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Speaker 1: and rates may vary. Hello Aaron, Welcome to another episode
Speaker 1: of the Chuck Podcast. Let me give you a quick
Speaker 1: rundown of what we have for today's episode. Look, I've
Speaker 1: got a little more fallout from the events on Saturday
Speaker 1: and frankly a laments, I'm not gonna lie to Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is you know, I know we're all shocked that
Speaker 1: our leaders aren't meeting the moment, but our leaders aren't
Speaker 1: meeting the moment. Let's not take our eye off the
Speaker 1: ball of Iran. We have just hit essentially a new
Speaker 1: high and gas prices since the start of this war.
Speaker 1: We're now at a high on gas prices that we
Speaker 1: had to deal with at the start of the Ukraine
Speaker 1: Russian War. The problem here is that there doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to be a near term solution on the horizon. Then
Speaker 1: we have a bunch of political updates. We have a
Speaker 1: new house map in Florida. It's a fascinating new map.
Speaker 1: My quick headline is this is a great map for
Speaker 1: Republicans in a presidential year. This is a shaky map
Speaker 1: for Republicans in a midterm year, particularly a midterm year
Speaker 1: where they could where they're the party in power. I
Speaker 1: will dig into that a few Senate race developments, and
Speaker 1: then my conversation today is with Atima Omara. She's the
Speaker 1: author of a new book called The Instigators. It's basically
Speaker 1: about the role black women in particular have played as
Speaker 1: sort of the leading voices inside the Democratic Party at
Speaker 1: least in the twenty first century. But there's also more
Speaker 1: historical elements here. A Teama is not necessarily a full
Speaker 1: time historian. She's a political strategist. She has been in
Speaker 1: the trenches on democratic politics and on the politics of
Speaker 1: particularly in the African American community, and she's got some
Speaker 1: interesting insights. We talk a lot about sort of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, the future, what the future of the party is,
Speaker 1: the very splits and divides. Plus her book. Just trust me,
Speaker 1: if you're a political junkie're trying to understand where it's
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party headed, you know what could work, what
Speaker 1: might not work. This good conversation for you. I think
Speaker 1: you're going to enjoy it. Obviously, it's Wednesday, so it's
Speaker 1: Top five day, and I've got a fun little take
Speaker 1: on a top five list today. The top five races
Speaker 1: that are that are the most dangerous for Donald Trump
Speaker 1: to cement lame duck status. Right, The test of his
Speaker 1: political strength inside the Republican Party is these are five
Speaker 1: Republican primaries that will tell us how lame the duck
Speaker 1: in the Oval office is these days. Right, So I
Speaker 1: think you're going to enjoy that. And Plus I'm gonna
Speaker 1: take some questions. But let me begin with a lament.
Speaker 1: And I know this isn't a shock or a surprise,
Speaker 1: but it is still striking to me over the last
Speaker 1: couple of days that you know, to see what didn't happen.
Speaker 1: After last Saturday night's events, we had a man show
Speaker 1: up at the White House Correspondent Center armed had written
Speaker 1: a manifesto anti Trump's screed. He was stopped at a
Speaker 1: security checkpoint, and the response from the White House has
Speaker 1: essentially been, well, we should tighten security and build my ballroom.
Speaker 1: And it's the Democrats and the left's fall. And that
Speaker 1: tells you something because there was a time in this
Speaker 1: country not that long ago, when something like this would happen.
Speaker 1: A president in particular would treat it very differently. There
Speaker 1: would have been an attempt, at least in an attempt
Speaker 1: to study the country to lower the temperature, like what
Speaker 1: George W. Bush did after nine to eleven, making it
Speaker 1: crystal clear that the United States was not at war
Speaker 1: with Islam. Right, there was an important he had to
Speaker 1: say it, and it took an American president to say it.
Speaker 1: There isn't there was nobody else that could say it
Speaker 1: that would have any sort of meaning beyond the President
Speaker 1: of the United States in that moment. Presidents are in
Speaker 1: charge of the thermostat of the political temperature of the
Speaker 1: country period, and he chose to turn down the thermostat,
Speaker 1: saw what was building, feared what was building, and he
Speaker 1: turned down that thermostat. But we haven't really had that moment, right,
Speaker 1: they even had the moment where this president said this
Speaker 1: isn't who we are, this is not acceptableybe, it's time
Speaker 1: to take a breath here. I know we've all allowed
Speaker 1: political rhetoric to get out of hand, right, And yet
Speaker 1: that's not the instinct right now, is it? And that's
Speaker 1: the problem. So instead of reltigating how we got here,
Speaker 1: and I think that's part of the problem, right, that
Speaker 1: everybody feels pretty confident that they're right and the other
Speaker 1: side is wrong. I have felt it. I wrote sort
Speaker 1: of a similar thing on in my column this week
Speaker 1: for Newsphere and substat that essentially argued that, look, we're here,
Speaker 1: and you know, yes, there's no doubt that Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: arrival in twenty fifteen accelerated this moment, but that doesn't
Speaker 1: excuse the behavior now on the laugh to just say, well,
Speaker 1: donald Trump started eight, you'r reporce you. So that's not
Speaker 1: good either. So that's why you know, we can re litigate.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's definitely nobody can deny how this began,
Speaker 1: but everybody's in charge of their own behavior here. And
Speaker 1: I still believe ultimately it takes a president, and we
Speaker 1: may have a president who is not interested in turning
Speaker 1: the temperature down. But here's the simplest way I can
Speaker 1: explain it, because we've produced a new kind of political
Speaker 1: environment that's quite scary. For years, we treated certain rhetoric
Speaker 1: as performance. And I know we're going to go through
Speaker 1: this again, and some of you may roll your eyes, Oh,
Speaker 1: we've been through here before. Yeah, we have, and apparently
Speaker 1: we haven't learned the lesson, so we've got to keep
Speaker 1: going here, right, But we treated the rhetoric that's campaign stuff,
Speaker 1: and there was you know, you know, I think, frankly,
Speaker 1: I have a higher tolerance than most right because I'm
Speaker 1: used to heated campaign rhetoric. It's crowd stuff. It's right
Speaker 1: out of the WWE and that's what Trump thinks, that
Speaker 1: he's doing it for entertainment purposes and things like that.
Speaker 1: He doesn't really mean it, and I believe that. I
Speaker 1: don't think he really meant it. But that's me. That
Speaker 1: doesn't mean what other people and then there are people
Speaker 1: that act in his name that did mean it right.
Speaker 1: But when this has started to when this is when
Speaker 1: this starts happening at scale over time, it stops being
Speaker 1: performance and it gets turned into a permission slop and
Speaker 1: then after a while becomes something bigger, becomes the environment itself.
Speaker 1: We can trace that shift pretty quickly. Right. We know
Speaker 1: Donald Trump didn't invent anger in politics, but he absolutely
Speaker 1: changed what was acceptable to say out loud, punching protesters,
Speaker 1: carrying them out on stretchers, personalizing everything, turning all personal
Speaker 1: opponents into enemies. Many of us felt it personally. And
Speaker 1: you know, with fellow Republicans who are not MAGA members,
Speaker 1: many of them don't speak out for fear. Out of fear.
Speaker 1: Trust me, I've had every single mainstream reporter has had
Speaker 1: this conversation with an elected Republican, every single one in Washington.
Speaker 1: We all all have an off the record, and I
Speaker 1: have multiple off the record conversations with elected Republicans essentially
Speaker 1: saying I don't call it out because you have no
Speaker 1: idea what his people do to me or due to
Speaker 1: my family, or the threats that are made. Right it is,
Speaker 1: there is a coercion that has taken place here, and
Speaker 1: that's why it's sometimes frustrating to watch this. Right, some
Speaker 1: people only want to look back the last four years
Speaker 1: and say, boy, look what the Democrats have done. And
Speaker 1: there's some truth to that, right, the democratic cretoric has
Speaker 1: gotten harshir the violence that being prone to violence, it
Speaker 1: does seem in the last couple of years coming more
Speaker 1: from the left than the right. But you're sticking your
Speaker 1: head in the sand if you don't realize we're living,
Speaker 1: if you don't pull back the camera more and realize, oh,
Speaker 1: how did we get here? This is how we got here, right,
Speaker 1: And the fact is, anybody that's been doing this for
Speaker 1: a decade knows this is how we got here. Now
Speaker 1: you can choose to put your partisan blinders on and
Speaker 1: say it's their faults. Look at how nasty and awful
Speaker 1: the left is. Look at how nasty and awful Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is. The fact is both things can be true
Speaker 1: at the same time, you know, and that's something. And
Speaker 1: this isn't both siding everything. This is you know, two
Speaker 1: wrongs don't make right. Our politics is fucked up because
Speaker 1: of too many people believing that two wrongs make a right,
Speaker 1: and this sort of idea that you fight fire with fire,
Speaker 1: and whether it's on things as sort of arcane as
Speaker 1: drawing congressional district lines to the rhetoric that is used
Speaker 1: to describe a political opponent that you don't agree with.
Speaker 1: But the bottom line is the line has been moved
Speaker 1: and we have created the conditions for more of this,
Speaker 1: not less. Now, we spent years talking about January sixth
Speaker 1: in that matters, But here's the thing I think we've missed.
Speaker 1: That wasn't the end of something. That was actually the
Speaker 1: beginning of something, especially after he pardoned everybody in January sixth.
Speaker 1: So the real question now is what happens after that
Speaker 1: kind of permission has been established and what is it
Speaker 1: going to take to create a safer sense of normal
Speaker 1: in our political discourse. Because here's what we've learned right now,
Speaker 1: the permission slip of January sixth has has not stayed contained.
Speaker 1: It has spread, and it didn't spread ideologically. It's not
Speaker 1: on one side of the aisle. It has spread culturally,
Speaker 1: and you can see it big and small. You see
Speaker 1: it in moments that would have been unthinkable before. A
Speaker 1: sitting president reacting to the death of a former FBI
Speaker 1: director Robert Muller by saying, good, I'm glad he's dead.
Speaker 1: You know that moment, the fact that he couldn't even
Speaker 1: fake it until the man was buried. In that moment,
Speaker 1: he couldn't think about people that loved that man, who
Speaker 1: were children and grandchildren and nieces and nephews and spouses.
Speaker 1: That was the President of the United States's reaction. And
Speaker 1: then we're surprised when people who don't like this president decide,
Speaker 1: you know, they're going to fight fire with fire. It
Speaker 1: should be an earthquake in American politics, and it's barely
Speaker 1: a tremor. So why does that moment matter? Not because
Speaker 1: it's shocking, but because it's not shocking. Nobody's batted an
Speaker 1: eye at it. It just simply got absorbed, filed away,
Speaker 1: added to the pile of incendiary rhetoric that we've now
Speaker 1: decided is normal. And that was the tell. That was
Speaker 1: the normalization. And once you get there, this is how
Speaker 1: it works. It doesn't take a movement and it doesn't
Speaker 1: take coordination. It just takes one broken person who may
Speaker 1: have their own problems and who may decide maybe their
Speaker 1: own sociopathic tendencies and their own narcissism they think somehow
Speaker 1: they can solve a problem, or they can be a hero.
Speaker 1: One unstable, angry person who looks around, seize the tone,
Speaker 1: seize the language, thinks that this is now more acceptable
Speaker 1: than ever, or that it's the only thing left in
Speaker 1: the arsenal to do, and then they decide to act
Speaker 1: within it, within that environment. That's it, that's the mechanism.
Speaker 1: Now let's layer something else on the top of all this.
Speaker 1: The last decade has made a lot of people feel
Speaker 1: like they've lost control. These technological changes are fast. Our
Speaker 1: cultural changes are super fast. Right, Economically, culturally, socially, it
Speaker 1: feels we've all we feel less stable in all parts
Speaker 1: of our lives today. And then we have an information
Speaker 1: ecosystem that is exploitive, reinforces one idea over and over.
Speaker 1: Someone else is responsible for the situation. Point the finger,
Speaker 1: don't look in the mirror. There's no such thing his
Speaker 1: personal responsibility anymore, no self reflection, right, you see it.
Speaker 1: Politicians refuse to take to take stock in their own behavior.
Speaker 1: They just point a finger. Political parties won't take stock
Speaker 1: in their own behavior. They point fingers or exploit for
Speaker 1: political gain. Quote the system, right, and this is what
Speaker 1: the system looks like. And once you've believed that, the
Speaker 1: distance between blame and justification gets a lot smaller. And
Speaker 1: here's the part. A lot of people are going to
Speaker 1: miss or ignore the guy on Saturday Night right, and
Speaker 1: the left has to deal with this. And this wasn't caught,
Speaker 1: This wasn't somebody acting on Trump's behalf. His grievances ran
Speaker 1: in the other direction. But he chose to believe this
Speaker 1: was the way out. He'd lost faith in the political system.
Speaker 1: It's not a contradiction, it's a confirmation that we have
Speaker 1: The environment has changed. American politics is now brutal, it's
Speaker 1: now violent, and this cold civil war is warming up.
Speaker 1: We should not want this environment to set in. It
Speaker 1: takes and there's only one president at a time. And
Speaker 1: now we've learned this doesn't stay directional. It gets adapted,
Speaker 1: it gets mirrored, and it gets thrown back. And you know,
Speaker 1: I've been disappointed in watching the reactions from the left,
Speaker 1: which has been frankly similar to the reactions on the right.
Speaker 1: Just coming up with the evidence of why it is
Speaker 1: all Donald Trump's fault. And there's a strong case that
Speaker 1: he created the conditions for this moment. But it doesn't
Speaker 1: justify the behavior, and it doesn't justify amping up your rhetoric,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't justify any of the behavior with fighting. No,
Speaker 1: all you're doing is accelerated your tape. It's a race
Speaker 1: to the bottom, and you're trying to win. Nobody wins
Speaker 1: a race to the bottom. Yeah, you can comfort yourself
Speaker 1: by saying Trump's reaping what he sewed, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: solve the problem. You and I aren't any safer with
Speaker 1: that attitude. The question is what are you doing to
Speaker 1: change this. I'm sorry that most people don't think Michelle
Speaker 1: Obama was right. I don't even know if Michelle Obama
Speaker 1: believes she was right that when a political opponent goes low,
Speaker 1: you go high. Because the minute you start rationalizing your violence,
Speaker 1: well they started it even rhetorically, you've crossed the same line.
Speaker 1: You're no longer arguing about politics. You're justifying outcomes, different side,
Speaker 1: same logic. And that's what this environment is produced. That's why, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we don't have a president that can deal with this
Speaker 1: moment and take it head on, because it would take
Speaker 1: self reflection. He doesn't have it. It would take an
Speaker 1: admission that he was a big contributor to what's to
Speaker 1: this broken environment that we're living in. But I don't like.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, those on the left should
Speaker 1: take no comfort that he started. It doesn't justify the
Speaker 1: actions or the behavior. So what would leadership Would a
Speaker 1: good leadership moment look like right now? Well, it certainly
Speaker 1: would sound different. You'd hear a president acknowledging the moment,
Speaker 1: not spin it, not assign blame, just simply acknowledging it.
Speaker 1: You'd hear something like, we've all contributed to this own here,
Speaker 1: we need to say it back, we need to lower it,
Speaker 1: and I need to do a better job myself. How
Speaker 1: do you know some of you are probably laughing if
Speaker 1: Trump would ever admit anything. I'm just telling you what
Speaker 1: it would look like if we were modeling this moment correctly,
Speaker 1: you'd at least see an effort, a small one, to
Speaker 1: create space to try to interrupt this cycle. That's what
Speaker 1: leadership in this moment would look like. That's not what
Speaker 1: we have. And now we have leadership on the Democratic
Speaker 1: side who's like, screw them, let's go. We don't have
Speaker 1: the president we need right now to get through this moment,
Speaker 1: and we're not going to get what we need from
Speaker 1: this White House. So instead, what we're going to get
Speaker 1: as finger pointing, one sided explanations and political framing of
Speaker 1: this moment. There'll be no acknowledgment of how we got here,
Speaker 1: and without that, there's no way to actually deal with
Speaker 1: this moment. So we're going to end up moving on,
Speaker 1: not because we should, but because we can't get out
Speaker 1: of it. Right we don't have the people at the table.
Speaker 1: The voters are going to have to give us new
Speaker 1: leaders to see if they can get the country unstuck here.
Speaker 1: And look, we might hear a lot about security, more barriers,
Speaker 1: more distance. Boy, is that that's not the issue. And
Speaker 1: if anything, ratcheting up security only makes this worse. You
Speaker 1: want to create more barriers between the elected officials, the powerful,
Speaker 1: and the actual rank and file people. That's not a
Speaker 1: free society anymore. Security is not the problem. Fact, security
Speaker 1: worked here can't secure your way out of a culture.
Speaker 1: This is not about just going into a bunker or
Speaker 1: finding a ballroom on grounds that are impossible to get
Speaker 1: on unless you've given biometric issues. So right now we
Speaker 1: don't have the leadership that's interested in reversing this. We
Speaker 1: are escalating. We believe that you can't show weakness, and
Speaker 1: because there's this fear of ever showing weakness politically, we
Speaker 1: now default to confrontation. And the problem is that confrontation
Speaker 1: is only going to make us less safe. We're less stable.
Speaker 1: So it's a lament. I'm not going to be labor
Speaker 1: this anymore. I am going to do my best to
Speaker 1: canntinue to highlight why we have You know, we've this
Speaker 1: is a This is a collective failure of American leadership.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's on top, but he's not alone. Get to
Speaker 1: the ballot box and realize that character matters, that morality matters,
Speaker 1: that temperament matters. Policy goals matter too, But how do
Speaker 1: you want to achieve those goals? How do you plan
Speaker 1: to achieve those goals? Persuasion or coercion. It's a big difference.
Speaker 1: One is something you do in a democracy, the other
Speaker 1: is something you do in an authoritarian regime. It's the
Speaker 1: decision we have to be and we have to make.
Speaker 1: Speaking of pouring fuel on this fire. As I was
Speaker 1: putting this monologue together, we got news that at federal
Speaker 1: grand jury North Carolina, somebody went shopping for a grand
Speaker 1: jury and dieted former FBI director Jim Comey the Justice
Speaker 1: Departments to attempt to criminally charge the former FBI director
Speaker 1: that President Trump fired. The charges are not immediately clear,
Speaker 1: but apparently the case stems from a photograph that James
Speaker 1: Comy posted online last year showing seashells on a beach
Speaker 1: that were arranged to write out the numbers eighty six
Speaker 1: and forty seven, with forty seven supposedly being representative of
Speaker 1: the president in eighty six meaning banning or removing someone,
Speaker 1: or slang for killing someone. So you can see exactly
Speaker 1: what the Trump administration is up to. They are taking
Speaker 1: they are trying to weaponize this moment to prove that
Speaker 1: all of this is on the backs of Trump critics
Speaker 1: and that somehow they have clean hands and they have
Speaker 1: nothing to do with amping up this rhetoric. The amount
Speaker 1: of exploitive ways the president has ordered his government to
Speaker 1: harass the Komi family, including his daughter, who had a
Speaker 1: job in the federal government, and she's now in the
Speaker 1: middle of a lawsuit about her firing. Look, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to sit here and justify Komy doing what he did.
Speaker 1: It was stupid, and I think a lot of Komy's
Speaker 1: actions while he was FBI director, were just horrendous. He
Speaker 1: had the disease of eye alone can fix it disease, right,
Speaker 1: But the First Amendments, the first Amendment, and unless this
Speaker 1: government can prove that this is connected to anything, was
Speaker 1: an instigated Actually somehow somebody took it as an order.
Speaker 1: I don't know where this case is going, if this
Speaker 1: has anything remotely to do with that, with that social
Speaker 1: media post, but that is pouring fuel on this fire.
Speaker 1: That is not an administration interesting in turning down the temperature.
Speaker 1: And this is my fear of Democrats get into office
Speaker 1: and win a majority in the House and the Senate
Speaker 1: and immediately go for impeachment. We are just going to
Speaker 1: be in a cycle and a race to the body.
Speaker 1: I know the elected officials I'm looking for. I'm looking
Speaker 1: for people that are going to turn the page, that
Speaker 1: want to restore honesty and credibility and trust into government
Speaker 1: and they show a little bit of humility and character
Speaker 1: and morality while in office. That might be too much
Speaker 1: to ask for in our politicians, huh, But if this
Speaker 1: is what we ask for in our friends, this is
Speaker 1: what we ask for and how we raise our kids,
Speaker 1: and you know what it should be what we ask
Speaker 1: for and what kind of representatives that we have in
Speaker 1: this country. Character is destiny. It's a cliche for a
Speaker 1: reason because it's amazing how often it turns out to
Speaker 1: be true. By the way, one final point, I'm the
Speaker 1: Jimmy Kimmel's stuff. Jimmy Kimmel should apologize. Do I think
Speaker 1: the government should be going after him like this? Of
Speaker 1: course not. He's got First Amendment rights. But the joke
Speaker 1: in hindsight after the events on Saturday, looks terrible. So
Speaker 1: say it, Admit it. It's okay. You can say I
Speaker 1: was not intended for what it got interpreted as, which
Speaker 1: means you've got to write a better punchline or you
Speaker 1: got to write a better joke. I'm not sitting here
Speaker 1: defending the behavior of this government or the president in
Speaker 1: targeting Kimmel. But see, this is sort of the problem, right,
Speaker 1: Everything is about you got to pick a side, or
Speaker 1: you're on Jimmy Kimmel's side or you're not on his side.
Speaker 1: I'm on Jimmy Kimmel's side. I'm on the side of
Speaker 1: free speech. But if I said that and then that
Speaker 1: event happened and somebody got mad, I'd have apologized because
Speaker 1: I'd have felt like shit because it wasn't what he
Speaker 1: I do believe it was not what he intended, but
Speaker 1: I'm not here to explain him. I just think that again,
Speaker 1: it goes back to are you going to be a
Speaker 1: de escalator or do you want to be an accelerant
Speaker 1: in this moment. It's pretty simple decision people have to make.
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Speaker 1: A few other things. I really want to highlight an
Speaker 1: interview I did for Newsphere with a long time intelligence
Speaker 1: analyst from in US government, Beth Saner. She's now out
Speaker 1: of government, but one of her last jobs was being
Speaker 1: basically the only effective daily briefer to the president in
Speaker 1: the first term. To President Trump, she built a rapport
Speaker 1: with him where he at least started to accept some intelligence.
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Speaker 1: hope some of you have subscribed a newsphere. I'm just
Speaker 1: telling you it's really it's a high end news product
Speaker 1: and if you really really want not just reporting, but
Speaker 1: really smart analysis, looking around the corner type of stuff,
Speaker 1: newsphere is the place for you. But I want to
Speaker 1: share a little bit because look, we're in the middle around.
Speaker 1: We just hit a new high end gas price. This
Speaker 1: is not getting resolved tomorrow. And the impact on our economy,
Speaker 1: I mean it is. You know, there's been this sort
Speaker 1: of like stick the markets have been sticking their head
Speaker 1: in the sand, very hopeful, almost like on some sort
Speaker 1: of AI high if you will, right. But I can
Speaker 1: tell you the way consumers are going to feel. Consumers
Speaker 1: are going to hate this economy, and they already hate
Speaker 1: this economy. But I just want to sum up a
Speaker 1: few things. My conversation with best Sayer, I would call
Speaker 1: was very sobering, and she kept returning to one basic
Speaker 1: point in our thirty minute sit down that the US
Speaker 1: may be measuring this war one way, bomb damage, destroyed ships,
Speaker 1: degraded assets, but Iran is measuring it another way. Entirely,
Speaker 1: as Sanner put it, Iran's measuring stick is regime survival.
Speaker 1: Something I've been emphasizing here that the problem we have
Speaker 1: is what does our victory look like and what does
Speaker 1: their victory look like? Right now? Their victory simply surviving
Speaker 1: gives them leverage, and that means we may be winning
Speaker 1: tactically while still moving farther away from what was supposed
Speaker 1: to be a strategic solution. So her argument is that
Speaker 1: we've fallen into a very familiar American pattern assuming military
Speaker 1: superiority can solve a political problem. She compared it to
Speaker 1: Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan, moments when we misunderstood the culture,
Speaker 1: the leadership, the decision making, and the resilience of the adversary.
Speaker 1: I mean, how many times do we have to wash
Speaker 1: rents and repeat? Apparently we had to do it again.
Speaker 1: And one of her sharpest lines in this interview was
Speaker 1: we're fighting the Iranians in time, right, that's the warning.
Speaker 1: We're focused on what we can destroy and they're focused
Speaker 1: on what they can survive. And that brings us to
Speaker 1: the Strait of hormones. Sander said, the strait is now
Speaker 1: the immediate crisis, not because the nuclear she has gone away,
Speaker 1: but because this is the thing that can blow up
Speaker 1: the global economy right now. I love this line she
Speaker 1: gave me. She said, the strait is an emergency, which
Speaker 1: is the alligator closest to the boat. Yes, and our
Speaker 1: nuclear armed iron is bad. You know what's the worst
Speaker 1: thing right now? And a rhine in control of the
Speaker 1: Strait of hormones. It's the alligator closest to the boat.
Speaker 1: You can't get to the other one until you deal
Speaker 1: with this one. That's the frame. The nuclear program is
Speaker 1: still the long term strategic threat, but the strait is
Speaker 1: the crisis sitting in front of us. Shipping, insurance, energy prices, allies, China, Russia,
Speaker 1: all of it, all of it choked off at this
Speaker 1: choke point. And Sander's broader critique is that we are
Speaker 1: not sequencing our power very well. We actually sequenced our
Speaker 1: power really well in Venezuela. She used Venezuela as a
Speaker 1: net positive comparison. Right, we had diplomacy, we had information, military, force, economics.
Speaker 1: These are all the tools that she outlined that are
Speaker 1: supposed to work together, but you need to do them
Speaker 1: in a certain order. And instead she's arguing we're relying
Speaker 1: too heavily on the military hammer and then wondering why
Speaker 1: the diplomatic door is hard to to reopen. And she
Speaker 1: made this chilling observation, the Iranians understand us better than
Speaker 1: we understand them. That does seem like a scary proposition.
Speaker 1: They see the threats, they see the pauses right, they're
Speaker 1: paying attention, they see the extensions of the ceasefire, and
Speaker 1: every time we threaten something and don't do it, they
Speaker 1: read that as proof that they're winning. The bottom line
Speaker 1: from Santa is this, you can have overwhelming military success
Speaker 1: and still not have an endgame, or she put it,
Speaker 1: you can have overwhelming conventional military success and still be
Speaker 1: no closer to a solution. Welcome to the Iran that
Speaker 1: we have in front of us right now. That's the warning.
Speaker 1: This doesn't end with a bomb damage assessment. It's going
Speaker 1: to end with diplomacy and right now. The question is
Speaker 1: not just whether Iran comes back to the table. It's
Speaker 1: whether we know who exactly we're supposed to be negotiating
Speaker 1: with and whether we know how to get to an endgame.
Speaker 1: All right, let me get through a few political questions
Speaker 1: that I know you guys are interested in. Let's start
Speaker 1: with the Florida remap here, and it is, like I
Speaker 1: said at the top, this is a map that if
Speaker 1: you're Republicans, you would have loved to run on in
Speaker 1: twenty four, and you may like to run on it
Speaker 1: in twenty eight, especially if Marco Rubio's on the ticket.
Speaker 1: It basically dilutes some Republican some big Republican congressional districts
Speaker 1: in central Florida, both near Tampa Bay and near Orlando,
Speaker 1: and makes them a little bit more competitive. Ditto in
Speaker 1: South Florida. And that all makes sense in a presidential year.
Speaker 1: The problem with this map for Republicans is it's made.
Speaker 1: It has now put more seats in play for Republicans.
Speaker 1: It now means they have to spend more money than ever. Yes,
Speaker 1: they can claim Democrats have to spend a bunch of
Speaker 1: money because the Democratic seats they have to fight for
Speaker 1: and then they have to see if they can win
Speaker 1: a couple of others. So let me give you a
Speaker 1: few little highlights for those of you that are familiar. Basically,
Speaker 1: it didn't make any changes in the northern part of
Speaker 1: the state. It really is sort of Tampa Bay, Orlando,
Speaker 1: and the Miami mostly the Miami for Lauderdale market, a
Speaker 1: little bit of Palm Beach. So let's start with Jared
Speaker 1: Moscowitz W Washerman Sultz. This is Districts twenty three and
Speaker 1: twenty five. This is parts of so Moscow. It's basically used.
Speaker 1: It's been the congressman for Parkland, right, and so it's
Speaker 1: both I think, a little bit of Palm Beach and
Speaker 1: a little bit of Broward County and W. Washerman Soults,
Speaker 1: who used to be almost all exclusively browd County. It's
Speaker 1: gotten more Miami, so there's less now a Broward County
Speaker 1: base in District twenty three, which was Moscowitz, and that
Speaker 1: puts them in danger. Meanwhile, you've got W. Washerman Soultz's
Speaker 1: twenty fifth district now essentially is a coastal seat and
Speaker 1: now is Delray Beach to Miami Beach. So it's both
Speaker 1: heavily Latino and really wealthy. You know, she's if she
Speaker 1: were not pro Israel, I'd say she'd have a hard
Speaker 1: time holding that seat. But she can hold the seat.
Speaker 1: It may be a swing district now, and she's not
Speaker 1: running swing districts very often, and that's something that might
Speaker 1: be different, you know, to me. You know, there's certain
Speaker 1: members of Congress. When you're always in a swing district,
Speaker 1: you're sort of you have muscle memory for it, you develop.
Speaker 1: It's like anything when you have one workout routine. If
Speaker 1: you do the same thing over and over again, that's
Speaker 1: what I do. Unfortunately, I don't diversify my workouts. I'm
Speaker 1: you know, I sort of I'm really I'm really good
Speaker 1: at handling treadmill running. I'm really bad at handling anything else. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I think what's new for w Wasserman Chols
Speaker 1: is going to be being in a swing district mindset.
Speaker 1: But she's kind of I've noticed she has lowered her
Speaker 1: national profile a bit and gone more I think frankly
Speaker 1: in response to I mean, her district has been getting
Speaker 1: a little bit more competitive over time. Meanwhile, the twenty
Speaker 1: second district, this is lowis Francle, this was mostly Palm Beach. Well,
Speaker 1: it now is shifting parlis and balances across both Palm
Speaker 1: Beach and Broward in central Florida. The ninth district, this
Speaker 1: is Darren Soto. This one gets dramatically. This one essentially
Speaker 1: gets erased. It's moved from a majority Latino seat to
Speaker 1: a plurality white one. And if you just look at
Speaker 1: the data, goes from a plus three point five Harris
Speaker 1: district to a plus eighteen Trump district. Meanwhile, Kathy Casters
Speaker 1: seat in Tampa Bay fourteenth district, it's been we've drawn
Speaker 1: to be much more competitive, and it shifts to a
Speaker 1: narrow plus three Republican edge. The point is that Castor
Speaker 1: has been targeted, but this is not an automatic loss here. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: there's been some huge fallout, right. So Daniel Webster, longtime
Speaker 1: member of Congress in Florida, he'd been one of the
Speaker 1: louder voices saying don't do this. He walked. He's like,
Speaker 1: I'm not defending this new seat. Here's what happened to
Speaker 1: his seat. The seat is no. He had a R
Speaker 1: plus twenty fortress. The new lines moved parts. He had
Speaker 1: the villages in his district, so it took the deep
Speaker 1: red villages and put them into some adjacent districts, and
Speaker 1: it's just turned what was a very Republican district into
Speaker 1: essentially a lean R And I think they just assumed
Speaker 1: Daniel Webster, who's been everybody, Yes, he could hold it,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't want to hold it. And as an
Speaker 1: open seat midterm year, this is the first district created
Speaker 1: that could start to get us into dummy mandar territory.
Speaker 1: And then to make Castor work, they had to pull
Speaker 1: Republican voters from neighboring thirteen and fifteen districts. Well, the
Speaker 1: thirteenth is represented by Anna Paulina Luna, who was already
Speaker 1: in a fairly competitive district as it is, and she
Speaker 1: is somebody who's always been seen as a little bit
Speaker 1: too conservative for the district she's represented. Well, now what
Speaker 1: is it Now? She's even more you know, so she
Speaker 1: might not be the right person to hold that for
Speaker 1: the Republicans. So that seat arguably now has become more vulnerable.
Speaker 1: And then in South Florida, in order to do this
Speaker 1: this sort of cracking and packing of they did that
Speaker 1: they to spread out the Broward County voters a little
Speaker 1: bit so that they didn't all get consolidated. They had
Speaker 1: to move some reliably Republican voters into these more competitive districts.
Speaker 1: What it is left is, it's left both Mario Diaz
Speaker 1: Billard and Carlos Sementez with more diverse and less predictable
Speaker 1: red electorates in Dade County. And it wasn't that long
Speaker 1: ago that both of those districts had plenty of Democratic
Speaker 1: voteds Miami. Dade County is a swing county. It's still
Speaker 1: a swing county. Yes, a lot of Republican money has
Speaker 1: moved to Miami, a lot of major private equity firms
Speaker 1: have moved to my All of that is true. But
Speaker 1: all the people they bring are they're bringing, They're not
Speaker 1: necessarily bringing Republican voters. And it is not clear that
Speaker 1: the Latino vote is going to be as Republican in
Speaker 1: twenty six as it was in twenty four. And if
Speaker 1: it is not, then suddenly these two districts are in play.
Speaker 1: And Maria Salazar was already in play, although that got
Speaker 1: configured a bit too so bottom line, I know I
Speaker 1: went through it individually. Bottom Line, this will be a
Speaker 1: good map for Republicans in twenty eight, but they may
Speaker 1: this basically may not pick up four, probably is maybe
Speaker 1: it picks up one or two, could be break even.
Speaker 1: But it has done this. It's made Florida. It's actually
Speaker 1: this is what it did is that Florida was not
Speaker 1: going to be home to many swing districts, and now
Speaker 1: it is. Now there's going to be more money spent.
Speaker 1: Right Virginia created a situation where there's much fewer swing districts,
Speaker 1: much less money will be pouring in from either party.
Speaker 1: This new Florida map actually increases the need for campaign spending.
Speaker 1: You'll see there's a bit more competition. And then we've
Speaker 1: already seen that both the governor's race and the Senate
Speaker 1: race aren't cakewalks for the Republicans. So it's Florida battle
Speaker 1: around state again. I'm not quite ready to go that far,
Speaker 1: but it is more competitive and might have as many
Speaker 1: house seats in play, certainly more house seats in play,
Speaker 1: or maybe as many a house season play as a
Speaker 1: state larger than it than Texas. A few other nuggets
Speaker 1: just to share with you. One interesting new Democratic poll
Speaker 1: out of Texas that shows tall Rico within a high
Speaker 1: single digit lead over Paxton and a low single digit
Speaker 1: lead over Cornyn. That's not surprising. I think what's surprising
Speaker 1: that there is still a lead over Cornan. I think
Speaker 1: the real question is if Cornyn wins this runoff, is
Speaker 1: this still a competitive race? Now? The problem that Tallarrica's
Speaker 1: going to have is that I think if Cornan wins
Speaker 1: a runoff, they'll be less national. There'll be less money
Speaker 1: coming from the Senate packs because there'll be a belief
Speaker 1: that it and we know John Thune's going to be
Speaker 1: more willing to spend more money than ever. Now, Look,
Speaker 1: do I think no matter who the Republican nominee, there's
Speaker 1: going to be a ton of money poured into Texas.
Speaker 1: I do, But there'll be more if it's Corny than
Speaker 1: if it's Paxton. So that's a note there. And I
Speaker 1: still you know, you still see all the and I'm
Speaker 1: going to get to this in my top five list,
Speaker 1: but you're still going to see You're still going to
Speaker 1: see Paxton still seems to have the advantage of the runoff.
Speaker 1: Susan Collins deciding to go negative on Graham platter before
Speaker 1: the primary. If you're Jana Mills, this is exactly what
Speaker 1: you were hoping for. But it might but there's another
Speaker 1: way to look at this, The fact that the Colins
Speaker 1: superPAC has decided to engage Platiner now rather than after
Speaker 1: the primary sort of gets there was this growing conventional
Speaker 1: wisdom that if Collins could choose, she'd rather face Platiner
Speaker 1: than Mills. Well, guess what the super pac has decided. No, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: They want to kill Platiner. Now they want to face Mills.
Speaker 1: And you know what, I think the Collins people are right,
Speaker 1: and I think we've been watching this race together. You've
Speaker 1: probably seen me evolve on this a little bit myself.
Speaker 1: I was a little skeptical, and now I see the
Speaker 1: strength of Platiner, don't get me wrong. And so it's
Speaker 1: interesting now you see the Colins super pack essentially deciding,
Speaker 1: oh no, we much rather face Janet Mills. Look, she's
Speaker 1: just not a good candidate. Doesn't mean she might now
Speaker 1: make a great senator. She's just not a good candidate,
Speaker 1: whether a primary candidate or general electric candidate. It's been
Speaker 1: exposed in the primary by Platner, who's a very good
Speaker 1: political athlete, and now the Collins people see it in
Speaker 1: their numbers. Right, This just reinforces what we've all been
Speaker 1: seeing in these public polls. Platner's a strong is in
Speaker 1: a strong position at the moment to win this senencee.
Speaker 1: Collins would much prefer to face an opponent who also
Speaker 1: is an incumbent politician. Pretty logical to me. All right,
Speaker 1: let's sneak at a break when we come back my
Speaker 1: conversation with a Tim O'Mara. Like I said, she's a
Speaker 1: Democratic strategist, but also look, she's written this great book
Speaker 1: called The Instigators about the history of sort of and
Speaker 1: power of black women in politics. So you know, whether
Speaker 1: she wants to be known as an historian or not,
Speaker 1: she now is as well when you go down this road.
Speaker 1: So I think you'll enjoy the conversation, especially if you're
Speaker 1: truly trying to understand what the future of the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party and the Democratic Coalition is going to look like.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a break. This episode of the
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Speaker 1: code podcast for thirty percent off. And yes, I too,
Speaker 1: am a customer. So joining me now is a first
Speaker 1: time author. The book is called The Instigators, And as
Speaker 1: you can see the author here Atima O'Mara, she's even
Speaker 1: she's got merch. I love it like you know, you
Speaker 1: got a shirt with it there. I mean, you are
Speaker 1: extraordinarily well prepared. What this book is about. It's essentially
Speaker 1: about the role that black women in particular have played
Speaker 1: and are playing right now in American politics, and the
Speaker 1: influential role that younger Black women are playing these days
Speaker 1: in American politics. So this book is part analysis because
Speaker 1: she's in the advocacy space, political strategy space, but also
Speaker 1: historical because this is not a new thing. Black women
Speaker 1: in many ways have carried the banner for civil rights
Speaker 1: and for voting rights and for just rights in general.
Speaker 1: Teama joins me now, team, Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 1: Obviously, one of the big pushbacks that your book is
Speaker 1: attempting to do, Rich is there's the general consensus that
Speaker 1: the that it's white swing voters, suburban moderates that decide elections,
Speaker 1: And in some ways this is an attempt to blow
Speaker 1: up that myth a little bit. And I think we
Speaker 1: all have realized that swing voters are not people that
Speaker 1: swing between two sides. Actually, most swing voters swing between
Speaker 1: voting and not voting as much as they swing actually
Speaker 1: between the two parties. Not saying that there aren't some
Speaker 1: voters that do this and they become incredibly decisive when
Speaker 1: the margins are super thin. But is that a fair
Speaker 1: is that? Is that a fair marker here? That it
Speaker 1: was one of the big MythBusters you wanted to do,
Speaker 1: was that?
Speaker 2: Yes? Definitely.
Speaker 3: I wanted to challenge sort of a narrative that if
Speaker 3: we are are focusing on trying to get this why
Speaker 3: moderate swing voter, you know, trying to think of thinking
Speaker 3: of that particular guy and you would know this from
Speaker 3: your coverage, I'm forgetting him.
Speaker 2: But he's like the guy and like the plumber.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, the plumber, he's one, and there's like another
Speaker 3: one where he's just like I'm still deciding and everybody
Speaker 3: off his park.
Speaker 1: Dad, Right, We've got that one, right.
Speaker 3: You know, Sometimes you get like the NASCAR mom or
Speaker 3: soccer mom who's.
Speaker 2: Just trying to make decisions.
Speaker 3: And I get that that is is fascinating sort of
Speaker 3: in coverage in media, but it's it's it's not great
Speaker 3: as the basis as the foundation of a political strategy
Speaker 3: for certainly the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Well, you start your book, you start with Virginia.
Speaker 1: So this is something I'm very familiar with, and certainly
Speaker 1: my listeners over the last few weeks have gotten very familiar.
Speaker 1: We've talked a lot about Virginia in general. But it's it's, uh,
Speaker 1: you start talking about the Ralph Northam scandal and his
Speaker 1: black face scandal and sort of the role walk me
Speaker 1: through the role you think black women played in that,
Speaker 1: and I guess would be his political survival.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Uh, So you had elected officials, You had cabinet members
Speaker 3: of his as well as advocates who were like, all right,
Speaker 3: if you want to stay in political power, we are
Speaker 3: going to make you put in the work for it.
Speaker 3: So you had organizers like Chelsea Higgs Wise who had
Speaker 3: started ah, you know, marijuana advocacy organization that was grassroots
Speaker 3: to push for the legalization, Like, forget the criminalization, We're
Speaker 3: just going to go the full legalization and organizing people
Speaker 3: around that young you know, black single mother.
Speaker 2: And then you had Adam McClure.
Speaker 3: She's now a state House representative House of Delegates in Virginia,
Speaker 3: but was head of the Virginia Legacity of Black Caucus.
Speaker 3: That's use this to put together a very ambitious legislate
Speaker 3: of agenda. Maybe not everything's going to get passed on
Speaker 3: criminal justice reform, social safety and such, but we are
Speaker 3: going to put it forth in this in the in
Speaker 3: this opportunity.
Speaker 2: And then you have a Voting Rights Act.
Speaker 3: We have our own state Voting Rights ac modeled off
Speaker 3: the sixty five Voting Rights Act thanks to then State
Speaker 3: Senator Jennifer McClellan. And then you had a lot of
Speaker 3: the initiatives just in state government and policy that were
Speaker 3: being pushed by cabinet secretaries at the time who were
Speaker 3: younger black women.
Speaker 2: And so you know, a lot of this happened as Northern.
Speaker 3: Was trying to figure out how to rebound and take
Speaker 3: advantage of trying to stay in place. And it came
Speaker 3: right into the spring of twenty twenty when George Floyd
Speaker 3: was murdered. And now we're all inside and now it
Speaker 3: was really an additional captive audiences. As they say in
Speaker 3: public policy, the Overton window had shifted traumatically, and they
Speaker 3: were poised to take all that work and knowledge and
Speaker 3: strategy and push for a lot of the change that
Speaker 3: we now have in Virginia.
Speaker 1: Well, it look you had leverage over him, he decided,
Speaker 1: and it was I don't want to say it was
Speaker 1: accidental leverage, but it was. It was almost leverage that
Speaker 1: was lost. I mean not to get into the tragedy
Speaker 1: of the of the of the late now late lieutenant governor,
Speaker 1: but because he politically was essentially paralyzed at the moment
Speaker 1: then and unable to be seen as the as the alternative. Uh,
Speaker 1: if there was a if, if Northam decided to resign
Speaker 1: in the in this case, was it easier to get
Speaker 1: leverage on him or was it actually harder when it
Speaker 1: when he felt quote politically safer because his LG had
Speaker 1: separate political issues that made him a fraud potential replacement governor, It.
Speaker 3: Probably and I lluded to it there in the book
Speaker 3: that I think it made him feel like, Okay, I've
Speaker 3: got more room to try and assert that I stay.
Speaker 3: And that is where that sentiment that winter and going
Speaker 3: into spring of twenty twenty, where folks were like, all right,
Speaker 3: if you won't stay, we're gonna make it work for it,
Speaker 3: and how a lot of those policies, and you know,
Speaker 3: he made himself very amenable to that because I think
Speaker 3: he realized, certainly.
Speaker 2: Politically, it was going to be hard.
Speaker 3: Their cabinet members are elected officials, we're going to resign
Speaker 3: or certainly make his political life not very uncomfortable if
Speaker 3: he had not been as amenable. So credit to him
Speaker 3: being amnimal, but I also think he was put in
Speaker 3: a position where, you know, he felt that he had
Speaker 3: to be a lot more to prove to folks that
Speaker 3: he was what he believed himself to be as a
Speaker 3: better changed person.
Speaker 1: How often do you think, I actually think sometimes interest
Speaker 1: groups don't take advantage of what I would call transactional
Speaker 1: leverage moments, meaning you know where, look, this is not
Speaker 1: somebody that would normally be your ally, but they kind
Speaker 1: of need you more than you you know, and you
Speaker 1: know what, maybe we can extract some concessions out of here.
Speaker 1: And there's so much pressure these days, frankly not to
Speaker 1: be seen as working with somebody who maybe was against
Speaker 1: your interests six months ago, six years ago, you know
Speaker 1: the you know what always invited, what always made to
Speaker 1: me what the most inviting thing of our democracy in
Speaker 1: general is that even at its founding, it was intended
Speaker 1: to be a negotiation, right that it was always a negotiation.
Speaker 1: So if we if you think of politics as a negotiation,
Speaker 1: it means you're going to actually make some common cause
Speaker 1: with people you don't normally agree with, because it's a
Speaker 1: quote negotiation. And yet I feel like that art has
Speaker 1: been lost in modern politics, more so in the democratic
Speaker 1: side of the eye. I am I being a little
Speaker 1: overly critical here, not.
Speaker 3: I mean there are moments where, you know, listen, there
Speaker 3: are folks realizing, okay, I voted for something three times
Speaker 3: that is now pretty terrible, and I'm not super interested
Speaker 3: in being buddies with these folks.
Speaker 2: However, if there is an operation, I.
Speaker 1: Don't want to be lectured at for supporting this entity
Speaker 1: for the less right right yea lecturing like telling me
Speaker 1: I was wrong, Okay, I was wrong, And for me.
Speaker 3: It's like okay, listen, like you're going to be on
Speaker 3: the same page and voting great, but you don't want
Speaker 3: to do this again. We don't want to have to
Speaker 3: go through this again. We are going to on the
Speaker 3: other side of this, have to have a conversation about
Speaker 3: why you did what you did and why you thought
Speaker 3: that this made the most sense. So I'm one of
Speaker 3: those people where it's like I understand the point of coalitions,
Speaker 3: where it's like, all right, let's just be in the
Speaker 3: room on this one point and win, so that we
Speaker 3: can at least have a conversation.
Speaker 2: On the other side about how we retain this victory.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about twenty four because in here you're pretty
Speaker 1: you're pretty tough on the Democrats. Walk me through it.
Speaker 1: What could have been was it was this an election
Speaker 1: that was lost on persuasion or mobilization.
Speaker 2: Very much mobilization.
Speaker 3: I think some of the things that have been leaking
Speaker 3: from the twenty twenty four Action Report point.
Speaker 1: That we're never going to see.
Speaker 2: You're ever going to see it? Yeah, you're never going
Speaker 2: to see.
Speaker 3: And you know, I've had an opportunity to get some
Speaker 3: insights into into what it was from some briefings that I.
Speaker 1: Who did it, who took in charge of this briefing
Speaker 1: of this autopsy, of.
Speaker 2: This autopsy, I actually don't know.
Speaker 3: There was like a whole committee formed, and I know
Speaker 3: that there's like a couple of strategists who.
Speaker 1: Did some of the probably just two or three people
Speaker 1: that did like ninety percent of.
Speaker 3: The work the work, right, Yeah, and then there's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: so there's just generally this committee And so we definitely
Speaker 3: lost it in mobilization. Not to say that racism and
Speaker 3: estotrapy didn't play a role, because there were certainly these
Speaker 3: people who were like, well, I remember distinctly Arizona, some
Speaker 3: young person being interviewed and why you know, who are
Speaker 3: going to vote for Trump?
Speaker 2: And why well, I'mala didn't show up on the Joe
Speaker 2: Rogan podcast.
Speaker 3: I was just like, okay't I don't think that was
Speaker 3: the deciding factor. I feel like that was a good excuse,
Speaker 3: but okay, sure, so you had those, but when you
Speaker 3: have Trump didn't actually get as much as he was, like,
Speaker 3: this was a landslide.
Speaker 2: It was small amounts.
Speaker 3: Of margins of votes in all the seven states, And
Speaker 3: when you looked at what happened in twenty twenty, where
Speaker 3: we were trying to make it more accessible to vote for.
Speaker 2: Folks, and obviously that rolled back.
Speaker 3: But then you also looked at Trump's margins. You didn't
Speaker 3: do that much better than twenty It was the Democratic
Speaker 3: turnout that was lower. And it's not a combination of
Speaker 3: voter suppression and not having dealt with that, but also
Speaker 3: the mobilization is now and I cite it in the book.
Speaker 3: Lots of stories from black staffers who were trying to renegade,
Speaker 3: just figure out how to do operational work on the
Speaker 3: ground in communities that we needed to vote, as well
Speaker 3: as you know, black consultants who weren't sort of getting
Speaker 3: the resources they needed and black led, brown led organizations
Speaker 3: to turn out their communities that they got in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty by comparison.
Speaker 1: Well, to me, you know, I've always said that the
Speaker 1: damning part of this election on the mobilization front is
Speaker 1: not the seventh the results in the seven states, it's
Speaker 1: actually the results in the other forty three. Right when
Speaker 1: you look at the the number of blue states that
Speaker 1: ended up single digits close to five points, like Illinois,
Speaker 1: New Jersey to me or the probably the best examples,
Speaker 1: but this was across the board, right, It just felt
Speaker 1: like that there was somewhere, you know, I do think
Speaker 1: I go back to what I believe more so today
Speaker 1: than I even believed a decade ago, which is that
Speaker 1: swing voters are those that swing between voting and not voting,
Speaker 1: which means it is a mobilization tool, But it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you don't have persuasion. Right, Yeah, And this is
Speaker 1: why I hate saying, you know, and I did it
Speaker 1: to you, right, I said Pick one was a mobilization persuasion. Well,
Speaker 1: the fact of the matter is you couldn't persuade those
Speaker 1: who normally are with you to go vote. So guess what,
Speaker 1: you had a mobilization problem that was also a persuasion problem.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: That is like, there just weren't people excited. Now we
Speaker 1: all have our theories. Were they not excited about her
Speaker 1: because she was trying to straddle the fence between sort
Speaker 1: of the old guard of the party and the progressive wing.
Speaker 1: Was it because she was saddled with an unpopular president?
Speaker 1: Which is frankly, sometimes I look at things and it's like,
Speaker 1: let's stop being complicated. Where to Humphrey didn't win, al
Speaker 1: Gore didn't win, Kamala Harris didn't win. It's hard to
Speaker 1: succeed a president who is unpopular for one reason or
Speaker 1: the other, either personally or professionally, and my goodness, look
Speaker 1: how close she came, and yet and yet he was
Speaker 1: holding it right. So I still at the end of
Speaker 1: the day put this on Biden that we could sit
Speaker 1: here and nitpick all we want. If Biden had been
Speaker 1: a more popular president, Kamala Harris would be president.
Speaker 3: Yeah it was, and yeah, there was a the fact
Speaker 3: that the margins were so tight, and then the fact
Speaker 3: that you had she had one.
Speaker 2: Hundred and seven days.
Speaker 3: And as somebody pointed out when they were talking about
Speaker 3: the election, I.
Speaker 2: Was going out and thought about it.
Speaker 3: But she's like a voting started basically after the convention,
Speaker 3: so she was already behind before she started. And so
Speaker 3: that is you know, that's where I sort of am
Speaker 3: as well in thinking there was not a lot that
Speaker 3: between his popularity and then the operation that was handed
Speaker 3: to her that set her up for.
Speaker 2: Success, and she closed that gap.
Speaker 3: Like the stories about him being under the water and
Speaker 3: then he couldn't have pulled it out were as we
Speaker 3: now know true, And she really didn't as much as
Speaker 3: she could to close.
Speaker 2: The gap and came very close.
Speaker 1: She saved three or four Senate seats. I look at it,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think people, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: let's Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada. What am I leaving out here?
Speaker 1: Is it Michigan? Yeah, it's Michigan. Right, four Senate seats
Speaker 1: Joe Biden would have lost. Joe Biden been the nominee,
Speaker 1: he'd lost all four of those Senate seats go down.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty convinced to that because he probably has something.
Speaker 1: He's probably performs two or three points lower than she does.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I felt that as well. That was the failing.
Speaker 3: Even just the energy on the ground in volunteer enthusiasm
Speaker 3: is completely shifted of people who were of the the
Speaker 3: diehards wanted to get work done, and volunteer shifted with
Speaker 3: her at the top of the ticket.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go back to black women voters, and
Speaker 1: it is more and more Democrats talk about that black
Speaker 1: women are the heart and soul, certainly in primary politics.
Speaker 1: One of the things though, that I think is nobody
Speaker 1: quite knows the answer to. And I see people in
Speaker 1: the media just as presume that black women are primary
Speaker 1: are are super voters, so that must mean they're super lefty,
Speaker 1: and that's not the same. I think that that's always
Speaker 1: the biggest mistake most amateur analysts make with black voters,
Speaker 1: but walk me through sort of the ideological spectrum of
Speaker 1: black women and what works and what ideological arguments don't.
Speaker 1: Like why do some progressives have such a hard time
Speaker 1: convincing black voters to support them?
Speaker 3: I think oftentimes, and I'll say this from my own
Speaker 3: perspective and the conversations in my cohort, is that you're
Speaker 3: you're having conversations with people who are not having an
Speaker 3: analysis of an economic issue that takes into account the
Speaker 3: experiences of what it means to be black, brown, or
Speaker 3: woman in this country. You know, every single time I
Speaker 3: heard Bernie Sanders say, all right, but it's about the economy,
Speaker 3: and I'm like abortion rights, and in response to abortion
Speaker 3: rights or anything that just wants.
Speaker 4: To do it, he kept saying, oh, it's downplaying it
Speaker 4: when every single, every single sort of study that has
Speaker 4: come out says that, you know, the essentially the discussion
Speaker 4: around whether you grow a family or not.
Speaker 3: I know, it's personally is based around how many children
Speaker 3: you have, whether whether you can feed that child, provide
Speaker 3: for that child, and with things, yes, costs or rising,
Speaker 3: but it is it is that's taken away, that's a
Speaker 3: big part part of an economic discussion. So as an example,
Speaker 3: you know, talking about criminal justice reform and and not
Speaker 3: you not talking about it in a way that at
Speaker 3: all takes into account the humanity of black people, you know,
Speaker 3: not talking about the environment. What's happening right now in
Speaker 3: this country around you know, data center organizing, like anti
Speaker 3: data center organizing, and not really realizing it's very much
Speaker 3: of an environmental justice issue. And you know that we
Speaker 3: have a great opportunity because it's like a multi racial
Speaker 3: now sort of organizing. It's happening in some of the
Speaker 3: redist areas to some of the more blue areas against
Speaker 3: this this sort of pushing of corporate stuff, but not
Speaker 3: really kind of capturing a lot of that energy or
Speaker 3: understanding or proposing policies that really take into account the
Speaker 3: experiences of what it means to be black or brown
Speaker 3: in the US.
Speaker 1: So, So let me ask you this, do you describe
Speaker 1: a two track system of insiders and instigators? Are they?
Speaker 1: How much do those worlds trust each other? And how
Speaker 1: much are they just fundamentally intentioned?
Speaker 3: They know, there's always been attention and there should be
Speaker 3: a sort of a natural attention to somebody who's like
Speaker 3: an elected official and government highest and you know, halls
Speaker 3: of power as it were, and those who are doing
Speaker 3: the activism. I do think that that has become even
Speaker 3: more tense in recent years, and there's.
Speaker 2: Like less respect.
Speaker 3: Really on either side, you know, certainly for the roles
Speaker 3: that everybody has to play.
Speaker 1: And that's sort of why is there less respect? What's
Speaker 1: your sense is it? Is it money has sort of
Speaker 1: clouded the picture for the groups, and the groups are
Speaker 1: just so driven by finances. What is it?
Speaker 3: I think on the elected official side, I think it's like,
Speaker 3: why don't you trust me to.
Speaker 2: Just get the work time? I think it's that's their
Speaker 2: their feeling.
Speaker 3: And I think on the activist side, I think it's
Speaker 3: more so that because we don't see you doing a
Speaker 3: lot of that. We don't even see you trying to
Speaker 3: put together piecemeal reform in the direction of.
Speaker 2: You know, making change, and so.
Speaker 3: You're asking us to trust you based off of And
Speaker 3: a good example I think of is like right after
Speaker 3: twenty twenty get the Senate and granted Mansion Cinema were
Speaker 3: the hold up on why we couldn't get a lot
Speaker 3: of things through Build Back Better Voting Rights Act.
Speaker 2: I guess what they call for the people was the legislation.
Speaker 3: And and and so it's like, okay, literally, well you know,
Speaker 3: we can't get it through, and they're like.
Speaker 2: What do we just push to put you in power?
Speaker 1: For?
Speaker 2: What are the ways around?
Speaker 3: You know, what are alternative things that we can do
Speaker 3: to expand the right to vote? Because we're telling you like,
Speaker 3: if we don't, we're seeing a whole slew of voter
Speaker 3: suppression bill is going to come, which they did. And
Speaker 3: so I think it's that that's like, Okay, you're asking
Speaker 3: us to trust where there isn't something, and officials are like,
Speaker 3: I need you to trust that we're going to do
Speaker 3: the right thing. And it's like got to be a
Speaker 3: little goob and take in that relationship.
Speaker 2: It's a dance. You know.
Speaker 1: Do you think democrats in the Biden White House spot
Speaker 1: aren't it.
Speaker 2: Not as much as they should have known?
Speaker 1: What would that have looked like? I mean they certainly
Speaker 1: risked now part Look, I think you had President Biden
Speaker 1: has the heart of a legislator, not an executive. So
Speaker 1: we had more patients for sort of the Senate games
Speaker 1: been shipped and perhaps other presidents would have And you know,
Speaker 1: I think that that's if you want to know the
Speaker 1: real secret difference between a senator becoming president and a
Speaker 1: governor becoming president. It is probably that level of patience. Right,
Speaker 1: Obama had more patience for the process then maybe I
Speaker 1: remember a lot of people thought that he should. Biden
Speaker 1: had a lot more patients for the process, because you know,
Speaker 1: they've been on the other side. You know, even if
Speaker 1: briefly they you know, they're too personally friendly with those
Speaker 1: But what would that have looked like? And what if
Speaker 1: the whole thing had blown up and you wouldn't have
Speaker 1: gotten anything? And perhaps you just think, you know what, No,
Speaker 1: they would have you know, a little hardball wouldn't have
Speaker 1: hurt them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I actually don't think a little hardball would have
Speaker 3: hurt them.
Speaker 2: And I think about because you.
Speaker 1: Know, channeling his inner LBJ, you know lb J.
Speaker 2: Like one of my favorite stories I read about olbi J.
Speaker 3: It's lesser known, was he was trying to get the
Speaker 3: voting right ZAC pass. He did a whistle stop tour
Speaker 3: like and he had Lady Bird Johnson go through the
Speaker 3: South have teas with all the Southern senators. There was
Speaker 3: one senator in Virginia. If I'm not mistaken, I believe
Speaker 3: that he was the father of one of our evangelical leaders,
Speaker 3: Pat Robertson. I believe I think it was his father, right, yes, yes, yeah,
Speaker 3: And so he was like, absolutely, I am not meeting
Speaker 3: with her. I am not voting for this thing. The
Speaker 3: Jenet was like, Okay, that's how you want to play ball.
Speaker 3: Found a primary opponent, groomed him and did an operation
Speaker 3: to essentially take.
Speaker 2: Out Senator Robinson. And I think about that, I'm like, wow.
Speaker 1: That is sounds like Donald Trump. By the way, when
Speaker 1: he doesn't get his way, what does he do? What
Speaker 1: he always said? Right? No, there's like parts of Trump
Speaker 1: that are a little LBJ and a little Teddy Roosevelt, right,
Speaker 1: you know which is you know, it's a little showmanship,
Speaker 1: but he's you know, it's always like you know, one
Speaker 1: of the worst mistakes opponents of Donald Trump make is
Speaker 1: that they assume everything he says is wrong or everything
Speaker 1: he does is wrong. It's like, you know, there's some
Speaker 1: there's some things to learn from him. You know, he's
Speaker 1: won twice. Don't don't think he doesn't know what he's
Speaker 1: doing here. That doesn't mean you have to emulate him,
Speaker 1: but there is tactics you can learn from him, just
Speaker 1: like you would learn from your enemy in a war.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that was pretty smart. Well you got to
Speaker 1: try that, you know, when it comes to drones or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And sort of what Trump shows is that the
Speaker 3: example of LBJ are the example of FDR even because
Speaker 3: there was like a point where he thought he was
Speaker 3: going to expand.
Speaker 1: The supreme and he did primaries, you know, primary somebody.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. And is that to push for what you
Speaker 2: believe in and what you want to get done?
Speaker 3: And most of our legislation that passed in this country
Speaker 3: was through very much not on the dogged persistence of activists.
Speaker 3: But then you know, when it came leg slatively, these
Speaker 3: folks were like, all right, I'm going to make this happen.
Speaker 2: I don't know how I'm gonna make this happen.
Speaker 3: We're gonna find ways to do it, whether that's breaking
Speaker 3: up the bill, doing an executive.
Speaker 2: Order, what have you.
Speaker 3: And not surprising you, though, are some of our most
Speaker 3: popular farm more fondly remembered presidents for their agendas too.
Speaker 1: What's a how does an act? I'm a little skeptical
Speaker 1: of advocacy advocacy groups these days that they don't have
Speaker 1: the influence they once had, and I sit there because
Speaker 1: I fear as if the only influence that matters now
Speaker 1: is money or votes in a primary. And maybe I'm
Speaker 1: being a tad cynical, but you know, how would you
Speaker 1: advise today's activist groups to get more leverage in the
Speaker 1: non campaign seasons.
Speaker 3: I mean, first to just continue to do advocacy and
Speaker 3: organizing in need on campaign seasons as someone who you
Speaker 3: know does this work through you know, my own advocacy
Speaker 3: and consulting firm.
Speaker 1: I just.
Speaker 3: I have, I have counseled often. All Right, you want
Speaker 3: folks to mobilize and come out around these issues as
Speaker 3: we are getting into the time of as you know,
Speaker 3: many folks call it lake stage capitalism, where housing is
Speaker 3: more expensive, you're working more jobs, and need used to
Speaker 3: your distraction is kind of all over.
Speaker 2: The place with social media.
Speaker 3: You've got to find a way to break through and
Speaker 3: let people know, all right, some of these things that
Speaker 3: you're frustrated with you.
Speaker 2: Can do something about.
Speaker 3: And I know that there are some organizations that's just
Speaker 3: recently at the America Votes Conference who would love to
Speaker 3: spend more time on the doors and organizing, and they're
Speaker 3: not getting the funding at the levels they should something
Speaker 3: I talk about in the book, and how that has
Speaker 3: led to sort of an erosion of this support in
Speaker 3: election years. If somebody is not talking to the not
Speaker 3: politically engaged like you and I, you know, there is
Speaker 3: just more challenging.
Speaker 1: To do it. It is amazing to me how this
Speaker 1: is flipped within twenty years. Yeah, Democrats used to dominate
Speaker 1: the off year messaging, and it was Republicans that sort
Speaker 1: of just sort of campaign hopped, and now it's sort
Speaker 1: of you know, you know, basically since Obama it has
Speaker 1: been you know, oh it's election season. Let's you know,
Speaker 1: round up the usual suspects, round up the usual billionaires,
Speaker 1: Let's fund what are we going to call the super
Speaker 1: pac this year future forward? Okay, we'll try that. Like
Speaker 1: it's just like redoing whatever they thought worked in twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: right the last time it all kind of came together,
Speaker 1: and it's just a consistent attempt to replicate twelve. And
Speaker 1: they're almost thinking that these you know, and there's been
Speaker 1: something missing here right in the off year. What did
Speaker 1: what did the right do? Well? They used crypto organize
Speaker 1: young men and that had a bigger impact, and I
Speaker 1: think I expected it also wasn't just young white men,
Speaker 1: it was young men of color. Right. I think crypto
Speaker 1: has been you know, I think I've got a lot
Speaker 1: of skepticism about it. I got a lot of concerns
Speaker 1: about it. But politically it has been very effective for
Speaker 1: the right to woo young men under forty, regardless of race.
Speaker 1: Am I not wrong about that? No?
Speaker 2: I mean they have taken the media.
Speaker 3: The growth of social media, the growth of podcasts is
Speaker 3: the reason they call twenty twenty four the podcast election.
Speaker 3: The matisphere is quite real. We see it now, even
Speaker 3: for those who might not be engaged in politics, seeing
Speaker 3: it in there.
Speaker 2: You know, I see it.
Speaker 1: My son's nineteen, My youngest iseteen, nineteen year old boy.
Speaker 1: Young man. I'm sorry, he's nineteen now, and you know
Speaker 1: he's he certainly has knows what I do for a living,
Speaker 1: but so he keeps He lets me know, but he'll
Speaker 1: be down in one of his sports things or whatever,
Speaker 1: and it's like, man, it gets political real quick. And
Speaker 1: he's a little more aware of it because of what
Speaker 1: dad does for a living. But I see it. It
Speaker 1: is quite effective because you don't really know you're being
Speaker 1: given a political argument. You realize it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they have moved into pop culture and fitness and
Speaker 3: healthcare and and we're still like, all right, let's have
Speaker 3: political podcasts.
Speaker 2: And it's like, Okay, that's great for you, and I'm.
Speaker 1: They're only talking to you and I I know, you.
Speaker 3: Know, but that's not you know, there are amazing podcasts
Speaker 3: that I listened to with some very thoughtful people who
Speaker 3: are talking about like what's happening on reality TV that
Speaker 3: that's a right audience.
Speaker 1: I'm curious, do you do you want to know what
Speaker 1: the what the politics of your hosts are for your
Speaker 1: non political podcast or do you fear finding out what
Speaker 1: the politics are of some of your favorites, Like I
Speaker 1: do this with this World and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: they'll they'll hint at something political, going well, we're not
Speaker 1: touching that because of this, And then I'm like, wait,
Speaker 1: where are they coming down? Like I don't maybe I
Speaker 1: don't want to know. I enjoy this too.
Speaker 2: Much, right, I mean, it's funny.
Speaker 3: I have I have sort of discerned in some of
Speaker 3: the stuff that I listened to, and I think because
Speaker 3: I'm like my ear is like, oh, oh's.
Speaker 1: You look for the red coded or the blue coated?
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know, and there are some who are
Speaker 3: who are talking about.
Speaker 2: I mean, what's happening on Summerhouse right now, that's the
Speaker 2: topic of.
Speaker 3: Conversation pop culture, and they have very thoughtful takes on
Speaker 3: raise and gender analysis and easily.
Speaker 1: Just doing it through the prism of this TV show
Speaker 1: rather than yeah yeah, mm hmm. So that's the space
Speaker 1: you think that that the left needs to get better at.
Speaker 1: What funny is that the right was convinced that the
Speaker 1: left was always better than them at.
Speaker 3: This Yeah, that's that's the irony, and maybe that paranoia
Speaker 3: gave you know, got them that funding and that energy
Speaker 3: to sort of, you know, really take over podcasts and
Speaker 3: you know, influencers they pay that they compensate their influencers
Speaker 3: in a way that left wing influencers are not.
Speaker 2: To be compensated. Yeah, they're just and that's a whole
Speaker 2: chapter in the book.
Speaker 3: It's just on on how that influence has allowed you know,
Speaker 3: very much of a of a perspective to thrive us.
Speaker 2: Kind of gone challenge in a lot of quarters.
Speaker 1: So it totally has. Let me ask you this about
Speaker 1: you think the two parties are going to sustain themselves
Speaker 1: as the two major parties in this country for the
Speaker 1: for the foreseeable future, or do you think that our
Speaker 1: two party systems vulnerable right now?
Speaker 3: I always feel like, you know, the duo, I have
Speaker 3: like love hate relationship with the duopoly as somebody who's
Speaker 3: like done a lot in the Democratic Party. But I
Speaker 3: approach to sort of with that pragmatic sense of things,
Speaker 3: all right, you know, the mechanisms of change, and I
Speaker 3: still for the foreseeable future see it that way because structurally,
Speaker 3: to build, you know, to have a country with multiple
Speaker 3: political parties requires some structural changes to electoral college and
Speaker 3: our districts.
Speaker 1: Just simply primary rules, right, primaries perhaps or something like that.
Speaker 1: I mean that that's sort of my head is at.
Speaker 1: I feel like, yeah, I do feel like we are
Speaker 1: a nation that is more diverse than the options we
Speaker 1: offer on our politics, right, Like, Yeah, imagine going into
Speaker 1: a store or even go on a website and buying
Speaker 1: a couple of T shirts and the only sizes available
Speaker 1: were extra small and extra large, Right, that a lot
Speaker 1: because it's usually the last two that sell, right, those
Speaker 1: the last two sizes that sell. Well, that's essentially what
Speaker 1: we've done with our politics. We have two choices. You know,
Speaker 1: good luck if you want a different you know, the
Speaker 1: spybe got a different size. Good luck that. And I know,
Speaker 1: are we have a structural you know, there's no doubt
Speaker 1: the people have spoken about their dissatisfaction with the two parties.
Speaker 1: How do we know they're not registering in either one
Speaker 1: of them? It's a rejection, collective rejection. But we don't
Speaker 1: have a way. This group of voters is begging for
Speaker 1: something different, but we don't know how to offer it.
Speaker 1: And I say we, meaning the collective, we left and right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, one of the things that I wanted to
Speaker 3: really address in the book is somebody who's just been inside,
Speaker 3: you know, all the way from local to national party
Speaker 3: politics and Democratic Party is that you know, in the
Speaker 3: entire time even that I've been involved in, Democratic Party
Speaker 3: has evolved in change. You couldn't talk about abortion at all,
Speaker 3: and people were like third rail.
Speaker 2: Now if you're not, you know, pro choice, that's a problem.
Speaker 3: And most pretty much most parts of the country as
Speaker 3: a Democrat now and that's because of folks who got
Speaker 3: involved in the party and were active and activists, and
Speaker 3: so you know, people look at the DNC and they
Speaker 3: think of it as an entity that cannot be moved
Speaker 3: and changed, and this party has evolved over time because
Speaker 3: of the people who got involved and moved and changed it.
Speaker 3: And you know, I say that, you know, you may
Speaker 3: even be frustrated with the structure of the party as
Speaker 3: it is now. For me, I found, you know, common
Speaker 3: cause of people who felt similar to me in what
Speaker 3: we were advocating for. You know, Working Families Party has
Speaker 3: become a good holding space for a lot of those
Speaker 3: folks who are pretty frustrated you can vote a certain
Speaker 3: line and not have to run a Democratic party in
Speaker 3: New York. They're building power in other places. But I
Speaker 3: you know, say, hey, Working Families Party exists primarily to
Speaker 3: organize people who agree on some of these issues around
Speaker 3: a multiracial democracy, as you know, a stronger social safety
Speaker 3: and all of that.
Speaker 2: And you know, use that.
Speaker 3: Community to sort of change your Democratic party in your area,
Speaker 3: within whatever the structure that we have now. But I
Speaker 3: never like to talk about our duopoly like we cannot
Speaker 3: in a democracy as a people moved to change it
Speaker 3: because there are many people who have made it a
Speaker 3: better on a lot of fronts as it is now.
Speaker 1: Well it's funny, it's both parties are coalitions and they
Speaker 1: have been. It's just you know, I think twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: actually gave us our most vivid version of this. We
Speaker 1: saw that both parties actually had pretty bright line divisions,
Speaker 1: you know. And if we had been a four party
Speaker 1: European sort of like the French, we would have had
Speaker 1: four finalists, you know, Bernie with the Greens, yeah, and
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton with the you know labor, let's center labor,
Speaker 1: you know, and maybe Marco Rubio with the sort of
Speaker 1: center right party, and then the nationalists being Donald Trump
Speaker 1: right like, that would have been your European breakdown. And
Speaker 1: who knows what that coalition would have looked like. It's
Speaker 1: possible Sanders and Trump would have bound together in a
Speaker 1: run off situation, you know, or Rubio or Clinton or
Speaker 1: maybe not right, it could have been based on the
Speaker 1: cultural lines that are drawn. So it is. I do
Speaker 1: think Americans want that kind of flexibility in their politics.
Speaker 1: We just don't know how to deliver that system.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And I think that it will take electing
Speaker 3: people into office who are willing to push, you know,
Speaker 3: for those changes, certainly so that we have a system
Speaker 3: that it's better reflective.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of folks who are just not happy
Speaker 2: with the electoral.
Speaker 3: College for obvious and good reasons, right, and we haven't
Speaker 3: you know, organized the will around changing it.
Speaker 2: Maybe that will change.
Speaker 1: Well, I will tell you my obsession with dealing with
Speaker 1: the electoral college is to actually double the size of
Speaker 1: the House. And then you actually make the numerator. The
Speaker 1: electoral college issue goes away. And it doesn't mean it
Speaker 1: doesn't exist, It just goes away if you raise the numerator, right,
Speaker 1: like that's been And oh, by the way, if we
Speaker 1: have more members of Congress than you actually have more
Speaker 1: people with access to power, and you've opened the door,
Speaker 1: you've lowered the barrier to entry, and you may diversify
Speaker 1: in all sorts of ways what Congress looks like. You
Speaker 1: know that for some reason, that's an easy reform to
Speaker 1: do without a constitutional amendment. And it's really hard to
Speaker 1: get people engaged in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think it's, uh, it'll be interesting. I'm
Speaker 3: I'm actually curious to see if some of the energy
Speaker 3: for those changes really kind of takes hold with a
Speaker 3: lot of a lot more folks as as they are
Speaker 3: realizing now you know everyday folks that it's not working well.
Speaker 1: AI job, fear of AI job displacement could be that trigger.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, job a spliceman not be able to afford homes, right,
Speaker 3: jobs just not paying what they used to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, talk to me right now about what you think
Speaker 1: a winning Democratic coalition looks like in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: Winning Democratic coalition, Well, it's definitely going to have to
Speaker 3: be somebody who is very unapologetic about addressing the previous
Speaker 3: harms of the administration.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't know that people.
Speaker 1: Who and you do it without looking like you're looking backwards.
Speaker 1: You get my drift like, yeah, get you got to
Speaker 1: right wrongs And I'm with you there, but you got
Speaker 1: to look like you're worried about the future. Right, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a it's a tough it's a tough It's
Speaker 1: tougher than you think.
Speaker 3: Yeah no, And it's one of those things where I
Speaker 3: feel like, you know, all science point to unless something
Speaker 3: goes really weird, Democrats will get the House. They will
Speaker 3: have an opportunity to attempt to pass legislation and draft
Speaker 3: legislation that.
Speaker 2: Speaks to the concerns of the American.
Speaker 3: People, housing economy, and a winning coalition looks like a
Speaker 3: lot of people at the table who it's diverse. It's
Speaker 3: racially diverse, it's people from all different walks of life.
Speaker 3: The base of the party might be very racially diverse,
Speaker 3: but those who have sort of made the decisions you
Speaker 3: said earlier about twenty twelve.
Speaker 2: And it seems like we're stuck on twenty twelve.
Speaker 3: And I would say that that is very much because
Speaker 3: a lot of the people who are still running it
Speaker 3: are some of the folks who were involved in twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's Look, it happens to every generation of operatives.
Speaker 1: There's a moment where they become the geniuses, and then
Speaker 1: there's the moment when they're the past. And right, I
Speaker 1: think the geniuses of the Obama era haven't accepted the
Speaker 1: fact that they're no longer genius.
Speaker 3: They're no longer the geniuses and are not the future.
Speaker 3: And it will be a hopefully a lot more.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't want to throw my gen x
Speaker 2: ers completely out the window just yet.
Speaker 1: Please, we never got our chance to lead. I am,
Speaker 1: I am, I have this like you know, it is
Speaker 1: one of these like we're I fear that we're the
Speaker 1: generation that's just going to get skipped, all right, We've
Speaker 1: we like sucked up to the boomers for like my
Speaker 1: entire lifetime, and now we're going straight to millennials and
Speaker 1: Gen Z you know, as my generation screamed reality bites, right, So, yes,
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 3: Where it is the next generation. You know, we have
Speaker 3: the gen xers. Finally millennials and gen Zers who are
Speaker 3: are really and it's you know, millennials and a Z
Speaker 3: are much more racially diverse generation.
Speaker 2: But it's large, and it is large generation.
Speaker 1: She isn't a combined Is that fifty percent of the population, right?
Speaker 3: Just yeah, right, yeah, yeah, just about just about, if
Speaker 3: not by twenty eight for sure.
Speaker 2: So and especially voting.
Speaker 3: Vot voting popular, yeah yeah, and having a Folks have
Speaker 3: different walks of life. Because one thing that struck me
Speaker 3: when I was really looking at data is not only
Speaker 3: these racially diverse generations, but also the different perspectives that.
Speaker 2: You have as a result of it.
Speaker 3: You know, you're more likely to have grown up in
Speaker 3: household where parents are no longer together, you're blended families.
Speaker 3: You likely maybe have related to immigrant people, folks who
Speaker 3: came from somewhere else in the world. You know, you
Speaker 3: are likely to have okay, counter economic strubles. You're likely
Speaker 3: to have been in debt. You know these are people,
Speaker 3: you know, Ayana Presley says, the people who are closest
Speaker 3: to the pain should be closest to the power. And
Speaker 3: those are the definitely the folks who should be at
Speaker 3: the table. I mean one thing, even just to go
Speaker 3: back to sort of the David pluffs and Carvill's Carvil
Speaker 3: who's long since been eating out on his time.
Speaker 1: So he kind of admits it, like he will go
Speaker 1: out there, right, Remember he called out. You got to
Speaker 1: give him credit for this. He goes, he called out
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to name names, but certain them
Speaker 1: consultants who are worried about their carried interest clients and
Speaker 1: not putting together a populous economic plan. So I hear
Speaker 1: you on James, but he's still a populist at heart,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean at heart.
Speaker 2: But he has his moments. We're like get it. It's like, okay, sir,
Speaker 2: like we are getting to be a more diverse America.
Speaker 3: Let's let's start to sound like that that populace is
Speaker 3: reflecting that the people.
Speaker 2: And you know, when you think back on sort.
Speaker 3: Of that, when you when you think of where this
Speaker 3: country could be if you have those people at the
Speaker 3: table making those decisions.
Speaker 2: That is, that can be a coalition that wins.
Speaker 1: Let me throw I I've I've made this observation a
Speaker 1: few times, and I think it it always lands awkwardly.
Speaker 1: I'm curious how, but I think we sometimes don't fully
Speaker 1: appreciate the fact that we still have a large chunk
Speaker 1: of voting Americans who grew up in segregated America. And
Speaker 1: you know, I'm look, I started kindergarten nineteen seventy seven
Speaker 1: in Miami. I believe if I had started kindergarten eight
Speaker 1: years sooner, I'd have been in a segregated system, right,
Speaker 1: And you know that when that generation, as I like
Speaker 1: to say, ages out of voting, that's like a big
Speaker 1: structural like I don't I sometimes think we don't fully appreciate,
Speaker 1: you know, how young are. Multi ethnic and multi racial
Speaker 1: democracy really is, right. It has only been around since
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five, and there's you know, a third of
Speaker 1: American of the American electorate lived a in a free,
Speaker 1: multi racial society. It didn't mean it didn't exist, but
Speaker 1: one that we actually recognized.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I kind of allude to that. I think I
Speaker 3: say it very directly in the book which is that
Speaker 3: you know, when you don't realize how good you had it,
Speaker 3: because a lot of the freedom's joid, the rights that
Speaker 3: we've had has been because of sort of the work
Speaker 3: that came before. And you know, I think at the
Speaker 3: organizing muscle for a long time of keeping a democracy
Speaker 3: vibrant and pushing back against encroaching on sort of those
Speaker 3: rights kind of atrophy. Right, Like you're like, okay, everything,
Speaker 3: everything's working.
Speaker 1: Look, we've we've we've equalized voting. Okay, yes, you've equalized voting,
Speaker 1: but we didn't equalize opportunity, and you still have an
Speaker 1: equalized opportunity. We still have an equalized education attainment we got.
Speaker 1: In fact, I would argue that the single most underrated
Speaker 1: issue going into twenty eight is our fracturing public education system,
Speaker 1: and I think it is I admire that Ram Emmanuel
Speaker 1: is one of the few talking about it on the
Speaker 1: democratic side. I mean, I've got my skepticism about Ram,
Speaker 1: whether Ram can shed the establishment baggage of his previous
Speaker 1: eras and all that stuff, but he's right about this topic.
Speaker 1: And I think the shattering of the public education system
Speaker 1: actually brings us apart as a society as well, Like
Speaker 1: I think this is a polarization issue. It's not just
Speaker 1: bad for education outcomes, it's actually bad for the culture.
Speaker 1: If we don't have a shared public education.
Speaker 3: System, we not have a shared public education, we don't
Speaker 3: have a shared memory.
Speaker 1: And other Well, that leads to that, like I think
Speaker 1: one leads to the other. That's why I think it's important.
Speaker 1: What was brilliant about our public education systems and in theory,
Speaker 1: and it didn't work this way everywhere. I'd like to
Speaker 1: argue that I just got a taste of it living
Speaker 1: where I lived, because Miami was its own little unique experiment.
Speaker 1: I always say, we're you know, Miami had this reputation
Speaker 1: of being where the city of the future, meaning you know,
Speaker 1: tomorrow's problems are happening right now in Miami, and then
Speaker 1: we solved. We went through all this in the eighties,
Speaker 1: right then. And yet now it's you know, you don't
Speaker 1: have socioeconomically wealthy people and socioeconomically poor people in the
Speaker 1: same schools, and you don't it's not even a close call.
Speaker 1: That actually was a reality in the eighties.
Speaker 3: You had that, Yeah, and more of that, and yeah,
Speaker 3: it's changing in ways that is intentional.
Speaker 1: And of course this voucher system. Yes, it is. It's
Speaker 1: all about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in religion, ye, and you know the running joke.
Speaker 2: You may have heard it, but you know a lot
Speaker 2: of folks it's like.
Speaker 3: All right, I mean Iraq and Afghanistan war is bad,
Speaker 3: but really no child left behind is legacy in you
Speaker 3: know what what it sort of opened the door to
Speaker 3: which it's like the kind of this acceleration of you know,
Speaker 3: not a set of agreed to ways to make sure
Speaker 3: that everybody is getting sort of like a shared public education.
Speaker 2: Because in the countries where they're all like on the
Speaker 2: same page about the Holocaust and.
Speaker 3: What happened in Germany, right, I mean you never again
Speaker 3: mean something right, And it's the same where twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Was interesting to me.
Speaker 3: I was luckily raised by people who made sure that
Speaker 3: I understood the history of this country and the contributions
Speaker 3: of many people. But when you have somebody who's like,
Speaker 3: I didn't know about Tulsa, like so many things, so
Speaker 3: many people like wait that happened.
Speaker 1: You know, and look we had it similar in Florida.
Speaker 1: I'm taught Florida history. I wasn't taught about axe Handle
Speaker 1: Sunday in Jacksonville right, you know, And that was one
Speaker 1: of those you realize you don't know which you haven't
Speaker 1: been taught. If it never gets introduced.
Speaker 3: It never gets introduced, right, And there is an intention
Speaker 3: obviously behind that, because then if we're not exploring those things,
Speaker 3: then we're not trying to think of what led to
Speaker 3: that and how can you do better?
Speaker 2: Fascination and so you know when I I.
Speaker 3: One of the points I wanted to make about sort
Speaker 3: of pluff to some extent Carve Believen though he's Southern,
Speaker 3: but many of the strategists from the Avamba universe are southers,
Speaker 3: and I think that and I think that has contributed
Speaker 3: to some of the issues we've had because our politics
Speaker 3: in a way at large, while it's like this American thing,
Speaker 3: but it's very much affected by the seg The.
Speaker 1: South is the mood music for our politics still.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: And it and soul of the Republican Party, right, and
Speaker 1: it's it's cultural base is in the South, right, And.
Speaker 3: If you don't understand it and you didn't grow up
Speaker 3: around it, which most black people have. And there's a
Speaker 3: chunk of white strategists to have, but they're not the
Speaker 3: one sort of of of leading that work, and then
Speaker 3: you're going to have some tone deaf responses like I
Speaker 3: remember as reclined at some point after you know, Kirk
Speaker 3: was murdered, where he said, you know, what is it like,
Speaker 3: what would it be if we like went into a
Speaker 3: church and argued about abortion rights and folks from like
Speaker 3: in the South and the Midwest are like, we'd be dead, Like,
Speaker 3: we don't, that's not how we organize here around that. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: that lack of understanding when we have people who are
Speaker 3: polsters and strategists, and.
Speaker 1: I want to I want to ste in that a
Speaker 1: little bit more because I do think that you know,
Speaker 1: there's always been that joke about, you know, in the South,
Speaker 1: whites and blacks are more honest about race. In the North,
Speaker 1: everybody's more polite, but they're more dishonest about race. Do
Speaker 1: you still feel that in sense that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And there is this belief that because.
Speaker 2: Oh, you know, we're the North, that we're not subject
Speaker 2: to the same you know ills the South.
Speaker 1: We're not the racist we're the Northerners. Yeah, we don't
Speaker 1: have a history.
Speaker 2: Right yet when you could point to so many many.
Speaker 1: Different right yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and it's it's interesting.
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean, somebody was like, I found Confederate
Speaker 3: flags in the hard parts of rural New York, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, do you know what part of the country
Speaker 3: you're in, Like, yeah, and I remember it was I
Speaker 3: think it was Trusty McMillan Cottam I heard or say, like,
Speaker 3: you know, because it was it clicked for me when
Speaker 3: she was saying, like, you know, the culture of the
Speaker 3: South has very much migrated into other in other parts
Speaker 3: of the US and even other parts of the world,
Speaker 3: you can find Confederate flags and other parts of the world.
Speaker 1: Even no, I mean even just country music is more
Speaker 1: mainstream today in the Midwest than it was back in
Speaker 1: you know, back in even the eighties, seventies or eighties
Speaker 1: on that. You know, though, it's interesting you say that.
Speaker 1: I always thought that Barack Obama's superpower as a political
Speaker 1: victor was being from Illinois. You know, when you looked
Speaker 1: at the just the simple power of the states you
Speaker 1: know that were that touched Illinois were all important moments
Speaker 1: for him in the primary. First of all, there was
Speaker 1: Iowa Indiana late in the process, a statey loss, but
Speaker 1: almost one Missouri on Super Tuesday, one that he eked out.
Speaker 1: It was important to eke one out against her and
Speaker 1: the power in general, and he did really well and
Speaker 1: basically anything that was touched in Illinois. But you know,
Speaker 1: because there's this assumption to does the swing vote is
Speaker 1: the swing area of America still the Midwest? Or you know,
Speaker 1: is that the last time the Midwest sort of was
Speaker 1: the swing area and just everything is down south? Now?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think I think, you know, biased
Speaker 3: here being in Virginian, but I think a lot of
Speaker 3: it is.
Speaker 1: Well, I took that Virginia seceded from the Confederacy sometime
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty eight. But that's yeah, right, you know
Speaker 1: that Mason Dixon line keeps moving, you know, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: We'll be having a very different conversation if Georgia, North Carolina, Florida,
Speaker 3: and Texas were different electorally. There's a reason that most
Speaker 3: of the pushback to progress, some of the most horrific,
Speaker 3: you know, voter suppression bills that you've seen, anti abortion,
Speaker 3: anti liber all happen in the South, some of it
Speaker 3: in the Midwest.
Speaker 1: Well, look at the National Party. They seem allergic to
Speaker 1: actually trying to work on the South. Outside of Georgia,
Speaker 1: and North Carolina and that yeah, I mean, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: Mississippi and South Carolina are totally underfunded and have enough
Speaker 1: potential vote to be competitive. You just have to put
Speaker 1: a little elbow grease into it. In Texas and Florida
Speaker 1: arguably the same way. They're expensive, but there's this consistent
Speaker 1: well the money will go further if we just lock
Speaker 1: down Michigan, right, And.
Speaker 3: I think it's because of those are the areas in
Speaker 3: which they feel comfortable. And that goes back to saying, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: well we don't have like Southern strategies, especially come brown organizers.
Speaker 3: You've had to navigate around all of these challenges if
Speaker 3: you're from Chicago and you go down to you know,
Speaker 3: the South. I mean, when I think of some tomes
Speaker 3: of stories I would hear from like fellow, you know,
Speaker 3: folks in.
Speaker 2: Virginia other parts of the South.
Speaker 3: Then they would get somebody who mentioned the name of
Speaker 3: a street where it was and then said it incorrectly
Speaker 3: or didn't have sort of an understanding of a cultural
Speaker 3: nuance of why you refer to, you know, a black
Speaker 3: elder in a certain way, or the nuances of food
Speaker 3: or anything like that.
Speaker 1: I'll give you one that I ran into when I
Speaker 1: first joined NBC, which was like, well, we can't poll
Speaker 1: on a Wednesday night. Why can't you poll on a
Speaker 1: Wednesday night? And this was in South Carolina, like Wednesday
Speaker 1: night's church night. And if you don't know the culture
Speaker 1: of the South, you wouldn't know that you'd get a
Speaker 1: bad poll number on a Wednesday night. You know, just
Speaker 1: special eating, you know, because there's just all sorts of
Speaker 1: noise because and it's like, just because people go to
Speaker 1: their church on Wednesday nights doesn't mean they're religious fervor
Speaker 1: it might just simply be that's what the community does
Speaker 1: to get together on a Wednesday.
Speaker 3: Night, that's what the community does. My first campaign, I
Speaker 3: remember he was in the deeper southern part of our district,
Speaker 3: was a real southern district, and he said, yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: not even a religious person, but I am definitely putting
Speaker 3: up the sign on Sunday morning that says gone to
Speaker 3: church if anybody's coming by the campaign or whatever. And
Speaker 3: understanding the culture of the district. And so yeah, I
Speaker 3: think that that has absolutely presented challenges and to the
Speaker 3: type of work that.
Speaker 2: We can do.
Speaker 3: And one of the things I was going to say
Speaker 3: was that. You know, Obama's superpower to me was that
Speaker 3: he he at least I think, because he had grown
Speaker 3: up living around the world, had lived in a multiracial
Speaker 3: place like Hawaii. He kind of really early on understood
Speaker 3: how to talk to everyone. That was his talent.
Speaker 2: And you still.
Speaker 3: See a lot of election no scar tissue, no scar tissue.
Speaker 1: Everybody does what you get through. But he didn't have
Speaker 1: a lot of scar tissue in that. There's something freeing
Speaker 1: about that as a politician.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that that is having something.
Speaker 3: I mean, Jimmy Carter also had that talent too, Like
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, his primary, you know, he did
Speaker 3: well because he knew and was comfortable in the room
Speaker 3: with black people, like just soon how to deal with them,
Speaker 3: Unlike a lot of other folks he was you know,
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, other folks he was in the primary
Speaker 3: with at that time.
Speaker 1: All right, let me get you out of here on this.
Speaker 1: Give me four. Give me four people, one of you know,
Speaker 1: the four people in your head who think are most
Speaker 1: likely to be the actual Democratic nominee, not who you
Speaker 1: want right now, Give me four. You know, it's sort
Speaker 1: of like it's way early, but I'll give you. That's
Speaker 1: why I'm going to give you four of which one
Speaker 1: of whom you know you're You're just sort of like,
Speaker 1: it's like, look, this is my field, so narrow, this
Speaker 1: giant field of about forty mentionables these days. Who give
Speaker 1: me a quartet where you think, yeah, the VP or
Speaker 1: P is going to come out of this?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I you know, I see Pritzker. I'd be interested in,
Speaker 3: especially if he kind of fashioned himself in a modern
Speaker 3: day sort of FDR that same sort of.
Speaker 1: Fact I am. I was a skeptic until I saw
Speaker 1: him play party machinist in a very effective way, and
Speaker 1: during the primary he did for Juliana Stratton. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm not going to dismiss him anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not dismissive.
Speaker 2: That's yeah, that's kind of where I'm with him too.
Speaker 3: You know, he says no, because I think I was
Speaker 3: the thing of the thing you say when you're running
Speaker 3: again for you a senate.
Speaker 2: But I see as off in the mix somehow more.
Speaker 1: So than made Warnock too right in that like a
Speaker 1: little bit of the only one can run.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well only one can run, and that is like
Speaker 3: warn Oxhmbison I wouldn't be surprised if it is. He's
Speaker 3: you know, preternaturally talented on stump and inlakable.
Speaker 2: And gosh.
Speaker 3: I mean, I will see her in the mix, whether
Speaker 3: she is whether she's actually successful again in the d
Speaker 3: of the nomination of no but I could see the
Speaker 3: Vice President Kamala Harris back in the mix as well.
Speaker 1: She got a we're all in Washington underestimating her strength
Speaker 1: at the current elector in army.
Speaker 3: I feel so, I do, and I think she could
Speaker 3: be an interesting candidate again now that she's less tied
Speaker 3: to trying to essentially accommodate an administration that she's part of.
Speaker 1: I you know, I've been through this, and I hate
Speaker 1: I know they hate when people like me put them
Speaker 1: on the couch. I will go to my grave believing
Speaker 1: that she's yet to run a campaign that was her campaign,
Speaker 1: yet that she's always been running somebody else's race or
Speaker 1: somebody else's, you know, suggestion. I found her primary campaign
Speaker 1: to be this attempt to be all things to all people.
Speaker 1: She was trying to straddle write the Medicare for All
Speaker 1: mindset sort of told you everything you needed to know.
Speaker 1: She was trying to be all things. To all parts
Speaker 1: of the party. It felt very consultant driven her twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen race per Senate with Holp, consultant driven her twenty
Speaker 1: ten campaign. You know, so she's always had I think,
Speaker 1: and so my guess is you're right, we will see
Speaker 1: a different version of her. And I'm very curious what
Speaker 1: it is. Yeah, Sam, very curious what it is. So
Speaker 1: that's three Pritzker awesof and common don't think I didn't
Speaker 1: keep count.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, all right, I'm not keen on it,
Speaker 3: but he gonna find some way into it.
Speaker 1: Gavin Dewson, Yeah, I don't know what he's four.
Speaker 2: I don't know what he's four either. That's why I
Speaker 2: said I'm not Yeah, but I.
Speaker 1: Know what he's good at, which is being a resistance leader. Right.
Speaker 1: He knows how to do that. And that's what I
Speaker 1: think about Pritzkert. I don't know what they're for, although
Speaker 1: there's a little bit more meat on the bones with Pritzker, right,
Speaker 1: I get that.
Speaker 2: I would say, Yeah.
Speaker 1: No's he's sort of he's in charge of the Illinois
Speaker 1: Democratic Party. Kevin Newsom is not in charge of the
Speaker 1: California Democratic Party. And you can feel that difference in
Speaker 1: their government styles and their campaign style.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And if I knew what Newsom was for, it's
Speaker 3: kind of interesting. I saw him when he was speak
Speaker 3: when he was an elected mayor. He's very different and
Speaker 3: you evolved in your politics. But I'm like, okay, was
Speaker 3: that for version? Real?
Speaker 1: This version he's all sorts of talented. Yeah, there's no doubt,
Speaker 1: like he is a I used that. I like to
Speaker 1: use the expression political athlete. He's a really good political athlete.
Speaker 1: But you've got to have a specialty, right, You've got
Speaker 1: to be what are you fighting for? Right, It's got
Speaker 1: to be it's got to be a thing, not a
Speaker 1: not a not just winning. That isn't the idea, you know,
Speaker 1: And we'll see. Look, this book's a great you know
Speaker 1: the instigator. Do you when do you think this translates
Speaker 1: to more black women getting elected on their own right statewide?
Speaker 1: Although I think we're finally starting to see that breakthrough.
Speaker 2: I think we are some of the treatin also Brooks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm actually hopeful in this next couple of years,
Speaker 3: like twenty six and setting up for twenty eight, that
Speaker 3: we'll start to maybe finally get that, you know, black
Speaker 3: woman governor, So I haven't got one yet.
Speaker 1: You know that could have lands bottoms is probably the
Speaker 1: best shot.
Speaker 3: This probably be shot this year, I think, yeah, this
Speaker 3: year for sure, but I do see an increase just great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well a team of this has been great to
Speaker 1: talk with you, great to meet you. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that we've not met before. Where are you
Speaker 1: in Virginia? Where did you grow up in Virginia?
Speaker 2: Northern? Well, actually I grew up in just outside of Richmond, and.
Speaker 1: Now I love northern Virginia. Where does Northern Virginia d now?
Speaker 2: Fredericksburg.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like this blob that keeps growing, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's bigger? Northern Virginia or the Atlanta suburbs? Right, it's
Speaker 1: almost it's a very similar thing.
Speaker 3: And yeah, no, I'm like when they say Atlanta suburbs
Speaker 3: and I'm like, that's not that's like an hour out
Speaker 3: and they're like, now still the suburbs.
Speaker 1: Oh, I know. Right. It's like it's well, if we
Speaker 1: were all one state, we'd talk about Washington Baltimore as one. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: what do you think about if we you know, if
Speaker 1: Trump had really been clever about this whole Arlington splitting
Speaker 1: putting Arlington back to d C. You know what he
Speaker 1: really would have done. What is is we're going to
Speaker 1: put give Arlington back to d C and advocate for
Speaker 1: d C statehood. Then if you really want to put
Speaker 1: pressure like that would be a fault line. They're not
Speaker 1: that clever. This is why I'm like, they're terrible at this,
Speaker 1: Like they could be much smarter about their policy. Like
Speaker 1: you want to drive a wedge. Yeah, offer offer to
Speaker 1: give Arlington back in exchange for statehood? You want state? Hup,
Speaker 1: you got to take Arlington?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, yeah, gosh, that would be kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean they're never that Like I said, they're never
Speaker 1: that clever. It's all a sledgehammer everything, you know, every
Speaker 1: problem is a nail, every hammer. Anyway, Well, the book is,
Speaker 1: it's terrific. It's a good especially I've got a lot
Speaker 1: of political nerds in a good way. I say that
Speaker 1: it's a compliment. Thank you know that listen that want
Speaker 1: to know more. And this has also got plenty of
Speaker 1: data in it too, So thank you for coming on.
Speaker 2: All right, thank you again for having me Jack, and I.
Speaker 1: See you down the road and I love the merch.
Speaker 3: Well then, well, thank you you can order on the
Speaker 3: website as well The Instigators book dot com.
Speaker 1: Well said he have a great evening. Well, I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed that conversation. As you saw, got a little
Speaker 1: blunt there about twenty twenty four and Joe Biden. But
Speaker 1: it's definitely I think a book a book worth getting
Speaker 1: to understand just how big the importance is in a
Speaker 1: primary particularly. But I found what I found really fascinating
Speaker 1: when Atimo was making the case is sort of, do
Speaker 1: Democratic strategists who aren't from the South just not get
Speaker 1: it right? Let's just say there might be something to that,
Speaker 1: right too many I could tell you this, if I
Speaker 1: were running for national politics, I wouldn't hire anybody that
Speaker 1: lived in New York or DC. Right, you want people
Speaker 1: that are grounded somewhere else. I think you know it
Speaker 1: just is, you know, certainly at least as one foot
Speaker 1: outside the coast. I certainly would be as far away
Speaker 1: from New York as I possibly could culturally in California,
Speaker 1: because I think right now for the Democratic Party, the
Speaker 1: coasts coastal connections are sort of radioactive. All right, let's
Speaker 1: go with the top five list.
Speaker 2: Chest top top chest.
Speaker 1: Then this is a fun one today, which it's the
Speaker 1: top five races that are essentially that are going to
Speaker 1: decide win. Lame duck status kicks in for Donald Trump, right,
Speaker 1: every second term president becomes a lame duck at some point.
Speaker 1: And I've condentned it's very possible Trump's already a lame duck.
Speaker 1: We just haven't fully realized it yet. Sometimes you have
Speaker 1: to go back, you have to go forwards, and then
Speaker 1: you'll go, oh, it turns out that he was a
Speaker 1: lame duck starting, you know, with the with the you know,
Speaker 1: it could could have begun all the way on tariff day, right.
Speaker 1: It was like with Joe Biden. You know, in the
Speaker 1: moment of the Afghanistan withdrawal, it you didn't realize, oh,
Speaker 1: that's the beginning of the end of his presidency. Then
Speaker 1: the farther away we got from it, and the less
Speaker 1: unless he recovered from that moment, the more you're like, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: that turned out to be the beginning of the end
Speaker 1: of his presidency. Right. In some ways, that's when it began, right,
Speaker 1: And it is one of those things you sometimes it
Speaker 1: takes takes a beat to look back. But I definitely
Speaker 1: think in this midterm cycle, especially with the way that
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has tried to exert a grip on the
Speaker 1: Republican Party, right is he took over he you know,
Speaker 1: at first it was hijacking, and now he's done a
Speaker 1: purge and this is his party. His endorsements usually lead
Speaker 1: to victories. And that's what I'm framing my top five
Speaker 1: list around, which is the top five primaries where Trump
Speaker 1: is most vulnerable to seeing his choice lose and essentially
Speaker 1: which would then trigger the narrative that perhaps his grip
Speaker 1: on the party itself is loosening. And we know that
Speaker 1: that has all sorts of contagion effects, right, And there's
Speaker 1: no doubt you can probably guess what the number one
Speaker 1: race is going to be. But all of this begins
Speaker 1: in the next couple of weeks. Okay, four of my
Speaker 1: five primary races are all in the month of May,
Speaker 1: So we're going to find out in the month of
Speaker 1: May whether Trump's grip on the party is as strong
Speaker 1: as it has been over the last few cycles. So
Speaker 1: my top five races that will be to me are
Speaker 1: a measurement of his strength in the party and will
Speaker 1: be a essentially success. Right, Well, then the critics quiet
Speaker 1: down and his grip on the party. Titans failure and
Speaker 1: the grip starts to loosen. How many multiple failures and
Speaker 1: the whole thing could collapse. So number five on my
Speaker 1: list is actually not a primary. It's the only non
Speaker 1: primary I've put on the list in his North Carolina
Speaker 1: Senate because Michael Wattley essentially got handed the nomination right
Speaker 1: he was the de facto candidate after Laura Trump decided
Speaker 1: she didn't want to be a senator. But this was
Speaker 1: essentially Trump blessed. This was Trump's rn Sea chair, so
Speaker 1: you know, he walked. So this is somebody that Trump
Speaker 1: has groomed to be a party leader, essentially shifting him
Speaker 1: to the top spot at the RNC and now shifting
Speaker 1: him into the nomination slot for the open US sendency
Speaker 1: to replace Tom Tillis. And oh, by the way, he
Speaker 1: essentially chased Tom Tillis out of the party. Don't believe me.
Speaker 1: Just look at Tom Tillis's behavior right now in the Senate.
Speaker 1: He ain't doing Trump's bidding. Look, losing to Roy Cooper
Speaker 1: is not a sign that Donald Trump has lost his fastball.
Speaker 1: Okay that I'm not going to sit there. But if
Speaker 1: Michael Wattley loses by double digits. Then this is proof
Speaker 1: that Trump really just absolutely made a gigantic mistake. Right,
Speaker 1: probably should have let if he didn't really have confidence
Speaker 1: in Watleys as a statewide candidate, well, let a primary happen.
Speaker 1: In some ways, a competitive primary might have given new
Speaker 1: name id to somebody that's a rising up, might have
Speaker 1: been a member of Congress. But that is not how
Speaker 1: they wanted to handle things. So I do this race,
Speaker 1: and for me, the marker is double digits versus single digits.
Speaker 1: A double digit Roy Cooper victory really is an indictment
Speaker 1: on Trump's political acumen, right, and will be will cause
Speaker 1: all sort because this is a former R and C chair.
Speaker 1: We'll cause all sorts of handwringing and blind quotes and
Speaker 1: all of this stuff saying, you know, this was crazy,
Speaker 1: what was even made the nominee? This is all Trump? Right,
Speaker 1: So he is just large ownership of the North Carolina
Speaker 1: center race, more so than Maine, more so than really
Speaker 1: any other competitive center race. Right, this is his creation. Right,
Speaker 1: He bullied the till Us out of the party, he
Speaker 1: put his person in there, He cleared the primary field, right,
Speaker 1: so there is no Senate race. He in some ways
Speaker 1: owns more than this one. So that's number five of them,
Speaker 1: list number four. It's another center race Louisiana Senate. Now
Speaker 1: we've got the primary on the sixteenth of May, and
Speaker 1: then there's likely to be a run off because we've
Speaker 1: got a three way competitive race, and with of course
Speaker 1: Bill Cassidy the incumbent, Julia Letlowe congresswoman, and then John Fleming,
Speaker 1: who's been in this race before. So it's a three
Speaker 1: way race. They've all got reasonable money and there's going
Speaker 1: to be two that make it through. If Cassidy's one
Speaker 1: of the two, you know, Cassidy is a puncher's chance
Speaker 1: in this thing. Now, look, they've rigged the rules in
Speaker 1: Louisiana to try to punish Cassidy. Right, this is the
Speaker 1: first time they're ever doing a cartisan primary. That Louisiana
Speaker 1: used to be an all party primary, one ballot and
Speaker 1: then there was sort of a runoff situation. Frankly, it's
Speaker 1: actually a model that I wish more states would have adopted.
Speaker 1: And so it's a shame to see this go the
Speaker 1: other way. But we know why it went the other way.
Speaker 1: Cassidy voted to convict Donald Trump after the second impeachment
Speaker 1: and this was they knew that in the old system
Speaker 1: Cassidy would survive. How do we know this, Well, there's
Speaker 1: still two impeachers in the House, Dan Newhouse in Washington
Speaker 1: State and David Valade. And what do they both have
Speaker 1: in common? They are in all party primaries. They did
Speaker 1: not have a partisan primary that they had to get through.
Speaker 1: Anybody that had to get through a partisan primary lost.
Speaker 1: So look, I am I certainly think Cassidy's the underdog here.
Speaker 1: I think he'll get into the runoff. I assume he loses,
Speaker 1: But what a repudiation to Trump. If he doesn't. It's
Speaker 1: a big win for Trump. If Cassidy doesn't even make
Speaker 1: the runoff, it's a small win for Trump. If he
Speaker 1: knocks him off in the runoff, it's a humiliation. If
Speaker 1: Cassidy wins renomination Texas Senate. This is number three on
Speaker 1: the list. Look, even though Trump is supposedly not endorsed,
Speaker 1: it's pretty clear Paxton's Maga Cornin is not right. So
Speaker 1: Trump is. You know. My guess is if he the
Speaker 1: fact that he hasn't endorsed now means he's probably not
Speaker 1: going to because he's afraid. I think of this one
Speaker 1: because it's not clear. I don't know, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't think he has the standing with the party anymore
Speaker 1: that endorsing Cornan would put automatically put him over the top.
Speaker 1: Put it this way, he's afraid to find out, and
Speaker 1: the lack of him not wanting to get involved in
Speaker 1: this race says more about his own fear of exposing himself. Right,
Speaker 1: does the Emperor have clothes on or not moment than
Speaker 1: anything else. So you know, he'll take credit for a
Speaker 1: corn and win if Cornin somehow gets out of this runoff.
Speaker 1: By the way, this runoffs May twenty six, end of
Speaker 1: the month, right after Memorial Day, so likely to be
Speaker 1: low turnout, usually not a good sign for the for
Speaker 1: the for the more center right candidate or center left candidate,
Speaker 1: you know, always usually an advantage for the base. But
Speaker 1: this is one that I think, you know, Cornyn surviving
Speaker 1: this is a repudiation Omega, and that in it indirectly
Speaker 1: is a repudiation a Trump or a loosening of the grip.
Speaker 1: Next time, this is Georgia governor, and this is going
Speaker 1: to be an interesting test. So Trump's already endorsed in
Speaker 1: Georgia Governor. He endorsed the Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones, and
Speaker 1: he's endorsed him from the beginning. And Burt Jones has
Speaker 1: been somebody that has flirted with some of these conspiracies.
Speaker 1: He's been on the MAGA train from the beginning, very
Speaker 1: much like Paxton in Texas well. A new candidate jump
Speaker 1: in this race, sort of a former healthcare executive named
Speaker 1: Rick Jackson. Got a terrific personal story that really I
Speaker 1: think resonates with people. He's essentially a foster kid that
Speaker 1: built his own life after that and he's been incredibly
Speaker 1: charitable with Foster organization. So he's just he's got a
Speaker 1: he doesn't have the usual political narrative for a biography.
Speaker 1: I think it's quite syllable, and I think him is
Speaker 1: you know, you know, if you're gonna ask me, I
Speaker 1: think Brick Jackson's the favorite to be the next governor,
Speaker 1: let alone the primary winner. Now. Rick Jackson, in some
Speaker 1: ways he's been He jumped in this race, and he
Speaker 1: proclaimed himself, you know, very much a Trumper, basically trying
Speaker 1: to trying to trying to triangulate a little bit and
Speaker 1: sort of either forced Trump to duel endorse like he's
Speaker 1: done in the past when he sees somebody playing up
Speaker 1: to him or in some ways dare Trump to back
Speaker 1: up his endorsement. And I think that's you know, if
Speaker 1: Trump doesn't come to Bert Jones's aid here because Rick
Speaker 1: Jackson is self funding, well, what's Trump raised all this
Speaker 1: money for? Right? Is he going to use his money
Speaker 1: to show to defend those that stood with him and
Speaker 1: that you know, got in early or not. And if
Speaker 1: he doesn't come in and help Jones here, if this
Speaker 1: Maga super pac, I really think it does send this
Speaker 1: broader message and it's a bad look for the Trump
Speaker 1: movement that hey, it's a one way loyalty street and
Speaker 1: he's going to he will run away from you if
Speaker 1: you look like you're weak or losing, even if it's
Speaker 1: not on you. And you know, the idea that he
Speaker 1: is not a reliable ally, I know is going to
Speaker 1: shock people. But you know, if Burt Jones wants to
Speaker 1: know what this feels like, he can go ask the
Speaker 1: Lensky what it feels like. Right. And the number one
Speaker 1: on the list that to me probably matters more than
Speaker 1: any of the other races on this list is the
Speaker 1: May nineteenth primary in Kentucky's fourth congressional district and Thomas Massey.
Speaker 1: A Thomas Massey victory, I think cements the narrative that
Speaker 1: Trump's Elaine Duck, his his his control of the party
Speaker 1: is loosening and there's no going back from it, like
Speaker 1: it becomes just it is. It is probably the single
Speaker 1: most powerful narrative reaction of anything on this top five list.
Speaker 1: That's why it's number one for me on this list.
Speaker 1: I think this has the you know, he has repeatedly
Speaker 1: gone after Massey. This is one of the few races
Speaker 1: he's put his money where his mouth is. Massey has
Speaker 1: done his thing, and he's gone back, and he's certainly
Speaker 1: not been shy about trying to fight fire with fire
Speaker 1: back on him. You know, past is if past is
Speaker 1: any guide here, Massy's gonna lose. But there is risk
Speaker 1: if Massy wins this, and he's pretty connected to this
Speaker 1: district and Kentucky Republicans tell you talk about a group
Speaker 1: of Republicans that just aren't cookie cutter, right, and there's
Speaker 1: none of them you can point to and say, well,
Speaker 1: they're you know, look at the Senate race, right, There's
Speaker 1: it's easier to make the case that they're non Maga
Speaker 1: than Maga there is this own sort of independent streak
Speaker 1: that they have. McConnell is no Maga Republican for different
Speaker 1: reasons than Ran Paul is no Maga Republican for different reasons,
Speaker 1: and Tom is Massey, And then you could keep you
Speaker 1: got the Secretary of State, Michael Adams is a different
Speaker 1: type of Republican, but so is Daniel Cameron, and so
Speaker 1: is Andy Barr. I mean, it's just been you know,
Speaker 1: in some ways, I'm going to be culturally surprised if
Speaker 1: Massey loses, because it's not in the culture of Kentucky politics.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, right history shows that when
Speaker 1: Trump really wants to weigh in on something and throws
Speaker 1: actual money behind that way, he can have some success.
Speaker 1: But if you're trying to keep track, when does lame
Speaker 1: duck status officially begin for Donald Trump? Thomas Massey victory
Speaker 1: on May nineteenth would cement the narrative that is that
Speaker 1: he's fully in lame duck status. Ask Chuck, all right,
Speaker 1: let's do a little last chuck here. First question comes
Speaker 1: from Doug and Shaker Heights, a wonderful community in Cleveland,
Speaker 1: and he goes new listener here, really appreciate the measured
Speaker 1: analysis on the show. I'm wondering if Ohio Democrats made
Speaker 1: it a strategic mistake by backing shared Brown again, given
Speaker 1: concerns about his age, branding and his association with the
Speaker 1: national party leadership. With nominating younger, newer candidates be a
Speaker 1: better way for Democrats to rebuild their image and compete
Speaker 1: more effectively in states like Ohio. Curious to hear you
Speaker 1: take thank you, Doug and chicker Wright. So I think
Speaker 1: big picture your instinct. I could see where you're thinking,
Speaker 1: and I kind of tend to agree with it. And
Speaker 1: I'll be honest, I was surprised that Brown got into
Speaker 1: this race because do you realize and I bet I
Speaker 1: don't know if you do, And I don't know if
Speaker 1: many Ohioans realize this. This is technically not the time
Speaker 1: for this seat to come up, but this is a
Speaker 1: special election to fill out the JD Vance's term that
Speaker 1: began in the twenty twenty two cycle, right, and John
Speaker 1: Houstad was the appointed successor. He was the lieutenant governor
Speaker 1: before that, the Secretary of State sort of really sort
Speaker 1: of a more of an Ohio Republican and anything on
Speaker 1: the megaside of things. But this was DeWine's appointment and
Speaker 1: it's only for two years, and you're reward for winning
Speaker 1: this massive, expensive Senate race in twenty twenty six, is
Speaker 1: you got to run again in twenty twenty eight? And
Speaker 1: I just couldn't believe that Shared Brown was going to
Speaker 1: sign up after running in twenty twenty four. We know
Speaker 1: he already did this running in twenty twenty six and
Speaker 1: then running in twenty twenty eight. Is he really going
Speaker 1: to have run three straight Senate races? If he wins,
Speaker 1: does he not run for reelection? And then if he
Speaker 1: doesn't run for reelection, who the hell are Democrat's going
Speaker 1: to find that can somehow hold a seat when it
Speaker 1: apparently is going to be proof that only only a
Speaker 1: Shared Brown can hold the seat. So yeah, it was
Speaker 1: a head scratcher to me on a number of levels.
Speaker 1: And I expect that Shared Brown I knew he wasn't
Speaker 1: done running like he just certain people his motor was
Speaker 1: still going right. The one office he never ran for
Speaker 1: was governor. He's run for a lot of state wide offices.
Speaker 1: I think he was Secretary State at one time. I
Speaker 1: think he ran for another state white office. I mean,
Speaker 1: he and Mike de Wine have you know, and the
Speaker 1: one you know, he could have and there would have
Speaker 1: been some sort of poetic irony, you know, following Mike
Speaker 1: de Wine, because the one office Mike the Wine always
Speaker 1: that he had eluded him before finally winning in uh
Speaker 1: back in twenty eighteen was governor. So I figured Shared
Speaker 1: Brown would run for governor because it's a four year term.
Speaker 1: Number one, I think it was an open seat, it
Speaker 1: was winnable. I think Ramaswami has proven to be two
Speaker 1: week a very weak Republican nominee, and maybe Amy Acton,
Speaker 1: who's going to be the likely Democratic nominee for governor,
Speaker 1: switches over to the center race. Now I don't you know.
Speaker 1: And and my concern about Shared Brown as the nominee
Speaker 1: is that Houston. You know, normally what makes a midterm
Speaker 1: year advantageous for the out party is you get to
Speaker 1: run against incumbents, and I guess Shared Brown could run
Speaker 1: against Trump, and he's going to run against Republicans. But
Speaker 1: it's it's hard not for voters to see him as
Speaker 1: any anything but part of the establishment, just the Democratic establishment.
Speaker 1: So all your choices, do you want the Republican establishment
Speaker 1: or do you want the democratic establishment? That's it. I
Speaker 1: don't know if there's a stronger Democrat that anybody that
Speaker 1: you could have found other than Chuck Schumer for the
Speaker 1: center race. I think governor's races are still winnable in Ohio.
Speaker 1: I don't know if center races are, but maybe Shared
Speaker 1: Brown's the one Democrat that can win. Maybe Tim Ryan
Speaker 1: could have you know, maybe there's somebody new or younger.
Speaker 1: Maybe there's a taller Rico out there. I've always sad,
Speaker 1: you know, you know it is. I do believe Ohio
Speaker 1: is a light red state, not a dark red state.
Speaker 1: So the right type of Democrat can still win out there.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe maybe Greg Landsman from the Cincinnati area. Right.
Speaker 1: So let's just say I've I've gone at this one
Speaker 1: hundred ways from Sunday, I think from sixty thousand feet.
Speaker 1: I agree with your take on this that this is,
Speaker 1: but there's also an argument to be made who else
Speaker 1: could have done it in this environment for the cost
Speaker 1: of this race. And when you look at the larger
Speaker 1: map that the Democrats were facing, this was you know,
Speaker 1: a tried and trude and proven voke get her in Ohio. Right,
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of and I've given you all
Speaker 1: the reasons why I'm surprised he said yes, and that
Speaker 1: to me is, to me still the biggest surprise because
Speaker 1: by saying yes, I think you've inadvertently signed that if
Speaker 1: you win, you've signed up for one more ride on
Speaker 1: twenty eight And my god, I know he used to
Speaker 1: be a House member and you're used. But senators usually
Speaker 1: don't like to have to run every two years, and
Speaker 1: if he wins, his reward is to run again, literally
Speaker 1: in two years. Dean from Long Island rights with Donald
Speaker 1: Trump paying off wind companies to abandon offshore Win project,
Speaker 1: I we thank you for writing this in I have
Speaker 1: a piece of my monel that I put together that
Speaker 1: was going to be on this, and then I just
Speaker 1: there's so many other things that piled on top of it.
Speaker 1: So I'm so glad this is a question. So thank you, Dean.
Speaker 1: But let me bears repeating with Donald Trump paying off
Speaker 1: win companies to abandon offshore win products, so you know,
Speaker 1: if that would be considered interference with contracts, could be
Speaker 1: allowing the States to sue the administration and keep the
Speaker 1: companies involved. Thanks Deem from Long Island. Look, I think
Speaker 1: it's an interesting way to go. I think there could
Speaker 1: be lots of lawsuits on this, but I just this
Speaker 1: whole thing, you know. Again, it goes back to sort
Speaker 1: of what's wrong with our politics in general. Not everything
Speaker 1: is either or. Some things are ants, okay, and we
Speaker 1: need energy badly. Why are we ruling out parts of energy? Right?
Speaker 1: I think you know, weaning yourself off of any energy
Speaker 1: is a bad idea at the moment. All of the above,
Speaker 1: but it's really foolish not to be thinking about alternative
Speaker 1: energy sources at a time when literally wars get started
Speaker 1: over access to energy. So this is just stupidity. This
Speaker 1: is bad policy, This is bad for the country long term,
Speaker 1: all because of a fetish about climate change. I mean
Speaker 1: this is literally like, well, I don't want to I
Speaker 1: don't want to do these wind farms because somehow it'll
Speaker 1: make us think we believe in climate change and we
Speaker 1: will need to prove that renewables don't work. Why don't
Speaker 1: we want to prove that renewables don't work. All we're
Speaker 1: doing is handing more more power to China. Right. The
Speaker 1: war of choice against Iran has absolutely scared a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of smaller and middle sized countries who don't have
Speaker 1: their own energy access who rely on buying oil from
Speaker 1: the Strait from the Gulf, and it comes to the
Speaker 1: Strait of hormones, it go man. We got to find
Speaker 1: alternative sources. And it isn't all just finding alternative sources
Speaker 1: for oil and gas. There's going to be a surge
Speaker 1: in interest in renewables. And guess what country they're going
Speaker 1: to go to for the supplies to tap into solar
Speaker 1: and to tap into wind. It ain't going to be
Speaker 1: the United States because this administration is gutting the entire industry.
Speaker 1: It's again, this is self inflicted. There's no part of
Speaker 1: this that makes any sense. And the amount of people
Speaker 1: that don't say this is nonsense. This is not about
Speaker 1: climate change. This is about preparation by the freaking insurance policy. Sorry.
Speaker 1: I find the war against climate change to be just
Speaker 1: so asinine because at this point, who cares whether it's
Speaker 1: man made or not. The climate's changing. We have more
Speaker 1: wildfires happening, we have stronger hurricanes, we have coastal erosion.
Speaker 1: Why does it matter how it started? We should all
Speaker 1: be trying to mitigate it, and all be trying to
Speaker 1: and there's no interest. Literally, this ideology on the right
Speaker 1: is to pretend it doesn't exist, that it's made up up.
Speaker 1: You want to disagree in the origin story, fine, but
Speaker 1: the results not made up. This is the world we're
Speaker 1: dealing with. The climate has changed. Do you want to
Speaker 1: fight over whether it was a hidden hand above or
Speaker 1: an actual person or an industry or entity? Sorry, I
Speaker 1: know I get a little rant about this. I just
Speaker 1: find this one of the dumber things. Where did we do?
Speaker 1: I just you know, why wouldn't we want the insurance policy?
Speaker 1: Next question comes from Pete. What do you make of
Speaker 1: the what if scenario where Trump bought the Buffalo Bills
Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen? Could owning an NFL team have kept
Speaker 1: him from unning for president of twenty sixteen? And if so,
Speaker 1: how differently do you think that election in the broader
Speaker 1: political landscape since might have played out? Pete, that's a
Speaker 1: good one. It is a what if. You know, when
Speaker 1: I did my original what if on twenty sixteen, I
Speaker 1: think I was riffing with Jonathan Martin. I worry this
Speaker 1: is on the old NBC feed. The their own They
Speaker 1: didn't get to own the name, but they owned my
Speaker 1: intellectual property there. But we went through all these various
Speaker 1: scenarios on that. Do I think if he were the
Speaker 1: owner of the Buffalo Bills he wouldn't have run president? Yes,
Speaker 1: I do, And I think the NFL would be something.
Speaker 1: Put it that way, and you'd have, you know, the
Speaker 1: war between Jerry Jones, Bob Craft and Donald Trump, those
Speaker 1: three egos fighting each other for supremacy among owners, right, like, man,
Speaker 1: let's let's let's get that. Forget the TV series running
Speaker 1: point about you know, loosely about the Genie bus Lakers.
Speaker 1: Let's do that, right, Craft, Jones and Trump NFL owners, right,
Speaker 1: you know, the New Housewives of the NFL, but starring
Speaker 1: Jerry Jones, Donald Trump and there. So what would happen
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen? I will tell you so if Trump
Speaker 1: never runs, there's sort of two what ifs that I've
Speaker 1: entertained on this and they and I have to talk
Speaker 1: about them sequentially because this if there's no Bridge Gate,
Speaker 1: Chris Christie's the nominee in sixteen. Chris Christie's personality fit
Speaker 1: the moment, right, because Donald Trump proved that this is
Speaker 1: what kind of the country was looking for. It fit
Speaker 1: the moment. But he'd have been a lot He's he
Speaker 1: probably wins big, not small, Christy versus Clinton, Christy probably
Speaker 1: gets fifty one to fifty two, fifty three percent of
Speaker 1: the vote, and Christy would have been challenged from the
Speaker 1: right by you know, by the Ted cruises of the world,
Speaker 1: would have been hit hard on judges, on abortion and
Speaker 1: some of these cultural issues that I think wouldn't have
Speaker 1: mattered because Christy was just a better debater and he
Speaker 1: would have been, you know, without Donald Trump involved, Christy
Speaker 1: would have been the star of that show. All right,
Speaker 1: that that's one scenario. But bridge Gate did happen, and
Speaker 1: it was a different It was a you know, it's funny.
Speaker 1: It was sort of like a wounded version of Chris
Speaker 1: Christy in that primary, and we didn't get the best
Speaker 1: version of him it would have been, because I do
Speaker 1: think if Christy's in that race, Trump's just an endorser
Speaker 1: of Christy. He never jumps in because he doesn't think
Speaker 1: he can be Christie. So that's sort of where one
Speaker 1: of my head. That's one of my what if scenarios.
Speaker 1: The second one if on this is so let's say
Speaker 1: bridge Gate happened, and so what you essentially have is
Speaker 1: is I think Rand Paul would have been a much
Speaker 1: bigger factor because Paul had the non traditional Republicans that
Speaker 1: were interested in something new. Now, the minute Trump got in,
Speaker 1: it was like a vacuum cleaner on Paul's support. Right
Speaker 1: the first chunk that he took, first, lunch money he
Speaker 1: took was not Jeb Bush's lunch money, it was actually
Speaker 1: Ran Paul's lunch money. And so I think without Trump,
Speaker 1: Paul's a much bigger player Rand Paul. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a scenario where Ran Paul's nominee and Paul versus Clinton
Speaker 1: is very similar to Trump versus Clinton, except probably a
Speaker 1: little less personal. And I think given what we saw
Speaker 1: with the with the vote and the desperation that there
Speaker 1: was among you know, there's sort of the obstinates that
Speaker 1: there was and the electing Hillary Clinton right, there definitely
Speaker 1: was a strong anti Clinton chunk of voters that just
Speaker 1: were put a low ceiling on her ability to gain votes.
Speaker 1: So I think Paul, so Christy, Paul, and then probably
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz. That's probably the order of likely nominee with
Speaker 1: no Donald Trump and no Bridgegate. I think Christy with Bridgegate,
Speaker 1: I probably think the nominee is still Paul or Cruise.
Speaker 1: I don't think Rubio. I think we found out that
Speaker 1: Rubio was trying to straddle too much there. Now, maybe
Speaker 1: Rubio looks like a better candidate, but you know it's
Speaker 1: pot You know you could, you could if you want
Speaker 1: to argue with me, that maybe Rubio gets in there. Now,
Speaker 1: Rubio and no nominee probably wins by a bigger margin
Speaker 1: over Clinton too than Trump. I do think both Rubio
Speaker 1: and Christy would have been stronger candidates than Trump. I
Speaker 1: think both Crews and Paul would have been kind of
Speaker 1: the exacts, very similar races where we're some sort of
Speaker 1: split decision. That was fun. Pete, all right, Next question
Speaker 1: comes from Ben s from Tona, Wanda, New York. One
Speaker 1: of my favorite undergrad courses I took at the University
Speaker 1: of Rochester was titled the Mythology of the Founders. I
Speaker 1: remember writing my final paper on Congressman Raoul Labrador on
Speaker 1: behalf of the Tea Party advocating for the repeal of
Speaker 1: the seventeenth Amendment because it deviated too far from the
Speaker 1: Founding Father's intentions, for better or worse, Many Americans mythologize
Speaker 1: our founding documents and their authors, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: know how you might navigate that with some of the
Speaker 1: proposed constitutional members you have to discussed on the podcast
Speaker 1: Go sabers ps. Did you have a favorite course from
Speaker 1: your college days? I did. I had all. I would say,
Speaker 1: you're gonna you know, it's gonna be a bit dorking out.
Speaker 1: I loved all my history classes. It didn't matter which is,
Speaker 1: you know, I had a general one. I had an
Speaker 1: at least history that I took. Two different mid least
Speaker 1: history courses I took, but I always say this the
Speaker 1: two courses that I used the most in life, in
Speaker 1: my professional life, after I took an elective on the
Speaker 1: federal budget, which is the type of the type of
Speaker 1: course that only at GW is going to offer. Right
Speaker 1: you're in DC, and it was taught by somebody that
Speaker 1: worked at OMB, and I just it was you know,
Speaker 1: it is certainly benefited me in my ability just simply
Speaker 1: learning how to read a federal budget right when you
Speaker 1: see how you look at it and things like that,
Speaker 1: and how it's done and how the math works. Right,
Speaker 1: the math isn't the rules of math for federal budgets
Speaker 1: don't necessarily follow the general rules of bath. That was
Speaker 1: that was a big one for me as well, but
Speaker 1: as for your So, I I believe in founders intent, right,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean you don't modernize with founders intent.
Speaker 1: The seventeenth Amendment is an interesting debate. You know, in
Speaker 1: my class how Washington works that I briefly talked about
Speaker 1: here that I teach part time at USC for for
Speaker 1: the visiting students that have internships in DC. We just
Speaker 1: did our final They just did their final prison. They
Speaker 1: just did their oral presentations on what their final paper
Speaker 1: is going to be on, and one of them is
Speaker 1: for And the whole is what's what's a you know,
Speaker 1: how would you try to make Washington work better? What's
Speaker 1: run reform you would do to make Washington work better?
Speaker 1: And there's one gentleman who picked repealing the seventeenth Amendment
Speaker 1: and about how you know it would and one of
Speaker 1: the best of fits that he believed brought to it
Speaker 1: was that it would actually make state legislative elections more important,
Speaker 1: more people would look into that, more senators would be
Speaker 1: more representative of their states, rather than an ideology. So
Speaker 1: it's an interesting argument on the seventeenth On the seventeenth Amendment,
Speaker 1: we know what the intent, but the intent of the
Speaker 1: Electoral College was to actually be a bit of a
Speaker 1: vetting mechanism in case the public went too far off
Speaker 1: out of the mainstream. And we've let the states essentially
Speaker 1: create what are likely unconstitutional faithless elector laws on that.
Speaker 1: But we've never tested the faithless elector issue in court
Speaker 1: per se. But right now states just bound electors, and
Speaker 1: so they've kind of made the electoral college no longer
Speaker 1: a vetting issue. So I think I am a believer
Speaker 1: in Founder's intent, which means to me, if my amendment
Speaker 1: couldn't easily be defended by something already written in the
Speaker 1: federalist papers, then I might I might be willing no
Speaker 1: longer to defend that addition to the Constitution. And in staid,
Speaker 1: just why don't you just codify this? Look, there's certain
Speaker 1: ideas that should just simply be codified into law by Congress.
Speaker 1: Like I don't think there should be a constitutional amendment
Speaker 1: for reproductive rights. I think that's something that should just
Speaker 1: simply be codified into law, why you know, And it's
Speaker 1: sort of a fear of doing it that now makes
Speaker 1: you think, well, I guess you got to do it
Speaker 1: as a constitutional amendment. And it's perhaps if you make
Speaker 1: a better argument about equal protection that the equal protection
Speaker 1: argument on reproductive rights Trump's the original back and forth
Speaker 1: on Row and Dobbs anyway, but set that aside. But
Speaker 1: I'm sort of it. I take your point here. Like so,
Speaker 1: for instance, I think the nullification of a presidential pardon,
Speaker 1: the way it is framed, this constitutional amendment actually fits
Speaker 1: the vision of the Founders, right. It uses the same
Speaker 1: logic of a supermajority that a that overwriting a veto
Speaker 1: would use it, doesn't you know. It's still it respects
Speaker 1: the idea that a president does have this power. It
Speaker 1: just offers a nullification by Congress if it's if Congress
Speaker 1: deems it so. So I could argue that that, you know,
Speaker 1: But I think that I I where I generally agree
Speaker 1: with you is that proposed constitutional amendments that there should
Speaker 1: already be federalist papers written that already would defend the
Speaker 1: concept even if the amendment hadn't been proposed back then.
Speaker 1: And I could argue in some of these proposed amendments,
Speaker 1: whether it's on whether it's on money campaign money, I
Speaker 1: think they're you know, whether it's on the election of judges. Right,
Speaker 1: there's there's certainly the Founders have made their made their
Speaker 1: They've told us what they meant based on the Federalist papers,
Speaker 1: so I'd sort of think that should be the guidepost,
Speaker 1: all right. Last question it comes from fred a. Hey.
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about Thomas Jefferson's quote that the tree
Speaker 1: of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with
Speaker 1: the blood of patriots and tyrants, and now it's often
Speaker 1: used to justify a more extreme interpretation of the Second
Speaker 1: Amendment parts of the country. That idea still resonates deeply,
Speaker 1: but I wonder if it's something we should be moving
Speaker 1: beyond as a modern democracy. How do you interpret that
Speaker 1: quote today's political context? Best regards freda A. Look, I
Speaker 1: think that that you know, we didn't there wasn't many
Speaker 1: democracies and free societies that even existed when Jefferson said
Speaker 1: that quote, and there were a lot more authoritarian regimes
Speaker 1: we called the monarchies, but they were just that you know,
Speaker 1: you know my attitude on this. I think the monarchies
Speaker 1: are just a just a way to beautify the term dictator.
Speaker 1: And I do think that we you know, one of
Speaker 1: the things and the sort of fits hand in glove
Speaker 1: with the last question. Actually, one of the things that
Speaker 1: we failed to do is understand, you know, what moment
Speaker 1: were they living in at the time. And that's why
Speaker 1: I would emphasize this, what moment was he living in
Speaker 1: at the time, Right, he was living in a moment
Speaker 1: where there was some where you had revolution brewing in France,
Speaker 1: and he certainly had been an ambassador there. He knew
Speaker 1: that there was right we had it brewing, and and
Speaker 1: it already happened in the United States. So there was
Speaker 1: definitely we definitely had you know, you could you could
Speaker 1: feel it. I find it hard to believe that he
Speaker 1: thinks this would apply to our democracy that instead it
Speaker 1: applies if democracy you know that, you know, every once
Speaker 1: in a while, you got to fight for democracy. I
Speaker 1: think that's what it is. But there's no doubt that
Speaker 1: quote gets gets weaponized by those who rationalize or justify
Speaker 1: behavior that is that a mature democracy shouldn't be dealing
Speaker 1: with right that with a steadier instead of leaders. But
Speaker 1: we're not in a stable place right now, and so
Speaker 1: what I think that quote really means is that you
Speaker 1: got to fight for democracy and freedom every once in
Speaker 1: a while, because notice it says the blood of patriots
Speaker 1: and tyrants. Right So, now where what may be subjective
Speaker 1: is one person's patriot is another person's tyrant. It just
Speaker 1: like I've always said, one person's patriot is another person's terrorist.
Speaker 1: Right the British monarchy thought the American those that were
Speaker 1: revolting were terrorists. We call them patriots. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: sort of think that Jefferson is responding to the moment
Speaker 1: he was living in, and then it didn't apply to
Speaker 1: a mature, modern, two hundred and fifty year old democracy
Speaker 1: that we're supposedly celebrating this year. All Right, love the
Speaker 1: Q and A. You guys got made to pop off
Speaker 1: on the environment. I've been waiting to find a way
Speaker 1: to pop off on that, and I think even my
Speaker 1: producer might split that out. You might see that part
Speaker 1: of the Q and A separated out. We rarely rarely
Speaker 1: do that with the ass Chuck segment, but to say
Speaker 1: you touched a nerve as an understating on that way.
Speaker 1: So with that, I'll see you twenty four hours