Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. This is a joy
Speaker 1: in incredibly well timed. Fourteen years ago, got a Macunda
Speaker 1: at Yale. Now wrote a book called Indispensable. Sounds like
Speaker 1: a song like, sounds like, you know, not something Taylor
Speaker 1: Swift would do, but you know, Nancy Wilson, I can
Speaker 1: see it's some wonderful New York cabare eight years ago.
Speaker 1: Indispensable When Leaders Really Matter? Chapter one, hunting the high
Speaker 1: impact Leader, What did God's Name happen? Well?
Speaker 2: When the book came out? One of the at the end,
Speaker 2: the book came out, as you said in twenty twelve,
Speaker 2: I said, you want to avoid people who have psychological
Speaker 2: and personality disorders like narcissism, a history of bad management, failures,
Speaker 2: out of the mainstream ideologies, and inherited wealth. That was
Speaker 2: twenty twelve. And then my editor a few years later
Speaker 2: emailed me and he said, do you think people misunderstood
Speaker 2: what we were trying to say?
Speaker 1: But Sarah, it is in the president with great respect
Speaker 1: for the grind second term, even his supporters are exhausted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is this is Donald Trump unchained and we're
Speaker 2: seeing that in ways that are I think Matt Iglesias
Speaker 2: had a really good framing this week a few days
Speaker 2: ago that it's worth golaying out that every president drops
Speaker 2: in the opendon polls over time because they take political
Speaker 2: capital and they spend it on things that they want
Speaker 2: to achieve. And usually that is policy, right, that is
Speaker 2: for Barack Obama, it was Obamacare, and then you know
Speaker 2: the second term that was there's foreign policy achievements. Usually
Speaker 2: you take political capital and you burn it to achieve policy.
Speaker 2: This administration seems to be burning it for corruption. Right,
Speaker 2: that's what you have to call the Reparations Fund, whatever
Speaker 2: this is, And that's like, that's telling you where their
Speaker 2: priorities are and their numbers are going down and reflecting that.
Speaker 3: Where the Democrats it seems like, boy, if I'm a
Speaker 3: Democrat strategist, this is it doesn't get any better than
Speaker 3: this yet, I'm not seeing any message coming out of
Speaker 3: the Democrats, and the and the midterms are like a
Speaker 3: cup of coffee away here.
Speaker 2: The traditional formation of the Democratic Party is the circular
Speaker 2: firing squad, and they're you know, they're living not to
Speaker 2: tradition right now. You're seeing in Maine with Graham Platner's race,
Speaker 2: where you know, they had a as good as a
Speaker 2: fifty to fifty shot at taking the Senate back. And
Speaker 2: now who knows. And so I think this is there
Speaker 2: are a few compounded things here, right. So one is
Speaker 2: the institutional party just doesn't have any power anymore. None
Speaker 2: of them wanted Platner to be the nominee in Maine,
Speaker 2: none of them, Right, everybody lined up behind Janet Mills
Speaker 2: collapsed nothing, got nothing, She couldn't even make the primary.
Speaker 2: And then at the same time, the party base tends
Speaker 2: to fall in love with people who send signifiers as
Speaker 2: opposed to having sort of real concrete like this is
Speaker 2: someone who's actually got to deliver for us. This get
Speaker 2: with Platner, who knows, you know, obviously, But I mean
Speaker 2: Fetterman is the classic example. Fetterman was run was you
Speaker 2: know the party left is that there are the people
Speaker 2: who picked Fetterman, and when he was elected he went
Speaker 2: to the exact opposite direction.
Speaker 3: Is there a room for centrist lawmakers in either party
Speaker 3: these days?
Speaker 2: Sure? Less and less, but it's there. And you're starting,
Speaker 2: I think to see in some places people who are
Speaker 2: trying to understand that the big divide is not among Democrats,
Speaker 2: is not people who want to move left or left
Speaker 2: or you know right that I think that's a misnomer.
Speaker 2: What you're seeing is what democratic the base really wants
Speaker 2: is people who are fighting right. They're just they're tired
Speaker 2: of losing, and it's not about left or right to
Speaker 2: large chunks of the base. So Seth Molton is doing,
Speaker 2: you know, surprisingly well charge of challenging Ed Markey in Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: I mean, like conflict. Seth and I went to college together,
Speaker 2: so I'm biased, but like you know, you know, he
Speaker 2: made the ballot like that, the chance of that you see,
Speaker 2: you're seeing across the you know, in a lot of
Speaker 2: different places people you know Mickey Ryl, like people who
Speaker 2: weren't coming out as we're on the left there we
Speaker 2: want to fight.
Speaker 1: Got a Macunda with us. You get a huge response
Speaker 1: when Professor mccund is on with this. So I got
Speaker 1: two books indispensable and even better picking presidents. He said,
Speaker 1: let me ask like a John Stewart question. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you were on with John Stewart, I'm sure it
Speaker 1: has something like this. Can you envision is one of
Speaker 1: the four or five people I know qualified that we're
Speaker 1: going to have a photographic image of the White House
Speaker 1: three years, five years, eight years from now with an
Speaker 1: actual rose garden, a east wing at least it's a
Speaker 1: putty green, you know, whatever on there. They'll replace that construction,
Speaker 1: they'll move out the UFC and all that, and they'll
Speaker 1: take out the two flagpoles that look like a gas
Speaker 1: station opening. Do you envision a repair of the White
Speaker 1: House imagery?
Speaker 2: We have I do because the rage in the Democratic
Speaker 2: Party base at what's happened is it's difficult to express.
Speaker 2: So you know, very close friend of mine, former Republican governor,
Speaker 2: and I just standing him a few days ago. I
Speaker 2: don't think you understand how angry people in the Democratic
Speaker 2: Party are that they feel betrayed at a very deep level.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: You know, you may not have liked George W. Bush
Speaker 2: as a president, but you thought he was on your
Speaker 2: side this, you know, every day with Trump and especially
Speaker 2: I think this fund, this Reparation's fund of one point
Speaker 2: eight billion dollars of taxpayer money going to apparently January sixth,
Speaker 2: attackers that there will be any Democratic president is going
Speaker 2: to have to engage in those kind of symbolic acts
Speaker 2: of tearing down of everything Trump did because the base
Speaker 2: will not accept not doing it.
Speaker 3: Is there a united or out there for this country?
Speaker 1: Do you think.
Speaker 2: That is not the way that the activated base of
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party wants to go? But he is, I
Speaker 2: think the way a lot of Americans want to go.
Speaker 2: And you could imagine an Andy Bisheer type figure, or
Speaker 2: you know, this is the name I'm hearing a lot
Speaker 2: recently which I would not even six months ago, would
Speaker 2: have said, no way, John. Assof people are talking about
Speaker 2: him a lot, and you know, he gives a remarkably
Speaker 2: good speech of people who are Southerners, you know, have
Speaker 2: sort of figured out how to be able to appeal
Speaker 2: to people who aren't on the activist base.
Speaker 1: I'm begging redo indispensables. You can pop it off in
Speaker 1: your free time. Got amacoda definitive at Yale University, or
Speaker 1: I'm picking our presidents