what the bill does.
Speaker 2: The bill is much more comp makes The bill makes
Speaker 2: voting and registering to vote much more complicated than that.
Speaker 2: I mean, it.
Speaker 3: Would end in under current form basically end online voter
Speaker 3: registration and automatic voter registration. We've talked about this before.
Speaker 3: Not that many Americans have majority Americans do not have passports.
Speaker 3: The ones who don't have passports are just unfortunately working
Speaker 3: class and didn't go to college, which has been the
Speaker 3: core of the Trump base. But it is like I
Speaker 3: just so, there's there's a bunch of different things going
Speaker 3: on here. It can't pass, right they tried several times.
Speaker 3: It cannot pass there, it doesn't have the there are
Speaker 3: sixty votes, obviously, and there run fifty votes to eliminate
Speaker 3: the filibuster. And then even if it were to pass,
Speaker 3: it would be bad for Republicans. And at no point
Speaker 3: in these various junctures does Trump seem to understate like
Speaker 3: it's just it's like, it's true, it's delusional. The whole
Speaker 3: thing is ilutionial. And it seems his upset with this
Speaker 3: seems genuine. He seems to. Maybe it's because it's something
Speaker 3: he wants it he can't get. That's what bothers him,
Speaker 3: because he like, up until this point with this Republican Caucus,
Speaker 3: he's been with the exception of the E. Fsteine files,
Speaker 3: what he has wanted he has got. You want to
Speaker 3: confirm a bunch of fucking dunderheads to be in charge
Speaker 3: of the military and health, the human services, will do that.
Speaker 3: You want to us to stand idly by while we
Speaker 3: prosecute people, will do that. But here's the thing he
Speaker 3: wants and he cannot have, and it seems to be
Speaker 3: driving him even more bananas than usual.
Speaker 2: I also think that all all these things he wants
Speaker 2: to do with voting in the election. He is being
Speaker 2: told or has been also told by the courts that
Speaker 2: he can't do via executive order, but you can tell
Speaker 2: that if he doesn't get the same back pass, he's
Speaker 2: still going to try to do a lot of this
Speaker 2: shit around the election, which should alarm everyone. Of course.
Speaker 2: On the housing bill, though, like the thing is going
Speaker 2: to become law. In fact, right before we started recording,
Speaker 2: Mike Johnson said that they will be transmit he talked
Speaker 2: to Trump and that they will be trans admitting the
Speaker 2: legislation to Trump. So I assume, although I shouldn't assume,
Speaker 2: but seems seems like he might just sign it after all.
Speaker 2: But even if he doesn't, it becomes law. Like great,
Speaker 2: it's it's good legislation. His opportunity to take credit for
Speaker 2: it is sort of gone now. And it's not like
Speaker 2: people are going to feel the effects of this housing bill,
Speaker 2: certainly not by the midterms, maybe not for a couple
Speaker 2: of years, because really it's just sort of reducing barriers
Speaker 2: to building more affordable housing and sort of changing some
Speaker 2: of the formulas where the federal government gives money to states,
Speaker 2: and now it's going to be based on you know,
Speaker 2: whether they've actually produced more housing and built more housing
Speaker 2: so they can still take credit for it. But I
Speaker 2: don't think Trump's going to be taking credit for it.
Speaker 3: But even then, so the when you like, we should,
Speaker 3: we'll get into this. But as we know, a bill
Speaker 3: that does not actually impact people's lives has limited political impact.
Speaker 3: But the moment when people pay attention is the signing
Speaker 3: ceremony ten days from today Thursday is the fourth of
Speaker 3: July weekend. It seems like a bad time to get
Speaker 3: attention for your bill.
Speaker 2: Well. Also, he apparently the Wallsrey Journal has him saying, uh,
Speaker 2: Trump saying to someone one of his advisors at my rallies,
Speaker 2: no one cares about the housing bill at my rallies.
Speaker 2: But when I say save America, then every they can't
Speaker 2: sit down. And then apparently punch Bowl has four sources
Speaker 2: saying that that Trump said to Mike Johnson directly, no
Speaker 2: one gives a shit about housing.
Speaker 3: Yes, I remember he said that. He said that a
Speaker 3: few months ago.
Speaker 2: Like literally, like affordability is the top issue. And then
Speaker 2: when you dive into affordability, like sometimes it's groceries and gas,
Speaker 2: sometimes it's housing, but housing is I think it's like
Speaker 2: one of the maybe the top two or three concerns
Speaker 2: of most American voters.
Speaker 3: And particularly younger voters. Like this shows up in focus groups.
Speaker 3: It shows it like, yes, is it true that people
Speaker 3: are not cheering for the twenty first century Road to
Speaker 3: Housing Act? Of course, would it be helpful for are
Speaker 3: Republicans and Democratic incumbents to go to voters and say,
Speaker 3: here is a thing I a bipartisan accomplishment I had
Speaker 3: that is addressing your concern even if you're not feeling it. Absolutely,
Speaker 3: And Trump is just making that messier for Republicans because
Speaker 3: he can't. He's having some sort of insane temper tantrum
Speaker 3: over a bill that can't pass.
Speaker 2: After canceling the bill signing, Trump did attend his previously
Speaker 2: scheduled lunch with Senate Republicans, which went about as well
Speaker 2: as you can imagine given the circumstances. According to Senator
Speaker 2: John Kennedy, Trump was quote mad as a murder hornet
Speaker 2: and berated Republicans for not supporting him on an iron vote,
Speaker 2: which then led to a shouting match with Bill Cassidy,
Speaker 2: who Trump recently drove from office. CNN reports that Trump
Speaker 2: told Cassidy to sit down Cassidy refused and raised his voice.
Speaker 2: Trump called him a lunatic. Cassidy then referred to Trump
Speaker 2: as brother, and Trump told him he wasn't his brother.
Speaker 2: Eventually sat down. John Kennedy later said that the meeting
Speaker 2: was a success because quote no one got stabbed, which
Speaker 2: is an excellent bar to set. Trump also apparently isn't
Speaker 2: done trying to force Republicans to eat shit on Iran.
Speaker 2: The administration just ask Congress for eighty eight billion dollars
Speaker 2: in funding, which would mostly help pay for the war.
Speaker 2: How do you think that's going to go over, Dan?
Speaker 3: Well, before we get to the war funding in this
Speaker 3: meeting and the punch bowl reporting on it and punch
Speaker 3: Bawl generally gets like a full live texting of these
Speaker 3: sorts of things. It seems like no one pushed back
Speaker 3: on Trump on the Save Act even though every Republican center,
Speaker 3: with the possible exception of Mike Lee and maybe Rick Scott,
Speaker 3: no it can't pass. None of them would say it
Speaker 3: to Trump's face, which is why they're in this mess
Speaker 3: to begin with, which is like a pure sign of
Speaker 3: weakness and failure from John Thune. Yeah, like you have
Speaker 3: him in the room. This is the big you can't
Speaker 3: pass anything the House. It's why we should mention Trump's
Speaker 3: got to run so chened up on this that Anna
Speaker 3: Pauline A Luna has stopped will not allow anything to
Speaker 3: pass on the House floor until the Senate passes the
Speaker 3: same deck, which is something that it doesn't make a
Speaker 3: lot of constitutional sense.
Speaker 2: Shot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's like they can't pass the rule, they
Speaker 3: can't pass anything. They're trying to pass through appropriation bills
Speaker 3: the entire they they have to go home on Friday
Speaker 3: because they can't do anything. And uh, and she's demanding
Speaker 3: that they attach the Save Act to either the FAISA
Speaker 3: Bill or the Defense Authorization Bill, which the Senate will
Speaker 3: then take out in both those cases. But so the
Speaker 3: whole thing is, you have Trump has got to win
Speaker 3: chin up about this. No one will, but no one
Speaker 3: will say to his face why this can't work. And
Speaker 3: it's one thing for his like terrible slavish, obsequious advisors
Speaker 3: to not say it. But here are members of Congress,
Speaker 3: senators who are not up for reelection this year, maybe
Speaker 3: some of them are not up for reelection ever again,
Speaker 3: who are incapable of mustering the courage to say to
Speaker 3: one man a simple math fact.
Speaker 2: And it's like they could have even they could have
Speaker 2: even talked beforehand and said, all right, I'm gonna bring
Speaker 2: it up, but back me up if I do strength
Speaker 2: and numbers still nothing still like Bill Cassidy, I guess
Speaker 2: got up and yelled at him about the Iran war powers.
Speaker 2: Vote yeah, and then and then changed his vote because
Speaker 2: because the White House afterwards like gave him a briefing
Speaker 2: that he wanted and he and then he was like
Speaker 2: felt sad that he raised his voice. I'm like, the
Speaker 2: guy cost you your job. You're not gonna be a
Speaker 2: senator anymore because of this man, for for the for
Speaker 2: for I guess voting for impeachment the second time. Apparently
Speaker 2: Trump in the meeting too, is like all the people
Speaker 2: that voted for my impeachment, voted to convict me, are
Speaker 2: gone now. And then like he looked over at Lisa Murkowski,
Speaker 2: who was just like sitting there in the corner. He's like,
Speaker 2: accept her. Unbelievable, do sus A Collins Iff have for that? Uh? Oh? Interesting?
Speaker 2: Did she vote for the second she had to vote
Speaker 2: for the second impeachment? Maybe he may.
Speaker 3: Maybe look in fairness, we have barely covered the main
Speaker 3: Senate race this year. So probably.
Speaker 2: Maybe Susan Collins got smart and just didn't go to
Speaker 2: the lunch, you know that she probably didn't go the Like,
Speaker 2: if I were Susan Collins, I would stay clear of
Speaker 2: any anywhere where John Donald Trump was, Like, that would
Speaker 2: just be that's got to be a base, like a
Speaker 2: campaign one oh one kind of thing. Yes, So here's
Speaker 2: the thing now with this Trump and the GOP Congress,
Speaker 2: I'm wondering, like how much all this matters because not
Speaker 2: many actual work days left between now and the midterms.
Speaker 2: They're going to go home for the fourth of July break,
Speaker 2: they're going to come back. There's going to be August recess,
Speaker 2: then they come back, then everyone's campaigning, and then it's
Speaker 2: November before you know it. Trump seems intent on sabotaging
Speaker 2: any chance of anything passing before election day. I see it.
Speaker 2: It seems hard to believe that this eighty eight billion
Speaker 2: dollar war funding supplemental is going to pass, even though
Speaker 2: they thought they were really clever and included some abola
Speaker 2: funding in it to try to like get Democrats to
Speaker 2: vote for it. It doesn't seem like anything else, Like
Speaker 2: it doesn't seem like the same America Act is going to pass.
Speaker 2: But then the question is, like does any of that matter?
Speaker 2: What do you like in terms of the politics of
Speaker 2: the midterms.
Speaker 3: It's an interesting question because I don't think there's any
Speaker 3: sort of bill, even this housing bill Republics could pass
Speaker 3: that would dramatically change the political dynamics here. Look, I
Speaker 3: think if you're an incumbent member of Congress and you
Speaker 3: can pass something that addresses people's number one concern and
Speaker 3: you can talk about that on the trail or in
Speaker 3: a debate or in an ad that's better than nothing.
Speaker 3: And so this is an opportunity cost for the way
Speaker 3: Trump stepped on the housing bill. What I think probably
Speaker 3: matters here is they're going to need to pass this
Speaker 3: supplemental which is politically toxic. You know in that CBS poll,
Speaker 3: sixty nine percent that people think the war hasn't been
Speaker 3: worth the cost. We haven't even paid the eighty billion
Speaker 3: dollars yet, so when you start paying the eight a
Speaker 3: billion dollars, number is going to get worse. And so
Speaker 3: they need and it's it'll be on reconciliation, So they
Speaker 3: need fifty votes. And in our old world we used
Speaker 3: to be like, well, Susan Collins doesn't have to vote
Speaker 3: for it, and she'll be fine. But now you got
Speaker 3: a bunch of other Republican senators. You have Dan Sullivan,
Speaker 3: you have John Houstad. You got a bunch of people
Speaker 3: who are gonna have to probably cast a vote here
Speaker 3: and that's gonna be unpopular. You need everyone to do
Speaker 3: it because you're gonna you'll probably get Fetterman. I guess,
Speaker 3: so maybe you can lose three Republicans. Yeah, but that'll
Speaker 3: be it.
Speaker 2: It's good. Also, there's also a government funding deadline. By
Speaker 2: the way, I was going to.
Speaker 3: Bring that up too, is that that's the real that's
Speaker 3: looming here right before the election.
Speaker 2: It's looming. We got a Loomer.
Speaker 3: We're already looming. It's over the June.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's September thirtieth. There's a government funding deadline. So
Speaker 2: you got that. You got this war funding supplemental nothing
Speaker 2: that anyone wants to pass, that's for sure.
Speaker 3: If I was Donald Trump and I cared passionate about
Speaker 3: election integrity, one thing I would do is demand that
Speaker 3: I would suggest that I wouldn't sign a government funding
Speaker 3: bill unless they include unless they passed the Save Act
Speaker 3: I'm just an idea, just an idea, I'm sure. But
Speaker 3: does it make it to his ears.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that's already on a notepad somewhere Dan or
Speaker 2: whiteboard in the White House for sure, No, I think.
Speaker 2: And the other the other challenge here is I think
Speaker 2: they thought that this eighty eight billion dollar war funding
Speaker 2: supplemental would like they waited until after they thought the
Speaker 2: war was over, and then so they could sell it
Speaker 2: as like, oh, this is just backfilling, you know, like
Speaker 2: now we just it's for future conflicts and now our
Speaker 2: military is depleted and we need and what are you
Speaker 2: going to do now? You know? Except the war doesn't
Speaker 2: seem to be over. There was another tanker that was
Speaker 2: attacked by an Iranian drone. Today it does not seem
Speaker 2: like the traffic. The traffic has increased through the Strait,
Speaker 2: but it is not anywhere near back to normal levels.
Speaker 2: I believe, like the Chevron is saying the gas prices
Speaker 2: will be elevated for a while, Trump's flipping out about that.
Speaker 2: Now he's promising to go after price gouging gas companies
Speaker 2: or open like a DOJ investigation, which, as we know
Speaker 2: from the Bide administration works so well we tried.
Speaker 3: We tried that newbom of years us too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it never works, but you say it any and
Speaker 2: so he's going to have to deal with that. Gas
Speaker 2: prices are going to be still high and so when
Speaker 2: So that's going to make the eighty eight billion dollars
Speaker 2: look even worse to voters.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, I mean it's it's terrible. Honestly, it's
Speaker 3: probably would have been better to do it when the
Speaker 3: war was going on, so you could make it be
Speaker 3: about protecting the troops. And instead it's just it's like,
Speaker 3: here's the bill has come due for this unfun thing
Speaker 3: that no one wanted and everyone hated.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and uh and by the way, we're we've cut
Speaker 2: all your medicaid too and everything else in the government.
Speaker 2: So good luck with that.
Speaker 3: But we do we do have money for ballrooms and algae,
Speaker 3: the world algae. I mean we as what's we're some
Speaker 3: better for the world algae.
Speaker 2: It really does make you think, like when these Republicans
Speaker 2: hit the trail in the fall, like they don't have
Speaker 2: much to say except that democrats are as our next topic,
Speaker 2: Democrats are all crazy socialists, Like I don't know what
Speaker 2: else they can say about themselves and what they've done
Speaker 2: in Congress. I don't really imagine anyone talking about this
Speaker 2: housing bill, because, like you said, if the housing bill
Speaker 2: hasn't really had any effect on housing prices, I don't
Speaker 2: think that's gonna and very well with people.
Speaker 3: They're gonna they will do, and it's not gonna work,
Speaker 3: and it's gonna be pretty pitophon and it is like
Speaker 3: leading with your chin. But they will talk about the
Speaker 3: tax provisions and the big beautiful builthy no tax on tips,
Speaker 3: the Social Security stuff, tax cuts middle class, which will
Speaker 3: then allow every Democrat to point out that most of
Speaker 3: the tax cuts went to billionaires and corporations, and that
Speaker 3: we are paying for those tax cuts for billiness corporations
Speaker 3: by cutting healthcare, food assistants, closing rural hospitals, et cetera.
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Speaker 2: Well, before we get too excited about what that midterm
Speaker 2: might look like, let's talk about what's going on on
Speaker 2: the Democratic side. Speaking speaking of inter party turmoil, we
Speaker 2: got some fresh drama brewing thanks to the good people
Speaker 2: of New York City who had quite a primary on Tuesday,
Speaker 2: a slate of three candidates endorsed by Zorn Mamdani won
Speaker 2: their Democratic primaries in deep blue House districts. In the
Speaker 2: seventh district, Democratic socialist Claire Valdez won the open seat
Speaker 2: over a pretty progressive opponent endorsed by the retiring Democratic
Speaker 2: member of Congress. In the tenth district, progressive City Comptroller
Speaker 2: Brad Lander defeated incumbent Dan Goldman in a race that
Speaker 2: was largely about Israel. Both men are Jewish. Lander ran
Speaker 2: as a self proclaimed liberal Zionist, but hit Goldman on
Speaker 2: voting against legislation to block military aid to Israel and
Speaker 2: taking money from pro Israel lobbying groups. And then the
Speaker 2: biggest upset of the night, in another race that was
Speaker 2: largely about Israel, four term Representative Adriano Espiat, head of
Speaker 2: the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the first undocumented immigrant to
Speaker 2: serve in Congress, lost his Harlem Bronx district in an
Speaker 2: upset to a leftist community organizer named Daria Eliza Avila Chevalier,
Speaker 2: a Democratic socialist who also believes in abolishing prisons, police
Speaker 2: and all deportations. Now, there were plenty of other primaries
Speaker 2: in New York and elsewhere on Tuesday, where mainstream and
Speaker 2: moderate Democrats not only one but in some cases fended
Speaker 2: off more progressive challengers. But to give everyone a flavor
Speaker 2: of how the DSA victories are landing in the world
Speaker 2: of politics, here are reactions from James Carville, Zoron Mamdani
Speaker 2: and Hickeem Jeffries.
Speaker 6: And Everybody's always said, no, no, we're coalition. We're a
Speaker 6: big camp and there's some there's just some ship that
Speaker 6: I can't be in the same camp with. Let's negotiate
Speaker 6: to terms of ASCHUSM. Yeah, maybe we can, we can
Speaker 6: part under some kind of advantageous turns for both of us.
Speaker 6: But I'm done. I'm not in that political party.
Speaker 7: What is the Democratic Party if not its voters? And
Speaker 7: what we saw yesterday evening were Democrats across the city
Speaker 7: turning out and voting for a new kind of politics.
Speaker 6: You can't you can't think this is uh, this is
Speaker 6: a positive development in New York politics?
Speaker 2: Can you?
Speaker 3: And all they'll just you know, Dems will be Dems
Speaker 3: or something like that.
Speaker 7: I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't see how you can say that.
Speaker 8: You know, you need to reject.
Speaker 3: You need to reject those things, I think all.
Speaker 8: First of all, I've clearly rejected those things. That's number one,
Speaker 8: number two, and my record speaks for itself. This is
Speaker 8: not a DEMS will be DEM's uh situation. Donald Trump
Speaker 8: is the president of the United States of America right now,
Speaker 8: are you kidding me? I'm happy to talk about primary
Speaker 8: elections in one of the bluest cities in the country.
Speaker 8: At the end of the day, listen off, focus is
Speaker 8: going to be on ending this national nightmare in this
Speaker 8: country that America is suffering.
Speaker 2: Okay, your reaction to the results, and then we can
Speaker 2: do the reaction to the freak out. And I know
Speaker 2: you wrote a wonderful message box about this today, so
Speaker 2: thank you. Tell us about it.
Speaker 3: Sure, So let's just start with the elections themselves. No
Speaker 3: one should dismiss this. Like two incumbents losing election on
Speaker 3: the same night is a big deal. Since nineteen forty six,
Speaker 3: so from ninety six to twenty twenty four, more than
Speaker 3: ninety eight percent of incumbents have won renomination. Well in
Speaker 3: the House, so it is in the House. So it
Speaker 3: is like it is very rare for members of Congress
Speaker 3: who lose their primaries. Two losing on one night, one
Speaker 3: of them being the chair of the CHC, and then
Speaker 3: specifically losing to a political novel us with a I
Speaker 3: would say, a colorful history of online posts. But O,
Speaker 3: they just needm to be in vogue this cycle for
Speaker 3: Democrats like that, that's a big deal and we shouldn't
Speaker 3: dismiss it. It is a I would say the Lander
Speaker 3: Goldman race is a little different in the sense that
Speaker 3: Lander is a city wide elected official with high who
Speaker 3: ran from Ayre's high name id and the endorsement in
Speaker 3: full support of the very popular mayor democratic socialist mayor
Speaker 3: of the city. And in each of these races are
Speaker 3: a little different in what drove it. But I think
Speaker 3: the thing we should take away is, like so much
Speaker 3: else that's happening in this country, like this is happening
Speaker 3: when when progressive speed establishment candidates in the second District
Speaker 3: of Maine, in the California race, or in Vegas one
Speaker 3: Graham Plattner forcing uh forcing Janet Mills out of the race,
Speaker 3: like there's a giant warning sign for the democratic establishment
Speaker 3: here where the support of people like Schumer or even
Speaker 3: Akeem Jeffries. It's certainly not an asset in your campaign.
Speaker 3: It may be detriment. It is very clear that the
Speaker 3: groups on the left, Justice, Democrats, Democratics, Social so America,
Speaker 3: our Revolution are out organizing, out fundraising, out working, out
Speaker 3: maneuvering the traditional party institutions. Right. That is happening. They
Speaker 3: have captured the energy. They are being more creative, they'll
Speaker 3: be more strategic, they'll be more aggressive. And if you
Speaker 3: were someone in the democratic establishment, you should be deeply
Speaker 3: concerned about what this says about where the party is,
Speaker 3: what the standing of the party is, what the ability
Speaker 3: of the party infrastructure is to actually win elections. So
Speaker 3: this is a big deal. Now to a Keem Jeffrey's point,
Speaker 3: this is taking place in a city that Kamala Harris
Speaker 3: won by thirty eight points and what was a bad
Speaker 3: year for Democrats, right, particularly in a city like New York,
Speaker 3: and so this is a very very very democratic city.
Speaker 3: And all across the country you're seeing, yes, you're seeing
Speaker 3: progressive candidates win, and you're seeing progressive candidates lead, like
Speaker 3: Abdula said, in Michigan according to the most recent poles.
Speaker 3: But you're also seeing moderate candidates in Alaska, North Carolina.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's fat to call shared Brown
Speaker 3: on moderate, but he's certainly not a democratic socialist. He's
Speaker 3: an economic populist. And you saw in New York, you know,
Speaker 3: just on that very same day, in like New York seventeen,
Speaker 3: one of the most important districts in the country for
Speaker 3: a democratic balus, you have a more moderate veteran candidate
Speaker 3: win district. That's a Mike Lawler, that's Kate Connolly who
Speaker 3: who won that primary. And so you're seeing it's like
Speaker 3: a there is a mixed picture, but there is in
Speaker 3: all the races, but there is true. It is very
Speaker 3: true that there is an antipathy throughut the establishment. We
Speaker 3: can talk about why that is. There is more energy
Speaker 3: on the left, and there is sort of greater tactical,
Speaker 3: strategic and organizational energy and success among the groups on
Speaker 3: the left.
Speaker 2: I think that's all right. I also think it's useful
Speaker 2: to sort of define what the freak out is about,
Speaker 2: because it's even more it's even narrower, I think than
Speaker 2: just like you know, there's there's some progressives winning in
Speaker 2: places and DSA places and moderate even just the three
Speaker 2: races we're talking about here from Tuesday, and we're talking
Speaker 2: about three races in three house races, and in one
Speaker 2: of those races, Clarvel does seems like a normal DSA
Speaker 2: candidate in the vein of an AOC or or a
Speaker 2: member of the squad right we talked about Brad Lander.
Speaker 2: Lander is basically like a standard Progressive Democrat.
Speaker 3: The staner in New York City Progressive demisape.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but and also has said, like you know, after
Speaker 2: he won, was like, I want to go help frontline
Speaker 2: members who are out there, and I hope some of
Speaker 2: the moderates come help me. And I've helped moderates before,
Speaker 2: and so like, that's that's Brad Lander. Really. Here, the
Speaker 2: panic is over Darieliza of Vila Chevalier, and I will
Speaker 2: just say she might be the most left wing candidate
Speaker 2: to ever win a Democratic primary in our lifetime. There's
Speaker 2: been a lot of focus on her old tweets, which
Speaker 2: she has deleted and mostly apologized for. I'm fine with that.
Speaker 2: My general position is to give people a chance who
Speaker 2: want to take back something they said or posted. Certainly
Speaker 2: would love to take back things that I've posted. And
Speaker 2: I also think that like some of her tweets have
Speaker 2: been taken out of context and exaggerated. Here's where I
Speaker 2: have a problem. She has not apologized for attending an
Speaker 2: anti Israel rally on October eighth. October eighth, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: a rally that was condemned by Zoron Mumdani AOC and
Speaker 2: Brad Lander. We were just talking about who actually left
Speaker 2: the DSA because it promoted that rally where attendees chanted
Speaker 2: that Hamasa's resistance was justified the day after October seventh,
Speaker 2: the day after they slaughtered a thousand Israelis, And to
Speaker 2: this day she still defends attending that rally. The other
Speaker 2: problem I have she sat for an interview with the
Speaker 2: New York Editorial Board last week last week where she
Speaker 2: said she's against all deportations, She's for open borders because
Speaker 2: quote bordering is a very modern construct. Actually the borders
Speaker 2: are in our hearts and our minds. She wants to
Speaker 2: abolish prisons and refused to say when asked, she's got
Speaker 2: four different chances on this, refuse to say that a
Speaker 2: convicted murderer should be sentenced to any jail time at all,
Speaker 2: And they kept giving her another chance to like, are
Speaker 2: you sure, but what happens to the murderer that just
Speaker 2: convict it nothing. Now, maybe she turns over a new
Speaker 2: leaf in Congress and like her voting record doesn't match
Speaker 2: some of these more extreme positions. I hope so. But
Speaker 2: I think the reason I bring this up is because
Speaker 2: when Democrats get questions about this, I think the answer
Speaker 2: is easy and important to give, which is that she
Speaker 2: currently holds a range of views that go from maronic
Speaker 2: to abhorrent, and not only those views not aligned with
Speaker 2: most Democrats in the country, nearly all democrats in the country,
Speaker 2: all elected democrats, actually most elected Democratic socialists, But like,
Speaker 2: I don't even think they align with like a lot
Speaker 2: of the people who probably voted for her, And so
Speaker 2: like I think people should just you just got to
Speaker 2: say that, And I don't think you lump her. I
Speaker 2: think it. I think it does a disservice to the
Speaker 2: other progressives and the other even DSA members to pretend
Speaker 2: that she is part of this like there's new energy
Speaker 2: and it's great and whatever, and it's like no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: It's one thing to have these views in the past
Speaker 2: and be like, you know what I've learned, I've grown
Speaker 2: what she said about summer for tweets, But to sit
Speaker 2: there a week ago and be like, yeah, no prisons,
Speaker 2: no borders, no police.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing. Also, who cares well?
Speaker 2: Like but I already see people doing the like you know, like, well,
Speaker 2: we gotta understand the energy. No, no, we gotta understand
Speaker 2: the energy with a lot of these candidates she is.
Speaker 2: That was a mistake and like mom, Donnie endorsing her
Speaker 2: also probably a mistake.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you'll notice that when Berney Sanders did
Speaker 3: his congratulatory tweet afterwards, he congratulated Brad Lander and Clara Valdes.
Speaker 2: Oh he did, because Bernie's fucking smart. That's why.
Speaker 3: I mean, those are the two I those are two
Speaker 3: he specifically endorsed. But he did, he did two, not three.
Speaker 3: But also, she's one member of Congress, right right, this
Speaker 3: is the voter's picked in two years. Someone's gonna the
Speaker 3: opportunity to challenge her. Maybe of Congress and she's a
Speaker 3: productive member. Maybe she's not, doesn't But it's it's just.
Speaker 2: Like I think I'm not I'm not saying I'm not
Speaker 2: saying it's the end of the world. I'm saying that
Speaker 2: I actually think it's very easy here. Oh what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: What don't seem like if she is a She is
Speaker 2: about to be the biggest celebrity on the right of
Speaker 2: all times. She's going to She's already like starring on
Speaker 2: Fox in every fucking segment, and it's going to be
Speaker 2: like that forever. And you know what, most people when
Speaker 2: they hear her, there's tape of her saying all these
Speaker 2: things last week. When they hear that, they're gonna be like,
Speaker 2: this is fucking nuts. And then if they go to
Speaker 2: Democrats and be like, what do you think and Democrats
Speaker 2: are like, Ah, it's not a big deal. Everyone's freaking
Speaker 2: out over nothing, then you would not you would not
Speaker 2: blame the voter for being like, well, that's weird. Why
Speaker 2: wouldn't you just say it's crazy.
Speaker 3: The Republicans will try to make her a celebrity of
Speaker 3: face of the party. I think they're going to really
Speaker 3: struggle to pick an unelected member of Congress is to
Speaker 3: face of the party. When they have struggled to make
Speaker 3: AOC or Nancy Pelosi or someone else to face of
Speaker 3: the party, say they let's say, let's say it comes
Speaker 3: up like his come up, and to make an interview
Speaker 3: if you're a member running in a district. Frankly, but
Speaker 3: strictly a frontline member in a purple district or a redistrict.
Speaker 3: There's nothing, there's no greater gift than the opportunity to
Speaker 3: distance yourself from Yes party.
Speaker 2: So that's why I said that.
Speaker 3: I think yes, I like for sure, I think that
Speaker 3: they're the freak out. There's a couple let's try to
Speaker 3: like break like the freak out is. It's is not
Speaker 3: just about her. The freak out's about a few things
Speaker 3: that are sort of political and institutional. One of them
Speaker 3: is there's always this fear that Democrats are going to
Speaker 3: nominate candidates too liberal to win the general election. That
Speaker 3: is not a fear here, no, right, these are some
Speaker 3: of the most democratics the country. They're all going to Congress.
Speaker 3: So that's and that we are not seeing a situation
Speaker 3: where currently we'll see what you know, people are going
Speaker 3: to have an argument about Maine, about the main Senate,
Speaker 3: but that we have not as of yet. For the
Speaker 3: most part, we have not been the democratic voters, not
Speaker 3: the institutions, not the not the groups anyone, not the
Speaker 3: party apparatus. The voters are not picking candidates who may
Speaker 3: be too liberal to win. The two positive possible exceptions
Speaker 3: there are Randy Viegas, which is that Digital c picked
Speaker 3: a different candidate in that race, and then Matt Dumlup
Speaker 3: instead of Baldacci, the son of the former governor in
Speaker 3: Main second district. We probably were running the Main second
Speaker 3: district under any scenario, you need a very very good
Speaker 3: year for that. That's really like only that's.
Speaker 2: What it's Jared Golden had not retired, right, Jared Jared.
Speaker 3: Golden is like Joe Manchin.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: The only person who could win that was probably Jared Golden.
Speaker 3: The other fear is that this is evidence of like
Speaker 3: an opera, a Tea Party like moment for the party,
Speaker 3: and there are it's it's I think it's a bad
Speaker 3: comparison because the Tea Party was a very specific thing
Speaker 3: in time that was about a very specific thing in
Speaker 3: time that it was largely it was a sort of astroturfed,
Speaker 3: corporate funded reaction to the election of a black president.
Speaker 3: The But they're like, what you are saying is the
Speaker 3: party base saying they are done with the establishment, they
Speaker 3: are done with the leadership. They created skepticism that leader.
Speaker 3: I think there's three reasons why that skepticism exists. One
Speaker 3: of it is and it's different in every race, and
Speaker 3: it's even different than in some of those races in
Speaker 3: New York. One is anger that the party has failed
Speaker 3: to send up to Trump yep. The second is that
Speaker 3: the party is to capture by corporate interests too, you know, unable,
Speaker 3: unwilling to too cowardly to take on on the interests
Speaker 3: and to advocate for working people right that are are
Speaker 3: they're not address peoples economic pain. And then the third
Speaker 3: reason is Israel and Gasa and that was obviously particularly
Speaker 3: prominent in the Land or gold Mit race where that
Speaker 3: was a primary point of distinction between the two of them.
Speaker 2: And that you like, and.
Speaker 3: You you see that in each of the like the knob,
Speaker 3: the dial turns to different to different levels in each
Speaker 3: different race around the country. Around those three things, the
Speaker 3: other question is is the party becoming moving dramatically to
Speaker 3: the left right? And I think that one is interesting
Speaker 3: because it is an incontrovertible fact that the party is
Speaker 3: more liberal than it was ten years ago, like when
Speaker 3: Obama ran for reelection. In the Gallup polling, forty two
Speaker 3: percent of Democrats consider themselves liberal or very liberal and
Speaker 3: thirty six percent considered themselves moderate. Today, North of fifty
Speaker 3: four percent consider themselves liberal very liberal, and thirty four
Speaker 3: percent consider themselves moderate. Now I can do a full
Speaker 3: podcast on how that number happens, because the moderate number
Speaker 3: stays the same and the liberal number goes up. And
Speaker 3: it's certainly not from conservatives becoming liberals. It's because the
Speaker 3: conservatives left the party and they're replaced by white college
Speaker 3: educated liberals who were former Republican voters.
Speaker 2: But like that is true, but in white college educated
Speaker 2: voters and just high educated, highly educated voters in general
Speaker 2: have just become more specifically become more liberal in their
Speaker 2: own view.
Speaker 3: Yes, and it has led to as the party has
Speaker 3: become less working class in its orient in its identity,
Speaker 3: and frankly its orientation. Cultural issues, social issues, climate change, democracy, immigration, crime,
Speaker 3: LGBTQ rights have risen in priority for the party, and
Speaker 3: that has made people identify as more liberal. But it
Speaker 3: is worth just remembering that the core part of any
Speaker 3: successful Democratic coalition is black voter, and black voters remain
Speaker 3: more moderate than the party. You see this in it
Speaker 3: is really fascinating Pew Political typology stide that came out
Speaker 3: last month. It is very clear that black and Latino
Speaker 3: voters and Asian voters are much more moderate or more moderate.
Speaker 3: That wasnting, much more modern, more moderate than the sort
Speaker 3: of this activist, more liberal democratic base, particularly particular crime
Speaker 3: and immigration, crime and immigration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the two.
Speaker 3: And then the other question is are Democrats becoming socialists?
Speaker 3: And this is also really interesting because you know, there
Speaker 3: is this Gallup poll that everyone fixates almost showed that
Speaker 3: sixty six percent of registered Democrats have a positive view
Speaker 3: of socialism. And then in the New York Times poll
Speaker 3: that we've talked at nauseum, about forty nine percent of
Speaker 3: Democrats have a Democrats and Democrat leaning independence. It's one
Speaker 3: sample have a favorable view of socialism. And interestingly enough,
Speaker 3: a plurality of every old age cohort, including Democrats over
Speaker 3: sixty five, have a favorable view of socialism. Now here's
Speaker 3: a pop question. You ask Caroline this on Polar Coaster,
Speaker 3: but can you guess which group has the highest favorability
Speaker 3: of socialism?
Speaker 2: Let's see.
Speaker 3: Young men, Well, which age cohart it is? It's actually
Speaker 3: men thirty to forty four? Okay, thirty forty four us
Speaker 3: that's us, right, that's.
Speaker 2: No, it's not me anymore. If I come fortia, that's true.
Speaker 3: It was you you just moved in, But it's actually
Speaker 3: it's millennial. It's millennials more than younger by about nine points. Actually,
Speaker 3: it's interesting, which I think is coming of age in
Speaker 3: the Great Recession.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and it speaks to sort of the question
Speaker 2: that you're raising by these maybe surprising results to some people,
Speaker 2: which is, I do think it is more of a
Speaker 2: commentary on capitalism and the failures of capitalism at least
Speaker 2: how people have felt that in their own lives than
Speaker 2: a love of socialism or I think if you asked,
Speaker 2: then I haven't seen a poll that's done this, Like
Speaker 2: what do you think of when you think of socialism,
Speaker 2: They think of like Bernie Sanders and universal health care,
Speaker 2: not abolishing prisons.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is not necessarily a a lot of socialists.
Speaker 3: Countries had a lot of prisons.
Speaker 2: Actually, yes, famously.
Speaker 3: So uh so someone and someone had gulags, you would say.
Speaker 2: And you know, and you know what, every country has borders.
Speaker 2: That's true, every single one.
Speaker 3: Both in their in their mind and in reality. So
Speaker 3: I was gonna say the socialising You hit on the
Speaker 3: key point here, which is it's I think it's more
Speaker 3: of an indictment of capitalism than socialism, And so I
Speaker 3: guess the question is if you're a democrat, like how
Speaker 3: do you react all of this? And like the device
Speaker 3: that I've I give, I've been giving cadis other people
Speaker 3: is one.
Speaker 4: You have to.
Speaker 3: You have to find a way to separate yourselves from
Speaker 3: the established and everyone hates like you can't be a
Speaker 3: typical democrat, and you have to understand what makes people
Speaker 3: so mad about it and show that you have a
Speaker 3: solution to it or different from it. The second thing
Speaker 3: is you don't have to embrace socialism, but you sure
Speaker 3: is how better understand what is causing people to embrace
Speaker 3: socialism and speak to that economic pain. And you got
Speaker 3: to find a way to have some sort of energy
Speaker 3: and excitement and authenticity in your in your belief like
Speaker 3: what is like I think? What is I think powering?
Speaker 3: Some of these these not social sinssily, but some socialists,
Speaker 3: some DSA, some more progressive candidates. They are speaking with
Speaker 3: authenticity and conviction about issues, whether it's Abdual talking about
Speaker 3: medicare for all in Michigan, whether it's platin or talking
Speaker 3: about how the elite system has failed him and filed
Speaker 3: so many manners. It's how Zoron has talked about cost
Speaker 3: of living. It's like there's this authenticity and conviction to
Speaker 3: it that most of the people that you don't get
Speaker 3: from a lot of modern it's not all monitors or
Speaker 3: somebody to really do it, but it doesn't show up
Speaker 3: in the same way.
Speaker 2: I think there's another There's two more reasons that I
Speaker 2: think there's so much anger at the democratic establishment right now.
Speaker 2: One is we have said for a long time now
Speaker 2: since Iraq that people they don't want to spend money
Speaker 2: on endless foreign wars. They don't want to lose American
Speaker 2: lives and forever wars. They also don't want to spend
Speaker 2: a lot of money because they feel like we spent
Speaker 2: in their right, like billions and billions and trillions of
Speaker 2: dollars on Iraq and other foreign adventures that have not
Speaker 2: worked out. I think that is how most people who
Speaker 2: are upset with how Biden handled Gaza feel.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: It is not Israel has no right to exist, It
Speaker 2: is why is our money being spent or being sent
Speaker 2: to bibing at Yahoo and the Israeli government who have
Speaker 2: just slaughtered thousands and thousands and thousands of people in
Speaker 2: Gaza and are now doing the same in Lebanon, and
Speaker 2: that feeling cuts across party ideology. It is not fucking horseshoe.
Speaker 2: It is not like the far left and the far right.
Speaker 2: Go sit in a focus group, go talk to most voters.
Speaker 2: Is a very common feeling, and the fact that people
Speaker 2: look at the Democratic establishment and don't feel like that
Speaker 2: they are on or they feel the same way, or
Speaker 2: they're acting the same way, is a huge fucking problem.
Speaker 2: You also said people are mad that the Democratic establishment
Speaker 2: hasn't stood up Trump enough. I also think Dave Weigel
Speaker 2: made this point today reported at Semaphore that they're still
Speaker 2: mad that the Democratic establishment fucking lost to Trump. Yeah again,
Speaker 2: like that is I know, we're all like we don't
Speaker 2: want to go back and look back at twenty four
Speaker 2: and all that kind of stuff, like we lost to
Speaker 2: Donald Trump for the second time after the guy was
Speaker 2: convicted of crimes and sent an insurrectionist mob to the capitol, Like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's the original.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the people who were in charge there, people aren't
Speaker 2: going to feel too warm and fuzzy towards them, Like
Speaker 2: that is just that is that to me is looming
Speaker 2: over everything, Like, yes, there's the corporate stuff and the
Speaker 2: economic like all that is real money and politics establishment two.
Speaker 2: All of it's real for sure. But like if we
Speaker 2: had just beaten Donald Trump, then a lot of voters
Speaker 2: would not think that. And so that's that's going to
Speaker 2: be a big one too.
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Speaker 2: So here's something fun. The primary season isn't over yet,
Speaker 2: and the Left is targeting a few other big races
Speaker 2: in places that aren't is Blue as in New York City.
Speaker 2: We talked about some of these, but in Colorado, Democratic
Speaker 2: socialist Melat Kiros is running against Congressman Diana Degett, though
Speaker 2: that's also a safe seat even though it's in Colorado.
Speaker 2: In Wisconsin, DSA State Rep. Francesca Hong is a running
Speaker 2: for governor in a crowded field that includes Lieutenant Governor
Speaker 2: Sarah Rodriguez and Mandela Barnes. And in Michigan, our pal
Speaker 2: Abdul lsa Ed is in a tight Senate primary with
Speaker 2: Mallory McMorrow and Representative Hayley Stevens. So does feel like
Speaker 2: there's a little more at stake in the Wisconsin and
Speaker 2: Michigan primaries? What is your read on those?
Speaker 3: You know, it's it's very hard to play the prospective
Speaker 3: electability game, right. The argument here is among some, but
Speaker 3: I'm not making this argument that Hong and Abdul are
Speaker 3: less electable than other candidates on the ballot. And in
Speaker 3: Wisconsin there's already a movement one of the center left
Speaker 3: candidates is dropped out and endorsed Rodriguez, and is there's
Speaker 3: a movement to try to consolidate the field around Rodriguez.
Speaker 3: I honestly don't know enough about that race to know
Speaker 3: for sure that one candidate is more electable than the other.
Speaker 3: I know that's a very hard race, right. It's a
Speaker 3: very tough state. Winning a third term in a row
Speaker 3: is always challenging for governors. So you know that's gonna
Speaker 3: be a tough race. Michigan, the polling is, you know,
Speaker 3: Abdula is leading in the polls, Hilly Stevens is in second.
Speaker 3: The candidate that I have supported, Malol Morrow, is in third.
Speaker 3: There have been hypothetical tests against Mike Rogers, who is
Speaker 3: a very very good candidate. He lost by just I
Speaker 3: think about twenty four thousand votes. Soilicis sluckin in twenty
Speaker 3: four You know, the polling shows that we've seen shows
Speaker 3: maybe McMorrow and Stevens a couple points more, you know,
Speaker 3: doing better against Rogers than Abdul. I don't know what
Speaker 3: to make of that, whether that is real or not.
Speaker 3: It's not signific It's not a dramatic difference in that.
Speaker 3: So it's it's hard to say a Duelsbviously, a very
Speaker 3: very talented candidate, is very talented communicator. Would he be
Speaker 3: able to navigate the tax that will certainly come to
Speaker 3: him as a as a Bernie endorsed candidate, a Muslim
Speaker 3: candidate who will be attacked for his views on everything
Speaker 3: in his background. He certainly is talented enough to be
Speaker 3: able to navigate that. But I am not I can't
Speaker 3: look at those races and say, if we nominate that,
Speaker 3: you know, Hong or Abdul, we're certainly going to lose.
Speaker 3: Like it's it's not that, it's not that clear to me,
Speaker 3: and it's certainly no one has presented evidence to that fact.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's tough. I mean, look, I'm and I'm supporting Abdul.
Speaker 2: His friend had a pot on crooked. But you know,
Speaker 2: I'll be honest like that, that is the race where
Speaker 2: and again because it's it's less about like I mean,
Speaker 2: it is about who these candidates are, but it's also
Speaker 2: very much about the environment in the state. And you know,
Speaker 2: even like Plattner is running in a state that is
Speaker 2: much much more democratic than Michigan. And I do think
Speaker 2: that if if a Bernie endorsed sort of more lefty
Speaker 2: candidate can pull it off in Michigan, I do think
Speaker 2: Abdul can do it. But I think it's gonna be tough,
Speaker 2: and like he's going to face all kinds of attacks,
Speaker 2: not just for his ideological position, but many unfair attacks,
Speaker 2: like you said, because he's he's musclim So I think
Speaker 2: that's gonna be that's gonna be challenged, I think. And
Speaker 2: then I think with Francesco Wong, same thing. And I
Speaker 2: don't I don't know her as well, but I saw
Speaker 2: it like she'd had you know, she'd had some past
Speaker 2: support for or advocated at one point like defund the police,
Speaker 2: and then last week, you know, she had a video
Speaker 2: that said there's no way I'm going to cut public safety,
Speaker 2: and that to me is like, Okay, this is the
Speaker 2: kind of like, yes, this is what you need to
Speaker 2: do to win these states. And like if you are
Speaker 2: a further left candidate in a state like Wisconsin, in
Speaker 2: a state like Michigan, I'm not saying like, just you know,
Speaker 2: change all of your fucking positions. You shouldn't do that,
Speaker 2: but you do have to run like you're running a
Speaker 2: general election in a purple state, which you are, and
Speaker 2: know where the voters are and know you know, I'm
Speaker 2: sure for Wang and for I know for a duel,
Speaker 2: like the most important issues make a care for all, healthcare,
Speaker 2: sort of economic populism, and I would imagine that they're
Speaker 2: going to emphasize those above all else and then have
Speaker 2: something to say on some of the attacks that they
Speaker 2: are going to come their way on crime and immigration
Speaker 2: and cultural issues. But I don't think that's going to
Speaker 2: be easy. But I do think like I saw that
Speaker 2: I saw what Wong had done about there's no way
Speaker 2: I'm going to cut public safety. In contrast to that
Speaker 2: with some of the stuff that we just talked about
Speaker 2: in New York City and I'm like, see that is
Speaker 2: that's the difference right there in Mamdani, Right, Mam Donnie campaigned,
Speaker 2: has all kinds of past positions, and he has increased
Speaker 2: the police budget since he's been mayor. And guess what,
Speaker 2: And he's done all of his other stuff that he
Speaker 2: talked about, right, the rent freeze, I believe is going
Speaker 2: into effect today. He's trying to do all the other
Speaker 2: stuff and he's wildly popular.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It is like there when we talked about some
Speaker 3: of the Tea Party comparison. Here is that in both
Speaker 3: the twenty ten and twenty twelve Senate racist the Republicans
Speaker 3: nominated a bunch of candidates in states they should have won,
Speaker 3: like Indiana, Missouri, Delaware in twenty ten, where Mike Castle
Speaker 3: would have walked into the Senate and instead they nominated
Speaker 3: Christin O'Donnell, who did not walk into the Senate.
Speaker 2: And nor does she fly in on her broomstick, not
Speaker 2: does she find her.
Speaker 3: Broomstick Deep County, and is a fifteen year old reference
Speaker 3: to a Senate race.
Speaker 2: Fifteen yeah, okay, sixteen, sixteen years.
Speaker 3: But one of the things the mistakes those candidates may
Speaker 3: it is they also ran terrible racist because they refuse
Speaker 3: to acknowledge the reality of the states in which they
Speaker 3: were running. Yes, and you can be a liberal candidate.
Speaker 3: You can be more liberal than the electorate and still
Speaker 3: win if you are running a smart, strategic race that
Speaker 3: does acknowledge the realities of what it takes to win
Speaker 3: in a state like Wisconsin or Michigan.
Speaker 2: It depends on which issues you're more liberal than the
Speaker 2: electrode on. That's a big way. We use like liberal, conservative, left,
Speaker 2: right as just like these catch all terms, But it
Speaker 2: really depends on what you're talking about.
Speaker 3: That's right, that's right, and it's not just issues. It's
Speaker 3: obviously things you've said, thinks you've done, who you are,
Speaker 3: your cultural connection to people. But yes, you can, like
Speaker 3: if you were a serious candidate, can win in the
Speaker 3: right environment running the right campaign.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right. So Tommy talked to Maggie Haberman and
Speaker 2: Jonathan Swan this week about their new Trump book, Regime Change.
Speaker 2: Go listen to that interview if you haven't already. It's great.
Speaker 2: But one of the more incredible anecdotes in the book
Speaker 2: is a dinner at the White House in October of
Speaker 2: last year where Trump asks Rupert Murdoch in front of
Speaker 2: Marco Rubio and JD. Vance, who were sitting at the table,
Speaker 2: which one he liked best and to rate both of them,
Speaker 2: and Murdoch reportedly said of Rubio, Marco is brilliant in
Speaker 2: seat of Vance, I think JD has the potential to
Speaker 2: be great. Vance apparently tried to laugh it off with
Speaker 2: the sarcastic line, Oh, thanks, thanks, Rupert, thanks a lot.
Speaker 2: Of course we hear at poadse of America. I think
Speaker 2: Murdoch and Trump and others are just being grossly unfair
Speaker 2: to our boy JD, who has continued to just oohs
Speaker 2: charisma during the press tour for his new book. Just
Speaker 2: As one example, check out this exchange with conservative columnist
Speaker 2: Ross Doutfitz at the New York Times.
Speaker 9: Let's be honest, the tone of the administration is not
Speaker 9: consistently a Christian tone. There is a tone of aggressive
Speaker 9: uncharity to people who aren't on board with the administration's policies.
Speaker 10: The tone argument is, in some ways, I think people
Speaker 10: see what they want to see. And I also think
Speaker 10: that tonal arguments are ways of frankly policing working class
Speaker 10: ways of communication and covering them in elite preferences.
Speaker 2: Okay, I think the tonal arguments are ways of policing
Speaker 2: working class ways of communication and covering them in elite preferences.
Speaker 2: Few things. First of all, you sound like the right
Speaker 2: wing version of a woke scold from academia who can't
Speaker 2: get off blue sky. That's what that sounded like. Two,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure how the Manhattan billionaire president calling Americans
Speaker 2: he doesn't like human scum is a working class way
Speaker 2: of communication. And I do think it's a bit insulting
Speaker 2: to working class Americans that jd Vance assumes that they
Speaker 2: all speak about their fellow Americans that way. I'm also
Speaker 2: not sure when I'm like, loving my neighbor and Christian
Speaker 2: charity became an elite preference as an elite preference now wild,
Speaker 2: just from top to bottom? Wild? Is that just me?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I couldn't. I couldn't believe that when
Speaker 2: I when I saw that.
Speaker 3: I would say, you did say say to us in
Speaker 3: our production meeting today that you could do a whole
Speaker 3: podcast on this topic.
Speaker 2: I think it was like the last time I tweeted. Actually,
Speaker 2: I mean, I've been like retweeting things here and there,
Speaker 2: but the last time I really tweeted was a week ago,
Speaker 2: and because I've been trying not to tweet that much,
Speaker 2: but I saw that and I just, first of all,
Speaker 2: I couldn't stop laughing, and then I listened to the
Speaker 2: whole interview because with Ross, which is which was fun,
Speaker 2: which was a real journey.
Speaker 3: I think people should know that you had a day
Speaker 3: to yourself in Chicago, a beautiful summer day in Chicago,
Speaker 3: but you were by yourself. You could have done anything
Speaker 3: in the world.
Speaker 2: And what I did, and it was a beautiful day.
Speaker 2: And I walked down by the lake and I walked
Speaker 2: all the way to Lincoln Park where we used to live,
Speaker 2: and I had a great day. But while I was walking,
Speaker 2: I was listening times with Ross Doutfit and Jdvan JD Vance.
Speaker 2: Good for you.
Speaker 3: Look, I very much agree with you here. It is
Speaker 3: like using the term tone policing is just perfect. But
Speaker 3: like the the bigger point with this is and it
Speaker 3: says something about Jada Vance, which that Jady Vance came
Speaker 3: from a working class background. Like his story is very famous,
Speaker 3: but what he and it is a you know, as
Speaker 3: told in his book and the Netflix movie of which
Speaker 3: he was a producer, made of his life story tells
Speaker 3: you is that he picked himself up by his bootstraps,
Speaker 3: went to an Ivy league college, went to the military,
Speaker 3: became quite successful, became a venture capitalist seen in manator,
Speaker 3: all the things that all the all the checklists on
Speaker 3: the MAGA resume that you need Hollywood producer, venture capitalist
Speaker 3: and Hollywood producer or CNN commentator, all the above, and
Speaker 3: became an elite. Like that's his story. The story is
Speaker 3: someone who was raised in this incredible, difficult scenario involving
Speaker 3: drug addiction and poverty and rises to the most elite
Speaker 3: pinnacles of American society, becomes the Vice pros United States.
Speaker 3: But what he has taken from that is that is
Speaker 3: he's become elite, and he looks down his nose at
Speaker 3: everyone else, because this is the he tries to in
Speaker 3: the Trump era, not the pre Trump era, but the
Speaker 3: in his post Trump's not really no longer hitler, I
Speaker 3: show work for him and serve him era. He tries
Speaker 3: to put on the close of an anti elitist, but
Speaker 3: he is not. He is a pure elitist. And there
Speaker 3: is nothing more elitist than saying that that basically telling
Speaker 3: someone not to be a dick to their fellow citizens.
Speaker 3: Is anti working class.
Speaker 2: Look when Trump goes out there and you know, and
Speaker 2: Rob Briner dies and he celebrates with the truth social post,
Speaker 2: or celebrates that Bob Muller dies with the true social post.
Speaker 2: That's just what working class people do. You know they're
Speaker 2: doing to the diner at the bar. That's just how
Speaker 2: they talk. And the reason he knows that is because
Speaker 2: he serves a working class president. Donald Trump, Donald J.
Speaker 2: Trump cares about the working people, is of the working people,
Speaker 2: and that's just that's how he talks. That's how working
Speaker 2: class people talk.
Speaker 3: When the working class president fires off an offensive truth
Speaker 3: from the gold toilet upon which he's sitting, that is
Speaker 3: working class talk.
Speaker 2: When yeah, when he says, look we just can't afford childcare,
Speaker 2: we can't afford to give people child care. But also
Speaker 2: check out my ballroom and look at the gold, look
Speaker 2: at the gold everywhere. That's again, I had a nickel
Speaker 2: for every time a working class person said that I
Speaker 2: wouldn't be class, I'd be as jd Vance amazing ross
Speaker 2: douthit like he looked like he wanted to laugh too, which.
Speaker 3: Is the first time that's ever happened in ross A
Speaker 3: truly humorless man.
Speaker 2: I feel bad for Ross because he had to he cram.
Speaker 2: The problem with that interview is he had to cram
Speaker 2: too many topics in because Jade Events only gave him
Speaker 2: aertain amount of time, and so there was so many
Speaker 2: crazy things that Jadvan said that you could tell that
Speaker 2: Death wanted to follow up on, and he just had to.
Speaker 2: He moved on to the next thing, and I was like,
Speaker 2: you should have. I would have just I would have
Speaker 2: asked him about that sentence.
Speaker 3: Maybe you would have done a whole poty JD. Vance,
Speaker 3: come on offline.
Speaker 2: Religion, all the other stuff. I would have just given
Speaker 2: up and I would have been like, let's talk about
Speaker 2: the tonal arguments and the tone policing. We don't want
Speaker 2: to be tone policing anyway. One more of these from
Speaker 2: JD Evans. There was another very human, very authentic Vance
Speaker 2: moment this week that also got a lot of attention. Apparently,
Speaker 2: Usha Vance hosts a YouTube series called Storytime with the
Speaker 2: Second Lady where she and a guest read to kids.
Speaker 2: Very nice and this week's special guest was JD who
Speaker 2: is allegedly her husband. Let's see how it went. Today's
Speaker 2: special reader is my husband, Vice President of the United States,
Speaker 2: Jadie Vance, thanks for joining us today, honey. Of course,
Speaker 2: good to see you. Now. If you're just listening to this,
Speaker 2: pause it, go to the YouTube BAP on your phone,
Speaker 2: go to Potze of America YouTube or your laptop get
Speaker 2: to the nearest YouTube app you can get to and
Speaker 2: watch this. Because what he does there is he says
Speaker 2: good to see you, and then reaches awkwardly across and
Speaker 2: gives her two fatherly pats on the knee, very light
Speaker 2: pats on the knee, just light pats, pulls the hand back,
Speaker 2: and then they just sit and stare at each other.
Speaker 2: Is that how you and Howy greet each other after
Speaker 2: a long day apart?
Speaker 3: Dan, I will say that if you can't look, it's
Speaker 3: hard to be a public figure, right. Glare of the
Speaker 3: spotlight is intense. But if there's one moment where you
Speaker 3: could possibly be yourself, it would be sitting with your wife.
Speaker 3: And he is incapable of doing that. Like it honestly
Speaker 3: seems like they have never met each.
Speaker 2: Other, like you. Also, it's not like he had to
Speaker 2: like give her a big kiss or like he could
Speaker 2: have just done nothing. He didn't have to tap her
Speaker 2: knee like.
Speaker 3: What it's like you can see it, like it looked
Speaker 3: like he was about to.
Speaker 2: To be like, looks like you got a bun in
Speaker 2: the oven there, like it was.
Speaker 3: Honestly, it's just it's I mean, I just it's like
Speaker 3: the first meeting between a man who's never had a
Speaker 3: date before and a mail order bride. It's just so.
Speaker 2: I just don't Also, he also like, I hope everyone
Speaker 2: realizes that they could They could have edited that right,
Speaker 2: They could have done another take, They could have cut
Speaker 2: that part out. It wasn't a live performance, it was
Speaker 2: it was a White House.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it does make you wonder, are there is somewhere
Speaker 3: on the cutting room floor of the White House. Are
Speaker 3: there nine knee pats that were less affectionate than that one?
Speaker 2: Did he perhaps like high five her for the first time? Yeah,
Speaker 2: nice to see you. I'm JD Wow. Anyway, watch out
Speaker 2: Mark ur Rubio.
Speaker 3: As I would say, he's got the potential to be
Speaker 3: He certainly does.
Speaker 2: He certainly does that potential. It's there somewhere. We have
Speaker 2: not seen it yet that neither has Rupert, but it's there. Okay,
Speaker 2: when we come back, I'll talk to the Democratic candidate
Speaker 2: for Governor of Texas, Gina Inojosa. Pods of America is
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Speaker 2: Gina Inajosa, Welcome to pot Save America.
Speaker 11: It's great to be with you.
Speaker 2: So there's been plenty of national focus on the Texas
Speaker 2: Senate race between James Tillerico and Ken Paxson. There's been
Speaker 2: less attention paid to the gubernatorial race that you're running
Speaker 2: against three term incumbent Greg Abbott, who's running for a
Speaker 2: record fourth term as governor. We'll get to him in
Speaker 2: a minute. But for all the people listening who are
Speaker 2: meeting you for the first time, who are you and
Speaker 2: what made you get into the race?
Speaker 12: Yes, so I am running for governor of Texas because
Speaker 12: what I see in twenty twenty six is that everything
Speaker 12: is on the line, and this is perhaps our last
Speaker 12: best chance to say what we hold dear in Texas
Speaker 12: and in this country, and to explain. I grew up
Speaker 12: on the border with Mexico. I grew up in the
Speaker 12: Rial Grand Valley in Brownsville, Texas, and I was raised
Speaker 12: on the promise of the American dream. There we used
Speaker 12: to cross back and forth between Texas and Mexico all
Speaker 12: the time back then, and I remember as a little
Speaker 12: girl being struck by the extreme poverty I witnessed Mexico.
Speaker 12: And I remember asking my dad why, why when we
Speaker 12: crossed into Mexico are there beggars?
Speaker 11: I said, beggars.
Speaker 12: We didn't have homelessness then, we didn't have a word
Speaker 12: for it, I said, beggars. And then when we crossed
Speaker 12: back into Texas, there are none. I'll never forget, my
Speaker 12: dad said, because in Mexico they have the rich and
Speaker 12: then they have the poor, and they don't have much
Speaker 12: in between. And in America we have a strong middle class.
Speaker 12: And he was talking about the American dream, and working
Speaker 12: Texans right now are struggling to achieve the American dream
Speaker 12: in a big way.
Speaker 11: It is why I'm running for office. It happened to me.
Speaker 12: I never meant to run for anything. I made my
Speaker 12: husband promised. I've never run for office before we got married.
Speaker 12: But they try to shut down my son's school, so
Speaker 12: I ran for the school board. One that fight for
Speaker 12: schools took me to the Texas House. And what I
Speaker 12: see in the Texas House is the reason our schools
Speaker 12: are shutting down. The reason we are struggling so much
Speaker 12: is because we are paying into a system that is
Speaker 12: working against us. It is one big grift. It is
Speaker 12: policy that is driven by money special interests, and I
Speaker 12: refer to it as the Greg Abbot corruption tax. We
Speaker 12: pay more, we get less because we are all paying
Speaker 12: the Greg Abbot corruption tax. And now we have over
Speaker 12: one hundred schools shutting down in Texas. We have over
Speaker 12: one hundred and fifty school districts operating at four days
Speaker 12: a week, whole school districts because they can't afford to
Speaker 12: operate at five days a week. We have the most
Speaker 12: people being disconnected from their electricity of any other state.
Speaker 12: We have the most uninsured of any other state. We
Speaker 12: have the most uninsured children of any state. We have
Speaker 12: the most bankruptcies. We have the first major American city
Speaker 12: in Corpus Christi, to potentially run out of water, despite
Speaker 12: the fact we are paying about seventy five percent more
Speaker 12: in property taxes under Greg Abbott. That is Greg Abbot's record,
Speaker 12: and he owns it, and that's why I'm running. I
Speaker 12: have a plan to save Texas schools and to put
Speaker 12: money in your pocket. And I think it's important that
Speaker 12: people understand, Yes, we fight for our public schools because
Speaker 12: of our kids and our community, but we fight for
Speaker 12: public schools because there can be no American dream without
Speaker 12: strong public schools. Because public schools provide the opportunity, the
Speaker 12: gateway for the American dream. And of course, if we
Speaker 12: can't afford to live and thrive in Texas, where we live,
Speaker 12: then there can be no American dream. When I was
Speaker 12: a little girl, Texas was the American Dream manifest right,
Speaker 12: But that is why I'm running. We have to fight
Speaker 12: to win back the American dream.
Speaker 2: So you're no stranger to politics, even though you didn't
Speaker 2: think you would run. You've served in the Texas House,
Speaker 2: and I believe your father, who you mentioned, was a
Speaker 2: chair of the Democratic Party in Texas for about a decade.
Speaker 2: What did you learn from him about politics and the
Speaker 2: state of the Democratic Party in Texas.
Speaker 12: Yeah, Well, to be clear, the number one lesson I
Speaker 12: learned was that I did not want that life for myself.
Speaker 2: Interesting how come because.
Speaker 12: My dad belonged to the world and not to me,
Speaker 12: and I want it acquired our simpler life.
Speaker 11: I'm a lawyer. I had a small practice. I thought
Speaker 11: that's what I would do.
Speaker 12: It would be the best at my small practice, and
Speaker 12: that is why I made my husband promise to never
Speaker 12: run for office. But life had other plans. So that's
Speaker 12: what I mostly learned. But I will tell you that
Speaker 12: it is in the Texas House where I have learned
Speaker 12: that really there's so much noise, but there is one fight,
Speaker 12: and that fight is the fight of twenty twenty six
Speaker 12: in this country, in the state, and it is are
Speaker 12: we going to be a state that is by and
Speaker 12: for the people, or are we living in the billionaire
Speaker 12: world and we're just here?
Speaker 11: That is the fight. That is the fight.
Speaker 12: That is behind why schools are closing. That is the
Speaker 12: fight behind why we can't afford to pay things. That's
Speaker 12: the fight behind why Corpus Christy is running out of water.
Speaker 11: That is the fight.
Speaker 2: Speaking of billionaires and money in politics, the manure running
Speaker 2: against is sitting on more than one hundred million dollars.
Speaker 2: Recent poll had about a third of Texas voters saying
Speaker 2: they don't know enough about you to have an opinion.
Speaker 2: How do you introduce yourself to a state as big
Speaker 2: as Texas, when, especially when the governor, the current governor,
Speaker 2: has so much money to run his own ads and campaign.
Speaker 12: Yeah, you're right, Texas is giant. Running for governor of
Speaker 12: Texas is like running for president. Right, We're doing things differently.
Speaker 12: We've divided the state up into seven regions, running like
Speaker 12: full congressional campaigns in each of those regions because we
Speaker 12: are such a big and diverse state. What the polling
Speaker 12: shows is that since the end of last year, my
Speaker 12: name Idea has gone up twenty points. We went from
Speaker 12: nine points down to five points down. As that's happened,
Speaker 12: and so as people get to know who I am,
Speaker 12: there with me and people want change. What I am
Speaker 12: seeing across the state, what elections are showing in Texas,
Speaker 12: what polling is showing, is that there is this anti
Speaker 12: incumbency energy in Texas right now, and Greg Abbott offers
Speaker 12: more of the same. And his problem, even though he
Speaker 12: has all that money in his campaign account, is that
Speaker 12: you use money to tell people who you are and
Speaker 12: what you're about.
Speaker 11: And that's his problem. People know who he is and
Speaker 11: what he is about, and they don't want it anymore.
Speaker 11: They want change.
Speaker 12: The number one response I get from people when I
Speaker 12: say I'm running for governor against Greg Abbott he can
Speaker 12: run again?
Speaker 11: Like really there were term limits?
Speaker 2: Well, and I'm sure there's plenty to say about him
Speaker 2: and his record. What is the one specific thing he's
Speaker 2: done that you would point to if a voter, because
Speaker 2: you'll probably need some of these voters, right people who
Speaker 2: voted for Greg Gabbott three times. Now you have a
Speaker 2: three time Abbot voter who's at least open to a
Speaker 2: different choice this time, but isn't sure. What's the one
Speaker 2: thing you'd say about what Greg Abbott has done to
Speaker 2: persuade that person.
Speaker 12: He's given a billion dollars in no bid contracts to
Speaker 12: his donors. He's the most corrupt governor in Texas history.
Speaker 12: We im not saying something. We've never had this level
Speaker 12: of corruption, but every major challenge in Texas is about
Speaker 12: follow the money right back to Greg Abbott's donors.
Speaker 2: So it's common for challenges to say the incumbent has
Speaker 2: corrupt worked for billionaires. Vetos at a version of this
Speaker 2: about Abbott in twenty twenty two. Lupe Valdez said it
Speaker 2: in eighteen. Both still lost by single to double digits.
Speaker 2: Why do you think this will land in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: six where it hasn't worked as well before.
Speaker 12: What we are seeing is that it is already landing
Speaker 12: in Texas. And twenty eighteen, you reference, that was the
Speaker 12: closest we've come in a long time to potentially flipping
Speaker 12: a seat statewide in Texas. That's when Betha ran against
Speaker 12: Ted Cruz. Right, that's the last time we had points right,
Speaker 12: That's right, that's the last time we had a midterm
Speaker 12: election with Trump in the White House, right, and Democrats swept.
Speaker 12: We picked up twelve seats in the Texas House. We
Speaker 12: flipped all of Harris County Houston, so Democrats swept in
Speaker 12: a big way. We were not ready, right, maybe we
Speaker 12: could have flipped the whole Texas House.
Speaker 11: Had we been ready.
Speaker 12: We are ready in twenty twenty six, and so for
Speaker 12: the first time, we have Democrats running in every congressional seat,
Speaker 12: every state house, state Senate seat, and already we have
Speaker 12: seen dramatic improvement in our performance. So Democrats overperformed Republicans
Speaker 12: in the primary that rarely happens in Texas. I had
Speaker 12: eight opponents in my primary and still I got twice
Speaker 12: as many votes as Bethy got in twenty eighteen because
Speaker 12: people are doing the work for change. And twenty eighteen
Speaker 12: is different because we have two strong candidates at the
Speaker 12: top of the ticket. Betho was pretty much the only
Speaker 12: one who could raise real money in twenty eighteen and
Speaker 12: took on all the arrows, took on the entire campaign.
Speaker 12: It's different this time around. What we've yet to see, though.
Speaker 12: The thing that is to be determined is are people
Speaker 12: going to believe what they see with their own eyes
Speaker 12: in Texas where we're winning Terran County, Terran County for instance,
Speaker 12: that was the most Republican county in the whole United
Speaker 12: States of America. We flipped a state Senate seat, swung
Speaker 12: it thirty one points to elect Taylor Ramett. Steve Bannon
Speaker 12: embedded himself in Arrant County before that happened and said,
Speaker 12: right off the bat, I'm here because as goes Terran County.
Speaker 11: So goes Texas, so goes the nation. Well we want it,
Speaker 11: and it's not just Terran County.
Speaker 12: It happened in Seyfer, it happened in Arlington, it happened
Speaker 12: in Leander, it happened in Denton, Proland. It is happening
Speaker 12: all over Texas. And what we are seeing in twenty
Speaker 12: twenty six is people just want change.
Speaker 2: Education is a signature issue for you. You mentioned one
Speaker 2: hundred plus schools are closing, one hundred and fifty plus
Speaker 2: districts have gone to four day weeks. For someone outside Texas,
Speaker 2: what is actually happening to the public schools right now?
Speaker 2: And what did Abbot do to cause it?
Speaker 12: So what I see in the Texas House, I sit
Speaker 12: on the Public Education Committee with James Sarrico. We co
Speaker 12: chaired the effort to fight vouchers in twenty twenty three
Speaker 12: and we beat Greg Abbott.
Speaker 11: Then we had rural.
Speaker 12: Republicans join with us to defend public schools and vote
Speaker 12: against vouchers. Greg Abbott took out those Republicans who voted
Speaker 12: with us in their primaries by putting a million dollars
Speaker 12: in against each of them in their primaries, and so
Speaker 12: then he.
Speaker 11: Got the votes and we passed it. Voucher's last year.
Speaker 12: Vouchers is an example of what has happened to our
Speaker 12: public schools in Texas. It is just vendor contract after
Speaker 12: vendor contract to somebody who is connected to Greg Abbott,
Speaker 12: and that is where our money for our public schools
Speaker 12: is going. So Greg Abbott received twelve million dollars, the
Speaker 12: largest campaign contribution in all of Texas history, from an
Speaker 12: out of state billionaire Jeff Yaz, who has a financial
Speaker 12: interest in vouchers. Right, that is the kind of grift
Speaker 12: and corruption that people are feeling in a real way.
Speaker 12: And so those alliances I made across the aisle with
Speaker 12: Maga moms, with football coaches and rural communities with superintendent's principles,
Speaker 12: People who love their public schools are angry in a
Speaker 12: big way at Greg Abbott for what he's done to
Speaker 12: our public schools, and I believe that that will be
Speaker 12: the difference.
Speaker 11: In this election.
Speaker 12: People see this as our last best chance to save
Speaker 12: public schools in Texas.
Speaker 2: Education used to be an issue that Democrats talked about
Speaker 2: every campaign cycle, all the time. I feel like, in general,
Speaker 2: the party has been fairly quiet about it recently. I've
Speaker 2: heard you talk about it now, Rob Emmanuel has been
Speaker 2: talking about it recently. But in general, why do you
Speaker 2: think the Democratic Party has sort of shied away from
Speaker 2: focusing on education And what do you see as a
Speaker 2: positive vision in public education and education in general for
Speaker 2: both Texas and the country to take.
Speaker 12: We've just gotten lost in all of really a lot
Speaker 12: of high tech solutions to education that have not worked
Speaker 12: in Texas. It's happened in a big way now they're
Speaker 12: trying to push in Houston, Texas. Greg took over Houston
Speaker 12: ID and trying to put in one hundred AI schools
Speaker 12: in Houston with this idea that we don't need teachers,
Speaker 12: we need education guides, and so it's just a way
Speaker 12: for them to make money off of our public school dollars.
Speaker 12: So I'm proposing a back to basics approach where we
Speaker 12: pay teachers their worth and it doesn't feel sexy. Right
Speaker 12: back to basics, pay teachers their worth, novel concept. It
Speaker 12: doesn't happen because it Nobody makes money off of it
Speaker 12: but teachers, right. Billionaires don't make money off of it.
Speaker 12: And I think in lots of ways Democrats have moved
Speaker 12: away from just the basics. Again, it's the American dream.
Speaker 12: How can you have the American dream without strong public schools.
Speaker 12: Public schools tell every child you can be anything you
Speaker 12: want to be if you put in the work. How
Speaker 12: are we letting it happen? That are public schools And
Speaker 12: it's not just Texas, but it's in Texas in a big,
Speaker 12: big way. Are dying on the buye In Texas. There
Speaker 12: is a unique kind of pride. Texas public schools are
Speaker 12: Friday night lights. They are enshrined in our Texas constitution.
Speaker 12: They made us who we are. People have big pride
Speaker 12: in public schools in Texas, and I think that is
Speaker 12: why it is resonating in a way that there is
Speaker 12: a possessiveness and an understanding that this is a part
Speaker 12: of who we are, and people are ready to fight
Speaker 12: for their public schools.
Speaker 2: What do you do about low performing public schools and
Speaker 2: low performing teachers.
Speaker 12: It's never the right answer to take power away from
Speaker 12: parents in community when our public schools are struggling. I
Speaker 12: do think we need a back to basics approach money
Speaker 12: in the classroom. We have had a teacher exodus in Texas.
Speaker 12: We have for the first time Texas is hiring more
Speaker 12: uncertified teachers than certified teachers, but a lot. We now
Speaker 12: have teachers who have no college degree being hired in Texas.
Speaker 12: I have a neighboring school district. Their number one source
Speaker 12: of new hires is out of the country because they
Speaker 12: can't find people to work for what we pay who
Speaker 12: have the experience.
Speaker 11: We all know. It's again not rocket science.
Speaker 12: The best thing we can do for a child's education
Speaker 12: is put a great teacher in the classroom, and we
Speaker 12: have steered so far away from what we know works.
Speaker 12: So again, it's a back to basics approach making sure
Speaker 12: we have great educators in the classroom.
Speaker 2: Looking at the pull, some of your strongest numbers are
Speaker 2: with Latino voters. Some polls have you up in nearly
Speaker 2: twenty points Trump. Of course, Carrie Latinas Texas. In twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four, you've said the Latino vote can be the
Speaker 2: difference if we choose to be what does choose to
Speaker 2: be mean? And what has the party gotten wrong over
Speaker 2: the last several years decade. It's seeing sort of Latino
Speaker 2: voters either drift away from the Democratic Party or, you know,
Speaker 2: in the case of twenty twenty four, toward the Republican Party.
Speaker 12: I think we have taken our eye off the prize
Speaker 12: of what are we fighting for again? I think there
Speaker 12: is one fight. It is the fight about whether it
Speaker 12: is a country estate that is buying for the people.
Speaker 12: That is the fight for the American dream. They are
Speaker 12: one in the same, and I think we get distracted
Speaker 12: by culture wars and social issues.
Speaker 11: We take the bait all the time, and I get it.
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 12: It is infuriating things that Republicans do and say to
Speaker 12: different groups that consist of our coalition. But when we're
Speaker 12: fighting about those things, we are not talking about the
Speaker 12: thing that impacts all of us, and that is can.
Speaker 11: You afford to live and thrive in Texas? And that
Speaker 11: has to be the fight.
Speaker 12: So the Latino vote is hugely important to your point,
Speaker 12: You're right, absolutely. In twenty eighteen, they got sixty four
Speaker 12: percent of the Latino vote again the closest we've come
Speaker 12: in a long long time to winning as Democrats. When
Speaker 12: I get sixty four percent of the Latino vote, I
Speaker 12: win because there are more of us in the voting
Speaker 12: population than there were then. To give you a sense
Speaker 12: of where Latinos are in Texas, in twenty twenty six,
Speaker 12: Taylor Romett, who flipped that state Senate seat, cut seventy
Speaker 12: nine percent of the Latino vote in his election. All right,
Speaker 12: that is the potential. Of course, we're taking nothing for granted.
Speaker 12: I am heavily focused on engaging the Latino vote in
Speaker 12: this election, and if we choose to be is if
Speaker 12: Latinos will show up. We have seen this year that
Speaker 12: Latinos are showing up, and we need Latinos to show
Speaker 12: up in a big way in November.
Speaker 2: I think one challenge Democrats have had over the last
Speaker 2: decade is sort of assuming that for Latino voters immigration
Speaker 2: is the top issue, when, as you said, the economy
Speaker 2: affordability is still number one, just as it is with
Speaker 2: non Latino voters. That said, Trump has decided to make
Speaker 2: immigration central to his second administration even more than it
Speaker 2: was in the first. I think that personally, what I've
Speaker 2: seen from Democrats over the last decade is fear around
Speaker 2: the issue of immigration. And so when you ask Democrats
Speaker 2: about immigration, people either say, Okay, we need a strong
Speaker 2: border for sure, but what Trump's doing with ice is
Speaker 2: horrific and wrong. And that's about as far as it goes. Yeah,
Speaker 2: at some point will be in power again, hopefully, so
Speaker 2: hopefully you'll be governor. What is a positive vision for
Speaker 2: immigration that you think can rally the country behind the
Speaker 2: Democratic Party that recognizes is my old boss, Barack Obama
Speaker 2: would always say that we're in a nation of laws
Speaker 2: and a nation of immigrants, right.
Speaker 11: I think we have to stress that we're for border security.
Speaker 11: We all want that.
Speaker 12: I grew up on the of course I want border security,
Speaker 12: and what is happening right now is not that. And
Speaker 12: the district attorney in Harris County will say he has
Speaker 12: child sex abuse cases that he cannot prosecute because the
Speaker 12: witnesses have been detained or deported or too afraid to
Speaker 12: come forward. That makes us less safe, not more safe.
Speaker 12: And here's the other thing. The other thing is that
Speaker 12: it's hard to be generous to immigrants when Americans are
Speaker 12: struggling themselves so much it is hard to be generous
Speaker 12: with the American dream when people feel like it's out
Speaker 12: of reach for themselves.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 12: I think it's a classic example of the you know,
Speaker 12: put your oxygen mask on first and then help others
Speaker 12: in need. We have to recognize that Americans working, Americans
Speaker 12: working Texans are not making it. We need to make
Speaker 12: sure they get the oxygen mask first, and that we
Speaker 12: message and we work to liver for Americans first, really
Speaker 12: for Texans first, that we're doing everything we can to
Speaker 12: address again the one fight, the one fight. Is this
Speaker 12: going to be a country and a state for us
Speaker 12: or for moneyed interests.
Speaker 2: Do you think we need to revamp our asylum loss?
Speaker 12: Sounds like it, yes, yeah, yeah, And can I give
Speaker 12: you an example. So Biden's last the December before his
Speaker 12: last year in office, Remember we had the caravans at
Speaker 12: the border.
Speaker 11: It was chaotic.
Speaker 12: People in Texas were angry, and I got a call.
Speaker 12: I was chair of the campaign committee for the Texas
Speaker 12: House at the time. I got a call from my
Speaker 12: member at Eagle Pass, who was a frontline member, and
Speaker 12: he said, Gina, they have shut down the border to
Speaker 12: Eagle Pass in Mexico. This was the week before Christmas
Speaker 12: to all commerce. It is killing our local businesses. We
Speaker 12: are going to lose. And I said, okay, let me
Speaker 12: see what I can do. So I called the Biden
Speaker 12: administration and I said, we need an emergency meeting. Within
Speaker 12: forty eight hours, we had their top border officials on
Speaker 12: the phone. I had my border members on the phone,
Speaker 12: and the Biden officials heard an earful about how this
Speaker 12: is not working.
Speaker 11: Something needs to change.
Speaker 12: That next week, the Biden administration sent delegates over to
Speaker 12: negotiate enforcement on the Mexican side. And what you will
Speaker 12: see in the numbers is that crossings plummeted when that happened.
Speaker 12: We need when it comes to immigration, like common sense solutions.
Speaker 12: I think that there is no question that Biden avoided
Speaker 12: the issue and did not deal with it until it
Speaker 12: was out of control. And we need to make sure
Speaker 12: that we have people in office who stopped playing politics
Speaker 12: with immigration and just work on real solutions.
Speaker 2: I unfortunately have to ask you about the screwworm, which
Speaker 2: I had never heard of until a week or so ago.
Speaker 2: For listeners, the New World screwworm is a flesh eating
Speaker 2: parasite that infests livestock. It was eradicated from the US
Speaker 2: sixty years ago, but now it's back in Texas cattle
Speaker 2: for the first time. Two things, how bad is this
Speaker 2: for Texas? And also the reporting is that all the
Speaker 2: cuts from Trump and Doge slowed the federal response. Has
Speaker 2: Abbot said one word criticizing the administration that hamstrung him
Speaker 2: and Texas? And if not, what does that tell you?
Speaker 12: Yeah, that Abbot is weak governor. We have a governor
Speaker 12: who understood years ago that the screwworm was coming. It
Speaker 12: is in Texas now. It is going to be very
Speaker 12: hard to eradicate. It is spreading in Texas. Now that
Speaker 12: it is here, We're looking at disastrous consequences. And I
Speaker 12: don't think it's just for Texans, but yes, for Texas
Speaker 12: ranchers for the price of beef. That we have a
Speaker 12: governor who either didn't care enough or didn't have this
Speaker 12: way the juice with the administration and a Secretary of
Speaker 12: Agriculture from Texas under the administration to say, hey, I
Speaker 12: understand you're doging all this other stuff, save this. This
Speaker 12: is important and we need to make sure we're doing
Speaker 12: what we need to do. Is a failure on Abbot's part.
Speaker 12: I lay this on the lap of Abbot that he
Speaker 12: could not communicate with a Trump administration, the urgency of
Speaker 12: making sure we had a solution before it was too late,
Speaker 12: and hearing it. We are now with screwworm in Texas
Speaker 12: and spreading.
Speaker 2: So there are last questions. There are just so many
Speaker 2: very important, very competitive House and Senate races this year
Speaker 2: that could decide control of Congress. There are other gubernatorial
Speaker 2: races that at least on paper, seem closer, more competitive
Speaker 2: even than yours. For people who are looking to donate
Speaker 2: their time and their money to midterm races this year,
Speaker 2: why should they choose yours?
Speaker 12: Is the fate of the Union depends on Texas in
Speaker 12: twenty twenty six. After the US Supreme Court decision on
Speaker 12: redistricting that gutted the Voting Rights Act, there are now
Speaker 12: no rules and what will happen in Texas because Republican
Speaker 12: leaders have already said they're going to draw new lines
Speaker 12: next year, we lose five Democrats in Congress under a
Speaker 12: new map with no rules. That's on top of what
Speaker 12: the Brennan Center predicts will happen at the end of
Speaker 12: the decade through census, which is four years away. That
Speaker 12: Texas will gain four to five more congressional seats because
Speaker 12: we're growing faster than all the other states. We take
Speaker 12: from blue states those congressional seats. If Republicans control that,
Speaker 12: that's another four to five seats that Democrats lose in Congress.
Speaker 12: That's ten seats in Congress that Democrats that are off
Speaker 12: the table for Democrats.
Speaker 11: The governor of Texas controls ten percent of Congress.
Speaker 12: We need a governor in Texas who will veto their
Speaker 12: rigged maps. This is the most important governor's race in
Speaker 12: the whole country for that reason.
Speaker 2: Gene and Rosa, thank you so much for joining Pots
Speaker 2: Save America. Good luck out there. Everyone always says Texas
Speaker 2: did Democrats are dreaming of Texas again, And I same
Speaker 2: thing as you said, Like, at some point we have
Speaker 2: to win Texas because Congress, the maps, but also electoral college.
Speaker 2: Like right, also, as the Midwestern states start getting a
Speaker 2: little redder, we've got to make up for it somewhere.
Speaker 2: Texas is just too big.
Speaker 12: Right, Well, for at some point congressional seats equate to
Speaker 12: electoral votes. So right, if there's no way to win Congress,
Speaker 12: then there's no way to win the White House.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thanks for you doing. Good luck out there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: talk to you soon.
Speaker 11: Thanks.
Speaker 2: That's our show for today. Thanks to Gina you know
Speaker 2: Hosa for coming on. Dan will be back in the
Speaker 2: feed on Sunday with a conversation with strict scrutinies Leihlitman.
Speaker 2: Have a good weekend.
Speaker 3: Bye everyone.
Speaker 2: Pozive America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is
Speaker 2: produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Ruben, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari,
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