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Speaker 5: Welcome to Patavia America.
Speaker 4: I'm Dan Pfeiffer and I'm Alex Wagner.
Speaker 5: John is off this week. On today's show, Grand Platner
Speaker 5: suspenses campaign against Susan Collins, and now there's a very crowded,
Speaker 5: very chaotic race to succeed him. The Warner Ran appears
Speaker 5: to be starting back up again, even though Donald Trump
Speaker 5: is confused about the name of the country he's attacking.
Speaker 5: That's a real thing. Then, former North Carolina Governor Roy
Speaker 5: Cooper talks me about the campaign for Senate. Alex, thanks
Speaker 5: for being here today and replacing John.
Speaker 4: It's a pleasure, although I mean we all miss John
Speaker 4: whenever he's away. Crazy shit happens.
Speaker 5: Stan It's true he spends his vacations in the middle
Speaker 5: of online fiascos. That's either here or there. Okay, let's
Speaker 5: start with the Platner news. Two long days after Politico
Speaker 5: broke the story that Pitner had allegedly raped a former girlfriend,
Speaker 5: Platner posted an eleven minute video on Wednesday evening saying
Speaker 5: he would file the formal paperwork to withdraw his name
Speaker 5: from the ballot, but also sharing a lot of other
Speaker 5: thoughts too. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 6: I think, as many of you know, over the past
Speaker 6: couple of days, I have faced some very serious allegations,
Speaker 6: and I just want to make it clear this is
Speaker 6: all false. I think it's really important to understand why
Speaker 6: this is happening in the timeline, why this is happening
Speaker 6: right now. I only have until July thirteenth until I
Speaker 6: am officially the nominee. This was the last week to
Speaker 6: try to get me off of the ballot. That's why
Speaker 6: this is occurring. It's not the false allegations though, that
Speaker 6: have brought us to where we are. It's the fact
Speaker 6: that they are being used by the political establishment to
Speaker 6: put structural pressure on us. What comes next needs to
Speaker 6: come from the people. I'm not trying to dictate to
Speaker 6: anyone who it should be or how we get there,
Speaker 6: But I will say this, it needs to be open, transparent,
Speaker 6: and democratic.
Speaker 5: As of this recording on Thursday afternoon, Planner has not
Speaker 5: actually filed the paperwork to have his name removed. The
Speaker 5: deviline is five pm Eastern Time on Monday, but there
Speaker 5: is reporting that he will wait until then to do it. Alex,
Speaker 5: what are your thoughts and his decision to drop out
Speaker 5: in the message in that video?
Speaker 4: Asshole? Asshole, asshole? Those are my thoughts. First of all,
Speaker 4: nobody needed to hear Graham Platner uncensored for twelve minutes,
Speaker 4: and the conceit in that video is preposterous that I
Speaker 4: guess we're meant to believe that a rape victim is
Speaker 4: a crisis actor, and that crisis acting is being used
Speaker 4: by the Democratic establishment to get Graham Platner out of
Speaker 4: the race, never minding that Platner's exit from the race
Speaker 4: greatly complicates the race and potentially throws it further into jeopardy.
Speaker 4: And there's no mention we didn't we thankfully did not
Speaker 4: play the whole video. But he never mentions any of
Speaker 4: the women who came forward on the record talking about
Speaker 4: violence and aggression, if not outright assault and rape. He
Speaker 4: never mentions and pushes back on any of those things.
Speaker 4: He just says this is all part of a deep
Speaker 4: state plot. I mean, it's totally outrageous. But maybe the
Speaker 4: most egregious part of it, I think is the fact
Speaker 4: that he suggests the system is hopelessly flawed and corrupted,
Speaker 4: and that a machine politics would not abide an insurgent
Speaker 4: grassroots campaign. The mission of the establishment right now is
Speaker 4: to quash real reform and real accountability, which is, you
Speaker 4: can have jaded views about the establishment, and I'm sure
Speaker 4: there's every reason for Graham Platner to have some of those,
Speaker 4: and for some of his supporters too, But right now,
Speaker 4: if the goal really is to oust Susan Collins, Graham
Speaker 4: Platner needs to make people believe. He does not need
Speaker 4: to further disillusion his supporters. He does not need to
Speaker 4: spin paranoid conspiracy theories. He does not need anybody in
Speaker 4: democratic politics and Maine to feel like this system is
Speaker 4: entirely rigged against them. He needs people to believe that
Speaker 4: there can be a good outcome. He needs to put
Speaker 4: whatever momentum he has left into the next candidate, and
Speaker 4: he's done exactly the opposite. I mean, I just think
Speaker 4: it's completely unconscionable that this is the way this guy
Speaker 4: is exiting the race.
Speaker 5: I my take on this is the subject line of
Speaker 5: your excellent newsletter, subtech newsletter, how the hell? Which is
Speaker 5: fuck grand Platner like this? I agree with everything you said.
Speaker 5: What is so infuriating about this is if he truly
Speaker 5: cared about getting people health care, about stopping a genocide,
Speaker 5: about making the economic and political system more fair in
Speaker 5: this country, that none of those things can happen if
Speaker 5: we do not beat Susan Collins exactly, And by going
Speaker 5: down this path of conspiracy theories to as you say,
Speaker 5: to dissolution supporters, he is making that less likely. He's
Speaker 5: making it harder to accomplish the things he did. This
Speaker 5: video is Trumpian in its nature. It is conspiracy theories,
Speaker 5: it's denial. It's making it entirely about himself. Now, Throughout
Speaker 5: this video he talks about how the movement they built
Speaker 5: and how whatever the process is, that the main Democratic
Speaker 5: particm company must be true to that movement. Now, it
Speaker 5: is impressive for a first time political candidate to beat
Speaker 5: the two term governor of the state and beat the
Speaker 5: d SEC and chructure and all that. That is an impressive thing.
Speaker 5: But like, just don't crawl so far up your own ass.
Speaker 5: You got one hundred and fifty thousand votes in main right.
Speaker 5: This is not the Robert Kennedy nineteen sixty eight campaign.
Speaker 5: This is not the Aboum two thousand and eight campaign.
Speaker 5: It is the smart thing for the party to do,
Speaker 5: to have a process that brings in the people who
Speaker 5: support a grand planner, because we do obviously need them
Speaker 5: to win. But this whole thing that this was some magical,
Speaker 5: messianic thing that he put together, he himself, and he
Speaker 5: only he put together, and we must pay respect to
Speaker 5: what he did. It's just fucking ridiculous. It's counterproductive. Just
Speaker 5: go away. It's the best thing he can do for
Speaker 5: the things he claims he cares about.
Speaker 4: Of course, he's waiting till Monday. It's like, first of all,
Speaker 4: time is of the essence every It's like paraphrasing the bear.
Speaker 4: Every second counts, and this asshole is waiting till Monday
Speaker 4: just because give me a fucking break. Secondly, what end
Speaker 4: to what? Why file the paperwork be done? We need
Speaker 4: to move everybody needs to move on. I say this
Speaker 4: in my newsletter and I genuinely believe it. Like, let Dan,
Speaker 4: we have a long history here, but let this be
Speaker 4: like the last conversation we have to have about Grand Planner,
Speaker 4: because the focus needs to be on Susan Collins.
Speaker 5: And we're going to get to Susan Collins after we
Speaker 5: finish their next fifteen minutes talking.
Speaker 6: We are no.
Speaker 4: Well no, I think, because I will say, and I've
Speaker 4: said this before, and I'm sure you agree with me
Speaker 4: on this, I'm sure there needs to be at some
Speaker 4: point a real I don't want to use proctology as
Speaker 4: the word, but like a real examination of soul surging
Speaker 4: about the lessons learned here.
Speaker 5: Oh, we're gonna We're going to do that today on
Speaker 5: this podcast in just a moment.
Speaker 4: Bless you. I'm getting ahead of myself.
Speaker 5: Oh yes, but let's before we get to that, because
Speaker 5: I do I do want to have a conversation about
Speaker 5: how we got to this moment, and I want to
Speaker 5: talk a little bit about where you were right and
Speaker 5: I was wrong and what it was, which we will
Speaker 5: get to, my promise, but I want to talk a
Speaker 5: little bit first about what happens next im prove with
Speaker 5: some of this on Polar Coaster, my show for friends
Speaker 5: of the pod subscribers. If you're a subscriber yet, I
Speaker 5: really don't know what you do with your life, and
Speaker 5: maybe you should visit cricket dot com slash friends who.
Speaker 4: Change that, but any of who I'm a believer.
Speaker 5: Provided that Platner does formally drop out, the main Democratic
Speaker 5: Party has until July twenty seventh to replace them. They've
Speaker 5: said they'll hold a convention to pick a new nominee
Speaker 5: and we'll make all the details public soon, although there's
Speaker 5: been a lot of reporting on what it is, and
Speaker 5: they claim that transparency will be of the utmost importance.
Speaker 5: What do you make of the convention idea? Is there
Speaker 5: a better one? There's a way not to make this
Speaker 5: process so messy?
Speaker 4: Noah, you got like, hey, listen, I'm the last one
Speaker 4: to have a better idea, but I would like to
Speaker 4: see I mean, there's been talk about town halls and debates.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think there has to be some before
Speaker 4: these delegates make the call. If it is in fact
Speaker 4: the leadership of the state party that is going to
Speaker 4: decide who the nominee is, one would hope there would
Speaker 4: be some concession to both you know, those delegates and
Speaker 4: the public in the sort of the and the notion
Speaker 4: of choice by having a full or full ish airing
Speaker 4: of their views. And and that's obviously going to have
Speaker 4: to be fairly abbreviated, but there needs to be some
Speaker 4: difference to you know, helping educate the public and the
Speaker 4: delegates about who these people are. I've done a glancing
Speaker 4: search on the internet, but that's not sufficient, and they
Speaker 4: haven't had to talk about their positions in a fulsome way.
Speaker 4: So I think that you know, there need. I would
Speaker 4: love to see some kind of public format where there
Speaker 4: whether it's debate, town hall, whatever, that's moderated and that's
Speaker 4: a you know, official feeling beyond just interviews with the
Speaker 4: press and podcast appearances.
Speaker 5: Yes, and so the way that we think this is
Speaker 5: going to happen is there would be this convention and
Speaker 5: I think would sort of model what would be like
Speaker 5: a brokered convention at a national party convention in an
Speaker 5: election year, and there would be I think in some
Speaker 5: ports of five hundred delegates. The sixteen I believe counties
Speaker 5: in Maine county parties would elect delegates.
Speaker 4: I think it's over six hundred delegates.
Speaker 5: That's why the hundred delegates from the sixteen counties, and
Speaker 5: they will So this is going to be party insiders
Speaker 5: under all circumstances, and like there's just no way for actually,
Speaker 5: you can't hold an election in this time period, so
Speaker 5: it's going to be this. This is probably this is
Speaker 5: going to be messy, for sure. There's going to be
Speaker 5: you know, candidates are going to try to you we'll
Speaker 5: talk about who the cans are in a second, but
Speaker 5: they're going to try to influence who the delegates are
Speaker 5: in all these places. They're gonna put up slates. It's
Speaker 5: gonna it's gonna be messy. Now, this is probably the
Speaker 5: best process if you want to involve as many people
Speaker 5: as possible and have the most transparency, because the other
Speaker 5: alternative is the state party committee just votes. And you know,
Speaker 5: this is that this is you know, we're in a
Speaker 5: weird bizarro version of twenty twenty four where we're losing
Speaker 5: a nominee very close to an election about the same
Speaker 5: number of days actually, and instead of what happened in
Speaker 5: twenty twenty four, were just one candidate, all the mcical
Speaker 5: becomes a nominee, We're going to have a process of
Speaker 5: some kind, and these people are going to compete, and
Speaker 5: maybe one of them will come and stand out, and
Speaker 5: hopefully at the end of this press ever can come together.
Speaker 5: So there are no good answers here, I guess is
Speaker 5: my point.
Speaker 4: But you know what, I'm looking forward to the mess.
Speaker 4: I think everybody's hungry for some sense that there's a
Speaker 4: real choice and there are real races and this is
Speaker 4: not a foregone conclusion on the part of party elders,
Speaker 4: and it's not a fed a company and Maine is
Speaker 4: pretty like from my podcast Runaway Country, we interviewed one
Speaker 4: of the people, Dan Cleeban, who's we're going to talk
Speaker 4: about this, one of the potential replacements for Platner. And
Speaker 4: there's so much frustration at the idea that Washington and
Speaker 4: Chuck Schumer and outsiders and elders know better and have
Speaker 4: involved themselves in this race. There's real desire to have
Speaker 4: some openness and all of this come what may.
Speaker 5: So as for who might run, intentional candidates started testing
Speaker 5: the waters even before Platners that he was leaving the race.
Speaker 5: Here's a small saal of how they're pitching themselves.
Speaker 2: So I'm the only candidate that's demonstrated that I can
Speaker 2: win statewide with a Conservatives, Republicans, and you know urban
Speaker 2: young people that are much more liberal.
Speaker 7: Maine deserves a fighter in this seat, and I will
Speaker 7: be that fighter. I will fight for Medicare for all
Speaker 7: because in the wealthiest country on Earth, nobody should ever
Speaker 7: go bankrupt over a medical bill.
Speaker 8: I own a small business here in Maine. I created
Speaker 8: built it from the ground up out of my garage.
Speaker 8: You know, employee over one hundred manors pay a living wage,
Speaker 8: provide one hundred percent of their health insurance coverage. I mean,
Speaker 8: I'm an outsider. I'm not an elected I'm not a
Speaker 8: career politician. I've never held elected office.
Speaker 5: That was former Main Senate President Troy Jackson, the state's
Speaker 5: former top health official in Need Ropshaw, and brewery owner
Speaker 5: Dan Cleeban on your podcast, Alex Runaway Country. Indeed, they've
Speaker 5: all said they will run. So I have Secretary of
Speaker 5: State Shennon Bellow's former congressional candidate and political operative Jordan Wood,
Speaker 5: former Platner staffer in congressional candidate Page Loud for her
Speaker 5: Senate candidate David Costello. State Rep. Valley Geiger is considering
Speaker 5: running two, although she hasn't officially said so. It's a
Speaker 5: lot of people. Can you find anyone compelling in this crowd?
Speaker 5: What do you make of him?
Speaker 4: I mean, I listen. I talked to Dan Kleban, who's
Speaker 4: the bar owner, the brewery owner. Nothing goes together like
Speaker 4: oysters and beer. And he was going to run last
Speaker 4: He has an interesting backstory in so far as he
Speaker 4: was going to run in last July and was told
Speaker 4: not to by the d SEC, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee,
Speaker 4: which is of course under the aegis of the purview
Speaker 4: of Chuck Schumer, and is an example of just how
Speaker 4: fucked this process has been since it's an inception, right,
Speaker 4: and later dropped out of the race and endorsed what
Speaker 4: he entered the race, but Platner had sort of won
Speaker 4: the hearts and minds of a lot of Mayners at
Speaker 4: that point. He subsequently endorsed the governor, Janet Mills, and
Speaker 4: then dropped out of the race. He's compelling as kind
Speaker 4: of a sort of surrogate for the everyman, working class
Speaker 4: Maynor that Platner represented, even if some of his biography
Speaker 4: was a bit hazy around the edges as far as
Speaker 4: his working class Bondfie Day. Troy Jackson sounds like he's
Speaker 4: the person that most you know. He's gotten an endorsement
Speaker 4: from Rocanna, who was a key endorsement for Grant Platner.
Speaker 4: At least from a national Democrat. He I believe is
Speaker 4: a fifth generation logger from Alligash, which is like Blessed
Speaker 4: Maine and all their outdoorsziness, brewers and oystermen and laggers.
Speaker 4: He's a former president of the Main Senate. He has
Speaker 4: some experience. He's you know, I think he has the
Speaker 4: progressive bonafidees that people are looking for. I got to
Speaker 4: stop saying the word bonafides. Naravshaw is a really interesting one.
Speaker 4: He was acting I think director of the CDC for
Speaker 4: a minute as well. Yes, which makes me a little worried,
Speaker 4: given that the CDC has become very politicized, and you know,
Speaker 4: former CDC director and someone who is going to be
Speaker 4: asked about COVID. It's just like, I am not a
Speaker 4: COVID a vaccine denier or a COVID skeptic. But it's
Speaker 4: extra baggage in these insane and tumultuous times. I don't know,
Speaker 4: what do you think?
Speaker 5: I am all tapped out? On having opinions on Maine
Speaker 5: Senate candidates. Like, the truth is, I don't know any
Speaker 5: of these people well enough to know who would be
Speaker 5: a candidate. Sad thing is we're not really going to
Speaker 5: know when it comes time to pick the person. This
Speaker 5: is a very abbreviated process. I hope there is someone
Speaker 5: in democratic politics who was investing more than these six
Speaker 5: thousand dollars that the Yahoo's who recruited Grand Platner used
Speaker 5: to vet him and to do like full vets on
Speaker 5: all of these people so that everyone knows everything you
Speaker 5: possibly can know, because whoever this person is commanded a
Speaker 5: massive scrutiny because if like one of the tests will
Speaker 5: be like normally a main Senate candidate does something not
Speaker 5: obviously what Grand Platner has been accused of here, but
Speaker 5: you know, had some bad online you know in a
Speaker 5: different world of different race, and some bad online posts
Speaker 5: or something else would be like a little speed bump
Speaker 5: in this race. With this level of scrutiny after what
Speaker 5: happened with Platner will be giant news. So you've got
Speaker 5: to make sure whoever we pick, can we stand that scrutiny.
Speaker 5: That's I guess that's sort of the main thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, two weeks, no big deal, great times to do,
Speaker 4: like vetting town Hall's convention, No problem, but they've got
Speaker 4: grand Platner's waiting until Monday to drop out.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, so, because we definitely couldn't use the next
Speaker 5: and seventy two hours or so. It's fitting you're here
Speaker 5: for this episode because, as many of our listeners know,
Speaker 5: every time there's been big Grand Platner news or main news,
Speaker 5: it's just been a coincience. You and I have been
Speaker 5: on mic together, either on Pod Save America, on your
Speaker 5: podcast on YouTube.
Speaker 4: At one point, Dan, we talked about doing just a
Speaker 4: main senate podcast.
Speaker 5: Pod Save Maine. Yeah, you will not be doing.
Speaker 4: That now, Yes, Pod Save why if there's still a
Speaker 4: Senate race going on. Okay, I'm just kidding. We don't
Speaker 4: need to necessarily on. But here's how in the fox
Speaker 4: Hole we've been.
Speaker 5: Yes, we've talked at nine more than anything else over
Speaker 5: the last year.
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Speaker 5: And it needs to be said, you've been a Platiner
Speaker 5: skeptic from the beginning, the very beginning, before anyone, before
Speaker 5: the Reddit posts came out, before the tattoo, before the
Speaker 5: more recent stuff. You were a platiner skeptic. And I
Speaker 5: will say here that you were right and I was wrong.
Speaker 4: I don't want to be right, man, I didn't know.
Speaker 4: This is not about me being right and you being wrong.
Speaker 4: It was I even right. I don't even know what
Speaker 4: that means. I just well, you were right.
Speaker 5: To be skeptical with cranmpid was.
Speaker 4: Yes, I guess I was skeptical.
Speaker 5: Yes, Would you like to take a victory lap?
Speaker 4: I don't want to take a victory lab. This is
Speaker 4: not a good moment for I mean, first of all,
Speaker 4: it's not a good moment for Graham Platner. It's not
Speaker 4: a good moment for the women that he allegedly tormented
Speaker 4: and assaulted. It's not a good moment for the Democratic
Speaker 4: Party because I think we're at a real crossroads here
Speaker 4: in terms of how the Democratic Party manages candidate recruitment
Speaker 4: and what it means to answer the toxic maxculinity of MAGA.
Speaker 4: And it's not a good moment because the focus has
Speaker 4: been taken off of Susan Collins, and so it's hard
Speaker 4: to take a victory lap. I mean, I hope out
Speaker 4: of this there's a little bit. The thing about Graham,
Speaker 4: I was not like some sage and like saw into
Speaker 4: the future or anything, but I was always just the
Speaker 4: bro glow was a little bit. I didn't get it.
Speaker 4: I didn't like the way I was never a Janet
Speaker 4: Mills supporter, but I didn't like people summarily dismissed her,
Speaker 4: and I felt likes her, Yes, and that's not to
Speaker 4: say that she should be the nominee, but I feel
Speaker 4: like there's like a late there was always like latent
Speaker 4: misogyny around it, and I felt like, you know, in
Speaker 4: the retrospect, and maybe this is just hindsight's twenty twenty
Speaker 4: or whatever, but there are a lot of women in
Speaker 4: a lot of places who were like, never are really
Speaker 4: that on board and kind of felt a little bit
Speaker 4: sheepish saying I don't know about that guy seems kind
Speaker 4: of like an asshole. I mean, I got into fights
Speaker 4: with Platiner supporters, you know where. The context of the
Speaker 4: conversation was he has talent, he might be able to
Speaker 4: get the job done, but he seems like a dick,
Speaker 4: And there was a real and like the dickishness may
Speaker 4: not just be a sort of side effective ambition, but
Speaker 4: may be like a more complicated and potentially serious character flaw.
Speaker 4: And as it turns out, I think that's what it was.
Speaker 4: This is someone who's completely self absorbed to the point
Speaker 4: of maybe almost like a certain psychosis based on that
Speaker 4: exit video, and certainly has some demons he really needs
Speaker 4: to wrestle with.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I when I say some merely dismissed Mills.
Speaker 5: Let me say what my actual reposition was, because this
Speaker 5: is all how you and I first have this conversation.
Speaker 5: Was I Janet Mills gets in the race, the d
Speaker 5: SC endorses her. Five minutes later, Chuck Schumer endorses her.
Speaker 5: And we know at the time that the DSCC has
Speaker 5: been trying to clear the field for Janet Mills, telling
Speaker 5: people like Hannah Pingre and these other candidates in Maine
Speaker 5: to run for governor, not run for Senate, because Janet
Speaker 5: Mills is going to be is the chosen candidate Democrat establishment.
Speaker 5: My view at the time was that I thought that
Speaker 5: was a big mistake for the DSCC, that if the
Speaker 5: DCC is going to get involved in a primary, they
Speaker 5: better be on certain that they have the best candidate.
Speaker 5: And I didn't think you could look at what happened
Speaker 5: with Susan Collins in twenty twenty what happened in the
Speaker 5: country in twenty twenty four in declare beyond a shadow
Speaker 5: of a doubt that a seventy nine year old, unpopular
Speaker 5: two term governor was our best bet. I was a
Speaker 5: commence Grim platin Er was a better bet, but I
Speaker 5: thought the vote voters of me and should pick it up. Now,
Speaker 5: I was intrigued by platin or for sure, I'm not
Speaker 5: going to pick that. I'm not going to dispute that.
Speaker 5: Like I've been thinking a lot because I was wrong here.
Speaker 5: I don't like being wrong. It happens a lot. But
Speaker 5: I've really tried to think about like where, like where
Speaker 5: I aired in this and there are a couple of places,
Speaker 5: and I'll and so I'll say what those were. The
Speaker 5: first is if I have a bias or you can
Speaker 5: even say a blind spot. In politics, it's for outsider
Speaker 5: candidates who did not grow up their entire life wanting
Speaker 5: to be in office. Yeah, Like that's why I like
Speaker 5: Barack Obama over Hilly Clinton. That's why I like, I
Speaker 5: would really loved better work when he was running for
Speaker 5: Senate and was intrigued by his potential as presidential candidate.
Speaker 5: It's why I supported Malanmi Moro in the Michigan Center
Speaker 5: racist cycle like that, Like that's like that that's what
Speaker 5: gets me most interested or candidates like that. I think
Speaker 5: they have the potential to be the best candidates and
Speaker 5: they can make the best leaders because they're just like
Speaker 5: more they've lived a normal life. They're more human, they
Speaker 5: talk more like a human, and they're less risk averse,
Speaker 5: you know, the people who spent their whole lives deciding,
Speaker 5: like what mistakes not to make to avoid being to
Speaker 5: avoid coming off their path to higher office generally.
Speaker 4: Or not authentic lives.
Speaker 5: Yes, and I think that makes you a better candidate.
Speaker 5: It absolutely does. Now that will blow up in your
Speaker 5: face a bunch, because those are those candets are by
Speaker 5: definition higher risk. They have higher ceilings and lower floorce
Speaker 5: and and like. And so that's why I was intrigued
Speaker 5: by plat Air, Like I thought, to beat Susan Collins,
Speaker 5: you needed a higher variance candidate, someone who could do
Speaker 5: something different than that Sarah Gideon did or all though
Speaker 5: the people came before. And I was not convinced that
Speaker 5: Janet Mills could do that. And I do believe that
Speaker 5: that was actually the right call. Not that Platner was
Speaker 5: the right person, obviously he was not, but the Janet
Speaker 5: Mills was the wrong candidate.
Speaker 4: When we see that now that's born out and that
Speaker 4: we have even now.
Speaker 5: And you know, and so and then the second the
Speaker 5: thing that you know that I feel I'm mad at
Speaker 5: myself about is, you know, as we went through this process.
Speaker 5: You and I had first of this conversation there we
Speaker 5: knew nothing about plant and then we saw their online posts,
Speaker 5: and you know it was the things he said were horrible,
Speaker 5: and I thought there's a real chance that could be
Speaker 5: disqualifying both in the primary and the general to voters. Right,
Speaker 5: But I did believe naively apparently the story he told
Speaker 5: about being a person who was dealing with PTSD a
Speaker 5: dark time in their life in drinking and did a
Speaker 5: bunch of things and then change their life improved. And
Speaker 5: I do believe that we should leave space for people
Speaker 5: who make mistakes to still be in politics.
Speaker 4: Of course, I think redemption and empathy are like things
Speaker 4: we need to cultivate as a society beyond politics.
Speaker 5: And I believed that, and I believed, and I actually
Speaker 5: still believe this. The story he told about how he
Speaker 5: got the tattoo was true. Now what I've come to like,
Speaker 5: I do not belie believe that he knew it was
Speaker 5: Nazi tattoo, and I certainly don't believe he was a
Speaker 5: secret Nazi from all the things.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm with Tim Miller on this though. I think
Speaker 4: he got it then figured out what it was and
Speaker 4: then kind of used it as a like, you know,
Speaker 4: cocktail point.
Speaker 5: I think, yes, I think he lied about when he
Speaker 5: discovered that it was a Nazi tattoo. That that I
Speaker 5: have come to believe, but I don't. There's this is
Speaker 5: the guy who was not shy about sharing his opinions online.
Speaker 5: So I feel like if he really was a Nazi,
Speaker 5: we would know that. Yeah, now you could say that
Speaker 5: the Nazi tattoo. One thing people say is anyone who
Speaker 5: gets the Nazi tattoo for whatever reasons has bad judgment.
Speaker 5: And that may be, but a lot of people in
Speaker 5: their twenties when they're on leave from warren drunk, have
Speaker 5: bad judgment. And should that mean you have.
Speaker 4: A Celtic band around your foresap? Right?
Speaker 8: Have?
Speaker 5: I have no tattoos.
Speaker 4: I have a bunch of back tattoos. The bunch of
Speaker 4: butterflies that I regret. Now there shamrock on my ankle.
Speaker 5: I love they're not Nazi uh butterflies? Correct?
Speaker 4: I actually have no back tattoos.
Speaker 5: I don't know, not that l pocus audience.
Speaker 4: I don't have a toe ring.
Speaker 5: AnyWho.
Speaker 9: Uh.
Speaker 5: But the other thing I regret, and this is the
Speaker 5: thing where I really started to get very worried about granp.
Speaker 5: Patner was the when the story came out in May
Speaker 5: about him sexting other women while married. And it's not
Speaker 5: that people can't make mistakes in their marriage and still
Speaker 5: run for office. That happens all the time. It was
Speaker 5: that that happened so recently that it really brought into
Speaker 5: question the redemption story that I had naively believed from him. Right,
Speaker 5: it's one thing to make mistakes a different part of
Speaker 5: your life. And then the story he told was he
Speaker 5: made a bunch of mistakes, he changed his life, he
Speaker 5: started working, he got into politics. But that wasn't the story.
Speaker 5: That wasn't the reality. But even then, as like his
Speaker 5: wife said, they worked through with counseling. We all followed
Speaker 5: their fertility journey to get like it just seemed like
Speaker 5: they had put it behind them. But it really made
Speaker 5: me wonder, like what the next thing was?
Speaker 4: Right, and then he lied to everybody, and then he
Speaker 4: lied to everybody.
Speaker 5: But the thing when I look back on all of
Speaker 5: that is I don't believe a liar is a really,
Speaker 5: Like that's not helpful advice, because how do you don't
Speaker 5: know someone's a liar until you find out later. What
Speaker 5: I think I should have paid more attention to was
Speaker 5: that back in March, you and I did a Political
Speaker 5: Experts react where we were looking at ads that were
Speaker 5: running in that race. Is include the first negative ad
Speaker 5: that Janet Mills launched against Platnir, which had a bunch
Speaker 5: of women reading like reacting to the things that Platinir
Speaker 5: had posted, and the one that we're there and you
Speaker 5: made this point to me, and it really has been
Speaker 5: in my head for the last few weeks here is
Speaker 5: like that what he said about minimizing rape and that
Speaker 5: sort of inherent misogyny should have been a much bigger flag.
Speaker 5: Like that is a sign of something else now that
Speaker 5: I like, I wish I had, I wish I'd paid
Speaker 5: more attention to that in this discussion and not and
Speaker 5: that that was separate and apart from some of the
Speaker 5: other things that he said. They were just stupid and offensive.
Speaker 5: That was dangerous and offensive.
Speaker 4: That just for I'm going to paraphrase it a little bit,
Speaker 4: but that was the Reddit post where he said people
Speaker 4: should take some responsibility not get so fucked up that
Speaker 4: they end up having sex with someone they don't mean to,
Speaker 4: which is deeply ironic. Considering the allegations against him, Can
Speaker 4: I ask you something, Dan, And I genuinely don't know
Speaker 4: what I think about this because we talk a lot
Speaker 4: about Schumer and obviously this was just a totally facocta
Speaker 4: situation where the d SEC's intervening to great the detriment
Speaker 4: of the race. But like Chuck, Schumer is also picking
Speaker 4: candidates in a lot of other swing states and in
Speaker 4: putting the heft of the d SEC behind people like
Speaker 4: Mary Peltola and Roy Cooper and Shared Brown and people
Speaker 4: who are good candidates for those races, and maybe they
Speaker 4: would have gotten there regardless of Schumer's involvement. But like,
Speaker 4: are we and I genuinely don't have an answer to this?
Speaker 4: Are we focused on this because he just did such
Speaker 4: a colossally bad fucking job picking the candidate in this race.
Speaker 5: What he did in Alaska, North Carolina, in Ohio was
Speaker 5: he recruit candidates who could clear the field themselves. They
Speaker 5: were candidates so good, so well known, so universally believed
Speaker 5: to be the best candidate, no one run against him.
Speaker 5: So it wasn't like there were a bunch of other
Speaker 5: people running that Jenny Mills was not that candidate.
Speaker 4: Hills didn't even want to run.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's the other thing, right, And also mainez has
Speaker 5: stayed with lots of Democrats. Alaska, you know, there's only one.
Speaker 5: The recruitment list for Alaska was Murray Pultola. There was
Speaker 5: no one else, right, it was Pultola or bust Ohio.
Speaker 5: It was shared Brown and there was a long gap
Speaker 5: between one and two on that list. North Carolina got
Speaker 5: a few more Democrats who could have run, but Recooper
Speaker 5: was far at the top that list. So once you
Speaker 5: got those was it. It's where I didn't like what
Speaker 5: they did in Michigan backing Hilly Stevens.
Speaker 4: There's a sexus element of all this as well that
Speaker 4: could end up not working out. Who knows.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I My general view is Church Chyumer, the DS,
Speaker 5: the d SCFL should recruit candidates. They should if they
Speaker 5: think some of the best chruction, what's going on the
Speaker 5: phone to try to convince them to do it. They
Speaker 5: should do that when there was an active primary going on,
Speaker 5: and then they put their thumb on the scale and
Speaker 5: they take that choice away from the voters. Now, when
Speaker 5: I first wrote this and was first upset about it,
Speaker 5: it's because the d SEC back candidate always won the primary.
Speaker 5: Politics has changed so much in the last two years
Speaker 5: that that's actually become in albatross around people's next as
Speaker 5: opposed to like this huge asset. But at the time,
Speaker 5: it was you're you're the d SC. You could pick
Speaker 5: the candidate and take the essentially take the agency away
Speaker 5: from the voter, which is what they were trying to
Speaker 5: do in Maine. That did not work in Maine, and
Speaker 5: so you know, you know that it's like, it's not
Speaker 5: that the d SEC and tumor were wrong in every instance,
Speaker 5: it's just they were wrong in this one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, and the dynamics of it are particular, and
Speaker 4: the outcome could have been meaningfully different if Chuck Schumer
Speaker 4: hadn't tried to clear the field and do what he did,
Speaker 4: and in fact, I think in some ways elevate Platner
Speaker 4: in the course of all of that, Right, he became
Speaker 4: a poster child for defiance and grassroots activism and and
Speaker 4: you know, saying fuck you to politics as usual.
Speaker 5: So the same thing happened in Michigan, where by putting
Speaker 5: the thumb on the scale for Haley Stevens, he elevated
Speaker 5: Abdul and then one of the worst things that happened
Speaker 5: to malogmorrow was a report I think in political or
Speaker 5: somewhere else that said Schumer would be fine with either
Speaker 5: Haley or Mallory. So all of a sudden, Abdul got
Speaker 5: to go out and say all the time, I'm the
Speaker 5: only candidate that chucktion reposes.
Speaker 4: In this race and continues, I mean continue, yes, yesterday.
Speaker 5: The thing I've been struggling with this conversation, this has
Speaker 5: been a let'd say, it's not been a fun time
Speaker 5: online for a podcast associated with Graham Platner.
Speaker 4: Speak for yourself. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 5: I mean, as you should have your moment.
Speaker 4: But has been fun and hasn't been fun.
Speaker 5: I've tried to struggle with what, like the row lesson
Speaker 5: is here, because it shouldn't be that outsider candidates are bad.
Speaker 4: They're speaking so broadly, like this guy, you didn't have
Speaker 4: to know that he was a dick from the beginning,
Speaker 4: But once the Reddit posts started coming out, like right,
Speaker 4: I'm all for redemption, but there were a lot of
Speaker 4: data points.
Speaker 5: Yeah you know that that I mean that that is
Speaker 5: that is the that is that is the true. But
Speaker 5: I think what I'm saying, like, for example, there was
Speaker 5: this Biden aide who's on CNN today who is saying
Speaker 5: basically taking Platner comparing him to Abdul l side and
Speaker 5: saying like also unvetted, same consultants, And it's just absurd
Speaker 5: because Abdul has run for governor and has been a
Speaker 5: government official in Michigan for a while, So that's an
Speaker 5: absurd comparison. But it is this idea that people who
Speaker 5: are outsiders or first time candidates are risk inherently risky
Speaker 5: because they haven't been tested, they've been vetted by the system.
Speaker 4: Right, That's what I mean. Nobody should take a broad
Speaker 4: lesson about outsiders from the Platiner.
Speaker 5: Yes, because here are two other people who have had
Speaker 5: huge sexual misconduct sexual assault problems who are the insider
Speaker 5: candidates of Eric Swallow Andrew Cuomo. Right right, there's nothing,
Speaker 5: there's nothing about being a creep that is exclusive to
Speaker 5: first time plandits. It's also true, I mean the other
Speaker 5: thing that you know, the other as you as we
Speaker 5: think about this and like what it all means, like
Speaker 5: one story that people can tell and it's not an
Speaker 5: incorrect story, is that a bunch of podcast bros and
Speaker 5: Democratic strategists and other dumb men online fell for the
Speaker 5: stick of this narcissist right, and that it was true
Speaker 5: that a lot of women and a lot of women
Speaker 5: in my life that I regret not listening to like
Speaker 5: you and Sarah Longwell and other people who have raised
Speaker 5: these flags, you know, and this was like dumb men
Speaker 5: and much more staightful women and they're in the How
Speaker 5: does voices I think criticizing Platiner, particularly nationally were women.
Speaker 5: But then you look in Maine and Platner beat Mills
Speaker 5: was beating Mills by like fifteen points among women. A
Speaker 5: majority of one hundred two thousand votes was women. And
Speaker 5: so I just you know, I just reading Rebecca Tracerous
Speaker 5: is very insightful piece and thoughtful piece about her supportive
Speaker 5: grand Platner.
Speaker 4: Well, Michelle Goldberg has one as well. Yeah, can I
Speaker 4: say something well to your point about the podcast bros
Speaker 4: and other guys. I think and I feel like I
Speaker 4: always sound like you know, Brown University professor when I
Speaker 4: say this. There's a real crisis right now in terms
Speaker 4: of how the left responds to Maga style masculinity and
Speaker 4: like what it means to be tough and a warrior
Speaker 4: but also progressive and a populace and like, what is
Speaker 4: that special alchemy and like we got the Left needs
Speaker 4: to build that person. They need someone who can who
Speaker 4: can be the antidote to all the just utterly toxic
Speaker 4: garbage male sort of the masculinity that is being showcased
Speaker 4: on the right, which is ultra retrograde, misogynist and bad
Speaker 4: for the country set sitting aside, bad for women. And
Speaker 4: like Platner was a unicorn in that way. He felt like, Okay,
Speaker 4: here's someone who's legitimately a progressive and he's a man's
Speaker 4: man and all this and that was I think intoxicating
Speaker 4: to a group of men in particular who are looking
Speaker 4: for that answer. And it may be a latent desire,
Speaker 4: it may be an explicit desire, but I do think
Speaker 4: as a dude in the world who's a progressive, it's
Speaker 4: a weird, complicated time, which doesn't mean we should overly
Speaker 4: focus on men. I get it, but it is a problem.
Speaker 4: I mean, I have two boys, Like there is a
Speaker 4: dearth of real kind of like there's no playbook for
Speaker 4: how to be a guy in this moment. And I
Speaker 4: think if you're in the world of politics and you're
Speaker 4: in media, you're kind of trying to you're bouncing between archetypes,
Speaker 4: and you're trying to figure out, like, Okay, what's the
Speaker 4: way to be what should we be supporting and championing?
Speaker 4: And Lattner was very attractive in that way, and I
Speaker 4: think that's part of the reason he took off, at
Speaker 4: least in the online media space in a way that
Speaker 4: I mean, Mills never was going to, but even other
Speaker 4: guys in American politics haven't. I mean, he was just
Speaker 4: incredibly compelling in that way.
Speaker 5: I mean he was He was an excellent communicator if
Speaker 5: you listen to like his interviews like we did the
Speaker 5: New York Times podcast, like the interview he did with
Speaker 5: our friend Ben Rhodes about post nine eleven wars, like
Speaker 5: he like, I mean, he was interesting and thoughtful and
Speaker 5: obviously like how he looked and how he sounded, you know,
Speaker 5: affected that, but it just was all bullshit? Is the problem?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know he's a pig, but that's and that's
Speaker 4: what's so devastating, is like, oh, what turns out actually
Speaker 4: like that that brand of machismo is totally corrupted, which.
Speaker 5: Or or this his particular his this particular vehicle, like
Speaker 5: there was something Patner was offering both in and nationally
Speaker 5: that was compelling to a lot of people. Yeah, the
Speaker 5: problem was that the person who was offering that was
Speaker 5: Graham Platner, right, and so like, how do you like
Speaker 5: It's like, we have to spend some time and we're
Speaker 5: not gonna do it here. We can't do it here
Speaker 5: over time, just figure out, like what was it? I
Speaker 5: don't want to overstay how important this was once against
Speaker 5: one hundred fifty thousand fucking people in Maine. This is
Speaker 5: not you know, he this is not right.
Speaker 4: But I mean, this was someone who's his advisor said
Speaker 4: that he could run for president in twenty twenty. This
Speaker 4: wasn't going to end in me.
Speaker 5: Yes, but every I've been around a lot of Senate
Speaker 5: candidates consulting sale its every faring person current. They all
Speaker 5: want them to because it's very much in every in
Speaker 5: every consultants interest, everyone wants to be David Axlria, James Carvell,
Speaker 5: you know, Carl Rove, and so they're looking for those
Speaker 5: people all the time. It doesn't mean they actually would,
Speaker 5: but he was a finational phenomenon. He broke out in
Speaker 5: a way that's like, I mean, this is a bad
Speaker 5: example but in a way that you know, Stacy, this
Speaker 5: is a good example Stacy Abrams did, even though she
Speaker 5: didn't win, a way that betto broke out and so
Speaker 5: it's like, yeah, they're like there was something there, and
Speaker 5: it's like, what was that? And how do you try
Speaker 5: to figure out what that is? That's separate from the
Speaker 5: very damage, very fucked up person the pig as you said,
Speaker 5: you do this is okay, enough of grand Platner. How
Speaker 5: much damage do you like? How fucked are we in
Speaker 5: Maine after all of this? Do we like? What kind
Speaker 5: of shot do you think we have against Susan Collins?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 4: I think, and I mean I think my advice would
Speaker 4: be say the word Susan Collins every time you want
Speaker 4: to say Graham Platner over and over and over again,
Speaker 4: because she is weak. But she is going to be
Speaker 4: a challenge. We don't need to go to the numbers.
Speaker 4: We've talked about them a lot. But she overperforms, or
Speaker 4: she has in most elections she's been in recently. This
Speaker 4: is the first one she's going to have to face
Speaker 4: voters since Roe fell. So and I think that that's
Speaker 4: legit in a state that's what sixty percent of the
Speaker 4: electorate is female. You know, hopefully people remember the fact
Speaker 4: that she built the Supreme Court that overturned Row. She
Speaker 4: was the critical vote in the Kavanaugh con animation and
Speaker 4: fancies herself a moderate, which is complete horseshit. I don't know, Dan,
Speaker 4: I mean, I think that the fact that I take
Speaker 4: it as a as a positive sign that in a
Speaker 4: way that main voters are so desperate or they're so
Speaker 4: fired up about getting Susan Collins out, that they were
Speaker 4: willing to overlook the initial phase of grand Platner's very
Speaker 4: serious transgressions. I mean, that's I guess, the silver lining, right.
Speaker 4: But you know, the party's got to manage this process
Speaker 4: in a way that doesn't further disillusioned Democratic voters. Grand
Speaker 4: platter needs to shut the fuck up, and the focus
Speaker 4: really needs to return like a laser to Susan Collins.
Speaker 5: I think if we can now this is me being
Speaker 5: less f fual. If we can pick the right person,
Speaker 5: and the right person might just be someone named generic
Speaker 5: Democrat with no tattoos and he doesn't know where how
Speaker 5: to get to Reddit, we are in a better place
Speaker 5: than we would have been with either grand Platiner pre
Speaker 5: even let's say that this accusation never happened, where a
Speaker 5: grand Platner would have been just if everything we knew
Speaker 5: up until two days ago that we have tentional for
Speaker 5: this new person to be stronger than that and stronger
Speaker 5: than Janet Mills would have been. Yeah, because even like
Speaker 5: in that New York Times SCANDU poll from two weeks ago,
Speaker 5: after all the sexting stuff and all this came out,
Speaker 5: Cramp Patner was still more popular than Janet Mills. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: And so we have a chance here. Now, this is
Speaker 5: a state where using the same New York Times poll,
Speaker 5: Democrats lead the generic ballot by eleven points. They want
Speaker 5: the Senate to be a Democratic cans by eleven points,
Speaker 5: I believe eleven or twelve points. So there is like
Speaker 5: there was, and this is to say this more democratic
Speaker 5: than twenty twenty. A lot of a lot of people
Speaker 5: who profile as Democratic voters moved to May pticularly to
Speaker 5: the Portland area, starting around COVID, so it's been it's
Speaker 5: actually a state that has grown from in migration. So
Speaker 5: we should still be able to win the race. It's
Speaker 5: gonna be really fucking hard. Collins is gonna have so
Speaker 5: much money She's had to spend almost none of it.
Speaker 5: There's going to be a gazillion dollarest and and and
Speaker 5: pack money. But I do think there's a chance we
Speaker 5: can make this all like every This is what I
Speaker 5: was saying. This is my unsolicit advice to the Putnam
Speaker 5: people two weeks ago, which was like all this Epstein Island,
Speaker 5: you know, reordering politics, populism stuff, is like, all that
Speaker 5: matters is that Susan Collins. No matter what else you
Speaker 5: feel about her, A vote for her is a vote
Speaker 5: to let Donald Trump control the Senate and pick Supreme
Speaker 5: Court justices. That's it doesn't matter how you feel about her.
Speaker 5: It doesn't matter if you liked her personally, doesn't matter
Speaker 5: if she got money for the iron bathworks or whatever
Speaker 5: else she is. A vote for her is a vote
Speaker 5: to let Donald Trump pick two more Supreme Court justice
Speaker 5: full step, just like that's what That's what people care about.
Speaker 5: That's what it's about. Don't let me be anything else,
Speaker 5: don't overcome like the simple. So I think I do
Speaker 5: believe we can still win this.
Speaker 4: It'll be totally great. I had interviewed to Adam Jenlsen
Speaker 4: for Deputy Chief of Staff to Harry Reid and chief
Speaker 4: of staff to John Fetterman in the podcast, and he
Speaker 4: is aligned with you that this makes the Democrats' chances
Speaker 4: are better now than they were a week ago when
Speaker 4: Platinum was still in the race before the political reporting.
Speaker 4: So there's that.
Speaker 5: There's that.
Speaker 4: That was like a therapy session, Dan.
Speaker 5: I have had a lot to say for a few days, Sarah.
Speaker 5: So I'm glad.
Speaker 4: I feel very honored that you wanted to share those
Speaker 4: things with me.
Speaker 5: I'm actually if John was not on vacation, I would
Speaker 5: have suggested that we swap him out for you. I
Speaker 5: feel better doing this with you.
Speaker 4: Well. Thanks, I mean, we've been We've gone on a
Speaker 4: long road to get We've been on a long been
Speaker 4: along strange to Jeremy, Yeah, we have.
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Speaker 5: All right, now, let's turn to a new story of
Speaker 5: interest to just slightly more people than the main Senate
Speaker 5: race or war with Iran, which seems to be close
Speaker 5: to restarting any minute now. Ships transitting the straightuprom moves
Speaker 5: started coming under fire again earlier this week. On Tuesday,
Speaker 5: the US military responded by hitting targets in Iran and
Speaker 5: reimposing sanctions on Irani and oil. Iran responds to that
Speaker 5: with shots at American installations in the least. We responded
Speaker 5: to that with more strikes, and so on and so on.
Speaker 5: It's all a giant mass and getting worse by the hour.
Speaker 5: The good news is that Donald Trump seems to have
Speaker 5: a very good handle on all of this. Here he
Speaker 5: is at this week's NATO summit in Turkey. Is the
Speaker 5: sea fire over?
Speaker 4: It is the seafire, John is the emou dead.
Speaker 2: It's a very interesting question to me. I think it's over.
Speaker 2: I don't want to deal with them in with this gum.
Speaker 4: We had one hundred and eleven missile shot by the
Speaker 4: Islamic Republic of Japan. The Islamic Republic of Japan as
Speaker 4: a headline story. I didn't even know.
Speaker 5: I mean, not only not only has Islamic come it
Speaker 5: become Islamic, they're also at war the United States right now.
Speaker 4: So much happened while I was.
Speaker 5: Me deep in main politics. We missed a lot of
Speaker 5: stuff around the world. So I'm sure Tommy and Ben
Speaker 5: covered this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, thank god, thank god we have them on
Speaker 4: on on Watch.
Speaker 5: Yes, things seemed to be going well in the Middle East.
Speaker 4: Huh, totally. The line out of the White House is
Speaker 4: according to Axios, I think today we're going to slap
Speaker 4: on around a bit so they understand we're not fucking around.
Speaker 4: That's that's the that's the strategy here. They are saying
Speaker 4: that this next stage of could be weeks, could be months.
Speaker 4: But the essence of this DAN is that Iran is
Speaker 4: not happy about the way things are going the Straight
Speaker 4: of Hormoz and they want to reclaim control of it,
Speaker 4: and that is an unresolved dispute that is going to
Speaker 4: continue to fuck the global economy and could make life
Speaker 4: incredibly painful for Republicans heading into the midterms. And so
Speaker 4: I mean the idea that anything was resolved by a
Speaker 4: page and a half DOCU sign however many weeks ago
Speaker 4: that was is a joke, as is this administration's foreign policy.
Speaker 4: I am not surprised that we are here. I also
Speaker 4: am unclear as to how any of this resolves itself,
Speaker 4: given the utterly we are at loggerheads with the Iranians
Speaker 4: over the Strait. They want ships to pass through on
Speaker 4: their side of the straight and register with the wait
Speaker 4: for it, horror mouz Transit Authority. Can someone get me
Speaker 4: an HTA hat? And instead the US is like, because
Speaker 4: that's how they're going to that's how they're going to
Speaker 4: tax people or toll people or companies as they go
Speaker 4: through the strait. And the US is like, you know,
Speaker 4: go the southern route, don't register with the HTA. Use
Speaker 4: the side of the strait where Oman rules the water,
Speaker 4: if you will. That's not going over well with the Iranians.
Speaker 4: And now we're back at war because the fundamental issue
Speaker 4: at the heart of this is nowhere close to being resolved.
Speaker 5: The The Wall Street showing how a story that said
Speaker 5: that this is all basically happening because section five of
Speaker 5: the of the cease fire agreement that I would say
Speaker 5: Trump signed it Versailles is poorly written and it has
Speaker 5: led to a lot of confusion about what Ariadney control
Speaker 5: of the Strait actually means, since.
Speaker 4: They never really worked it out, because it was a
Speaker 4: page and a half, because it's a joke, because there
Speaker 4: was no diplomatic process, and it's just that they wanted
Speaker 4: they wanted to get gas prices down, yea.
Speaker 5: They wanted to say the Strait was opened so that
Speaker 5: the market would improve and oral prices would start to
Speaker 5: go down, even if this rate was not actually open.
Speaker 4: It's insane. Now gas prices have ticked up a little bit,
Speaker 4: They're not where they used to be. But you know,
Speaker 4: when you are so ambiguous about how what the goal is,
Speaker 4: how this could possibly resolve itself, the diplomatic process seems
Speaker 4: I don't know. He says, they're cuckoo. I'm done dealing
Speaker 4: with them. They're sickos. Like I mean, maybe half of
Speaker 4: that is bluster, or three quarters of it is bluster,
Speaker 4: but I've never been that confident in Jared Kushner and
Speaker 4: Steve Witkoff negotiating this process, though they are a crackerjack
Speaker 4: team of diplomats, And like, what confidence should we have
Speaker 4: that this doesn't stretch on off and on not being
Speaker 4: called a war forever. The only thing standing in Trump's way,
Speaker 4: I guess, is the appropriations process and the fact that
Speaker 4: he's asking Congress for another three hundred and fifty billion
Speaker 4: dollars in Republicans may not be super stoked on doing
Speaker 4: that four months before the midterms.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this goes to the point I like to make
Speaker 5: about this swhich is anyone dumb enough to start this
Speaker 5: war is too dumbinicate out of it. Just sort of
Speaker 5: where we are totally. As you pointed out, oil prices
Speaker 5: and gas prices have gone up a little bit through this.
Speaker 5: The stock market's gone down. Ships are still passing through
Speaker 5: the Strait, although it's still well below pre war levels.
Speaker 4: One third one third of pre war levels.
Speaker 5: But the administration has finally taking at least one step
Speaker 5: to help with gas prices. Let's take a look.
Speaker 9: We're here at the first Freedom Fuel Network gas station
Speaker 9: right here in Philadelphia, leading the charge to lower gas
Speaker 9: prices three dollars and then forty seven cents. That's for
Speaker 9: our forty seventh President, Resident Donald J.
Speaker 2: Trump, the first and I saw it. I thought it
Speaker 2: was a fake lose, But glad it's true. Thanks a
Speaker 2: lot cheap.
Speaker 5: Let's keep going with you doing.
Speaker 2: Got a good job.
Speaker 4: Thank you, President Trump, Thank you for helping our country.
Speaker 9: It's President Donald J. Trump leading the charge the lower
Speaker 9: gas prices right here at Freedom Fuel Network gas stations.
Speaker 5: You heard that right. The administration's big move is a
Speaker 5: network of so called Freedom Fuel stations that are mostly
Speaker 5: in the larger Filldal area, and they are selling gas
Speaker 5: at three forty seven a gallon forty seven cents. Get it, Alex,
Speaker 5: I believe you have some thoughts on this initiative, and
Speaker 5: I'm gonna clear out and let you have them.
Speaker 4: Okay, First of all, nobody knows who's behind these gas stations.
Speaker 4: They've just like popped up around the Philly area. They
Speaker 4: used to be like Sonoco stations or Texico stations. There's
Speaker 4: just like giant stickers on them, and nobody knows how
Speaker 4: they're pricing gas at three forty seven because news flash,
Speaker 4: the reason gas prices are high is not because gas
Speaker 4: owners are stubborn and just need to be convinced get
Speaker 4: on the bandwagon of cheap gas. It's because they have
Speaker 4: to be because the market is at where it's at now.
Speaker 4: There's some discretion they have in terms of cents and
Speaker 4: like you know, on the margins. But when gas is
Speaker 4: over four dollars a gallon, it's not because they've gotten greedy.
Speaker 4: It's because that's where the market is, that's where the
Speaker 4: price of crude. So this is all smoke and mirrors.
Speaker 4: This is like a gas station Potempkin village, like it's
Speaker 4: and like I sort of delight in it because it
Speaker 4: is further proof that Donald Trump is a socialist. Like
Speaker 4: these gas stations or gas station owners are clearly getting
Speaker 4: some kind of government subsidy to lower gas to three
Speaker 4: forty seven. It is meaningfully lower than other area gas stations,
Speaker 4: and it fits in the suite of decisions Donald Trump
Speaker 4: has made to have the heavy hand of government get
Speaker 4: involved in private enterprise, whether that's you know, extorting in
Speaker 4: Nvidia and Intel for stock that the government controls in
Speaker 4: order to get licenses, or in order to establish trading overseas,
Speaker 4: whether that's the tariffs, whether that's the heavy hand of
Speaker 4: the Trump administration involved in the media and censorship. I mean,
Speaker 4: this is all the behavior of I don't know, like
Speaker 4: someone like Maduro or Putin or take your pick. This
Speaker 4: is not what free market capitalism is supposed to look
Speaker 4: like it is. It is socialism sometimes communism, maybe outright
Speaker 4: fascism and authoritary under the guy. As you know, when
Speaker 4: it is politically convenient, what a joke.
Speaker 5: It's also stupid, like what, well, what possible world is
Speaker 5: this going to make a difference by having like a
Speaker 5: handful of gas stations in the Philadelphia area sell gas
Speaker 5: for a short period of time for slightly cheaper than
Speaker 5: other parts of the like it is they are spitting
Speaker 5: in the ocean.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there arely tens of thousands of gas stations across
Speaker 4: the country.
Speaker 5: Like there is like there is a saying when you
Speaker 5: work in the White House, it's like you want to
Speaker 5: get caught trying, Like there are problems you can't solve,
Speaker 5: they're too big, Congress won't work, but you won't people
Speaker 5: to see your trying. No one, this isn't qualify as trying.
Speaker 5: They sent this video out saying they're doing this, and
Speaker 5: then in ninety nine percent of the rest of the country.
Speaker 5: People who see the video are then going to drive
Speaker 5: to the gas station and gas is going to be
Speaker 5: the same high price it was before. So you've just
Speaker 5: angered them because somehow then where you are not valuable
Speaker 5: enough to get one of these freedom fuel stations, you
Speaker 5: still have to pay the normal price. It's just so stupid.
Speaker 5: It's all dumb.
Speaker 4: I think it's honestly for Trump, do you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. I think it's just a video that they
Speaker 4: can play for him when the baby gets angry. It's
Speaker 4: like one of those soothing like it's one of those
Speaker 4: you know, there are these little gummy toys you can
Speaker 4: give babies they can chew on when they're teething and
Speaker 4: they get angry. This is the sort of video version
Speaker 4: of this.
Speaker 5: You know, this is this is coco melon for fascist idiots.
Speaker 4: That's exactly what it is.
Speaker 5: Okay, all right. One more consequence of the Rand situation
Speaker 5: we wanted to mention. Trump flew his new Katari gifts
Speaker 5: at Air Force one to Turkey, but when it was
Speaker 5: time to leave, he announced that he was sending the
Speaker 5: jet onto an airbase in England to give American station
Speaker 5: there a chance to tour the aircraft, and that quote,
Speaker 5: for old time's sake, he'd be following in the old plane.
Speaker 5: He was, of course lying. The New York Times reported
Speaker 5: that the Secret Service urged him to take the old
Speaker 5: plane because it was more secure and the new version
Speaker 5: doesn't have the same defensive capabilities. Alex, I thought the
Speaker 5: new air Force one which we paid hundreds of millions
Speaker 5: of dollars, we the taxpayers, paid hundreds of million of
Speaker 5: dollars to rush into service, was totally safe and perfect.
Speaker 5: Are you shocked by this?
Speaker 4: Shocked? Dan? I did not realize that when Trump. First
Speaker 4: of all, he has two jets in rotation, and I
Speaker 4: believe they're two more under construction right now. So it's
Speaker 4: not like the entrance of this free cuttery jet did
Speaker 4: anything to help the American taxpayer or saved us any money.
Speaker 4: I direct you to John Lovet and Tommy Vtor's excellent
Speaker 4: YouTube conversation on this very topic, which I found quite
Speaker 4: enlightening that clearly the jet is not up to snuff.
Speaker 4: Maybe they spent all the money on warm nuts that
Speaker 4: are served right before right after takeoff, or live flat seats,
Speaker 4: or you know, really fancy inflight amenities. Like face missed.
Speaker 4: I don't know, but it wasn't on securing the jet
Speaker 4: the way it needs to be because clearly they believe
Speaker 4: that there was some kind of national security threat flying
Speaker 4: out of Turkey. They asked people on Air Force One
Speaker 4: to lower their blinds, which I guess, according to Tommy,
Speaker 4: is what you do in a war zone, and that
Speaker 4: the cuttery jet did not have significant missile defense systems
Speaker 4: on it to keep everybody safe, so they had to
Speaker 4: fly the old baby blue Air Force One out of
Speaker 4: the threat zone. That's a problem. You don't want to
Speaker 4: have to have two jets in rotation because one isn't
Speaker 4: actually up to't isn't secure enough. Generally speaking, you want
Speaker 4: the president to be on the safe jet all the time.
Speaker 5: Because like there's another version of this, right, which is
Speaker 5: the re Air Force won't exists the way it does.
Speaker 5: It's built the way it's built because in the event,
Speaker 5: because this idea came during the Cold War, which is
Speaker 5: there is a nuclear war or some other war and
Speaker 5: the president has to stay in the air for hours
Speaker 5: and hours. In hours, you able to fly anywhere in
Speaker 5: the world to get to safety and be able to
Speaker 5: command the US military forces from there, and so you
Speaker 5: can't like, at any point he could be on the
Speaker 5: new jet and theoretically something can happen in the world
Speaker 5: that could put him at risk. But you're on the
Speaker 5: new jet. This is not just like it's not a
Speaker 5: commuter shuttle. No, it's just it's like once again, and
Speaker 5: this whole thing is so dumb because the jet. He
Speaker 5: doesn't care about that, because the it's it's not that
Speaker 5: often that the president is actually targeted like this obviously,
Speaker 5: or that he is in within ballistic missile range of Iran.
Speaker 5: But because he takes the jet with him when he leaves,
Speaker 5: that's the thing it does. This jet does not go
Speaker 5: to President Josh Shapiro, AOC Kamala Harris, whoever else comes next.
Speaker 5: It goes to Donald Trump to fly around on as
Speaker 5: he visits golf clubs around the world.
Speaker 4: Fantastic Trump forced.
Speaker 5: One, Trump Force one.
Speaker 4: What a disaster. But what else? I mean, everything Trump
Speaker 4: touches turns to shit. So he's right.
Speaker 5: When we come back North Carolina Senate candidate former Governor
Speaker 5: Roy Cooper.
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Speaker 5: Join me now. Is the Democratic nominee for one of
Speaker 5: the most important Senate races this cycle. Former North care
Speaker 5: and a Governor Recooper. Governor Cooper, welcome back to putsav America.
Speaker 2: I'm glad to be with you, Dan, Thanks a lot.
Speaker 5: It's been a while, so it's great to have you
Speaker 5: on here. North Carolina, a state near and dear to
Speaker 5: my heart, has been breaking democratic arts for a long time.
Speaker 5: It's been since two thousand and eight since a Democrat
Speaker 5: won a Senate seat there. Talk to me about why
Speaker 5: you believe twenty twenty six is going to be different
Speaker 5: than all the other cycles that have emotionally traumatized so
Speaker 5: many Democrats around the country at a North Carolina I assume, well.
Speaker 2: Dan, I've been having to convince people that we are
Speaker 2: having a tough race because people ask me what my
Speaker 2: biggest fear is and that a lot of people have
Speaker 2: put this race in the check mark win column. And
Speaker 2: you and I know the history of North Carolina. Just
Speaker 2: because I have a lead in the polls doesn't mean
Speaker 2: This race isn't going to be very close. We've seen
Speaker 2: so many Democratic candidates have a lead, have a lead,
Speaker 2: have a lead until they don't, and we see Republican
Speaker 2: moneying into this state at the end, and we see
Speaker 2: great Democratic candidates lose by a couple of points. And
Speaker 2: as you know, it's been two thousand and eight since
Speaker 2: we want to see almost forty years, we've only had
Speaker 2: two Democrats and both of them served one term. So
Speaker 2: this is going to be a close race. I think
Speaker 2: this is different because people are hurting now. I don't
Speaker 2: think I've seen it like this because I've been out
Speaker 2: on my Mixedtuff Costs Less tour. People are telling me
Speaker 2: that there's just too much month at the end of
Speaker 2: the money for them. Their paychecks just are not keeping
Speaker 2: up with the cost of living, and they are frustrated
Speaker 2: and they recognize that Washington, DC is in chaos. That
Speaker 2: this president and administration promised them that day one, the
Speaker 2: cost of living would be on top of the list,
Speaker 2: and not only has it not been, they've actively hurt
Speaker 2: people's chances in that we've seen these chaotic terrifs at
Speaker 2: cost to everything. We've seen this war in Iran increase costs.
Speaker 2: We've seen this one big, beautiful bill that ripped healthcare
Speaker 2: away from people and given the tax breaks to the billionaires.
Speaker 2: People are frustrated, and at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: I think they know that I will be a Senator
Speaker 2: who will put the people first, not the billionaires. And
Speaker 2: we know that my opponent, Michael Whitley, will do and
Speaker 2: say whatever this President tells him to do and say.
Speaker 2: And we know at the end of the day that
Speaker 2: a lot of money's going to come into North Carolina.
Speaker 2: But we're going to win this race because we have to.
Speaker 2: I told my children the other day that my parents
Speaker 2: left me a better country, but that we had work
Speaker 2: to do to leave them a better country. And I
Speaker 2: think all of us need to look within us and say, hey,
Speaker 2: what can I do to make sure that this country
Speaker 2: is the kind of country we want to leave to
Speaker 2: our kids grandkids. And that's why I'm running for the Senate.
Speaker 5: You point out affordability is the number one issue in
Speaker 5: North Carolina. It's a number one issue all around the country.
Speaker 5: It's frankly the number one issue in our politics for
Speaker 5: basically since covid as inflation went up. As you mentioned,
Speaker 5: you were on this tour of North Carolina. Tell me
Speaker 5: little about the tour and can you give me a
Speaker 5: handful of specific ideas that you would do to help
Speaker 5: lower people's prices if elected.
Speaker 2: Well, the tour, I've been meeting people across North Carolina.
Speaker 2: We call it the make Stuff Costs Less Tour, very
Speaker 2: very clear. Yes, yeah, yeah, I mean. We hear from Kuwana,
Speaker 2: who's struggling to pay for groceries. She's a teacher. We
Speaker 2: hear from Meredith, whose kid, Vivi's on Medicaid and Mayor's
Speaker 2: scared death that Washington is going to attack and take
Speaker 2: away Vivi's healthcare. Pender's a farmer in rural North Carolina.
Speaker 2: The tariffs are killing him. So in my policy proposals,
Speaker 2: you can go to Roy Cooper dot com and read
Speaker 2: our proposals on what we're proposing to do to make
Speaker 2: stuff costs less. You can also help us out. You
Speaker 2: can also volunteer. We need people to help us in
Speaker 2: this campaign. But first, you know, we've got to work
Speaker 2: with Republicans, and I believe there will be some who
Speaker 2: will be ready to work with us on taking back
Speaker 2: the legislative branches constitutional authority. Here at checks and balances
Speaker 2: are critical, so taking them back on trade and tariffs.
Speaker 2: We got to roll back these chaotic tariffs, and I
Speaker 2: think immediately that helps to reduce the cost of living.
Speaker 2: We've got to restore the health care cuts that have
Speaker 2: really read havoc on people's pocketbooks and people's lives, their health.
Speaker 2: We've got to make sure that we are investing in
Speaker 2: education across the board. I believe that when you look
Speaker 2: at all of the proposals that we have made, like
Speaker 2: a childcare tax credit, because I'm hearing from people about
Speaker 2: childcare going through the roof and they're having to make
Speaker 2: hard decisions about whether one parent's going to work. We
Speaker 2: just need a Washington focused on people and not tax
Speaker 2: breaks for the corporations. And I think that we can
Speaker 2: make a difference. A government that works can make a
Speaker 2: difference for people and help them have a paycheck that
Speaker 2: keeps up with the cost of living.
Speaker 5: There's been a lot of talk about groceries and gas,
Speaker 5: of course in gas because of the Iron War, but
Speaker 5: is utility prices And one of the things driving up utility
Speaker 5: prices is data centers. What would you do with data
Speaker 5: centers to either help lower the cost of electricity slow
Speaker 5: the builds the build out of these, Like, how are
Speaker 5: you thinking about this sort of mad rush to build
Speaker 5: as many data centers as possible.
Speaker 2: It's part of my policy proposals is that they must
Speaker 2: pay for their own energy. Other consumers should not have
Speaker 2: to bear any cost from data centers, and we should
Speaker 2: encourage them to create their own energy sources and connect
Speaker 2: them to the grid. And I think many of them
Speaker 2: are ready to step up and do that. Of course,
Speaker 2: communities have to have input as to whether these are
Speaker 2: built there or not. But I think that is critical
Speaker 2: because we now have a demand for power unlike anything
Speaker 2: we've ever seen, and we have a Congress and a
Speaker 2: president in Washington that has wiped away the games that
Speaker 2: we made in clean energy that would have helped add
Speaker 2: energy to the grid. That's all been wiped away during
Speaker 2: the last couple of years. So we have a real
Speaker 2: challenge on our head. So I think they have to
Speaker 2: make sure that they pay for their own.
Speaker 5: Your opponent, Michael Wattley, is not particularly well known to
Speaker 5: a lot of people around the country. He's not sort
Speaker 5: of one of these you know, maga bad guys like
Speaker 5: a Ken Paxton or Herschel Walker, or doctor Oz in
Speaker 5: previous selections. I understand there's some debate about his North
Speaker 5: Carolina roots and that he failed to be able to
Speaker 5: name any members of your NHL Stanley Cup Championship.
Speaker 2: Team down there.
Speaker 5: But what should voters either in North Carolina around the
Speaker 5: country want to help your campaign know about Michael Wattley
Speaker 5: and who he is and what he would do well.
Speaker 2: First, he's been a Washington DC insider for years. He
Speaker 2: was a big oil and utility company lobbyist. He worked
Speaker 2: to be able to raise prices for oil companies and
Speaker 2: raise utility rates for utility companies. He still owns stock
Speaker 2: in those and he served as chair of the Republican
Speaker 2: National Committee as co chair, pushed there by President Trump,
Speaker 2: and we're seeing that he's able to line his own
Speaker 2: pockets by advocating and encouraging the Iran war, pushing this
Speaker 2: one big Beautiful bill. He owns pharma company stocks, and
Speaker 2: we know that those have gone up because of this
Speaker 2: one big beautiful bill. He was also chair of the
Speaker 2: North Carolina Republican Party, recruited right wing candidates like Mark Robinson,
Speaker 2: who's the self described black Nazi in North Carolina, and
Speaker 2: stood beside and behind Mark Robinson. He has lied about
Speaker 2: my record. You mentioned that he's been telling people that
Speaker 2: he grew up in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. In actuality,
Speaker 2: he moved to Blowing Rock from Michigan when he was
Speaker 2: fifteen years old. That I don't mind people coming into
Speaker 2: North Carolina. You don't have to have grown up North Carolina.
Speaker 2: People are full North Carolinians when they move here, but
Speaker 2: just don't lie about it. But he's lied about my record,
Speaker 2: and particularly on crime. But then you look at his
Speaker 2: record on crime. He appointed a convicted child sex predator
Speaker 2: who served time in prison to a prominent position in
Speaker 2: the North Carolina Republican Party and stood by him and
Speaker 2: reappointed him, even though the party debated this and re
Speaker 2: simply the party has come in and passed a resolution
Speaker 2: saying we aren't going to have sex predators appointed to
Speaker 2: positions of prominence anymore. He's also very recently stood by
Speaker 2: Trump's pardon of all of these J six insurrectionists, including
Speaker 2: those who assaulted the police officers, and including those he
Speaker 2: went on to commit other crimes, some against children, for
Speaker 2: child six crimes. That's the kind of record that Michael
Speaker 2: Whiteley has, and as I say, he will do and
Speaker 2: say whatever this president tells him to do and say.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, I will be a strong independent
Speaker 2: senator for North Carolina. I will put the people first.
Speaker 2: I will try to work with this president when I can.
Speaker 2: I did my first four years as governor. He was
Speaker 2: president at the same time. I tried to work with him.
Speaker 2: We had to go through COVID and other things. But
Speaker 2: I will stand up to him when I need to,
Speaker 2: and there needs to be a lot of standing up
Speaker 2: to him right now in Washington. I think the people
Speaker 2: in North Carolina are going to want that.
Speaker 5: At the end of the day, you mentioned the attacks
Speaker 5: on your record on crime. This is in a bunch
Speaker 5: of their ads. This seems to be their main strategy
Speaker 5: trying to feat you is that Pinhu was week on crime,
Speaker 5: week on immigration. They are specifically focusing on some early
Speaker 5: releases that you granted in your time as governor. What
Speaker 5: is your response to those attacks? What's the true story here?
Speaker 2: Well, first, those stories are there many lies being told
Speaker 2: in what they've done, and they've had fact checks that
Speaker 2: have shown that they just simply are not telling the truth.
Speaker 2: I'm the only person in this race who's actually prosecuted
Speaker 2: violent criminals and work to keep them behind bars, while
Speaker 2: Michael Wattley has appointed a child sex predator to a
Speaker 2: prominent position in the North Carolina Republican Party. That's the
Speaker 2: difference between us on crime. People know my record as
Speaker 2: Attorney General. They know that as governor I signed tougher
Speaker 2: bail laws. They know too that I believe in working
Speaker 2: to prevent crime by investing in early childhood education and
Speaker 2: in our public schools, in healthcare, and in our communities.
Speaker 2: I think that's critical. But they believe this is a
Speaker 2: soft bot. It is not, and I think the people
Speaker 2: of North Carolina will hear that at the end of
Speaker 2: the day.
Speaker 5: You know, immigration is in crime are sort of tied
Speaker 5: together in Republican rhetoric these days. One of the tasks
Speaker 5: for a Democratic Senate will be or just new Democratic
Speaker 5: centtors is going to be trying to find ways to
Speaker 5: rain in what is happening with ice and what trump
Speaker 5: metrations are with ice. We just had another person killed
Speaker 5: by ice recently. How are you thinking about what you
Speaker 5: if you were elected Senate, what you would do with ice, Like,
Speaker 5: how would you reform it, restrain it? What are you thinking?
Speaker 2: Well, first, we need secure borders in this country, and
Speaker 2: we should deport violent criminals, and this organization should be
Speaker 2: working to try and do that. But we also don't
Speaker 2: need what is happening now with people being picked up
Speaker 2: just because of what they look like, often American citizens
Speaker 2: being put in danger, shot on the street. It seems
Speaker 2: to me reasonable that officers who work with ICE should
Speaker 2: have the same requirements that state, local, and federal law
Speaker 2: enforcement officers should have, and I think that that is
Speaker 2: something that we need to do make sure that they
Speaker 2: have those same requirements.
Speaker 5: As we mentioned, your opponent's the former chair of the RNC.
Speaker 5: A couple of weeks ago, the Supreme Court had a
Speaker 5: ruling which now will allow the art party committees like
Speaker 5: the RNC and the DNC to spend unlimited funds on
Speaker 5: behalf on races like yours. How does that ruling affect
Speaker 5: your race? With your opponent being the former chair of
Speaker 5: the organization that can now spend unlimited money.
Speaker 2: This is the worst campaign finance Supreme Court decision since
Speaker 2: Citizens United. It allows virtually unlimited spending from these joint committees.
Speaker 2: When a candidate and a political party or like the
Speaker 2: Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, come together, they don't have any
Speaker 2: limits as they used to have. This puts more power
Speaker 2: in the hands of the very wealthy, of the billionaires,
Speaker 2: of the corporations, and I think you're going to see
Speaker 2: a significant amount of money flowing into races all across
Speaker 2: the country using this new device. It may affect our
Speaker 2: race even more than others. Being that has been recently
Speaker 2: the chair of the Republican National Committee, he knows all
Speaker 2: the people there. He certainly has been talking about the
Speaker 2: fact that they're going to use this new tool. We
Speaker 2: all need to come together and get a grip on
Speaker 2: campaign finance in this country. We have to find a
Speaker 2: way to stop this madness. It's too much money in politics.
Speaker 2: I'll be first in line to find a way to
Speaker 2: overturn Citizens United, but until then, we cannot unilaterally disarm.
Speaker 2: This takes power away from small donors, and I hope
Speaker 2: small donors will stand up and say we're not going
Speaker 2: to let this happen. We're going to give these candidates
Speaker 2: even more roycoop dot com is a great place to
Speaker 2: go and to do that because we need to have
Speaker 2: a strong voice for everyday people, and this new decision
Speaker 2: just allows more money into the system. It leads to
Speaker 2: more corruption. We see open corruption in Washington right now.
Speaker 2: In fact, my opponent, as I mentioned, owns individual stock.
Speaker 2: I've when I ran for governor, I sold all of
Speaker 2: my individual stock. I have widely held mutual funds. I'm
Speaker 2: doing that during the campaign. I will do that as
Speaker 2: a United States Senator, regardless of what the law is.
Speaker 2: But I will work to pass a law that prohibits
Speaker 2: members of Congress and executive high executive officials from trading
Speaker 2: individual stocks. I'll support a law that stops allowing people
Speaker 2: to be lobbyists after they serve in Congress. We need
Speaker 2: to get people to trust the federal government again, and
Speaker 2: right now people just don't. So we have to elect
Speaker 2: people not only who will fight to change the laws.
Speaker 2: We're seeing that. We have a lot of people who
Speaker 2: want to change the laws, but nothing ever happens in
Speaker 2: Washington on this, but who will set examples. And that's
Speaker 2: what I want to do when I get there. And
Speaker 2: the way this money is going to come in, I
Speaker 2: hope it won't affect these elections because I hope that
Speaker 2: people will step up and help these candidates. We've got
Speaker 2: to take back the House. We've got to take back
Speaker 2: the Senate. We've got to make sure that we come
Speaker 2: back to the constitution that the Framers intended, where we
Speaker 2: have true checks and balances, because right now we have
Speaker 2: leaders in Congress who simply will not stand up to
Speaker 2: the president. And you need to do that. Regardless of party.
Speaker 2: You need to do that, and the branches need to
Speaker 2: push against each other in order to make this great
Speaker 2: republic work.
Speaker 5: I'll say this for you to make it easier. But
Speaker 5: the ruling means that the the RNC has a lot
Speaker 5: more money in the d NC, UH, the nteresty is
Speaker 5: more running the DSCC. They're probably more money than the Democrats.
Speaker 5: If we are going to the only way we're going
Speaker 5: to stay competitive these races for people to go to
Speaker 5: websites like Roy Cooper dot com UH and push back
Speaker 5: because it's not where we are we can win with
Speaker 5: grass roost nations. We are not going to match them
Speaker 5: billionaire for billionaire in this race. So I just wanted
Speaker 5: to make lay that out there. I would I would
Speaker 5: do that for you, make that pitch easier for you.
Speaker 2: You said it better than I and I think I
Speaker 2: think you're right about that. Because they are we can't
Speaker 2: catch out the DNC just simply can't catch out before November.
Speaker 2: So we're going to have to have help from everyday
Speaker 2: people out there.
Speaker 5: The Democratic Party is in a bit of transition these days,
Speaker 5: and we have Democratic Socialists winning in New York City
Speaker 5: and Colorado. We have progressive anti establishment Canis winning here
Speaker 5: and there. We also have Roy Cooper's running in North
Speaker 5: Carolina and Shared Brown's running in Ohio. Is there a
Speaker 5: big a tent big enough for the party of these days? Like,
Speaker 5: how are you thinking about what's going on in the party?
Speaker 5: You know, you're a two term governor establishment figure, there's
Speaker 5: this anti establishment sort of further going on, Like how
Speaker 5: are you navigating office?
Speaker 2: Well, I understand why people are frustrated because government often
Speaker 2: hasn't worked at the federal level, and people are mad,
Speaker 2: and so I get it. People are paying too much.
Speaker 2: Things are costing too much out there, and they're frustrated.
Speaker 2: They don't have health cares, they can't afford a place
Speaker 2: to live. My goodness, they had one bipartisan thing that
Speaker 2: they did, the housing build that just got flipped on
Speaker 2: his head. That's just so frustrating. But look, I can
Speaker 2: just tell you what we've done here. I was a
Speaker 2: Democratic governor for eight years. I had a Republican legislature
Speaker 2: for eight years, and yes, I vetoed a lot of
Speaker 2: bad legislation, and we fought over a lot of things,
Speaker 2: but I found ways to work with them on recruiting
Speaker 2: good paying jobs on to our state, to getting paid
Speaker 2: p leave, to passing a law to get our power
Speaker 2: sector to carbon zero by twenty fifty, and finally got
Speaker 2: a Republican legislature in a southern state to expand Medicaid,
Speaker 2: which has made a real difference. And we did that
Speaker 2: by getting their constituents in these red rural counties to
Speaker 2: lobby them for it. Because when I would use my
Speaker 2: contacts with sheriffs in some of these counties when I
Speaker 2: served as Attorney General, and many of them would complain
Speaker 2: to me that essentially that a lot of people in
Speaker 2: their jail were struggling and needed health care. And so
Speaker 2: they understood that Medicaid expansion would bring more help to
Speaker 2: their county with medical services and would help keep their
Speaker 2: rural hospital open. And when you have a tough on
Speaker 2: crime Republican sheriff walking the halls lobbying from Medicaid expansion,
Speaker 2: it's very effective. And so we were able to work
Speaker 2: together on a common goal to get health care, and
Speaker 2: these red rural counties have benefited really more than anybody
Speaker 2: else here. Seven hundred and thirty thousand people in counting
Speaker 2: now have health care in North Carolina. And there are
Speaker 2: ways to work together. We saw it on the housing
Speaker 2: bill in Washington. We've got to have more people who
Speaker 2: are willing to sit down at the table, even if
Speaker 2: they have disparate opinions. When you look at goals, often
Speaker 2: our goals are shared, even if we are on opposite
Speaker 2: ends politically. We want a good education for our kids,
Speaker 2: we want a good paying job, we want clean air
Speaker 2: and water, we want quality healthcare. We all want the
Speaker 2: same things, and we have to be willing to sit
Speaker 2: down at the table and find ways forwards, find a
Speaker 2: way to achieve consensus. I did that as governor time
Speaker 2: and time again. I want to do that Washington, and
Speaker 2: I believe that Washington could use a dose of North
Speaker 2: Carolina common sense. I'm ready to come and try and
Speaker 2: provide that, not only from a governor attorney general perspective,
Speaker 2: a state legislator perspective, but I practiced law for eighteen
Speaker 2: years and was a managing partner of my small firm
Speaker 2: for a while, I had to make a payroll, so
Speaker 2: I have a lot of background that I think I
Speaker 2: can use in helping to shape legislation. Walking across the aisle,
Speaker 2: trying to find a way forward because people just want
Speaker 2: government to work, and right now it's not.
Speaker 5: I think, Governor, I think it's a great place to
Speaker 5: end it. Governor Cooper, thank you so much for joining us,
Speaker 5: and we'll talk to you against sin.
Speaker 2: Thanks, Dan, appreciate it.
Speaker 5: All right, that's our show for today.
Speaker 4: Thanks for work so fast. It was so fast. Sorry
Speaker 4: to cut you off.
Speaker 5: It's just been an hour. We've been doing this for
Speaker 5: an hour.
Speaker 4: No, I mean it just I just meant like it,
Speaker 4: like it having much fun, emotional ties and lows.
Speaker 5: It was sessional because it was our our last Grand
Speaker 5: Platinir conversation ever.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, mark that on your calendars.
Speaker 5: Seriously. Okay, that's our show for today. Thanks to Roy
Speaker 5: Cooper for coming on. Tommy will be back in the
Speaker 5: feed on Sunday with a conversation with Gary Lineker, host
Speaker 5: of The Rest is Football and legendary England striker, to
Speaker 5: talk about the World Cup in the politics of soccer,
Speaker 5: talks to everyone soon Bye everyone.
Speaker 1: Pods in America is a cricket media production.
Speaker 3: Our show was produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Ruben, McKenna
Speaker 3: Roberts and Ferris Safari, with Reed Jerland, Elijah Cone and
Speaker 3: Adrian Hill.
Speaker 1: Our team includes Matt de Groat, Ben Hefcotch, Charlotte Landis,
Speaker 1: David Toles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young and Naomi Sengel. Our
Speaker 1: staff is probably unionized with the Writers Guild of America
Speaker 1: East