Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds. And Donald Trump is now selling pieces
Speaker 1: of the suit he wore during his mugshot to people
Speaker 1: who buy his digital trading cards.
Speaker 2: We have one hell of a show today.
Speaker 1: Senator Shared Brown stops by to talk about his re
Speaker 1: election campaign in the Great State of Ohio. Then we'll
Speaker 1: talk to Democratic strategist Jim Messina about how Biden can
Speaker 1: win in twenty twenty four. But first we have the
Speaker 1: host of the Time of Monsters, the Nation's Jed here.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 3: Jeed here, good to be on the program.
Speaker 1: You sound very like normal and sane, and I sound
Speaker 1: very wild, but that's because you're in Canada, where life
Speaker 1: is still normal insane, and I am in America, where
Speaker 1: everything is crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think in Canada, even if you're like Hi,
Speaker 3: on cocaine, you tend to be calm and.
Speaker 1: You're also so if you're high in cocaine, you're usually
Speaker 1: what's that politician Doug.
Speaker 3: Well, Doug Ford, Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Well there's his brother Rob part He is the de
Speaker 3: mayor of Toronto. Famous scene in a crack video, but
Speaker 3: still much calmer than Donald Trump. So it was ross crack.
Speaker 1: So first, we're going to talk about a little bit
Speaker 1: of Canada content here, because I know that's what the
Speaker 1: listeners long for. I read something about Justin Trudeau that
Speaker 1: he is and his party again because I don't know
Speaker 1: this sort of local Canadian political landscape, but that Trump
Speaker 1: is such a toxic brand that actually in Canada, Justin
Speaker 1: Trudeau can run against him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that that's going to happen. The Liberals,
Speaker 3: which is Justin Trudeau's party, are really lagging in the polls.
Speaker 3: They're suffering some of the same problems I think that
Speaker 3: all incumbent parties are having, including the Democrats where they're
Speaker 3: associated with the hangover from COVID. But yeah, I think
Speaker 3: that the Adian Conservative Party has radicalized in recent years.
Speaker 3: The head of the party of Paulvier, is a Trump
Speaker 3: like figure in some ways, and I think is very
Speaker 3: vulnerable on that front. And as an example, I think
Speaker 3: it's very interesting the Canadian Conservatives have turned against Ukraine
Speaker 3: and are voting against this feet trade deal that Canada's
Speaker 3: negotiating with Ukraine. They took me by surprise because Canada
Speaker 3: has a lot of Ukrainians. We took a lot of
Speaker 3: Ukrainians in both before the Second World War and afterwards.
Speaker 3: It has i think the largest population of Ukrainians outside
Speaker 3: of Ukraine. Yeah, Traditionally a lot of there have been conservatives,
Speaker 3: and so for them to turn against Ukraine in the
Speaker 3: context of, you know, a country that has a lot
Speaker 3: of Ukrainian immigrants, it's really something I think fits in
Speaker 3: with this larger pattern of trump Ism.
Speaker 2: So interesting. Will you say a little more about that.
Speaker 3: Well, it's generally the case that all the sort of
Speaker 3: right wing populist parties in Europe and the United States
Speaker 3: and Canada. The cynical way to put it is that
Speaker 3: they're taking the put In line. I think the more
Speaker 3: neutral ways that they tend to be the isolationists about Europe.
Speaker 3: They tend to think like, you know, if white people
Speaker 3: are fighting white people, you know, we don't have a
Speaker 3: dog in that fight. Yeah. So the Canadian conservatives are
Speaker 3: becoming very isolationist about Ukraine, you know, and using the
Speaker 3: arguments that I think you hear from the GOP as well,
Speaker 3: like this is a waste of money.
Speaker 2: And besides, what is fascism It'll be fun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think that's an interesting development. And I
Speaker 3: think Canada is a big supporter of Ukraine, and that's
Speaker 3: just one issue of many. But I do think that
Speaker 3: the Canadian Conservative Party has gone on this sort of
Speaker 3: populist event, which is where grantable. I mean, I think
Speaker 3: Canada tradition has had one of the most centrist of
Speaker 3: conservative parties. They used that to used to be called
Speaker 3: the Progressive Conservative Party. If you can flee love, So
Speaker 3: that's all a thing of the past.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. So I want you to talk a
Speaker 1: little more about this idea you just brushed by, But
Speaker 1: is I think really important post COVID hangover.
Speaker 3: I think one thing that we're seeing in all the
Speaker 3: sort of democracies is that incumbent parties send to be
Speaker 3: in trouble. And I think a lot of that is
Speaker 3: not just about specific policies, but the fact that they
Speaker 3: you know, like after COVID, you know, when we're thinking
Speaker 3: that everyone is happy, but there's actually a lot of
Speaker 3: side effects that happen with inflation, but also, like I
Speaker 3: think even more broadly, the sort of degradation of social life,
Speaker 3: like here in Canada. Our healthcare system, which many Americans admire,
Speaker 3: which used to be quite good, it's sort of fraying.
Speaker 3: A lot of doctors and nurses have left dead. There's
Speaker 3: a lot more people that are sick because of long
Speaker 3: COVID and so like everything is getting worse, and you know,
Speaker 3: more broadly, like just like driving, like like you know,
Speaker 3: there's just a lot more people that are driving very aggressively,
Speaker 3: or there's a lot of ways in which like social
Speaker 3: life has changed and people are just angrier and more
Speaker 3: willing to give vent to their anger. And unfortunately, I
Speaker 3: think that hurts incumbent parties and it helps a particular
Speaker 3: type of right wing populace, which your listeners will know
Speaker 3: in the form of Trump, but you know exists in
Speaker 3: many democracies. You know, there's a lot of anger out there,
Speaker 3: and if someone is willing to, you know, be the
Speaker 3: voice of that anger, they can go hard.
Speaker 1: We talk about this populous rage. This is what brought
Speaker 1: Trump into power. That's really scary and it speaks to
Speaker 1: a certain Americans feeling.
Speaker 2: And Canadians and in other countries. We have Georgia Maloney,
Speaker 2: we have in Italy there's a pen you know, she's
Speaker 2: not elected, but she could be with the poles.
Speaker 1: These polls may not be accurate, but they reflect a
Speaker 1: kind of anger because people get on the phone and say, like, no,
Speaker 1: I don't like it.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: No, I think that's exactly right, and I mean it's
Speaker 3: interesting to think about. Like, I mean, one thing to
Speaker 3: keep in mind is that a lot of the polling
Speaker 3: is because Democrats who will eventually vote for Biden are
Speaker 3: disaffected with him, you know, share the anger, so they're
Speaker 3: just say they're not going to vote for him, like
Speaker 3: everything's going to tighten up. But I mean it's still
Speaker 3: terrifying that it's going to be a close election, and
Speaker 3: you know, it's like Trump is all the valid I
Speaker 3: think that the anger comes from I think people's sense
Speaker 3: of a fraying society. And there's a kind of paradox,
Speaker 3: like the economy is actually doing quite well in the
Speaker 3: United States. It's actually better than in Canada and better
Speaker 3: than in Europe. Like if you just look at the
Speaker 3: raw numbers, some Democrats who are kind of arguing, well,
Speaker 3: you know, this is just like media bias is making
Speaker 3: people think the economy is bad and it's not right.
Speaker 2: I think it's an oversimplification, right, Yeah, it's an oversimplification
Speaker 2: of the fact that people are, like, there are genuine
Speaker 2: things for people to be unhappy about.
Speaker 3: Still, like life expectancy is going down in the United States.
Speaker 3: I believe the number of uninsured is going up, but
Speaker 3: also like just generally social life as I think changed
Speaker 3: and altern in a way that makes people angry and alienated.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I also think that when you were talking about this
Speaker 1: life expectancy, because we just had a really interesting episode
Speaker 1: and worth looking up. I think one of the most
Speaker 1: interesting interviews I've ever done with John Byrne martin Financial Times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he walked us through how in every age in America
Speaker 1: you are more likely to die and your several multiples
Speaker 1: more likely to die. But one of the things that
Speaker 1: I thought was very interesting about this was I wonder
Speaker 1: how much all of this, you know, this is a
Speaker 1: post COVID rage, this like you know, fury about how
Speaker 1: things are not getting better or they're not getting better
Speaker 1: as fast, but that there's a sense that even the
Speaker 1: threat of voting for Trump, because you know what he's
Speaker 1: capable of, is a subversive act.
Speaker 2: Can you discuss.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I mean I think that's the unfortunate thing,
Speaker 3: which is and I think it's the basis of Trump's power,
Speaker 3: both in twenty sixteen when he was like harnessing a
Speaker 3: lot of the rage from the fact that the recovery
Speaker 3: from the Great Recession hadn't happened fast enough and some
Speaker 3: of the social problems that we're seeing we're already developing,
Speaker 3: and now, which is that he really is the FU candidate, Right,
Speaker 3: if you're mad at the way the world is, this
Speaker 3: is you'll stick it to the man. And a lot
Speaker 3: of people use Trump for that way, like like not
Speaker 3: that they necessarily agree with him or even think he
Speaker 3: has a solution, and they really want to show the
Speaker 3: powers of b that be, like how mad they are.
Speaker 3: And so he has the advantage of, you know, he's
Speaker 3: the anti system politic politician. And I think that Democrats
Speaker 3: sometimes are a little bit flat footed in opposing this
Speaker 3: because they try to play up certain things in Trump
Speaker 3: that actually worked for his advantage, because they highlight his
Speaker 3: anti system nature. Like I think there's a limited amount
Speaker 3: you can do with some of his criminal activities, although
Speaker 3: I certainly believe the law should go after him, But
Speaker 3: if you make that the main political argument, there's a
Speaker 3: lot of people think, yeah, this guy's a crook, but
Speaker 3: that shows he's for real, right, he's our kruok, he's
Speaker 3: our crook, right, Yeah, and he doesn't he's not owned
Speaker 3: by the system in the way the honest person would be.
Speaker 3: More broadly, I don't think you could run on America
Speaker 3: is already great. The slogan which was used like by
Speaker 3: Obama and the Hill in twenty sixteen. In Canada, we
Speaker 3: see an interesting variation of this because the Conservatives, you know,
Speaker 3: one of the slogans that they have now is Canada
Speaker 3: is broken. Unfortunately, Christia Friedland, who's the Deputy Prime Minister,
Speaker 3: came out with you know, tweet saying, you know, Canada
Speaker 3: has never been broken, right, And I think that if
Speaker 3: you know, if you have people that are struggling to
Speaker 3: buy housing, see growth fees that are more expensive, you know,
Speaker 3: to say Canada has never been broken, you know, it
Speaker 3: sounds complacent and it sounds like you don't want to
Speaker 3: do anything, right. I think that that's the big problem.
Speaker 3: Like I think you have to like feel people's pain,
Speaker 3: as Bill Clinton says, you have to offer people out
Speaker 3: of an awareness that I know, things are like, you know,
Speaker 3: not where they want to be and here's what I'm
Speaker 3: going to do, and I'll fight for you.
Speaker 1: I think that's right. And I also think that you
Speaker 1: cannot tell people that their reality is wrong.
Speaker 2: I mean, that will just make them furious.
Speaker 3: They are unfortunately, like a whole school of Democratic pundents
Speaker 3: whose basic response to like all the pulling data saying,
Speaker 3: you know, people are okay, feel that their own finances
Speaker 3: are okay, but they feel the economy in the wrong
Speaker 3: direction and the countries going in the wrong word direction.
Speaker 3: Their whole response is, oh, people are just brainwashed by TikTok, Right,
Speaker 3: you are just brainwatched by the media. And I'm sorry
Speaker 3: if that's your answer, Like who's going to listen to you?
Speaker 3: And you don't actually like offer any path to win
Speaker 3: these people back.
Speaker 1: Well, And also if they're brainwashed, it's your fault.
Speaker 3: Yeah, don't you know. Like I think there's a lot
Speaker 3: of media bias that works against the Democrats. But like
Speaker 3: the great Democratic politicians and you know, like Bill Clinton
Speaker 3: and Barack Obama, they also have the ability to like
Speaker 3: override the media. They had a voice that was so
Speaker 3: compelling that it could swamp whatever the New York Times
Speaker 3: or the networks were saying, or Fox was saying, you know,
Speaker 3: whether Joe Biden has that ability or not, I'll leave
Speaker 3: it to your listeners to the side.
Speaker 1: Well, I also think that one of the really underreported
Speaker 1: stories about Joe Biden is that people like him more
Speaker 1: than they think they do. Yeah, which is why he
Speaker 1: pulls poorly but does much better in elections.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: I wrote a piece in twenty sixteen about how he
Speaker 1: should drop out because he had lost a lot of primaries, right,
Speaker 1: And I was like, if you're going to be the
Speaker 1: front runner, you have to run in front. And the
Speaker 1: truth was, you know, there's something I mean, I do
Speaker 1: not underestimate the innate racism of the American voting public.
Speaker 1: He feels like a normal white guy, and I think
Speaker 1: that's a huge advantage for him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I do think that works, and there is
Speaker 3: a lot of affection for Joe Biden. Then, more to
Speaker 3: the point, like I think if it does come down
Speaker 3: to Trump versus Biden, like a lot of the Democrats
Speaker 3: will rally because people remember the Trump era and then
Speaker 3: Trump is in fact widely solved. But you know, like
Speaker 3: I think the broader for local problem is you kind
Speaker 3: of have to fear a waste to override the media
Speaker 3: the negativity. And I'll just point to the democratic governors,
Speaker 3: you know, Like I think if you look at the polling,
Speaker 3: a lot of the governors are actually pulling quite well
Speaker 3: in their states. And I think one reason is that
Speaker 3: we have a lot of democraticors that are really effective
Speaker 3: communicators but also like putting forward a strong agenda and
Speaker 3: so people feel like, you know, well, this is someone
Speaker 3: who's out there. I may not agree with them on everything,
Speaker 3: but they're doing things, They're fighting for things, and I
Speaker 3: think that's just so crucial. And I'm hoping that, you know,
Speaker 3: like as we go into the election year, the Biden
Speaker 3: team is able to like they don't fall into this
Speaker 3: trap of just blaming the media, and they you know,
Speaker 3: like they offer this positive vision of what they can
Speaker 3: do to help make people's lives better.
Speaker 1: And I think that that is the economic populism, which
Speaker 1: is you know, we had shared Brown on this podcast.
Speaker 1: People respond to it. The net of it is what
Speaker 1: has Biden been doing right? He's been bringing manufacturing back
Speaker 1: to America. I mean, yeah, one of the great examples
Speaker 1: is like this, the Ukraine money goes to building weapons
Speaker 1: in the United States. Now again I don't get super
Speaker 1: psyched about weapons.
Speaker 2: Defense contractors are not like my favorite.
Speaker 1: You know, I grew up during the all for one
Speaker 1: and two, so I do not have a place in
Speaker 1: my heart for raytheon. But I do think that it
Speaker 1: really is an important data point that the whole goal
Speaker 1: of Bidenomics is to bring manufacturing back to the United States.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I know. I do think he has a
Speaker 3: good economic record, and I think there's stuff to run on,
Speaker 3: and we're really I mean, like it is about getting
Speaker 3: the message out there. I mean I thought that like
Speaker 3: Obama in twenty twelve was very creative about like doing
Speaker 3: things like that, just going on like you know, sports radio, right,
Speaker 3: and like people would never pay at that to the politics.
Speaker 3: But certainly, you know, Obama's talking about his picks and
Speaker 3: then he mentions his policies. There are ways that you
Speaker 3: can you can get around the media. I mean, I
Speaker 3: think that's the work that has to be done. No, again,
Speaker 3: I don't think it rests just on Biden or you know,
Speaker 3: his reelection campaign. I think it's a broader Democratic Party thing,
Speaker 3: and you know, like you know, as we're near the
Speaker 3: end of the year, like we should also emphasize the
Speaker 3: polling is a bit bleak, but you know, Democrats have
Speaker 3: done really well, Like the midterms were good and that
Speaker 3: all all the special elections. What you're seeing is Democrats
Speaker 3: outperforming the fundamentals, outperforming what they usually do. And to me,
Speaker 3: that shows, you know, there's a lot of signs out
Speaker 3: there that is becoming a stronger party with especially like
Speaker 3: a stronger grassroots and stronger people who've been radicalized by
Speaker 3: Dobbs and radicalized all the you know Moms for Liberty
Speaker 3: garbage who are like radicalized by January sixth and really
Speaker 3: worry about their democracy. You have a really strong grassroots
Speaker 3: that's you know, they're going to go to the mat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. Gee here, thank you so
Speaker 2: much for joining us. I hope you'll come back.
Speaker 3: You can't keep me away from you.
Speaker 1: Shared Brown is the senior senator from the great state
Speaker 1: of Ohio. Welcome back. I think you've actually been on
Speaker 1: this podcast before. Senator Sharon Brown.
Speaker 5: Good to be with you. I really appreciate your doing
Speaker 5: this well.
Speaker 2: I'm very excited.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk to you about DoD but
Speaker 1: first I want you to talk to us a little
Speaker 1: bit about your senate race.
Speaker 2: I can't believe. I feel like you just had a
Speaker 2: center raise, But I guess it was six years ago, right, I.
Speaker 4: Guess it was.
Speaker 5: And these rais, I mean with the money you spend
Speaker 5: and chaos going on in the House representatives now, it
Speaker 5: seems like elections never in, but I guess they do.
Speaker 4: And then you move on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so sort of get me up to speed about
Speaker 2: what's happening.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I represent a state Trump won twice. I will
Speaker 5: be Trump's likely his number one target in the country
Speaker 5: were Trump because he won a while by eight points
Speaker 5: each time. Think they could beat me, But keep your
Speaker 5: head down. I focus on this job, on the dignity
Speaker 5: of work. Ohio is not as conservative as some national
Speaker 5: media people like to think. We passed by thirteen points
Speaker 5: a const social amendment on abortion rights. All three of
Speaker 5: my Republican opponents facing each other in the March primary
Speaker 5: next year or for an abortion national abortion band. So
Speaker 5: you know I've never said mine. I think I said
Speaker 5: this to you before. I never see politics as sort
Speaker 5: of left to right liberal. I see it as whosidy
Speaker 5: on And this is so clear at abortion rights that
Speaker 5: you know I side with women in their in their
Speaker 5: families and their doctor and my opponents. They think that
Speaker 5: politicians and Columbus or Washington should make those decisions and
Speaker 5: voters in my state that hell not to that.
Speaker 2: Yes, they did with that abortion measure in August.
Speaker 1: We talked a lot about how, you know, the sort
Speaker 1: of Ohio Republicans war on balid initiatives and how they
Speaker 1: wanted to raise the margins to make it harder to
Speaker 1: pass a ballot initiative that didn't work. They had that
Speaker 1: vote in August than they had this abortion vote.
Speaker 2: You are Ohio through and through.
Speaker 1: Do you feel that Ohioans Is it like Kansas with
Speaker 1: brown Back? Is there a kind of fury towards these Republicans?
Speaker 5: Well, I think it's it's clear that Ohio don't want
Speaker 5: the rights taken away. Even people that might not have
Speaker 5: voted for Issue one are already incensed. A lot of
Speaker 5: them that even though when had passed by thirteen points,
Speaker 5: that there are still Ohio Republicans at the state House
Speaker 5: and on the court system whatever that still think they
Speaker 5: don't have to abide by this constitutional amendment, and that's
Speaker 5: just wrong. This is a state. But leading up to
Speaker 5: this constitutional amendment, it's pretty interesting in that seven hundred
Speaker 5: thousand people signed a petition as you said, Republicans to go.
Speaker 5: They tried to disqualify a number of those signatures. Then
Speaker 5: they went to the ballot to try to raise the
Speaker 5: threshold and set a fifty percent plus one to amend
Speaker 5: the constitution needed sixty percent. Then politicians and Columbus changed
Speaker 5: the ballot language. They're supposed to summarize the vaalot language.
Speaker 5: Instead they made it longer and they put things in
Speaker 5: there like preborn child in the ballot language. Then they
Speaker 5: made it harder to vote. If you go to Ohio
Speaker 5: State or Kent State or University of Cincinnati, you get
Speaker 5: a student ID issued by a state underscore state university,
Speaker 5: that doesn't get you a ballot. You still have to
Speaker 5: get a state ID. It's clear that the opponents to
Speaker 5: a abortion rights tried to do everything, yet we still
Speaker 5: won my thirteen points and they're still fighting it. So
Speaker 5: people just you know, women don't trust Paul Ohisle politicians.
Speaker 5: And then on top of that, you got the three
Speaker 5: Republicans I said running for this seat in the March
Speaker 5: primary that are still saying we're for a national abortion band,
Speaker 5: which is a direct hit in the face to the
Speaker 5: fifty six percent that voted for these constitutional rights.
Speaker 2: You've been involved in Dodd Frank. Will you give us
Speaker 2: a little bit of an explanation of what's happening with
Speaker 2: Dodd Frank right now.
Speaker 5: We had a hearing last week with the six with
Speaker 5: the eight Masters of the universe, the largest bank, the
Speaker 5: president CEOs of the largest banks in the country, who
Speaker 5: wield immense power in this economy. Frankly wield amidst power
Speaker 5: in the halls of Congress.
Speaker 4: The Federal Reserve.
Speaker 5: Have a rule under Dodd Frank to bulk up if
Speaker 5: fuel to strengthen capital requirements so banks don't collapse and
Speaker 5: end up with a public a government bailout. All eight
Speaker 5: of them were opposed to them. Lobbyists never give up.
Speaker 5: I remember, right after the bill had Dodd Frank passed,
Speaker 5: a bank lobbyist, whether a prominent bank lobbyist, said now
Speaker 5: it's halftime. In other words, we're going to keep fighting.
Speaker 5: And they have. They fought for ten years, actually more
Speaker 5: than ten years now. They fought the implementation of Dodd Frank.
Speaker 5: They're continuing to fight it. There's something we're working on now,
Speaker 5: an executive compensation rule that the regulators had to pass.
Speaker 5: The Trump regulators simply didn't move on it at all.
Speaker 5: We're now trying to get this to happen. The bank
Speaker 5: lobbyists are fighting there. Somebody said to me the other day,
Speaker 5: when you go to the grocery store, right, you pay
Speaker 5: more because of stock buybacks and executive compensation and bonus.
Speaker 5: I mean every day Ohio would say more because of
Speaker 5: the corporate stock buybacks and the executive bonuses. And my
Speaker 5: job is to take on those interest groups. And Dodd
Speaker 5: Frank was one of them that passed. It's a good
Speaker 5: bill generally, we want to make sure it's implemented. We
Speaker 5: want to make sure that the banks don't weaken it.
Speaker 1: So in Ohio we have this case right now. Your
Speaker 1: governor always s it gets credit for being a monerate,
Speaker 1: though clearly he's very much not.
Speaker 2: You have a case right now. Brittany Watts, she had
Speaker 2: a mischaracter twenty two weeks she miscarried in Toilet. The
Speaker 2: grand jury is still out on whether or not she's
Speaker 2: gonna be charged with this heinous corpse mangling charge. Can
Speaker 2: you talk to us about this dystopian nightmare that's happening
Speaker 2: in your state.
Speaker 5: You could look at it every look what happens in
Speaker 5: Texas with the woman in Texas. I mean it's not
Speaker 5: really all Republicans at state House politicians that they don't
Speaker 5: believe in women's rights.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, you know what, one thing.
Speaker 5: I learned a long time, not a long time, I've
Speaker 5: learned really since since Row, really maybe since five years ago.
Speaker 5: I don't know that we win these big battles as progressives,
Speaker 5: as people that care about human rights. We win on
Speaker 5: abortion rights, we went on civil rights. We win on
Speaker 5: generally human rights issues. And I thought they're permanent. Well,
Speaker 5: women are always have, always have those rights, voters will
Speaker 5: always have these rights. But doctor King's with credit Scott
Speaker 5: King said you got to fight for him each generation.
Speaker 5: So what I've learned watching all this and I felt
Speaker 5: naive and respect, is that you've got it. You've got
Speaker 5: to stay in the arena. You got to stay act,
Speaker 5: You've got to do things like you're doing Mally in
Speaker 5: shows like this and writing and speaking out because these
Speaker 5: battles are never fully won. And I can see it
Speaker 5: in Ohio right now, we definitively overwhelmingly passed constitutional abortion rights.
Speaker 5: Politicians aren't going to buy it. I mean, these aren't
Speaker 5: decisions for politicians to make, the voters made them. That's
Speaker 5: what keeps me going, knowing that these victories are never permanent.
Speaker 5: You've got to keep making sure that you're defending people's rights.
Speaker 5: You don't win them forever. You win them, and you
Speaker 5: keep fighting because the other side, always with more money,
Speaker 5: always with more media outlets like Fox and right wing
Speaker 5: talk radio, will always assault at the edges or straight
Speaker 5: on on the rights that we have gained for Americans.
Speaker 2: It's really true. Do you think though, that there is, like.
Speaker 1: On the local level in Ohio, people who are pushing back.
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I mean, do you think that this is
Speaker 1: created as sort of backlash?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 5: I think the more they push it, the backlash already
Speaker 5: showed itself in twenty eighteen when I won by seven points,
Speaker 5: won only I won sixteen out eighty eight counties. Abortion
Speaker 5: rights won in those sixteen and nine others because more
Speaker 5: and more suburban women, but small town women too, and
Speaker 5: men are realizing we deserve these rights and we're not
Speaker 5: going to give up these rights. And when when they've
Speaker 5: voted overwhelmingly, and Ohio voters voted and I said fifty
Speaker 5: six forty four, you know I'm no pundit, but I
Speaker 5: also know that when you make that decision, that that
Speaker 5: emphatic decision taking those rights away is just morally wrong
Speaker 5: and anti small deed democratic. The backlash was already against
Speaker 5: the six week abortion ban in Columbus, and that was
Speaker 5: what the vote showed. The back life is even greater now.
Speaker 5: Islands want someone on their side, and that's what I
Speaker 5: want to be is continue to fight for people and
Speaker 5: be on their side of me. So I said, it's
Speaker 5: it's not left to right in politics so much as
Speaker 5: it's who's on their side. And that's why I went
Speaker 5: a state that some people say Democrats can't win, or
Speaker 5: some people say it's concerned good matters.
Speaker 4: You're concerned liberally.
Speaker 5: You want somebody to fight for you, and you want
Speaker 5: somebody to stay to be on your side. That's the
Speaker 5: secret to governing and the secret to politics generally.
Speaker 2: Do you think that voters the reason that they're willing
Speaker 2: to cross the ticket for you, or voters but ticket,
Speaker 2: is because they know you or because I mean, what
Speaker 2: do you think that sort of secret sauce is?
Speaker 5: I don't think it's secret. I spent my life fighting
Speaker 5: for the dignity of work, taking on the drug companies,
Speaker 5: taking on the oil companies, taking on the corporations that
Speaker 5: jam the country and jam Congress on NAFTA and Most
Speaker 5: Favored Nation status for China, and all the things they
Speaker 5: did that destroyed, undermined, or even destroyed some communities in
Speaker 5: Ohio and some neighborhoods where people lost decent, middle class,
Speaker 5: solid working class union jobs and people. That's why people
Speaker 5: recognize them on their side and standing up, I wear
Speaker 5: a pen on my lapel Molley. That's a depiction of
Speaker 5: canary and a birdcage the mine workers one hundred and
Speaker 5: twenty years going to take the canary down the mine.
Speaker 5: They had no government, they had no union in those
Speaker 5: days strong enough or a government that cared enough to
Speaker 5: protect them. And I wear that lapel still in my
Speaker 5: suit because it reminds me about the dignity of work.
Speaker 5: It reminds me whom we're fighting for and what we're
Speaker 5: fighting against.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so important.
Speaker 1: Do you think that your message of economic populism? Can
Speaker 1: Democrats run with that more? And if so, how, I'm
Speaker 1: not a planet. I'll tell other people what to do.
Speaker 5: But many in Ohio seem to think the Democratic Party
Speaker 5: unfortunately is a bicoastal elite and we're not. But we've
Speaker 5: got to talk more about workers and see things through
Speaker 5: the eyes of workers more than we do it. I
Speaker 5: just say people think hard work should pay off. If
Speaker 5: you love this country, you fight for the people who
Speaker 5: make it work. That's been always my focus. I'll always
Speaker 5: be pro choice. I've been supportive marriage equality for twenty
Speaker 5: five years, so I stood up to the gun lobby,
Speaker 5: and I understand those are economic issues too for the
Speaker 5: American public. I recognize that young people, it's the most
Speaker 5: pro union generation in my lifetime. Young people, and they
Speaker 5: want a chance, whether they work at Starbucks, whether they
Speaker 5: work they go through a union apprenticeship program and become
Speaker 5: a bricklayer, or whether they go to college and want
Speaker 5: to fight for the causes they believe in it. It's
Speaker 5: all about giving kids an opportunity and in joining a
Speaker 5: union at whatever age you are.
Speaker 2: Since you're in Ohio and you're seeing a lot on the.
Speaker 1: Ground, do you think that with the death of local news,
Speaker 1: which is something your wife is involved in as well,
Speaker 1: who's a journalist, are you seeing a certain like a
Speaker 1: disinformation gap. Are you seeing like on the ground people
Speaker 1: believing stuff that's not true.
Speaker 2: I mean, are you seeing the results.
Speaker 5: Of that or no, yeah, you do. But I think
Speaker 5: in Ohio perhaps it's a unique case. The Speaker of
Speaker 5: the House, the chairman of the state Republican Party, and
Speaker 5: now the already have been sentenced to prison twenty years
Speaker 5: and five years, respectively. We're taking a sixty one million
Speaker 5: dollar bride. The governor's head of the Public Utilities Commission
Speaker 5: was just indicted on similar charges. We think more and
Speaker 5: we hear more people. I'm not a lawyer, I don't
Speaker 5: know more be indicted, but the local news. There's just
Speaker 5: not enough reporters at the State House anymore. I mean,
Speaker 5: I think they're working hard, they're aggressive, but there's only
Speaker 5: so much on their plate, and we are larger number
Speaker 5: of reporters that make a huge difference there. So you
Speaker 5: see politicians getting away with far too much because there's
Speaker 5: not the aggressive press core because they're so outnumbered than
Speaker 5: there used to be. And I guess I close with
Speaker 5: that thinking that I'm yearning for those days when the
Speaker 5: press really did have real investigative powers and authority and
Speaker 5: enough money to do it right.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you, Senator, Thanks Ollie.
Speaker 5: Thank you fun interview, good questions.
Speaker 4: Thanks.
Speaker 1: Jim Messina is the former White House Deputy Chief of
Speaker 1: Staff and campaign manager for President Barack Obama.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 4: Jim, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Very exciting, very very exciting.
Speaker 1: So I have a cousin who calls me and he says,
Speaker 1: if we could just get Joe Biden to drop out,
Speaker 1: then just talk sense to that cousin.
Speaker 4: That cousin, my family, all my friends. Yeah, Molly, I'm
Speaker 4: doing a lot of calming the bed wetters these days.
Speaker 4: And look, my only superpower is like I love data,
Speaker 4: and I look at the data and I just think
Speaker 4: a couple things for your cousin and my mama. The
Speaker 4: first is, let's not get out of hand that Joe
Speaker 4: Biden getting out of this race would fix things, because
Speaker 4: a couple reminders here. I mean, he beat Donald Trump once.
Speaker 4: In my opinion, the democratic opinion, Donald Trump is the
Speaker 4: biggest threat to democracy of our lifetime, and so we
Speaker 4: had to do whatever we can to make sure he
Speaker 4: doesn't get elected. And I think the best way to
Speaker 4: do that is to nominate Joe Biden. It's not because
Speaker 4: I'm from Biden crazy, It's because a couple of things. One,
Speaker 4: we've already had this selection. And it's interesting, in the
Speaker 4: history of presidential elections and US Senate elections, no one
Speaker 4: who's been beaten once came back and beat the same
Speaker 4: candidate the second time. The other thing is, okay, let's
Speaker 4: say Joe Biden gets out tomorrow, Mollie. I've met with
Speaker 4: over twenty five people who would announce the next day
Speaker 4: they're running for president of the United States, and we
Speaker 4: don't know who's going to become the nominee, and we
Speaker 4: certainly don't know if that person is battle tested and
Speaker 4: ready to be the Democratic nominee for president. Let me
Speaker 4: give you some examples. I mean, the entire Republican Party
Speaker 4: thought that Ron DeSantis was his godsend and was going
Speaker 4: to sweep away Donald Trump and be this amazing candidate.
Speaker 4: He has turned out to be a really poor national candidate.
Speaker 2: He still wears the lefts continued, Yes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, still wears the lefts and his wife is still
Speaker 4: a much better campaigner than he is. You know, there
Speaker 4: was no Rudy Giuliani presidency. He was way ahead the
Speaker 4: polls and turned out to be a terrible candidate. You know,
Speaker 4: the same, And there's Democrats like Gary hard too. Everyone
Speaker 4: thought it was gonna be the nominee, you know, fell apart.
Speaker 4: So I'm just not sure who would be the nominee.
Speaker 4: And it's such a condensed calendar that, you know, what
Speaker 4: if we nominate someone who can't win the general election
Speaker 4: and Donald Trump like walks in. So you know, those
Speaker 4: are reasons why I think that we are safer with
Speaker 4: Joe Biden at the top of the ticket. Now, look,
Speaker 4: I'm not saying this is going to be a kickwalk
Speaker 4: He barely won last time. This is going to be
Speaker 4: a close election. But I think when you think about
Speaker 4: Barack Obama once said to me that every president is
Speaker 4: always a reflection of the previous president, which, if you
Speaker 4: think about it, Molly, is super interesting and probably true.
Speaker 4: People thought that Jimmy Carter was out of touch. They
Speaker 4: nominated this kind of guy with a vision rom of Reagan.
Speaker 4: Then George Bush came after him, and people thought he
Speaker 4: was sleeping the switch on the economy. So we got
Speaker 4: this in touch Bill Clinton. People thought that at the
Speaker 4: end of his presidency he had some moral questions. We
Speaker 4: did the compassionate conservative George Bush. People thought that at
Speaker 4: the end of his presidency. He was an idiot. So
Speaker 4: they got the urbane Barack Obama, who was the opposite
Speaker 4: of Barack Obama Donald Trump. And when you think about
Speaker 4: kind of why Joe Biden won this election four years ago,
Speaker 4: it was because he was the opposite of Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: He was calm, he was someone who could get things done,
Speaker 4: understood the process. Those things haven't really changed in the
Speaker 4: minds of the voters. So it is why people like
Speaker 4: me are comfortable that Joe Biden is our best candidate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 1: And I'm me and Ron DeSantis and he's still wearing
Speaker 1: the cowboy boots.
Speaker 4: You know, it's true. And voters are so much smarter
Speaker 4: than people think they are and they can just see
Speaker 4: through that bullshit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really good point.
Speaker 2: And when you look at this sort of the landscape
Speaker 2: of the Democratic base, I think what's really interesting to
Speaker 2: me is that there is actually huge bench of talent.
Speaker 4: Boy, there really is. You know, again, I met with
Speaker 4: over twenty five people, and only there's some people out
Speaker 4: there who were just really going to be great national candidates.
Speaker 4: We think now, you know, we don't know what we think.
Speaker 4: I mean, remember that we want sad Johna. We're just
Speaker 4: going to be this savior and that turned out not
Speaker 4: to be. But with you watch away. Gretchen Whitmer handled
Speaker 4: the abortion issue in Michigan and made an economic issue,
Speaker 4: which every Democrat should do. She's got national talent. Gavin
Speaker 4: Newsom national talent, was more national talent, jab Pritzker national talent.
Speaker 4: Like you know, there's more and more of those people
Speaker 4: that you and I can talk about, Gina Romondo, Pete Buddha, Judge, Like,
Speaker 4: there's just so many people, which is really a contrast
Speaker 4: to the last time we were in this place where
Speaker 4: you know, it was sort of Obama or Hillary and
Speaker 4: it was sort of Biden or a couple of people.
Speaker 4: There's just so much talent out there.
Speaker 2: Say more about Gretchen Womor making abortion and economic issue.
Speaker 4: So I'm obsessed with this. So all of the Democratic
Speaker 4: consultants in the ten square free logic zone called Washington
Speaker 4: d C. Ten square miles no fucking logic. This great
Speaker 4: group called American Bridge put everyone together in January or
Speaker 4: February of twenty twenty two, and I stood up and said, look,
Speaker 4: the Supreme Court is likely going to get rid of
Speaker 4: Row it's going to be the issue. We need to
Speaker 4: start talking about how to talk about this. Every consultant
Speaker 4: told me how dumb it was, how stupid I was,
Speaker 4: and how economics are the only issues that would matter
Speaker 4: and we just need to stay focused on that.
Speaker 2: You know, people told me that very same.
Speaker 4: Thing exactly, and like it was terrible advice then and
Speaker 4: it's terrible advice now. But if you look at like,
Speaker 4: you know, there's been this long debate in the Democratic
Speaker 4: Party do you do turnout or do you do persuasion
Speaker 4: to swing voters? The answer is you do both. And
Speaker 4: Gretchen Whitber was the first person who figured out how
Speaker 4: to do both on economics and abortion. She had this
Speaker 4: stunning ad where she looks at the camera and says,
Speaker 4: you know, people think the right to choose isn't an
Speaker 4: economic issue, but deciding whether or not have a kid
Speaker 4: is the biggest economic issue you're going to have as
Speaker 4: a family, and kids are expensive. And this is why
Speaker 4: I fight so hard because it should be your choice.
Speaker 4: These are your decisions. And it was just brilliant, and
Speaker 4: she doubled down and continued to talk about it in
Speaker 4: a way that I think is just really instructed for
Speaker 4: the rest of the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so too. I just today was interviewing
Speaker 2: Shared Brown, who was talking about how the economic populism
Speaker 2: is something that you know, even though Trump was lying,
Speaker 2: it really did help him huge.
Speaker 4: Man, exactly. I mean, here's the again, back to the numbers.
Speaker 4: Started to poor your listeners with numbers, But you and
Speaker 4: I fucking love it. Joe Biden became the first president
Speaker 4: in one hundred years to win the presidency while losing
Speaker 4: the who's better on the economy question to Donald Trump?
Speaker 4: And and party did it because Trump was so fucking crazy,
Speaker 4: and party did it because of COVID. The economic issues
Speaker 4: tend to be incredibly important.
Speaker 1: So just talk to me about what you think Biden
Speaker 1: world needs to do to win.
Speaker 4: Here a couple things. Number one, I mean, if you
Speaker 4: think about when you run a presidential campaign, I'd run
Speaker 4: Molly ten Center races before I ran a presidential campaign,
Speaker 4: and they're just wildly different. And what you realize is
Speaker 4: in the presidential campaign there are really two groups of
Speaker 4: people you have to care the most about. The first
Speaker 4: and most important is your supporters. Why is that the
Speaker 4: most important? Because they can do three things that you
Speaker 4: desperately need them to do. First of all, they can
Speaker 4: vote for you, obviously very crucial. Second of all, they
Speaker 4: can give you money and volunteer time insanely crucial. And
Speaker 4: third and probably the most important, they can get their
Speaker 4: friends and family to vote for you as well. They
Speaker 4: can be ambassadors. They can say, hey, Molly, this is
Speaker 4: why I'm supporting Joe Biden, and you should too. And
Speaker 4: in the same age of political cynicism and thirty second ads,
Speaker 4: it is a proven fact that the most important thing
Speaker 4: on how voters think is what their friends and families
Speaker 4: say about politics. Those of you who listen to Molly
Speaker 4: every week and care deeply about this, like this is
Speaker 4: why you want this information. You are the most important people.
Speaker 4: So that's the first part. This is this bucket called
Speaker 4: our own supporters. And the second bucket is swing voters.
Speaker 4: And remember that America is the most partisan country in
Speaker 4: the world. I have thirteen presidents and prime ministers around
Speaker 4: the world as my clients, and the average European, Asian
Speaker 4: or Latin American elections about a fourth to forty percent
Speaker 4: of voters could go back and forth between the major parties.
Speaker 4: In the United States, it's about eight percent eight, maybe
Speaker 4: ten percent on the best moment of voters could actually
Speaker 4: vote for Joe Biden and Donald Trump. And so we're
Speaker 4: talking about a really small amount of people. So that
Speaker 4: is an incredibly long way of answering your question, which
Speaker 4: is what should Joe Biden's campaign. The very first thing
Speaker 4: they have to do is focus on their supporters, and
Speaker 4: they're really doing that. You and I were on Morning
Speaker 4: Joe recently talking about that they have the law or
Speaker 4: just buy in the history of American politics on social
Speaker 4: media to young voters, African Americans, and Latinos, three areas
Speaker 4: where they have struggled a little bit, as every presidential campaign,
Speaker 4: including Barack Obama did too, because after four years, everyone's
Speaker 4: pissed about something. They need to message to those people
Speaker 4: and they're spending a lot of time right now doing that.
Speaker 4: And then two, they have to focus on these swing voters,
Speaker 4: and the swing voters are really about two kinds of things.
Speaker 4: First is trying to say, hey, I've done the job,
Speaker 4: and they're doing that, and I think that's the kind
Speaker 4: of thing that they've done enough of and it's now
Speaker 4: time to start to do something else. And then two
Speaker 4: is the choice. The choice between him and Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: I used to say to President Obama when I would
Speaker 4: fly to see him on Saturdays at the White House. Look,
Speaker 4: if this election is a referendum on you, you will lose,
Speaker 4: because incumbents lose referendums on them. If is a choice
Speaker 4: between you and Romney, you're going to win because you're
Speaker 4: the better choice. And so eventually they need to make
Speaker 4: this a choice. And again, back to the logic free
Speaker 4: zone of Washington, d C. Where you and I spend
Speaker 4: too much time. Right now, everyone there is wedding the beds, screaming,
Speaker 4: Oh my God, make it a choice. Make it a choice.
Speaker 4: And the question on the table is when they do that.
Speaker 4: And you know, probably the week before Christmas is not
Speaker 4: a banner fucking time to do that. And probably when
Speaker 4: they'll do that is post Iowa and definitely post March third,
Speaker 4: which is Super Tuesday, where Donald Trump will have enough
Speaker 4: delegates to be officially the nominee. I would expect coming
Speaker 4: out of the new year, you will see the campaign
Speaker 4: do that full time. And they've started to hint they're
Speaker 4: going to do that. They've had President Biden do it
Speaker 4: a couple times in the past two weeks. I saw
Speaker 4: you talking about that as well. He's starting to talk
Speaker 4: about Trump in a way he hadn't for a while.
Speaker 4: It's about time to do this.
Speaker 1: Do you think that one of the problems that Democrats have,
Speaker 1: and not just Democrats, but like more traditional normal politicians
Speaker 1: who are not completely insane, is that they don't fill
Speaker 1: up the vacuum like one of the things Trump has
Speaker 1: done really well, and this is true with some of
Speaker 1: the other MAGA politicians. There are younger Democrats who have
Speaker 1: done this too, in a different way, not insane the
Speaker 1: way the Republicans have. But what Trump did was he
Speaker 1: filled the vacuum with a narrative and his people got
Speaker 1: a narrative and he got it out there quickly. And
Speaker 1: like what you see with his legal cases, this is
Speaker 1: a man who is he is doing these legal cases
Speaker 1: in the court of public opinion for his people. We're
Speaker 1: looking at Hunter Biden yesterday doing that very same thing,
Speaker 1: which I actually think is very smart. But do you
Speaker 1: think it's smart. It's really a new way for Democrats
Speaker 1: to engage with voters.
Speaker 2: I mean, in this case, it's not voters. Whatever it is.
Speaker 2: With the mainstream media.
Speaker 4: People say all the time, like why do people like
Speaker 4: Donald Trump, like this is crazy, Like, you know, I
Speaker 4: can't figure this out. My mom like all the time
Speaker 4: says to me, just I don't have any friends who
Speaker 4: like him. To explain to me why people like this
Speaker 4: lying asshole. And Donald Trump has two superpowers Molly that
Speaker 4: I think people forget. First of all, he's the best
Speaker 4: counterpuncher in modern American political history. And you see this
Speaker 4: by the famous you know, the way he branded Marco
Speaker 4: Ruveo with the little hands, and you know, he has
Speaker 4: the sanctimonious and like those things are just brilliant. But
Speaker 4: there's lots of people who could do that. I think
Speaker 4: he's better at it than anyone else. But he's you know,
Speaker 4: it's not what he's really good at. What he's insanely
Speaker 4: good at the best I've ever seen the best, certainly
Speaker 4: since Reagan is controlling the narrative to your point, he understands.
Speaker 4: There was this amazing article that scared the hell out
Speaker 4: of me yesterday talking about how he is obsessed with
Speaker 4: memes on social media and he is driving by himself
Speaker 4: the memes and deciding what the memes are. And then
Speaker 4: he emails a bunch of the big social media kind
Speaker 4: of people who have huge followers and says, you know,
Speaker 4: these are the memes we need to push. That is
Speaker 4: what the Democrats aren't doing. It is just incredibly amazing
Speaker 4: because like we invented. You could argue Barack Obama's campaign
Speaker 4: did the first one, but Democrats invented social media, and
Speaker 4: we invented running presidential campaigns on it. And it seems
Speaker 4: like we've just forgot. And meanwhile, Donald Trump is doing this.
Speaker 4: And so you've heard me ramble about this before, but
Speaker 4: I'm obsessed with TikTok. I'm obsessed with TikTok because it's
Speaker 4: awesome and I have so much fun on it. And
Speaker 4: I'm also obsessed because one hundred and seventy five million
Speaker 4: Americans are on it, and all of our targets are
Speaker 4: on it, including young, brown, black, and women voters. And
Speaker 4: the amount of share for Donald Trump. Neither Trump or
Speaker 4: Biden is on the platform, but the amount of share
Speaker 4: of voice Trump is just decimating Biden on it. And
Speaker 4: it's because he has all these fervent supporters who are
Speaker 4: to your point, filling the funnel, who are creating content,
Speaker 4: who are doing things, and it is one of the
Speaker 4: two things that keeps me up at night. About the
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four presidential election.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lack of transparency with all of these algorithms,
Speaker 1: but with the social media platform that is owned by
Speaker 1: the Chinese government, we're content Like Osama bin Laden's letter
Speaker 1: to America trend, why isn't there more? I mean Republicans
Speaker 1: hate it, Democrats hate it, Like, why can't they just
Speaker 1: ban it?
Speaker 4: Well, a couple of things. We have this pesky First
Speaker 4: Amendment that you know, when I was in the White House,
Speaker 4: I tried to ban Huawei, the Chinese telecom saying the
Speaker 4: lawyers finally came down and patted me on my little
Speaker 4: head and said, you know, it's uncons social to ban
Speaker 4: a single company. Second, I think there's been some confusion
Speaker 4: on it. I mean, they're not owned by the Chinese government.
Speaker 4: Seventy five percent of their investor base is owned by
Speaker 4: US venture capital firms, Like you're not going to get
Speaker 4: rid of so we need to engage on them. And
Speaker 4: to your earlier point, some young people, some young elected
Speaker 4: officials like this guy Jeff Jackson, who's Member of Congress,
Speaker 4: has two million followers because he just uses it every day. Right,
Speaker 4: there's this democratic group called Voters for change.
Speaker 2: Yeah, gen Z voters for change, I know them, gen.
Speaker 4: Z, thank you. Yeah, they're unbelievably good on TikTok and
Speaker 4: you know, so we just need to create content for
Speaker 4: it since it's not going to go away, and the
Speaker 4: right understands that and the left doesn't seem to.
Speaker 2: That's not good in this sort of moment. Do you
Speaker 2: think there should be sort of more by now they're
Speaker 2: more gamma out, there are more surrogates. I mean, what
Speaker 2: do you think this sort of tax should be? I mean,
Speaker 2: should there be more rallies? How would you be running
Speaker 2: US re elect?
Speaker 4: What would you do come next year? I think the
Speaker 4: answer is more and more and more, right, like, we
Speaker 4: need more of everything. And I think in the off year,
Speaker 4: to go back to my earlier point, I understood the strategy.
Speaker 4: It was kind of the Obama twenty twelve strategy, which is,
Speaker 4: We're going to spend twenty eleven talking to our base,
Speaker 4: getting our poops in groups, building our campaign stuff, and
Speaker 4: then go out and you know, Barco people will always
Speaker 4: forget this. But Obama did one rally in twenty eleven
Speaker 4: to announce his candidacy and a and then didn't do
Speaker 4: another one until twenty twelve. We just raised money for
Speaker 4: a year. But I think there are a couple things
Speaker 4: that they need to unleash pretty quickly. The first is
Speaker 4: the vice president. You know, everyone's freaking out about African
Speaker 4: American youth and Latino turnout. She's amazingly good at talking
Speaker 4: to those folks. Another thing is, you know, you and
Speaker 4: I talked about this on one of the shows we
Speaker 4: run together. You know, the day after Florida did what
Speaker 4: they did on abortion, she flew there and had a
Speaker 4: fight with d Santis De Santis exactly. Unleash her on
Speaker 4: that center of the college campuses. She's doing some of
Speaker 4: that stuff. We just don't see it because we're only
Speaker 4: you know, sadly for America. There's only five states that
Speaker 4: matter in this election. And so if you live in
Speaker 4: the other forty five states, which I've bet a huge
Speaker 4: majority of your listeners.
Speaker 2: Do and we do too, yes, boy, exactly right.
Speaker 4: So that's one they need to unleash her. And then
Speaker 4: two people forget who the most popular elected official in
Speaker 4: America is, and it is Michelle Obama. And so it's
Speaker 4: time for missus Oba. I'm going to come off the
Speaker 4: bench too. In prison a Whama as well, he's already
Speaker 4: done stuff. But you know, the surrogate stuff really matters.
Speaker 4: I mean I used and abused Bill Clinton in twenty twelve,
Speaker 4: like he was my own personal.
Speaker 2: I feel like you're gonna get in trouble for this.
Speaker 2: You have a minder on it. No, anyway, go ahead, yes.
Speaker 4: And Bill Clinton would say that too, like everywhere, hilarious. Yeah,
Speaker 4: Like I sent him everywhere because he was the explainer
Speaker 4: in chief and he was explained to the American voters
Speaker 4: why what Barack Obama was doing on the economy worked
Speaker 4: and it was really important.
Speaker 2: He also read as an old white guy. I think
Speaker 2: we cannot.
Speaker 1: Underestimate the old white guy aesthetic when it comes to politics.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, continue, no, no, no, it's it's it's very true.
Speaker 1: You sent Bill Clinton out there, so you think that
Speaker 1: that's really Michelle Obama needs to be out there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, I do think, you know,
Speaker 4: we need white sarrogance. And the other thing is like,
Speaker 4: who are the swing voters really out there? And they
Speaker 4: are women in these five states that really matter, right,
Speaker 4: and who are the people that talk to them? Like,
Speaker 4: you know, I just saw some research that you know
Speaker 4: that these undecided women who voted for Donald Trump and
Speaker 4: Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Right, See, this is a
Speaker 4: small group of people in these five states that really matter.
Speaker 4: Guess who they want to hear from? Molly Taylor Swift.
Speaker 2: That's right, I mean, don't we all?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 4: Yesterday was her birthday. By the way, shout.
Speaker 1: Out all right, I'm going to let you go. I
Speaker 1: really appreciate you. I hope you'll come back.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, Thanks, take care the moment.
Speaker 2: Jesse Cannon, my junk Fast. You know, it's some of
Speaker 2: my favorite things about the Trump era of Republicans always
Speaker 2: saying the quiet part out loud, what are you seeing here? Always? Always,
Speaker 2: always Republican.
Speaker 1: Troy Nows when asked what he hoped to see from
Speaker 1: an impeachment inquiry, which Republicans voted for on Wednesday, he said,
Speaker 1: Trump twenty twenty four, baby, Because this has never been
Speaker 1: about impeaching Biden. This has always been about giving Trump
Speaker 1: a little bit of cover and helping his reelection. And
Speaker 1: for that, for saying the quiet part out loud, that
Speaker 1: is our moment of fuckery. That's it for this episode
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Speaker 1: And again, thanks for listening.