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Speaker 1: the Thursday edition of the Chuck Toodcast. Has been a
Speaker 1: pretty busy It obviously started with the scary situation at
Speaker 1: the White House Correspondent's dinner. There's been a little bit
Speaker 1: of focus on that. But hello, we're still in this
Speaker 1: war pause if you will, with Iran with really no
Speaker 1: end in sight, and I want to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about the pretty useless briefing that we got from
Speaker 1: Pete hag Seth with his testimony before the House. Perhaps
Speaker 1: the Senate side might be better at this, but you
Speaker 1: know what, It's pretty clear Pete Haggseth isn't interested in
Speaker 1: being a public servant and doing the things that you
Speaker 1: would expect taxpayer funded people to do and explain themselves.
Speaker 1: He is basically got internet brain, right, he has got
Speaker 1: his brain is rotting from too much time on the internet.
Speaker 1: War is way too much about his woke ideology, woke
Speaker 1: write ideology, whatever. It is, constantly not thinking about actually
Speaker 1: doing what would be in the best interest of the administration,
Speaker 1: which is actually make a coherent case for why this
Speaker 1: war is justified. Because he didn't do a very good
Speaker 1: job of that, and he does a terrible job at
Speaker 1: trying to pick political fights he thinks he's doing. I
Speaker 1: think he thinks he's being helpful to the president. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's doing what he thinks it's doing. But
Speaker 1: the big news politically, we got that new map from Florida,
Speaker 1: and I was talking about it yesterday and it was
Speaker 1: right in the middle of when I was taping that.
Speaker 1: We got the Komi News and I'll have a little
Speaker 1: bit more on that. But the big news is this
Speaker 1: Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act, and incredible narrowing.
Speaker 1: Some would call it gutting, depending on your point of
Speaker 1: view on this, but an incredible narrowing of the Voting
Speaker 1: Rights Act which essentially eliminates it from usage in the South. Right,
Speaker 1: the initial reason for the Voting Rights Act was for
Speaker 1: the systemic way that Southern states in particular disenfranchised black voters,
Speaker 1: and the point of creating these majority minority districts or
Speaker 1: plurality minority districts, particularly in the South was essentially right
Speaker 1: a century's long wrong on this stuff, and it was
Speaker 1: about representation, making sure that there was a seat at
Speaker 1: the table when over for over a century there was
Speaker 1: a denial of a seat at the table. And I
Speaker 1: want to tackle this in two different ways. Okay, one
Speaker 1: is the near term politics and what does this mean
Speaker 1: for the maps? What does this mean for campaign twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six and really more campaign twenty twenty eight and
Speaker 1: possibly the redistricting of twenty thirty. But I also want
Speaker 1: to do something, and you're going to some of you
Speaker 1: may already know where I'm going to add, but I'm
Speaker 1: gonna head onto a hobby horse of a solution that
Speaker 1: I think now hopefully people will see, makes a heck
Speaker 1: of a lot more sense than when I was on
Speaker 1: this hobby horse about a year ago where I even
Speaker 1: did a ted talk about it. But first let's talk
Speaker 1: about the near term decision. What does it mean? In theory,
Speaker 1: you may see a handful of states try to redistrict
Speaker 1: in the South where suddenly the majority minority districts in
Speaker 1: say Mississippi, Benny Thompson's district could be at risk. You've
Speaker 1: got the case was about Louisiana, so there'll be a
Speaker 1: new Louisiana map. It's likely you will go from two
Speaker 1: majority African American districts down to one. For what it's worth, Alabama,
Speaker 1: the governor has already said no to any sort of
Speaker 1: special session, and it's my understanding the court actually pretty
Speaker 1: much said they can't do anything until twenty thirty. So
Speaker 1: you know that the state courts that is in Alabama,
Speaker 1: so they're not going to touch in twenty thirty. We
Speaker 1: already had the new Florida remap was anticipating this, which
Speaker 1: is why the Darren Soto District, which is mostly a
Speaker 1: Puerto Rican district in central Florida, basically got carved up,
Speaker 1: and it was arguably in anticipation of this. Isn't at
Speaker 1: this point another district in Florida that somehow this court
Speaker 1: ruling would have any influence on. There's certainly the possibility
Speaker 1: in South Carolina. There's certainly the possibility in Tennessee. In fact,
Speaker 1: it is worth I would point you to the down ballot.
Speaker 1: It is the down ballot is a publication and a
Speaker 1: substack that is very much has been on top of this,
Speaker 1: and they did a terrific analysis state by state of
Speaker 1: what could happen, what would be at risk. I just
Speaker 1: you know, rather than me reading to you his work,
Speaker 1: I was done by David Near and Stephen Wolf. You
Speaker 1: should subscribe to them. I do. I don't want to
Speaker 1: take away subscription dollars for them, but they go through it.
Speaker 1: But like I said, the top line is Alabama's going
Speaker 1: to be untouched till twenty thirty. Florida has already been done.
Speaker 1: Georgia if they, I doubt there's an attempt at doing it.
Speaker 1: And we're going to get into why. I think even
Speaker 1: if they tried to do something in the Georgia legislature,
Speaker 1: it would probably implode on them and only elect create
Speaker 1: more potential democratic seats. And I'm going to give you
Speaker 1: an example of that in a minute I told you
Speaker 1: about Louisiana. That's obviously this core case was about Louisiana, Mississippi,
Speaker 1: South Carolina, Tennessee, and potentially in Texas. But again, they've
Speaker 1: already done their big remap, So let's see what this
Speaker 1: all looks like. I think it's a it's not the
Speaker 1: way they drew their map. They're anticipating winning over as
Speaker 1: many Latino votes on the Republican side of the als
Speaker 1: Donald Trump won in twenty twenty four and to a
Speaker 1: lesser extent in twenty twenty two, and I think there's
Speaker 1: some questions about whether that holds up on that front.
Speaker 1: But I want to take you back and sort of
Speaker 1: what does this mean, because look, I think we have
Speaker 1: a serious issue about representation of this country in our Congress,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to get to that because I think
Speaker 1: there is a better solution than trying to redo the
Speaker 1: Voting Rights Act, trying to come up with special rules
Speaker 1: and all of this stuff. There is a cleaner, better
Speaker 1: way to do this. But let's talk about the near
Speaker 1: term political impact and when it takes you back to
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety it was the nineteen ninety one reapportionment map,
Speaker 1: where essentially it was the Bush forty one Justice Department
Speaker 1: working with the Congressional Black Caucus, particularly in the southern redraws,
Speaker 1: where in conjunction with the Voting Rights Act, that was
Speaker 1: that they needed to have and they got majority increase
Speaker 1: representation in Congress of African Americans. And essentially the Bush
Speaker 1: Justice Department saw it that they had a quote win
Speaker 1: win situation with Black Democrats. They would draw some majority
Speaker 1: Black districts in the South, and Republicans would suddenly have
Speaker 1: more districts that they could win because essentially they took
Speaker 1: a chunk of Democratic voters and put them all into
Speaker 1: compact districts. I'm going to tell you the story about
Speaker 1: Georgia in nineteen ninety before this reapportionment began in Georgia
Speaker 1: four years later. By nineteen ninety four, so at the
Speaker 1: start of the nineteen ninety decade, Newt Gingridge was the
Speaker 1: only Republican in Georgia's ten member congressional delegation. At the time,
Speaker 1: it was a nine one advantage Democrats owned the state.
Speaker 1: After the nineteen ninety one reapportionment that created essentially the
Speaker 1: maximum African American districts you could create in Georgia, that
Speaker 1: was driven by the voting by the previous interpretation of
Speaker 1: the Voting Rights Act the second and the eleventh Congressional
Speaker 1: district districts because they increased by one, they went from
Speaker 1: ten to one. Georgia was a growing state, became majority
Speaker 1: African American for the first time in ninety two, and
Speaker 1: the delegation went from nine to one to nine Democrats
Speaker 1: to one Republican for ninety two they win. This was
Speaker 1: an election that Democrats won. Nationally, Bill Clinton wins, Democrats
Speaker 1: lose some seats in Georgia, their advantage goes from seven
Speaker 1: Democrats to four Republicans, and then two years later, after
Speaker 1: the ninety four tsunami for Republicans, it essentially flips to
Speaker 1: seven Republicans and four Democrats with three African American majority
Speaker 1: African American districts and one white Democrat. So essentially, in
Speaker 1: four years, Democrats went from nine to ten to four
Speaker 1: of an eleven. And basically it was because they created
Speaker 1: these maximum a very much large African American majority districts,
Speaker 1: concentrating black voters in a smaller number of districts. Now,
Speaker 1: the good news for African Americans is an increased representation
Speaker 1: in the US Congress, there were more Black Democrats. What
Speaker 1: it did for the party though, is it actually made
Speaker 1: it harder for them to elect more Democratic members of Congress.
Speaker 1: So what does that mean now? So this is why
Speaker 1: these this remap is not going to be as clean
Speaker 1: as people think. It isn't going to be automated automatic
Speaker 1: pickups in order to draw these new districts. If they're
Speaker 1: going to no longer have majority African American districts, well
Speaker 1: they're going to be. Then you're gonna have African American
Speaker 1: voters who are vote sort of eight times out of
Speaker 1: ten more likely to vote Democratic than Republican. You're something
Speaker 1: going to have a whole bunch more swing districts. Right.
Speaker 1: We sort of saw this already, and we're getting this
Speaker 1: example in Florida with the with the Soco district. In
Speaker 1: order for them to essentially eliminate that district, they spread
Speaker 1: out Democrats into a whole bunch of other central Florida districts.
Speaker 1: And it's in theory taken a lot of likely Republican
Speaker 1: districts and turn them into quote lean Republican district Well,
Speaker 1: guess what in a waveyear like we're anticipating here in
Speaker 1: this midterm election with the party out of power sort
Speaker 1: of seeing a surgeon turnout, the party in power seeing
Speaker 1: a depression in turnout all of these Any sort of
Speaker 1: remap that does this sort of spreading out of Democratic
Speaker 1: voters and trying to put them in Republican seats is
Speaker 1: suddenly going to dilute these maps. And what it, in theory,
Speaker 1: could end up doing is creating more swing districts throughout
Speaker 1: the South, which is exactly what we had in the eighties,
Speaker 1: and then in pre nineteen ninety and the nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: one reapportionment between the Bush Jets Department and the Congressional
Speaker 1: Black Caucus, we did not have nearly the number of
Speaker 1: swing districts in Southern states in the old sort of
Speaker 1: Confederate states. So it is a so this is there
Speaker 1: is there is a lot of anxiety on the left
Speaker 1: about this decision, and when it comes to representation. I
Speaker 1: absolutely understand why there's so much anxiety about this because
Speaker 1: in some ways it's claiming that we've somehow all of
Speaker 1: the wrongs that took place all the way through nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty five. If suddenly, oh they're all gone, Well we
Speaker 1: know they're not all gone, and so taking away this
Speaker 1: guardrail on representation in the South is quite risky. But
Speaker 1: just for the political outcome, if you're looking for D
Speaker 1: versus R on this, this is not an automatic I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: it gives a Republican's an opportunity to redraw their maps
Speaker 1: in the South, and so there'll be certainly less court
Speaker 1: pushback on certain things. Although I still think the Florida
Speaker 1: map could get some pushback based on what's in their
Speaker 1: state constitution when they passed a fair districts referendum a
Speaker 1: few years back. But it's not clear to me that
Speaker 1: this is going to be an automatic net gain for Republicans.
Speaker 1: If you get rid of packed part of and districts
Speaker 1: and these districts get unpacked, you are essentially going to
Speaker 1: create more swing areas. Now what you may see is
Speaker 1: you may see some more. You may see some reciently
Speaker 1: charged democratic primaries in some of these districts where you
Speaker 1: will have a large chunk of African American voters, another
Speaker 1: chunk of Democratic voters of either white Democratic voters, Latino,
Speaker 1: et cetera. So you might see more. You know that
Speaker 1: there certainly will be more a diverse set of candidates
Speaker 1: perhaps running in primaries. How identity politics works in that
Speaker 1: is going to probably depend on the candidate's running and
Speaker 1: the issue sets of that day. But when you're just
Speaker 1: looking at it as far as Democrats versus Republicans, it's
Speaker 1: not clear to me, And if anything, it could be
Speaker 1: a wash, if not a potential in a waveyear of
Speaker 1: an advantage for the out party, which in this year
Speaker 1: is this. But again, how many districts are we really
Speaker 1: going to see get changed this year this cycle versus
Speaker 1: those that will happen for twenty twenty eight, and then
Speaker 1: of course we have the actual reapportionment going in twenty thirty,
Speaker 1: so that's the near term political impact. You know, we've
Speaker 1: already seen, like I said, we've already seen Florida's already
Speaker 1: did their redraw that would have this is the redraw
Speaker 1: they would have done. They've almost assumed that the court
Speaker 1: ruling was going to be what it was, with really
Speaker 1: the Darren Sodo district being the one that falls under
Speaker 1: the Voting Rights Act on this one, Now, let's talk
Speaker 1: about what is a better perhaps a better thing to
Speaker 1: fight for. Now. You know that one of the arcane,
Speaker 1: sort of very political sciencing nerdy things that's out there
Speaker 1: is this idea of uncapping the House and what does
Speaker 1: that mean. Well, in nineteen thirty, after a dispute, and
Speaker 1: I've gone some of you have heard me on this
Speaker 1: rant before, but in you know, the House of Representatives
Speaker 1: used to expand with the population of the country, the
Speaker 1: number that we would have in the House. Not just
Speaker 1: you don't just decide how you reapportion the foreign and
Speaker 1: thirty five congressional districts among the fifty states, of course
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty it was among forty eight states, but
Speaker 1: also whether the population size has increased enough that it's
Speaker 1: time to expand the actual House of Representatives itself. Pretty
Speaker 1: much every decade before nineteen twenty, every single decade, after
Speaker 1: every census, we pretty much we expanded the House, and
Speaker 1: then we stopped doing it. Now, in nineteen twenty, you'll
Speaker 1: be shocked to know what. You know, there was a
Speaker 1: big impass and both parties were fighting over this, and
Speaker 1: they couldn't agree on how many seats to add to
Speaker 1: the House and which states were going to get them,
Speaker 1: and there was a big fight, and eventually they got
Speaker 1: a compromise of let's just lock it down, let's not
Speaker 1: expand the size of the House anymore. Anyway, they were
Speaker 1: worried it was getting too big, too unruly, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And so we've back in nineteen thirty we locked in
Speaker 1: four hundred and thirty five district and it was one
Speaker 1: per three hundred and fifty thousand, you know, basically one
Speaker 1: congressional district for three hundred and fifty thousand people. Well
Speaker 1: we're now at basically one per eight hundred thousand. And
Speaker 1: you see, eight hundred thousand is the size of major cities. Right,
Speaker 1: there's only like eleven cities in America that have a
Speaker 1: population greater than that, and we now have we have
Speaker 1: four and thirty five that are just massive, and so
Speaker 1: that's why we have so much factional representation. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I understand the frustration about what we saw today, what
Speaker 1: we saw in the Supreme Court, But if you're looking
Speaker 1: to get a seat at the table, then you should
Speaker 1: fight to expand the size of the table. Right, we
Speaker 1: have not talked about expanding the size of the table.
Speaker 1: The table being here the House. Now, what was founder's intent.
Speaker 1: Founders intent was the House of Representatives to grow with
Speaker 1: the country number one and number two be the most
Speaker 1: most representative of the people. Right now, the House of
Speaker 1: Representatives is not representative of the people. Each congressional district
Speaker 1: essentially is dominated by a faction. It could be a
Speaker 1: faction on the right or a faction on the left. Right,
Speaker 1: it's it. And it is sometimes a faction within that
Speaker 1: party that is able to dominate an entire congressional district.
Speaker 1: And so look, I know some people are out there going,
Speaker 1: you know, so take Louisiana and Louisianas with thirty percent
Speaker 1: African American population, if they suddenly have no African American
Speaker 1: representation or one African American, is that truly fair? If
Speaker 1: a third, right, third of the congressional districts are not
Speaker 1: you know, right now they are, right, it's about a
Speaker 1: third of the population. Third of the congressional district two
Speaker 1: out of six is majority and representative by African Americans. Now,
Speaker 1: another way to do this you could always have multi
Speaker 1: member districts, right or this idea that you know, Okay,
Speaker 1: the state of Louisiana has six and you you know,
Speaker 1: the top six people get elected to those districts. And
Speaker 1: you would think over time that if there's various constituency
Speaker 1: groups or identity groups want to make sure they have representation.
Speaker 1: As long as they finish in the top six, you
Speaker 1: could have that. Now again, I don't think we're moving
Speaker 1: to sort of that sort of proportional representation or the
Speaker 1: idea of multi member districts. It is an idea we
Speaker 1: usually export whenever we're helping fledgling democracies around the world,
Speaker 1: because it's the fairest way to get various constituency groups
Speaker 1: to feel as if they all have a seat of detata.
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Speaker 1: embrace so use that code. But there's another way to
Speaker 1: do this, And the other way to do this is
Speaker 1: simply an Act of Congress to expand the size of
Speaker 1: the House. You don't need a constitutional amendment. You don't
Speaker 1: need new legislation beyond this, beyond deciding. Now, you know,
Speaker 1: if you ask me, I'd put in a constitutional amendment
Speaker 1: that said no congressional district can be bigger than point
Speaker 1: oh three percent of the population. Yes, I've done the math.
Speaker 1: Point oh three percent of population is essentially one per
Speaker 1: eight hundred, eight hundred thousand. But this by putting it
Speaker 1: in the constitution. In theory, this could fluctuate. Right, if
Speaker 1: we shrink our population shrinks over time, then you know
Speaker 1: we might have you might actually shrink the House of Representatives.
Speaker 1: So in this case, it would pretty close to double
Speaker 1: the size of the House. But here's what you would have.
Speaker 1: You're essentially making the table bigger, which means you're going
Speaker 1: to have a more diverse set of representatives when Congress.
Speaker 1: You're going to have a more diverse set of constituencies
Speaker 1: represented in Congress. It's not going to just be by
Speaker 1: identity group either. You're going to have the opportunity, first
Speaker 1: of all, you have districts that are more compact number one,
Speaker 1: So they truly will be geographic communities of interest, which
Speaker 1: matters a lot. You're likely to have less issues, with
Speaker 1: less need to Jerrymander. I'm not saying Jerrymander wouldn't happen.
Speaker 1: That's always going to be there. As long as you
Speaker 1: give the states the right to draw the districts. There's
Speaker 1: going to be political influence on how that's done. But
Speaker 1: when you're down, when you're when you're doing one per
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty thousand, it's just it's just less necessary.
Speaker 1: Oh by the way, so, oh, by the way, you
Speaker 1: would fix the electoral college conundrum that we've been in
Speaker 1: right as our population has grown. But the numerator when
Speaker 1: it comes to the electoral college, it's been sitting at
Speaker 1: five point thirty eight forever. Well, if you increase the
Speaker 1: size of the House, you increase the number of electoral votes,
Speaker 1: and then you'll you're going to write size the electoral college,
Speaker 1: and so the likelihood of having a split national popular
Speaker 1: vote winner and electoral college winter being different. You you
Speaker 1: sort of shrink that from a you know, ten to
Speaker 1: fifteen percent chance down to a zero to one to
Speaker 1: you know, zero point five to one point five percent chance.
Speaker 1: So it it creates fairness across the board. It's small
Speaker 1: d democratic. And here's the other thing. To me, this
Speaker 1: is something that a lot of groups on both sides
Speaker 1: of the oul should be arguing for. Right now, the
Speaker 1: large states are underrepresented in the House of Representatives. They're
Speaker 1: also underrepresented in the Senate. Right right, two senators from
Speaker 1: Texas have the same amount of power as two senators
Speaker 1: from Wyoming. If, by the way, if you do this
Speaker 1: one para one per three or fifty thousand, you might
Speaker 1: not even add one new seat in Wyoming. Wyoming might
Speaker 1: still end up being a one congressional district state. But
Speaker 1: you certainly the big states would have more proper representation
Speaker 1: in the House of Representatives. So my point is is
Speaker 1: that I don't I think this There is no there's
Speaker 1: no ideological advantage to my idea, to this idea. I say,
Speaker 1: it's my idea, please, it's the founder's idea. We just
Speaker 1: have stopped listening to what they recommend it. But this
Speaker 1: will This only improves smaller constituency groups that are fairly
Speaker 1: large but have no representation in the House of Representatives.
Speaker 1: Now they're more likely. The Libertarians are more likely and
Speaker 1: actually have a couple of people actually elected as a Libertarians,
Speaker 1: and the Greens are likely to have a couple of
Speaker 1: people elected that way, And you'd certainly lower the barrier
Speaker 1: to entry, and you'd have a lot more diversity, whether
Speaker 1: it comes to age, whether it comes to ethnicity, whether
Speaker 1: it comes to jobs. Right, you also lower the in theory,
Speaker 1: if you have fewer voters you have to win over,
Speaker 1: the cost of campaigns is less. So look, the courts
Speaker 1: have spoken on this, and Congress can do some things
Speaker 1: to follow, you know, to sort of create a few
Speaker 1: more guard rails here to make sure minority voters aren't disenfranchised.
Speaker 1: Frankly anywhere in the country. I mean, I think one
Speaker 1: of the awkward aspects to this is that we were
Speaker 1: putting the Southern states, which had a history of this,
Speaker 1: under more of a under more of a Justice Department
Speaker 1: scrutiny than all the states. And arguably we should be
Speaker 1: worried about this in all states rather than just the
Speaker 1: states that traditionally did this. But if you're if you're
Speaker 1: looking for a way to increase representation and you want
Speaker 1: more African Americans from the South, in Congress. Double the
Speaker 1: size of Congress double the you know we it is
Speaker 1: and it look I'm saying double, you know, I know
Speaker 1: that there's all this, Well, we don't need more politicians
Speaker 1: in Washington, and oh my god, it's it's so it
Speaker 1: would be so big in here. Yeah, democracy's messy. My goodness,
Speaker 1: have you seen what India does? They have a messy democracy.
Speaker 1: But it seems to you know, people feel as if
Speaker 1: there's at least opportunity and representation and so. And the
Speaker 1: House was meant to be a bit unruling. In fact,
Speaker 1: James Madison in the Federalist Papers Federalists fifty seven explicitly
Speaker 1: was arguing for an expense that the House was always
Speaker 1: going to have to expand. And the argument was this,
Speaker 1: he designed the House to grow with the people and
Speaker 1: remain dependent on the people. He would not like a
Speaker 1: frozen House at four hundred and thirty five members, which
Speaker 1: now maps are engineered to dilute the voices of minority votes.
Speaker 1: It violates the initial promise that the House was supposed
Speaker 1: to be. And remember who we wanted to elect the House, right,
Speaker 1: not the rich more than the poor, not the learned,
Speaker 1: more than the ignorant, not the hoitty heirs of distinguished names,
Speaker 1: more than the humble sons of obscurity and unpropitious fortune.
Speaker 1: The electors are to be the great body of the
Speaker 1: people of the United States. But the founders intended on
Speaker 1: the Senate not to be sort of a house of lords,
Speaker 1: you know, elected by state legislatures, to worry about what
Speaker 1: those states would worry about, a little bit of the
Speaker 1: cooling saucer. Our house was designed to be the voice
Speaker 1: of the people. But when you do this, when you frozen.
Speaker 1: We're at one hundred years now where we haven't expanded
Speaker 1: the House of Representatives, and yet we've more than doubled
Speaker 1: the size of the US population since then, we have
Speaker 1: diluted the voices of minority votes. We have essentially created
Speaker 1: another Senate. So it is founder's intent. I think I
Speaker 1: could argue conservatives will benefit in some ways, Liberals will
Speaker 1: benefit in some ways. You know, Conservatives complain that they
Speaker 1: have no representation. There's no representation in the state of Massachusetts. Well,
Speaker 1: I promise you, if you essentially have twenty congressional districts
Speaker 1: in the state of Massachusetts, you're going to get a
Speaker 1: couple of conservatives elected because you're going to have smaller
Speaker 1: districts and you have more concentrated areas, and some of
Speaker 1: those areas are going to produce a conservative. So whether
Speaker 1: you are living in a you're a conservative living in
Speaker 1: a blue state, or you're a liberal living in a
Speaker 1: red state, this will only increase the chances that your
Speaker 1: voice will actually be representative from your community or at
Speaker 1: least from your state that you have some like minded
Speaker 1: thoughts with. So ultimately, I really believe that that look this,
Speaker 1: this fight with the judiciary is over. Okay, it is
Speaker 1: not going to be you know, this is I think
Speaker 1: it's a waste of time to try to keep fighting
Speaker 1: in the courts. If the goal is to get a
Speaker 1: seat at the table, then start fighting to expand the
Speaker 1: size of the table. Stop fighting over the chairs, and
Speaker 1: instead fight over the size of the table. Increase the
Speaker 1: size of the table, and suddenly you can bring your
Speaker 1: own chair and you'll find your own seat. That is
Speaker 1: a reform that is small d democratic, and again there
Speaker 1: is no obvious advantage for anybody except for the American
Speaker 1: people that feel as if that they're no longer represented
Speaker 1: in Congress. I ask many of you you live in
Speaker 1: a congressional district that you feel like has been gerrymandered,
Speaker 1: you feel like you're represented in Congress. I promise you
Speaker 1: if we go down this road of increasing the size
Speaker 1: of the House, you will feel like you have more representation.
Speaker 1: And this will you'll have more locally oriented members of Congress.
Speaker 1: It'll be harder to be performative jackasses, right, because there'll
Speaker 1: be more and that part will be diluted. Yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: dilute a little bit of political theater. But this is
Speaker 1: a free market. And here's something else I know about
Speaker 1: a free market of ideas. When you have more people
Speaker 1: entering the free market, you're likely to get some better
Speaker 1: ideas and how to govern this country. That's the best solution.
Speaker 1: This is how you take if you're upset about what
Speaker 1: happened this week in the Spring Court, channel that energy
Speaker 1: into doing something that would be good all parts of
Speaker 1: the political spectrum. Uncap the House. Let's bring back the
Speaker 1: people's house. It no longer represents the people. It's easy.
Speaker 1: Let's get back to Founder's intents. If you believe in
Speaker 1: a Madisonian democracy, you should believe in expanding the size
Speaker 1: of the house. All right, I want to turn a
Speaker 1: little bit to what I'm calling sort of the sort
Speaker 1: of the woke right moments that we're having, and I
Speaker 1: think in some ways the Komy the sensitivity about Komy. Right. Look,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to defend Komi's actions, and I think
Speaker 1: I said that yesterday. I told you the news sort
Speaker 1: of broke as it came through. I think we're all
Speaker 1: fascinated to how the heck did they find a grand
Speaker 1: jury to do this. I think it's pretty clear we're
Speaker 1: going to find out what instructions given to that grand jury.
Speaker 1: This thing may never make it into any This thing
Speaker 1: could get thrown out the minute the minute. Comey's defense is,
Speaker 1: can we see a transcript of the instructions that were
Speaker 1: given to the grand jury? And then once we find
Speaker 1: those out, it could be game set and matching this
Speaker 1: thing is thrown out. But I'm old enough to remember
Speaker 1: when the right thought the left was too sensitive? Right,
Speaker 1: And you know, any normal rational person you know, can't
Speaker 1: you know? Are you really telling me that this man
Speaker 1: who arranged Seashells right was hoping for an assassination attempt?
Speaker 1: Can you get inside his mind? And you're sure that's
Speaker 1: what that means? The point being is we just had
Speaker 1: an election where I thought we were trying to sort
Speaker 1: of de sense it like we are. Hey, everybody's taken
Speaker 1: each other too seriously, and all this stuff that was
Speaker 1: what I thought was the heart and soul of some
Speaker 1: parts of the Magma movement, right, your great Gutfelds of
Speaker 1: the world. Right, the rationalizations that they've had about you
Speaker 1: know what's the left too sensitive, they're too woke, they're
Speaker 1: too worried about being nice to everybody. Well, what the
Speaker 1: hell is this talk about over sensitivity? This is clearly
Speaker 1: over sensitivity. Right, And then we're seeing and this, here's
Speaker 1: the thing. This stuff's bad politics, right, Weaponizing the DOJ,
Speaker 1: weaponizing the FCC. I mean Brendan Carr, right, the clown,
Speaker 1: the clown car, Brendan clown Car. And I know I'm
Speaker 1: not I probably shouldn't be a name color, but he
Speaker 1: really is sort of just coming across like kind of
Speaker 1: a dufus on this and again, super sensitive. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to sit here and say it was a good
Speaker 1: joke by Jimmy Kimmel. I think the frankly, there's nothing
Speaker 1: And this is the part that really frustrates me about
Speaker 1: our politics. Jimmy Kimmel can can both be angry at
Speaker 1: Brendan Carr and this White House from not caring about
Speaker 1: the First Amendment and at the same time admit, yeah,
Speaker 1: I see why, I see how that joke looks terrible
Speaker 1: after the events of Saturday. That's all right, But everybody
Speaker 1: gets in their corners and you can't ever admit weakness.
Speaker 1: And I mean, this is unfortunately why I am a
Speaker 1: believer that this is this stuff. You know, de escalation
Speaker 1: has to be across the board or it'll never happen, right,
Speaker 1: because everybody has this mindset now of well, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna I'm not gonna unilaterally disarm whatever that you know
Speaker 1: means to them in that moment. But again it goes
Speaker 1: back to apparently an inability to you know, there's no
Speaker 1: law on the books that says you have to ban
Speaker 1: bad jokes and bad punchlines, right, I mean, it is
Speaker 1: and so but the you know, you got Ted Cruz
Speaker 1: coming out sort of standing up for Jimmy Kimmel on this.
Speaker 1: I had to tell you this, Brendan Carr and Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: I mean, Jimmy Kimmel probably ought to give them his
Speaker 1: six percent rather than his agent because nobody has done
Speaker 1: more for Jimmy Kimmel's career over the last year and
Speaker 1: a half than Brendan Carr and Donald Trump, uh and
Speaker 1: and sort of the woke right, and it is it is,
Speaker 1: I you know what this really is. There's this everything
Speaker 1: is retribution, right, Everything is retaliation with Trump, right, everything
Speaker 1: is you know, it's like, why is he so you know,
Speaker 1: you know Trump, there are certain things that he just
Speaker 1: you know, he has to change the name of just
Speaker 1: to say he has to change the name of or
Speaker 1: he's going to do because he said he was going
Speaker 1: to do. Right, So he's got to go after Komy
Speaker 1: and he's got he's now got an acting Attorney General
Speaker 1: that literally was his personal lawyer now just doing retribution
Speaker 1: and things. I think it is notable by the way
Speaker 1: that Todd blanche is willing to go down these ridiculous
Speaker 1: roads of questionable you know, targeting of political opponents, as
Speaker 1: he's already done, whether it's the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Speaker 1: I have a feeling that's going to struggle when an
Speaker 1: actual judge takes a look at that with combing, that's
Speaker 1: going to be quite difficult. And so I think it's
Speaker 1: pretty clear as I said about Pambondi before. This is
Speaker 1: somebody who was a prosecutor for half her career. This
Speaker 1: was not somebody that was going to be comfortable essentially
Speaker 1: misbehaving as a lawyer. And so I don't think it's
Speaker 1: an accident that she wouldn't bring these cases and he would.
Speaker 1: And I think it does take you know, I know
Speaker 1: many of you are not big Pambondi fans that listen
Speaker 1: to me here, but you know, everything is by degree right,
Speaker 1: And as I said before, there was I think that
Speaker 1: was part of the reason why she got pushed out,
Speaker 1: because there were somethings she just wasn't going to do.
Speaker 1: And now Donald Trump has an attorney general that is
Speaker 1: pretty much willing to do all of his bidding whatever
Speaker 1: he wants. So you know, judge these people by the alternative,
Speaker 1: not the almighty sometimes. And I had a feeling that
Speaker 1: some people might miss Pam Bondi once she's gone, believe
Speaker 1: it or not, and one of those people might actually
Speaker 1: be James call me as for what we learned or
Speaker 1: didn't learn on Capitol Hill about the war. Look, the
Speaker 1: hearing was useless because hag Seth came in as a
Speaker 1: partisan and of course, you had plenty of house members
Speaker 1: who wanted to do frankly wanted to do their viral
Speaker 1: moments and hope that they get you know it is
Speaker 1: this is one of those where I wonder what would
Speaker 1: have happened had there been no cameras with the questions
Speaker 1: have been pointed, but more substantive rather than pointed and
Speaker 1: sort of buzzwords. But you know, Hank Seth in there,
Speaker 1: he's the line I used on seeing it is they
Speaker 1: just think he's got Internet brain rot where you know,
Speaker 1: this is the Mike Lee disease where you've just certain
Speaker 1: and you know, I saw that Jade Vance gave up
Speaker 1: X for lent. Good for him. I think it's quite healthy.
Speaker 1: Just stay off because you'll do in that doom scroll
Speaker 1: and you could see, like Mike Lee is one of
Speaker 1: these people that apparently just doesn't have anything to do
Speaker 1: at night. He needs a hobby because he spends so
Speaker 1: much time trying to own the libs or own himself
Speaker 1: on social media. He sort of spins himself into into
Speaker 1: crazy and yet nobody has. I don't know how many
Speaker 1: actual physical, personal, in person relationships he has these days.
Speaker 1: But Haig Seth also seems to have internet brain right,
Speaker 1: and certainly Sean Parnell, who I think does a lot
Speaker 1: of his right. He was very much somebody also sort
Speaker 1: of of that. But when you look at some of
Speaker 1: the some of the quotes that were out there, right
Speaker 1: he immediately, you know, for a defense secretary to go
Speaker 1: out there and basically say that the it was Democrats
Speaker 1: and Republicans who didn't support this war who were bigger
Speaker 1: problems than any other adversary. It's look, I don't think
Speaker 1: he's very well respected. I don't think anybody takes in
Speaker 1: Washington takes Pete Hegseth very seriously. The problem is he
Speaker 1: does hold the job of Defense secretary, and it was
Speaker 1: notable to me that you'd have a partisan hackery from
Speaker 1: Pete Eggseth, and you'd have General Kane being very disciplined,
Speaker 1: very a political talking about how he believes in the
Speaker 1: idea that the military is supposed to be a political
Speaker 1: when literally Pete hag Seth is doing everything he can
Speaker 1: to politicize the military. The biggest failure of hag Set's
Speaker 1: testimony is his inability to make the case of why
Speaker 1: this war is necessary, and that's been part of the
Speaker 1: problem that they've had right, which is, you know, Donald
Speaker 1: Trump seemed to imply regime change. At the same time,
Speaker 1: Pete Hegseth claims that there is you know, no more
Speaker 1: they're not doing any more regime change anymore, that that's
Speaker 1: not something that this uh, that's not something that this
Speaker 1: Defense Department is focused on anymore. But then he like
Speaker 1: talks about, well, we're not for regime change, but the
Speaker 1: regime changed but hasn't really changed, right, But that doesn't
Speaker 1: seem he couldn't really paint a picture of what an
Speaker 1: endgame looks like. Uh. And you know, ultimately we kind
Speaker 1: of all know what the end game is going to
Speaker 1: look like. It's just waiting to see when the president
Speaker 1: accepts the fact that if he is doesn't have the
Speaker 1: stomach to escalate and send in ground troops, then the
Speaker 1: only choice he has is to negotiate essentially the nuclear
Speaker 1: deal two point zero. And maybe it'll take fourth dollars
Speaker 1: and thirty cents a gallon at the gas station. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's until it hits four fifty, But I continue to
Speaker 1: believe that's where we're headed. And I'll tell you this,
Speaker 1: Hexa did not do. I don't think he did the
Speaker 1: war any good and you know, here's the other thing
Speaker 1: that this administration is so bad at and the first
Speaker 1: Trump administration was not this bad at it. There's never
Speaker 1: there's never anybody that will say, well, look, I understand
Speaker 1: why this isn't popular. I understand that why some people
Speaker 1: are upset. They will never accept the premise that criticism
Speaker 1: might be valid. And I will tell you, you cannot success
Speaker 1: fully lead in a democracy if you don't know how
Speaker 1: to accept the premise of your critics. And you know,
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, what
Speaker 1: made them successful two term presidents is that they were
Speaker 1: really good at that. Some would complain, oh, they're they're
Speaker 1: they're creating straw man. Yeah, it was. Sometimes their arguments
Speaker 1: are pushback was creating straw. But they accepted the premise
Speaker 1: that the criticism was valid, even if they disagreed with
Speaker 1: the criticism. These guys don't accept the premise that criticism
Speaker 1: is valid. They're always trying to blame it on people
Speaker 1: like me, right, anybody in the press. It's got to
Speaker 1: be the press's fault because somehow, you, the American voter,
Speaker 1: are too stupid to come to these conclusions on your
Speaker 1: own you're easily persuaded by us inkstained wretches in the
Speaker 1: press corps. I mean, when you really think about it,
Speaker 1: the way they the way they treat the American public,
Speaker 1: they really have for the intelligence of the American public,
Speaker 1: because they consistently believe that the problem isn't the substance
Speaker 1: of what they're pushing, that the problem is how it's
Speaker 1: being interpreted by the press. So do they really think
Speaker 1: the American voter is that stupid? We can all see
Speaker 1: this with our own eyes, and ultimately we're seeing right
Speaker 1: now in the Poland public's not happy. Public's not in
Speaker 1: favor of this, and I don't think Pete Hegseif did
Speaker 1: anything this week to improve that standing even among base Republicans.
Speaker 1: All right, well, look, we're going to go more in
Speaker 1: the world of politics and inside the Democratic Party a
Speaker 1: little bit of the Democratic divides. I got progressive Democratic
Speaker 1: strategists Adam Green as my guest, and Adam very much
Speaker 1: has his finger on the pulse of the progressive movement.
Speaker 1: He's got very strong opinions about Chuck Schumer, very strong
Speaker 1: opinions about what he might refer to as corporate democrats.
Speaker 1: I think some of you that listen to me just
Speaker 1: refer to yourself as pragmatic democrats. But I also find
Speaker 1: Adam to be somebody what I would call a pragmatic progressive,
Speaker 1: at least on the campaign side of things. Is he
Speaker 1: simply wants to win, and he is more likely to
Speaker 1: make some compromises than I think some that are more
Speaker 1: ideologically driven. I do think he comes at this from
Speaker 1: a it's time to upend the entire establishment, not just
Speaker 1: rearrange rearrange the deck chairs. So I always learn something
Speaker 1: from Adam, and I think you will too. So let's
Speaker 1: sneak in a break and want to come back my
Speaker 1: conversation with progressive democratic strategies, Adam Gray. This episode of
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Speaker 1: am a customer. Well, as the calendar goes, it means
Speaker 1: primary season is really sort of truly going to kick off.
Speaker 1: We got a taste, we had a little taste to
Speaker 1: primary season in Texas and in Illinois with these March primaries,
Speaker 1: but they were in very much sort of like really
Speaker 1: important preseason games that counted certainly. But now the true
Speaker 1: primary seed is beginning pretty much every Tuesday in May,
Speaker 1: every Tuesday in June, a couple of weeks off in July,
Speaker 1: and then every Tuesday in August. I mean basically primary season.
Speaker 1: The heart of it kicks off with May. And look,
Speaker 1: there's interesting primary divides on both sides of the aisle
Speaker 1: it is. You know, we can talk a lot about
Speaker 1: Thomas Massey. I think the acceptance that the president is
Speaker 1: a lame duck becomes more widespread in mainstream if his
Speaker 1: side loses that primary. So I think it's a very
Speaker 1: distinctive primary. But we've also seen on the Senate side,
Speaker 1: in particular, on the Democratic side, sort of I don't
Speaker 1: know what to call the non progressive swing of the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party these days. Is it center left, is it
Speaker 1: pro business? Is it I think It all depends on
Speaker 1: what they want to be called versus what their opponents
Speaker 1: might be called. You might want to say it's the
Speaker 1: pragmatic wing. Whatever you want to view it probably really
Speaker 1: says about your own subjectivity, which is why I'm sensitive
Speaker 1: in what I call. I'm trying not to give any
Speaker 1: sort of waiting language to what it is. But we
Speaker 1: have this sort of progressive versus non progressive battles in Maine, Michigan,
Speaker 1: Iowa that could be definitional and to me serve as
Speaker 1: a preview of what's going to happen inside the party
Speaker 1: for twenty twenty eight. Well, one of the people that
Speaker 1: I think maybe the person and I think has their
Speaker 1: finger on the pulse of this is my friend Adam Green.
Speaker 1: You may know him from the p Triple C, the
Speaker 1: Progressive Change Committee, but he's a democratic strategist and certainly
Speaker 1: is pretty active in progressive politics. And I don't know
Speaker 1: whether he's going to take this as a compliment or derision.
Speaker 1: So Adam, here it comes. I think you're a pragmatic progressive,
Speaker 1: meaning I do think your north star is winning. You
Speaker 1: certainly want to win with a progressive agenda, But I
Speaker 1: feel like you've got you would be you would call
Speaker 1: yourself more pragmatic, but let me let you define your self. Well.
Speaker 2: First, thank you, great to be talking with you as always,
Speaker 2: And I don't take that as insult at all. And
Speaker 2: you know, when you said is the opposite of progressive pragmatic,
Speaker 2: My first thought is it's pretty pragmatic to run on
Speaker 2: a winning message, and these days as we'll.
Speaker 1: Go, find a winning message right and go be right.
Speaker 2: And you know, I think we can go deep on this,
Speaker 2: but you mentioned some of the key races we're looking at,
Speaker 2: whether it's Grand Platin or in Maine. We're supporting Abdul
Speaker 2: alsaiat in Michigan there's a couple of good candidates there.
Speaker 2: We also endorse James tel Rico against Jasmincrockett in Texas,
Speaker 2: which I would hold out as another one the answer
Speaker 2: for this question of one, are we just an anti
Speaker 2: Trump party or do we have a vision? And if
Speaker 2: we have a vision, are we willing to tell a
Speaker 2: story about power, name villains or just kind of have
Speaker 2: a mushy message about fighting for everyone, which I think
Speaker 2: motivates nobody to the polls. So let's let's go a
Speaker 2: little deeper. But I take it as a compliment, So
Speaker 2: thank you.
Speaker 1: So look, where would you say the progressive wing of
Speaker 1: the party is right now? Do you still view it
Speaker 1: as a sendant? And you know you just name checked
Speaker 1: a couple of races, But what does success look like
Speaker 1: for the progressive agenda regardless of whether Democrats win back
Speaker 1: the House in the Senate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. And you know, I can
Speaker 2: define our mission for the year really in one sentence,
Speaker 2: which is show in twenty twenty six swing races, particularly
Speaker 2: swing Senate races that bold inspiring economic populism is a
Speaker 2: winner as a priming of presential primary voters for twenty seven,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty eight. You know, we want we saw in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty a lot of people that told us as
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Warren supporters, Oh I love Elizabeth Warren. If I
Speaker 2: put anyone in the White House, it would be her,
Speaker 2: But I can't vote for her. Kish can't win. Heard
Speaker 2: that too much also with Bernie. And we just need
Speaker 2: to solve this division between head and heart and let
Speaker 2: people who were inspired to feel like it's okay to
Speaker 2: be inspired. So as we see gymnasiums full of five hundred,
Speaker 2: six hundred people in Maine coming out in the most
Speaker 2: rural areas to see Graham Plattner and thoseeople are getting inspired.
Speaker 2: You know, we want future primary voters to not feel
Speaker 2: like they have to trim their own sales if they
Speaker 2: get inspired by someone like Platiner or tell Rico abdual Side.
Speaker 2: So what do you.
Speaker 1: Think it's a playing Platiners? Why does a grand Platiner
Speaker 1: seem like it gets more traction than Elizabeth Warren with
Speaker 1: the left.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's multiple facets of that. You know, I actually
Speaker 2: think he's an amazing storyteller. You know, you watch him speak,
Speaker 2: he's actually not giving a laundry list of policies. He
Speaker 2: is telling a story about power and supporting details in
Speaker 2: his story happen to be policies. Right, He'll say, pretty much,
Speaker 2: you're getting screwed. These forces in society, the billionaires, the corporations,
Speaker 2: the rigged politics are working against you at every level.
Speaker 2: You know, I fought for our country. I'm an oyster farmer.
Speaker 2: I know how broken this system is. I'm going to
Speaker 2: fight it. And by the way, we'll have things like
Speaker 2: medicare for all. Right, It's not I have a plan
Speaker 2: for that. Frankly, it is you're getting screwed. I have
Speaker 2: a story. And unlike Trump, who also says you're getting screwed,
Speaker 2: I have a story. He's not blaming immigrants, He's blaming
Speaker 2: billionaire's corporate power and a Greek political system itself. It's
Speaker 2: I think it's really that simple, you know. I think
Speaker 2: others would have a gender and race analysis, which or
Speaker 2: at least gender gender analysis in this case, which is
Speaker 2: probably fair. I do think that there's a lot of skittishness,
Speaker 2: including among some very progressive women I talked to about
Speaker 2: you know, are we ready to nominate a woman yet again?
Speaker 2: And it's really heartbreaking to hear that sometimes. So maybe
Speaker 2: there's a comfort with all right, well, if you have
Speaker 2: this veteran who looks the part and can tell a
Speaker 2: story and feels good, maybe it's safer to go there.
Speaker 2: You know, that's a that's a fair question.
Speaker 1: Also, well, it is interesting that is it just a
Speaker 1: coincidence that the progressives you're champion this year all or
Speaker 1: sort of what I would call strong, you know, want
Speaker 1: to give out the sense of being a strong masculine figure.
Speaker 1: I'd put a I'll say it in that yeah column.
Speaker 2: If you saying his pretty jacked. You're right, he's I
Speaker 2: think that's fair.
Speaker 1: I didn't miss Arma Day. Yeah, he doesn't miss arm
Speaker 1: Day very well.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, no, I think again, I don't know
Speaker 2: that's necessary, but it's certainly a plus point for a
Speaker 2: lot of people to make them feel comfortable being inspired.
Speaker 2: So it's working for us in those swing states. You know,
Speaker 2: MARIICEA losing Campez is an interesting person. She was a swing,
Speaker 2: very swing area in Washington, rural Washington state. I don't
Speaker 2: agree with our everything, but she is also a very
Speaker 2: robust champion for things like cracking down on monopolies and
Speaker 2: selling our politics. And I don't think you have to
Speaker 2: have just masculinity to appeal to working class voters. But again,
Speaker 2: starting with the premise that there were scared electability voters
Speaker 2: who felt guilty voting for the person that inspired them
Speaker 2: last time, I think twenty twenty six is a valuable
Speaker 2: opportunity to do the trick in swing states this time.
Speaker 1: I'm intrigued that you singled out MGP. I'm intrigued by
Speaker 1: her myself on the independent front a little bit. And
Speaker 1: you know, I, you know, my whole obsession these days
Speaker 1: with with sort of re re defining what the center
Speaker 1: means in American politics. The center isn't an ideological place.
Speaker 1: You know, when people describe themselves as moderate more nine
Speaker 1: times out of ten, it's in temperament less than it
Speaker 1: is in policy, meaning you know that they want you know,
Speaker 1: they they may have progressive leanings, but they're an incrementalist
Speaker 1: about it, or they may even have conservative leanings but
Speaker 1: they're an incrementalist about it. They're like, look, we want
Speaker 1: to we want to directionally move there, but we don't
Speaker 1: want to race to that. And because it does feel
Speaker 1: like this, and I'm speaking, I'll speak for myself that
Speaker 1: sometimes you race ahead and you have to take You
Speaker 1: may think you've just left three steps forward, but actually
Speaker 1: the backlash you end up going two steps back. You
Speaker 1: make some progress, but it looks it sometimes can be
Speaker 1: misleading that you've made progress, right because you left forward
Speaker 1: and then step back. Your baseline is better, but you
Speaker 1: haven't gotten there.
Speaker 2: We just can I just.
Speaker 1: Yeah, go ahead and push back on it. I'm curious,
Speaker 1: what's your reaction to my premise about the center these days?
Speaker 2: Yeah, first let me react. That's narrow point me at
Speaker 2: the end. Then go back to the big one. I
Speaker 2: totally agree with you that we have to bring people
Speaker 2: along for the ride. I think, actually Zorron Mamdani is
Speaker 2: doing a fantastic job in New York. I believe his
Speaker 2: approval is twenty points higher today than it was when
Speaker 2: he was sworn in. And that says to me that
Speaker 2: he's doing a good commodation of boldness and pragmatism, pothole
Speaker 2: politics and aspirational politics, and he's not going too far ahead.
Speaker 2: So completely agree with the premise that we can't get
Speaker 2: ahead of ourselves. I would push back on the current
Speaker 2: definition of those who call themselves moderate. And I gotta
Speaker 2: tell you, I see most of politics these days less
Speaker 2: about left versus right, and more about inside versus outside,
Speaker 2: creatures of what has preceded as a broken political system
Speaker 2: and broken economic system versus those who want to shake
Speaker 2: it up. And when you wear those lenses, you see
Speaker 2: moderates often as people who want more chain and think
Speaker 2: that both parties are corrupt and not actually advocate for
Speaker 2: people like them. I think that as we see you know,
Speaker 2: unaffiliated numbers rise, those are people who are just mad
Speaker 2: at the system and.
Speaker 1: What they're not centrists. This is what I reject. They
Speaker 1: may be moderate in temperament and that's why. But they
Speaker 1: are not centrist in that. Hey, they are trying to
Speaker 1: split the difference on marginal tax rates. That's not what
Speaker 1: they're advocating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's go back to Grand Platner. Would you
Speaker 2: consider him temperamentally moderate?
Speaker 1: Hmm No, okay, right, not at all.
Speaker 2: That many moderates are attracted to him, specifically because he
Speaker 2: doesn't feel like a creature of the system, right, But
Speaker 2: he's advocating really bold power, dynamic change. So is James tallerco.
Speaker 2: Maybe you think he is temperamentally moderate and how he speaks,
Speaker 2: but the stuff he's saying on the on the campaign trail,
Speaker 2: you know, he's asked, you know, what do you do
Speaker 2: about welfare? You know, welfare queens. He's like, you know,
Speaker 2: the real welfare queens are the corporations that don't pay
Speaker 2: their taxes. Then he's asked, are you declaring class war?
Speaker 2: He's like, you know who's been declaring class war? Billionaires
Speaker 2: on us for the last fifty years. It's time to
Speaker 2: fight back. Is that temperamentally moderate? I don't know. But
Speaker 2: it's beautiful and it's inspiring people, So I just don't
Speaker 2: know that they want incremental change. I agree with your
Speaker 2: premise we have to bring the public along with us. Well,
Speaker 2: I think the public starts off there with anything that
Speaker 2: shows distrust of a broken economic and political system and
Speaker 2: someone who has the credibility to say I will be
Speaker 2: a change agent.
Speaker 1: Let me throw this at you another way. Do you
Speaker 1: think do you think both major parties right now are
Speaker 1: indestructible or could what I'm watching in the UK where
Speaker 1: both major parties are on the verge of becoming minor parties, yep,
Speaker 1: the election we're hell today that both would be There'd
Speaker 1: be a new Conservative party and a new Liberal party.
Speaker 1: There'd be a need you know, that would rise up
Speaker 1: above the Tories and labor. How vulnerable we have structural
Speaker 1: differences in obviously our system? How vulnerable do you think
Speaker 1: both parties are to collapse at some point? Because I
Speaker 1: look at this right when you do the seesaw where
Speaker 1: voters are simply rejecting your agenda each time they're not advocate.
Speaker 1: They have not voted for anything since Obama twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: It's been a consistent I don't want that, so I'll
Speaker 1: try this, Well, I don't want that. I'm going to
Speaker 1: try this. At what point does this does one of
Speaker 1: the two parties or both collapse on the weight of
Speaker 1: not at some point, Like I look at the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party brand this year. They're going to have a huge
Speaker 1: midterm year and their brand might actually be still underwater
Speaker 1: the entire time, which is a unique thing to pull off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're totally right to put your finger
Speaker 2: on this. My opinion, both parties have collapsed reputationally, but
Speaker 2: as you said, structurally, it's kind of propping up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they control battle access and while if they didn't
Speaker 1: have battle access control, I think neither party would be
Speaker 1: a major party today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's absolutely true. If we had the British system right,
Speaker 2: they would collapse. So, you know, I think that's the
Speaker 2: biggest thing allowing them to hang on. You know, there
Speaker 2: are some people. I'll give a shout out to a
Speaker 2: guy named Danny Cantor who helped form the Working Families
Speaker 2: Party in New York, which had its own ballot line.
Speaker 2: Also got named Adam Rubin who's working on proportional representation.
Speaker 2: And I do think that as the parties do collapse,
Speaker 2: it will happen locally first, where rules are changed to
Speaker 2: allow first things like ranked choice voting, but then having
Speaker 2: just get walking like multi member districts where you have
Speaker 2: proportional representation. You know, one party gets a third of
Speaker 2: the vote they get and there's three seats, they get
Speaker 2: one of the seats. They don't lose all three seats
Speaker 2: because they got a third and all three smaller elections.
Speaker 2: There's little reforms like that that are actually passing locally
Speaker 2: and in states that I think are a harbinger of
Speaker 2: what's to come. You know, one thing I've recommended to
Speaker 2: some of them is, you know, how do you at
Speaker 2: around the problem of politicians who know what the right
Speaker 2: thing to do is but want to cling onto their
Speaker 2: own political power. And I think that we should be
Speaker 2: comfortable with adding a time element where you know what,
Speaker 2: starting in eight years, we will have more open ballot
Speaker 2: access or proportional representation, and that way the current politicians
Speaker 2: get out of their system and they know that it's
Speaker 2: not culgetable being used against them. But or we can
Speaker 2: spend eight years, you know, back to pragmatic or it
Speaker 2: could spend eight years losing and just have nothing in
Speaker 2: the reform, you know, realm pass And you know, I
Speaker 2: mentioned that as some reformers and they're like, oh, we
Speaker 2: haven't thought about that before, and it's like, to me,
Speaker 2: so obvious. Actually, I'll tell you one one other story.
Speaker 2: You know, someone in Bernie World in twenty twenty one
Speaker 2: happened to mention to me as in the side as
Speaker 2: he was pushing for a fifteen dollars minimum wage, that
Speaker 2: you know what, Joe Manchin supports a twelve dollar minimum wage,
Speaker 2: and you know what, Bernie Sanders has a five year
Speaker 2: phase in where it takes three years to even get
Speaker 2: to twelve dollars. Maybe we should just agree with Joe
Speaker 2: Manchin and then have three years to worry about the
Speaker 2: last three right, And months later I actually asked John
Speaker 2: mantionins people did they ever come to you at that
Speaker 2: And the answer was no, But to me, that would
Speaker 2: have been such a great example of decay.
Speaker 1: Now this gets it to what I talk about, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, look, you know, this feels like one of
Speaker 1: those situations. And I think the biggest problem both parties
Speaker 1: have is they have interest groups who if they don't
Speaker 1: get one hundred percent of what they want, they won't
Speaker 1: find allies that are eighty percent there like what you
Speaker 1: just described.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, in this case, I don't think it was.
Speaker 2: I don't think Bernie Sanders feels pressure from anyone, let
Speaker 2: alone an individual interest group. I just think that was
Speaker 2: probably just a communications you know, it was really an
Speaker 2: aside in a conversation more than an active strategy. But
Speaker 2: to me, that's an example of, oh, well we're now,
Speaker 2: what five years later, we would have a twelve dollars
Speaker 2: minimum wage today if that deal had been cut, and
Speaker 2: meanwhile we're still technically fighting about the minimum wage. So
Speaker 2: I'm just saying, to your democracy point, I think we
Speaker 2: should induce a time element into it as a way
Speaker 2: of you know, Supreme Court justices, Okay, we'll start term
Speaker 2: moments in ten years. I hate that, but you know what,
Speaker 2: it's better if we did ten years ago. It would
Speaker 2: have been great now. Right, So we just have to,
Speaker 2: you know, be pragmatic and you know, play a long
Speaker 2: game a little bit. Assuming we still have a country
Speaker 2: in ten years.
Speaker 1: Well, by the way, we've done that for years whenever
Speaker 1: they've So let's say you institute term limits. Let's say
Speaker 1: you've decided, hey, institute term limits for your governorship. Well,
Speaker 1: it doesn't the current governor, it doesn't impact them they
Speaker 1: get two more terms and then it would impact them. Right,
Speaker 1: There's always some like this is not a new it's
Speaker 1: we've done similar things before, but we don't think about
Speaker 1: it in the terms the way you just framed it.
Speaker 2: Sure, we're saying the same thing, but I'm not sure
Speaker 2: it's the default. Yes, I feel like it's it's kind
Speaker 2: of the exemption more than the rule right now. And
Speaker 2: I almost think that for those who are thinking seriously
Speaker 2: about reform, we have to just add the time element
Speaker 2: to get over the structural barrier that you're putting your
Speaker 2: finger on, which is people you know or parties want
Speaker 2: to cling to their current power.
Speaker 1: Democrats win the House in the Senate and Chuck Schumer
Speaker 1: and Akim Jeffries remain the leaders of the party for
Speaker 1: the next two years. Is that a successful midterm or not.
Speaker 2: It's a successful midterm, but it doesn't put the Democratic
Speaker 2: Party on a path on the best path to a
Speaker 2: successful twenty twenty eight. Our organization has called for Chuck
Speaker 2: Schumer to step aside, and I think the pragmatic version
Speaker 2: of that is he just shouldn't run for leadership next year.
Speaker 2: And I would actually argue that now is the time
Speaker 2: to press that case. I've talked to some people in
Speaker 2: the Senate.
Speaker 1: Work they can pledge. Now, is that the idea how
Speaker 1: to try to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, smoke amount?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: The reason is, if you think back to the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two election, we could have an exact repeat with
Speaker 2: Chuck Schumer of what happened with Joe Biden, where yes
Speaker 2: Democrats overperformed, but it wasn't a validation of Joe Biden.
Speaker 2: And if Democrats win the Senate, it is not a
Speaker 2: validation of Chuck Schumer. But you know, if he's just
Speaker 2: handed a Senate majority and there's been no real challenge,
Speaker 2: he will cling on. So it has to be a
Speaker 2: case that's pushed before the election in order to be
Speaker 2: successful or to have maximum success in my opinion, And
Speaker 2: I will say, haven't we have at least four states
Speaker 2: where credible Senate candidates have called on him to belong
Speaker 2: to be a leader and a victory in the Illinois
Speaker 2: Senate primary where the candidate who called for that one,
Speaker 2: So I think Grand Platner's another, There's another in Michigan,
Speaker 2: other Iowa, and we'll see how that plays out.
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Speaker 1: rates may vary. If Schumer slates win primaries and win generals,
Speaker 1: I could argue, well, he's earned it. You know, if
Speaker 1: it's the Schumer candidates. If Hailey Stevens is a Senator
Speaker 1: in Michigan, and if Janet Mills is a senator senator
Speaker 1: in Maine, and if Josh Turik is a Senator in Iowa,
Speaker 1: and Mary Patello and Roy Cooper, it's pretty hard to
Speaker 1: make the case against him. Correct, yep, I can see
Speaker 1: why if Democrats win the Senate with Mallory McMorrow, Josh Walls,
Speaker 1: Graham Plattner, still Roy Cooper, and Mary Patello? Is that
Speaker 1: to you a message that said, hey, Democratic primary voters
Speaker 1: had a chance to speak between Schumer candidates and non
Speaker 1: Schumer candidates, and when given a choice, they took the
Speaker 1: non Schumer candidate.
Speaker 2: It absolutely at that picture, and even one step higher.
Speaker 2: It sends a signal of the direction that the Democratic
Speaker 2: Party is going. When I mentioned creatures of the political inside,
Speaker 2: who is that more than Chuck Schumer? I mean I
Speaker 2: was elated when he beat Aldamato in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2: I thought he was a very good political strategist for
Speaker 2: the two thousand and two thousand and four midterms.
Speaker 1: He deserves his gold Watch. I mean I say that
Speaker 1: not trying to even be dismissive. I mean, look, he
Speaker 1: was really good at this until he wasn't. And by
Speaker 1: the way, that happens to a lot of people. Max
Speaker 1: Scherzer's fastball was amazing until it wasn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to take nothing against his legacy in
Speaker 2: the past, but he is not a wartime general for
Speaker 2: now and his time again. He deserves right out on
Speaker 2: a sunset, and sadly he has denied Janet Mills that opportunity.
Speaker 2: You know, we did a poll that showed her behind
Speaker 2: the incumbent governor, behind an oyster farmer by twenty points
Speaker 2: in the primary. Other polls show him up thirty points.
Speaker 2: It's actually a growing lead, and he has more room
Speaker 2: he starts off even as more room to grow against
Speaker 2: using Collins. That says something about both the type of
Speaker 2: politics that we need to have our finger on the
Speaker 2: pulse of for twenty twenty eight and something about truction
Speaker 2: res judgment. I mean, the fact that he went to
Speaker 2: a seventy seven year old governor and robbed her of
Speaker 2: her retirement and recruit her run really is emblematic of
Speaker 2: the strategy he's used. Let's name them with Ted Strickland
Speaker 2: in Ohio, dusting off an old horse and having them
Speaker 2: lose Evan buy in Indiana, Oh Shoein' No.
Speaker 1: Do you feel this way about Shared Brown.
Speaker 2: Let's come back to that a second kind of you ask,
Speaker 2: but we'll see.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know you're right.
Speaker 2: So we have Indiana, we have even even Russ Feineld,
Speaker 2: who I like in Wisconsin, didn't do the trick like
Speaker 2: dusting off old war horses is not a tried and
Speaker 2: choose strategy. The reason I'm if he on Ohio is
Speaker 2: I kind of think Ohio is a lost cause no
Speaker 2: matter what. And if anybody's gonna win it, okay, probably
Speaker 2: Sharon Brown. He's kind of singular, so I'm okay giving
Speaker 2: him a try. I haven't heard a longer nomination. He's
Speaker 2: not edging out some rising star progressive that I'm aware of. Right,
Speaker 2: it's not like CINCINNTI mayor.
Speaker 1: Why are you so so what you think there's a
Speaker 1: better shot in Iowa than it is Ohio.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do. Listen, I'm talking to Chuck Todd. So
Speaker 2: if you tell me I'm wrong, I actually will believe you.
Speaker 1: Well, look, I just it's very interesting to me. I
Speaker 1: think Vivick Ramaswami is about a week of a Republican
Speaker 1: nominee for governor as Republicans could have found. I think
Speaker 1: he's so. I think that in John Houston is an
Speaker 1: appointed senator. I just I just think the Ohio tickets
Speaker 1: super weak. And I think that doesn't mean that doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: And you know, but this is it's still a light
Speaker 1: red state. It ain't a dark red state.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it if you tell me that's true, and
Speaker 2: that that therefore that if somebody who is an unknown
Speaker 2: but has shake up the system outside of progressive credentials
Speaker 2: ran for US Senate this year, they have a chance
Speaker 2: of winning, then I'd probably you know.
Speaker 1: Be partial for them over as Shared Brown.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, nothing against Shard Brown. I just don't.
Speaker 2: I don't believe in this strategy. The reason I'm high
Speaker 2: in Iowa is you know, in twenty was it eighteen,
Speaker 2: we won three out of four house races in Iowa.
Speaker 2: Like Iowa is I think over index as a red
Speaker 2: state and in swing years you win big. So why
Speaker 2: wouldn't we have a shot this cycle? And there's no
Speaker 2: share of you know, I guess the analogy here would
Speaker 2: be if Tom Harkin came out of retirement and wanted
Speaker 2: to run against that.
Speaker 1: Actually, in the more realistic case would be Tom Vilsack, right, like,
Speaker 1: who's more about the same generation as Shared Brown.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's fair, Okay, So it's all hypothetical. Tom Belsak,
Speaker 2: I would never get behind U because I think he's
Speaker 2: like a corporate tool and who gives that. You know,
Speaker 2: he actually screws over a little bottle guy Farmers and
Speaker 2: gives him the big agg And I think he would
Speaker 2: actually get crushed in Iowa. But I know his reputation is.
Speaker 1: That he's sort of a rural Democrat who at least
Speaker 1: knows how to talk speak yeah, and speak that language,
Speaker 1: or perceived to speak that language. I know, I get
Speaker 1: the I understand the criticism you're coming at on that one.
Speaker 2: Just to complete your point, though, so Grand Planner could
Speaker 2: defeat Chuck Shomanher's candidate. If Zach Wall's win in fifty
Speaker 2: fifth right now in Iowa, that's another demerit Michigan. We
Speaker 2: kind of get two bites at the apple again. We
Speaker 2: support Abdul el Sayad. I think, for my purpose of
Speaker 2: liberating the minds of future presidential primary voters, a guy
Speaker 2: named Abdul who's sports Medicare for All winning Michigan, in
Speaker 2: addition to Alista slock and winning Michigan sends a picture
Speaker 2: that there's multiple ways of being elect totally successful in
Speaker 2: swinging areas. And then don't forget that Chuck Schumer supported
Speaker 2: Colin Allred again in Texas, that Tall Rico had to
Speaker 2: put himself out there, and eventually some things happened that
Speaker 2: ended up aligning Schumer with Tall Rico against Statsmic Crockett.
Speaker 2: But that was not his instinct. He was willing to
Speaker 2: trot off an old losing horse and do it again,
Speaker 2: even though he's younger. So I think, I think that
Speaker 2: we will have a string of Chuck Schumer losses in
Speaker 2: primaries and it will send something, say, a larger signal
Speaker 2: about the direction of the party being economic populist and
Speaker 2: shake up the system.
Speaker 1: What's your Do you acknowledge the risk that if you
Speaker 1: get your wish in Michigan and he comes up short
Speaker 1: because it's a bridge too far for some folks, what
Speaker 1: does that do? Do you think that is a ding
Speaker 1: on progressivism or do you think that's going to be
Speaker 1: would you chalk it up to Islamophobia?
Speaker 2: I do acknowledge the risk, certainly with the optics and
Speaker 2: the chatter that happens at the election. The elect the
Speaker 2: conventional wisdom that forms the best analog would be Mendela
Speaker 2: Barnes in Wisconsin, who we supported for a US Senate
Speaker 2: race just a couple of years ago. He won the nomination.
Speaker 2: He was lieutenant governor he ended up losing by one
Speaker 2: point in the general election. Now there are a lot
Speaker 2: of grievances around that, with the Democrats Centurial Campaign Committee
Speaker 2: and the various super PACs pulling their money out of
Speaker 2: Wisconsin in a way that gave him no air cover
Speaker 2: in the weeks after he got the nomination, in a
Speaker 2: way that allowed Republicans that define him, that had our
Speaker 2: side dark on TV for just a couple of weeks
Speaker 2: before the election before eventually catching up the final couple weeks.
Speaker 2: And you know, in my mind, and we took the ding,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't a fair or a clean example. They
Speaker 2: weren't all in for their candidate the way that they
Speaker 2: would be for an Alyssa Stockin or something like that.
Speaker 2: So I do think that if we win the nominations,
Speaker 2: I will be looking at does the infrastructure get the
Speaker 2: back of the Democratic candidate in the same way that
Speaker 2: they would expect us to get the back of Amery
Speaker 2: Patola in Alaska and an undermine her. And if so
Speaker 2: and we lose, well that that would really be bad
Speaker 2: for our narrative. I will admit that. But if they
Speaker 2: undercut our person who's the general Action nominee, you know,
Speaker 2: I think that's more a pox on their house strategically
Speaker 2: than ours.
Speaker 1: Let's talk both Nebraska and Montana. Are they the same
Speaker 1: race to you? Are they? How different are they Montana? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I throw Montana in there because we're likely to have
Speaker 1: a very strong independent who is going to be trying
Speaker 1: to put pressure on Democrats to take a knee the
Speaker 1: way Democrats are agreeing to take kne in Nebraska. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I keep hearing murmurs out of Montana, and I'm
Speaker 2: excited to learn more about it. Honestly, having dug into
Speaker 2: the what's the candidate's name again?
Speaker 1: In Seth Bodner, he's a military veteran, I mean military veteran,
Speaker 1: never has been part Testers on his testers endorsed him,
Speaker 1: and he just basically testers coming at it a la Nebraska,
Speaker 1: that Hey, the Democratic brand is just too badly damaged
Speaker 1: in Montana to succeed and you need to be You
Speaker 1: needed an independence to get believable again in Montana for
Speaker 1: for a message. That's whether it's you know, you want
Speaker 1: to call it progressive or populous, but that the Democratic
Speaker 1: brand takes away from it. That's that's why tester's endorsing
Speaker 1: the guy I'm just sort of flow following sort of
Speaker 1: his logic there. He I'm curious what you that. I
Speaker 1: assume that means something to you if John Tester is involved, right,
Speaker 1: it does.
Speaker 2: So, first, the instigum per what we were talking about
Speaker 2: ten minutes ago, the Democratic brand generally a shot in
Speaker 2: red states. It's it's more.
Speaker 1: Especially western Mississippi, right Like, it's really there's a lot
Speaker 1: of what i'd call prairie populous state and midwestern populous
Speaker 1: states that the Democratic brand has just been too defined
Speaker 1: by the coasts. And we can say it's fair or unfair.
Speaker 1: I'm sure some of the branding's unfair. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: Perception is reality, and it is concentrated in places where
Speaker 1: Democrats used to win North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska. I
Speaker 1: mean in this century, multiple you know, boat states where
Speaker 1: both senators were Democrats.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so just a reminder, you're talking to someone who
Speaker 2: helped elect one of the last Democrats, and that Dakota
Speaker 2: is Tim Johnson. Back in that time when we had
Speaker 2: four Dakota senators and all, it was all prey populism.
Speaker 2: It was all you know, appealing to people who could
Speaker 2: be wooed to vote Republican, but were willing to stand
Speaker 2: up for economic populist in his case, fighting for family
Speaker 2: farmers in a really serious way. You know, you say
Speaker 2: defined by the coasts. I also think it's defined by
Speaker 2: weak party leadership that would rather stuck up to corporate
Speaker 2: donors than fight for little guy family farmers. And doesn't
Speaker 2: actually you know, if Graham Plattner was Instructioner's position, I
Speaker 2: guess is the Democratic Party brand would have a chance
Speaker 2: to be more popular in the Prairie States more than
Speaker 2: it does now. So you know, lack of credit where
Speaker 2: lack of credit is due. It's not just like elite
Speaker 2: people in New York and California. Yeahtrunctioners from New York,
Speaker 2: so Montana is also you know. I love John Tester.
Speaker 2: I think he is over index as being a centrist
Speaker 2: where he was right there with Elizabeth mourn working to
Speaker 2: make sure that Larry Summers was not going to be
Speaker 2: the fet chair working for real corporate accountability for Wall Street.
Speaker 2: If he was there now it would be for crypto.
Speaker 2: I think he is a very salt of the earth
Speaker 2: guy who when it comes to economic issues in particular,
Speaker 2: is a vibrant economic populist and therefore I tend to
Speaker 2: trust his judgment certainly on policy.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this, if economic popular when it
Speaker 1: comes to the priorities of the P triple C not
Speaker 1: necessarily Adam Green, but if the P triples C and
Speaker 1: you've got a guy like Tester is a great example
Speaker 1: of this, who's definitely with most of the progressive movement
Speaker 1: on the economic side of things, but isn't always there
Speaker 1: on some of the cultural stuff, right, and some of
Speaker 1: that that he's in a different spot versus somebody who's
Speaker 1: maybe better on the cultural stuff but not as good
Speaker 1: on the economics. What matters more to you? What matters
Speaker 1: more to the B triples state.
Speaker 2: So we are an economic populist organization who also believes
Speaker 2: that economic focusing on economics and doing it with an
Speaker 2: economic popular spent having a hero and a villain is
Speaker 2: the smartest political move for Democrats. But where we are
Speaker 2: different from some others in the ecosystem right now, I'll
Speaker 2: just name Adam Jennilsen and the Welcome Pact folks, is
Speaker 2: that they actively want to recruit people who are pro
Speaker 2: life or who throw parts of the coalition under the bus.
Speaker 2: I believe that there is a that we make our
Speaker 2: achilles heel smaller on cultural issues if we are culturally
Speaker 2: aligned with working class people, which Kamala Harris was not
Speaker 2: a giant. She had an Achilles's body, right, They them
Speaker 2: just yeah, worked better with her because she did not
Speaker 2: have the shield of being seen as culturally in tune
Speaker 2: with working class people. I mean, there was Donald Trump
Speaker 2: at the McDonald's and she she never did anything like that,
Speaker 2: and therefore it's anchra candidacy. So you know, you know,
Speaker 2: if you asked Bernie Sanders, what do you think about
Speaker 2: trans bathrooms, he'd probably say, I don't give a damn
Speaker 2: about the bathroom. I'm trying to raise wage.
Speaker 1: To Adam, I just had somebody who was a bit
Speaker 1: critical of Bernie's sort of what they believe that in
Speaker 1: this is a progressive for a future interview that will
Speaker 1: be on here, who's critical that Bernie under underrates the
Speaker 1: reproductive rights issue and consistently does so.
Speaker 2: I'm curious about what underrates means.
Speaker 1: So it's not as important to him. He'll he'll you
Speaker 1: know that he'll support a pro life economic populace and
Speaker 1: have no problem doing it and it and you know
Speaker 1: that does create tension in the reproductive rights world.
Speaker 2: That's I would love to talk to that person and
Speaker 2: ask them, do you actually believe that Democrats should be
Speaker 2: putting out there as their banner issue reproductive rights in
Speaker 2: order to win and protect reproductive rights? Right now, I'm
Speaker 2: not saying our side is not popular there. I just
Speaker 2: think we have the ability to build a durable super
Speaker 2: majority if we are in tune with working class voters
Speaker 2: that we have lost to Charlotte who's pretending to represent
Speaker 2: those people.
Speaker 1: I mean, the fact is history shows it, right. I
Speaker 1: look at FDR and I look at Obama, right, the
Speaker 1: two largest Democratic and I guess you could throw an
Speaker 1: LBJ in sixty four. You look at the three largest
Speaker 1: Democratic victories, okay, in sort of the modern era, and
Speaker 1: they were united on economics, not united on culture. I
Speaker 1: mean that has been that was true of FTRS coalition,
Speaker 1: and it's one of the criticisms that you hear sometimes, Hey,
Speaker 1: it wasn't as in tune on racial issues that it
Speaker 1: should have been. And by the way, the answers, yes, okay, right,
Speaker 1: Barack Obama wasn't as in tune on some cultural issues
Speaker 1: right away? Sure, yes, right, But you know what Barack
Speaker 1: Obama did get sixty sentences right, you know, at LBJ
Speaker 1: gott in sixty four enough Senate seats to pass the
Speaker 1: civil right, sex and Voting Right secks sixty five did
Speaker 1: it with there. So I'm basically making your argument for
Speaker 1: you here that you need if you want, if you
Speaker 1: want a Hungarian style repudiation, you're going to have to
Speaker 1: compromise in some parts of your coalition.
Speaker 2: So I want to be really clear on this at
Speaker 2: least what our perspective is. It is not finding people
Speaker 2: who will who intend to throw parts of the coalition
Speaker 2: under the bus.
Speaker 1: You're not looking for people to poke these entities in
Speaker 1: the eye. Correct, you said not do that? Right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't want to You're not there. You're not intentionally
Speaker 1: looking for pro life Democrats for instance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and John Federman is the essence of
Speaker 2: literally like trying to put people in the eye, right, taunting,
Speaker 2: taunting people who probably voted for him. It's more, let
Speaker 2: us give you a couple quick examples. So one I
Speaker 2: talked to a you know, really red swing state democrat
Speaker 2: last cycle who is like, I want to go and
Speaker 2: defend people's rights in Washington, DC, but the way I'm
Speaker 2: to get there is to focus on economics. Right, that's
Speaker 2: a political pragmatism right there. Right, Two examples from Congress
Speaker 2: Jared Golden and Angie Craig. Jared Golden is retiring. He
Speaker 2: won a Trump district multiple times. I don't grew with
Speaker 2: him and everything. I strongly grew with him on most
Speaker 2: economic things, unions, taxing millionaires, anti corruption.
Speaker 1: I spent all the time with him recently. That dude
Speaker 1: is exhausted. I mean, when you have to go through
Speaker 1: the four campaigns he went through. I mean I think
Speaker 1: sometimes people think actamy he's not running again. It's like
Speaker 1: what if I told you the first campaign cost eighteen million,
Speaker 1: the second was twenty six million, the third was thirty
Speaker 1: seven million, in the fourth was forty six million. And
Speaker 1: it's the largest media market, is banger, Right, You're just like,
Speaker 1: you know, I understand why he's exhausted.
Speaker 2: Yet, so he had a moment. The very first vote
Speaker 2: I believe of this new Congress after twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: elections was a trans sports bill, and he had a decision.
Speaker 2: And he's not out there on cultural issues, right, that's
Speaker 2: not his thing. But he voted with other Democrats against
Speaker 2: the Trump Mike Johnson Transports Bill, and his rationale was,
Speaker 2: this will give Trump new powers to defund main schools.
Speaker 2: I support main schools. Why would I want to give
Speaker 2: Trump that power? He put out a statement one time
Speaker 2: and went on with his life. He wasn't just tump
Speaker 2: me about it. He wasn't doing ads about it, he
Speaker 2: wasn't doing press conferences about it. So to me, it's
Speaker 2: about point of emphasis. He got to yes, he didn't
Speaker 2: throw that part of the collation under the bus, but
Speaker 2: he's not leading with it in rural Maine, right anti
Speaker 2: krag hat a similar example in Minnesota, a very arcane
Speaker 2: reason that she put out once and went on with
Speaker 2: her life. So I want to say that they do
Speaker 2: that in every issue. You know, they both vote voted
Speaker 2: for kind of the Lincoln Riley Act, which is a
Speaker 2: vote that has not aged well for Democrats who voted
Speaker 2: for it, which is like an anti immigrant had But
Speaker 2: I think that's a template for how Democrats can proceed
Speaker 2: in tricky environments. Try to get to yes. Try to
Speaker 2: get to yes. Sometimes you won't, at least try. Don't
Speaker 2: come into the fight being like my starting off point
Speaker 2: is to throw the colist under the bus and then
Speaker 2: go hard on economics and earn trust by being a
Speaker 2: believable messager, being culturally aligned with working class people. And
Speaker 2: then occasionally if you go in a way that they
Speaker 2: hear about, they forgive you more because you're culturally aligned
Speaker 2: without economics. That's how I would put it.
Speaker 1: What do you hope your progressive candidates fight for? When
Speaker 1: you know, I believe that January is as important as
Speaker 1: November in this respect. You know who the leadership is
Speaker 1: and what the rules are, right, I mean, if you
Speaker 1: look at sort of the rule you know part of
Speaker 1: Mike Johnson's problem is that he doesn't control the rules, right,
Speaker 1: He doesn't control that. He basically is a speaker in
Speaker 1: name only. He just is there to execute the Trump agenda,
Speaker 1: and if he ever veered off course, they'd find somebody else. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: they've already proven this right. He's there because they decided
Speaker 1: they're not going to have any speaker that tries to
Speaker 1: at all worry about that institution Over and above, do
Speaker 1: you want to see progressives put some shackles on leadership
Speaker 1: the way the chip Roy wing of the Republican Party
Speaker 1: has done with leadership in the House. On the right, I.
Speaker 2: Probably wouldn't use the word shackles, but I do it.
Speaker 1: Fare.
Speaker 2: I understand exerting leverage and making sure that we have
Speaker 2: rules that maintain progressive leverage, particularly when progresses represent the
Speaker 2: eroun So.
Speaker 1: What does that look like? What give me some pragmatic
Speaker 1: ways you want to make sure leadership doesn't get to
Speaker 1: just run rough shot over the progressive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny. During White House cost on this weekend,
Speaker 2: I ran to someone who works for House Leadership who
Speaker 2: I don't know why they told me this, but they
Speaker 2: were like, as we have all of these discharge petitions
Speaker 2: that are getting votes on the floor, like the Epstein
Speaker 2: boat and other things that are on deck, including stock
Speaker 2: trading and stuff like that, we are thinking about how
Speaker 2: that would affect us if we're in leadership. And I'm
Speaker 2: kind of like, let the discharge petitions fly right, Like.
Speaker 1: No that Personally, I'm there's a group of people who
Speaker 1: would like to lower the threshold of a discharge petition
Speaker 1: instead of to eighteen, just simply fifty from each party,
Speaker 1: and you've got to do it. That's would mean a
Speaker 1: minimum of one hundred as long as you had fifty
Speaker 1: in each party or that that forces a discharge, you know.
Speaker 2: And I hadn't heard that, you know, you know, only
Speaker 2: one hundred fifty signatures, not to eighteen. You know, that
Speaker 2: wouldn't just be the Progressive Caucus that would be a majority.
Speaker 2: But anything like that, I mean, I would actually argue
Speaker 2: to the House leadership folks, that would liberate them in
Speaker 2: some respects where they don't have to have the fingerprints
Speaker 2: on everything that gets a vote.
Speaker 1: Right, you're absolutely right. Like instead of looking at it
Speaker 1: as oh my god, we're going to get jammed by this,
Speaker 1: this and this, it's sort of like, hey, the House
Speaker 1: is the people's house, and you know what, you are
Speaker 1: going to get all sorts of stuff that gets introduced
Speaker 1: because we're the people's house, all right, And if it's
Speaker 1: good enough, we'll let the Senate decide, and if it's
Speaker 1: got a big vote, Senate won't can't ignore it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very few politicians to cling on to power will
Speaker 2: believe that. M But that's the kind of thing that sure,
Speaker 2: any of those things that puts more hands, more power
Speaker 2: in the hands of those who are finger on the
Speaker 2: pulse sounds good to me. You know, there's a question
Speaker 2: do we try to get rid of the filmbuster now
Speaker 2: I I you know, my default would be yes, you know,
Speaker 2: especially if you have a democratic majority, Like don't like
Speaker 2: they're giving people process reasons for not delivering on your
Speaker 2: promises or even trying to deliver. The kind of thing
Speaker 2: that ruins faith in both parties and turns people to
Speaker 2: independ our moderate and hating Democrats. Right, it's the kind
Speaker 2: of thing that will make all of our candidates in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty eight or you know who win the nomination
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty seven less credible if we just campaigned
Speaker 2: on something and then don't even try because we don't
Speaker 2: have sixty votes. Right, Wait, one last thing. The filibuster
Speaker 2: also hurts Democrats in the sense of we have to
Speaker 2: cobble so many things into this wonky reconciliation bill that
Speaker 2: we actually get credit for almost none other things. The
Speaker 2: things that are super majority popular get put in the
Speaker 2: bill on week one, while we're still debating in week fifty,
Speaker 2: and people forgot about it. You know, if you remember
Speaker 2: the cleaning years, just to go back, like I don't,
Speaker 2: you'd know better than me, Like what the filibuster, how
Speaker 2: much it was invoked then? But I remember that there
Speaker 2: were these week long sagas where he was trying to
Speaker 2: get to fifty or fifty plus one votes with Al Gore,
Speaker 2: and it was just like I've got forty two, I've
Speaker 2: got forty three. Right, the gun bill, right, the gun right.
Speaker 2: And then the crime bill, the tax bill that passed
Speaker 2: like by one vote to race axes on the rich.
Speaker 2: It wasn't sixty votes, it was fifteen. So there was
Speaker 2: a conscribe ourselves of getting credit for the things we
Speaker 2: do by having only one bite at the apple. We
Speaker 2: have to cram everything into a bill where no message
Speaker 2: gets out. So for the Senate, that's why, just politically speaking,
Speaker 2: getting rid of the filibuster would be a game changer
Speaker 2: for Democrats, rebuilding the reservoir of trust that we should
Speaker 2: have when we try to do stuff.
Speaker 1: What do you make of the anxiety, the sort of
Speaker 1: the Mike Lee right angling to get rid of the filibuster?
Speaker 1: And can you imagine common cause a coalition of the
Speaker 1: of senators getting together going all right? Mike Lee, Ron Johnson,
Speaker 1: Rick Scott, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren. I know, Jock, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? I consider here? Is that that
Speaker 1: more realistic than I think? Or is that still probably
Speaker 1: a little pie in this guy let.
Speaker 2: Me ask you when he when they ask for the
Speaker 2: philibuster to be gone, what is their rationale?
Speaker 1: What do they say is, oh, that's interesting that they
Speaker 1: shouldn't need sixty votes. I think they don't really have
Speaker 1: a good Their rationalitis simply, hey, we won the election.
Speaker 1: Why shouldn't we get our agenda right? Which is very
Speaker 1: similar to what we heard after twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean if they still have that position post
Speaker 2: losing the majority.
Speaker 1: If they lose the majority, well, that's what we all
Speaker 1: learn is that neither party ever has that position when
Speaker 1: they're out of power.
Speaker 2: Right, So again, maybe it's the philibusher will be gone
Speaker 2: in four years, so we don't know who controls the
Speaker 2: sent in four years. But maybe that's again inserting time
Speaker 2: back into the mix might be the way for study
Speaker 2: that kind of thing. But you know, in terms of
Speaker 2: agenda items, our government relations entity called p Street, the
Speaker 2: Progressive alternative to Ky Street, has been working with a
Speaker 2: lot of Republicans and a lot of you know, quote
Speaker 2: unquote moderate Democrats on a bill to take on insider
Speaker 2: stock trading in Congress, and the Republicans have offered a
Speaker 2: very weak t version that wouldn't actually solve the problem.
Speaker 2: But that's the kind of thing where you actually have
Speaker 2: anti corruption forces on the left and right, but then
Speaker 2: when we actually look at them with the inside outside glasses,
Speaker 2: it makes more sense. It's like, oh, this is an
Speaker 2: inside versus outside like literally insider trading versus those who
Speaker 2: hate corruption our politics. These kind of issues, I think
Speaker 2: are the things that could get whether it's house side
Speaker 2: process rules or filibuster rules dismantled, if we can kind
Speaker 2: of marry the wonky process argument with a minoritarian, easily
Speaker 2: digestible anti corruption kind of theme.
Speaker 1: You know, in fairness to both parties that are trying
Speaker 1: to deal with the stock trading issue. And I think
Speaker 1: some of it is serious and I think some of
Speaker 1: it is performative. Right, but it's it's easy to say
Speaker 1: to get rid of it, but how you do it
Speaker 1: it's not easy. You know, do spouses, you know, should
Speaker 1: they be involved in it? What about siblings? What about
Speaker 1: adult children? Obviously not minor children, but what about adult children?
Speaker 1: And is that really fair to them? What did they do? Right?
Speaker 1: You know, it is in fairness to these Now, look,
Speaker 1: you chose to become a member of Congress, so you know,
Speaker 1: welcome to you. You know, you know this is very popular,
Speaker 1: This has got to be done, So just come up
Speaker 1: with a way. I mean, you know, I guess we
Speaker 1: could have essentially a new blind trust committee where they
Speaker 1: just hire financial advisors who do nothing but manage congressional
Speaker 1: stock portfolios. You know, the second you win an election,
Speaker 1: boom automatically, you know, this committee now oversees your stock portfolio.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but I do think this is I get
Speaker 1: the sense that details are more difficult than we fully appreciate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, I've had many conversations about these details.
Speaker 2: Let's start with the easy stuff first. So the core
Speaker 2: of any stock proposal is you cannot own individual stocks.
Speaker 2: You can have index funds, and your fortunes can be
Speaker 2: you know, rise and fall with the stock market, but
Speaker 2: you will not benefit by going to war and Iran.
Speaker 2: You know, the critique of blind trust is they're not
Speaker 2: really blind, like you know where holdings are going in.
Speaker 1: So you would just basically say, look, you get to
Speaker 1: do the S and P five hundred or treasury funds,
Speaker 1: you pick something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, and then there's super wonky stuff like oh
Speaker 2: do I have to sell my stuff? What's the tax
Speaker 2: implications is like, we can deal with that.
Speaker 1: There are ways that, right, there's no doubt if you
Speaker 1: totally divest, then you do have tax implication.
Speaker 2: Right, But you can also like, okay, so you can
Speaker 2: statgle those over five years or you know, there's ways
Speaker 2: of addressing if that's the final concern the spouse. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the spouse has to count. I haven't really heard kids
Speaker 2: in the mix, but spouse would be good enough. But
Speaker 2: you can't have giant loopholes where your spouse can do
Speaker 2: insider stock trating. I just can't be it. There's a
Speaker 2: couple of things just like that that you know, generally,
Speaker 2: the people who push back hardest are not good government
Speaker 2: advocates who are trying to get it right. It's people
Speaker 2: that have massive fortunes in the stock market or whose
Speaker 2: spouse has a massive fortune and they're worried about their
Speaker 2: own stuff. And again, maybe we pass it now and
Speaker 2: kicks in in six years, and no senator, you know,
Speaker 2: any senator who runs again will know what rules are
Speaker 2: running under. I'm sympathetic to the argument of my wife
Speaker 2: or my husband didn't know when I ran two years ago.
Speaker 3: They'd have to divest their whole stop. So it's like,
Speaker 3: you know what after the next turn? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: Now I think that's interesting. So let's spast forward to
Speaker 3: January of twenty seven. Yeah, Democrats win win both the
Speaker 3: House and the Senate. Where should Democrats work with Trump?
Speaker 2: That's a great way framing the question. You know, he's
Speaker 2: not an anti corruption guy. But you know, whether it
Speaker 2: was the Tea Party back in the day or MAGA,
Speaker 2: there's a distrust of the system and anything that I
Speaker 2: think Josh Holly is oftentimes just good spokesperson for that
Speaker 2: roots out credit card companies that want to rip you off,
Speaker 2: just you know, the rigging of the rules that various
Speaker 2: monopolies want to do. Jadvance has actually been an interesting ally,
Speaker 2: at least in his Senate life on anti monopoly issues.
Speaker 2: Those are things where they would actually impact the cost
Speaker 2: for consumers, like money in pockets, affordability, but with an
Speaker 2: anti corruption and hold the bad Apple corporations accountable kind
Speaker 2: of lens, That's why I would recommend that they lean into.
Speaker 1: Look, I think this is a very precarious. It's a
Speaker 1: good problem that Democrats might have if it happens. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know, the question is you're going to run
Speaker 1: against Trump and Democrats' victories will be because they're going
Speaker 1: to be a check on Trump. And that's why that
Speaker 1: this is likely to be a successful midterm right, especially
Speaker 1: why we call it the siction. You know, there's sort
Speaker 1: of an exhaustion and people just want to check. And
Speaker 1: yet if you want to do anything, you're going to
Speaker 1: still need his signature on bills. Right, So, well, there's
Speaker 1: it's sort of like, how do you walk that line
Speaker 1: when you're going to have some people like take my
Speaker 1: friend George Conway, and I say this. I admire that
Speaker 1: he is saying up front, you elect me, and my
Speaker 1: mandate is to impeach the guy. I'm not making any
Speaker 1: I'm not dancing around that issue, right most everybody else
Speaker 1: dances around it. He goes, No, I'm there, I'm running.
Speaker 1: I got two terms. That's all I'm going to do,
Speaker 1: and this is what I'm going to do, okay, because
Speaker 1: I think this is the best way to restore rule
Speaker 1: of law. We can. We don't have to agree with
Speaker 1: his tactics. It's what he's telling voters. What I always
Speaker 1: liked is just tell the voters what deal you want
Speaker 1: to make with them, and they you know, and if
Speaker 1: they vote for you. It means they want to make
Speaker 1: that deal. Now it's up to you to do it.
Speaker 1: But I think this is going to make for a
Speaker 1: really challenging spring of twenty seven because you're going to
Speaker 1: have these cross currents. You're gonna have presidential candidates out
Speaker 1: there running hard on Trump, some of them harder than others.
Speaker 1: You're going to have and then you'll have you know,
Speaker 1: if anybody works with Trump, there might be criticism of
Speaker 1: that because it plays better. I just think that I
Speaker 1: look at what happened to Abigail Spamberger, right, one wins
Speaker 1: with this incredible brand of moderation, of above partisanship, and
Speaker 1: then she comes right in and the opening acts are
Speaker 1: very partisan. You may think it's very successful, but it's
Speaker 1: very partisan. She took ahead politically. It's recoverable. Right, It's early,
Speaker 1: and one would argue, right, the old Mario Cuomo saying is,
Speaker 1: you know you campaign in poetry and government in prose,
Speaker 1: and you know prose has come sometimes quite cold, right,
Speaker 1: and type brutal, quite harsh. Right. I just find this
Speaker 1: first three months more precarious for the party than maybe
Speaker 1: people realize. Again, if everything that they hope happens happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know the way you friend the question before,
Speaker 2: which I think was a good question, is you know,
Speaker 2: where should they work with Trump? I think it's a
Speaker 2: little bit different from a separate question, which is what
Speaker 2: should their priority posture be including two works Trump?
Speaker 1: Okay, I kind of.
Speaker 2: Feel like one step above the rare places where they
Speaker 2: will work with Trump is, you know, get caught trying
Speaker 2: to do things that are popular in bold and if
Speaker 2: you pass things in the House, and you passings in
Speaker 2: the Senate and Trump is the problem now we are.
Speaker 1: Sending you've drawn a picture. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 2: I feel like that has to be the priority. If this,
Speaker 2: if the starting point is where can we work with Trump?
Speaker 2: You eradicate eighty ninety percent of the good, popular ideas
Speaker 2: that you would want to run on in the interest
Speaker 2: of going behind closed doors and trying to cut a
Speaker 2: probably a bad deal with Trump. Right, if you start
Speaker 2: with we're going to get caught trying. If he wants
Speaker 2: to be on the thirty side of a seventy thirty proposition,
Speaker 2: let him do that make Republicans even less popular. If
Speaker 2: he wants to work with us and cut a deal,
Speaker 2: we'll accept a down payment and bring the election, you know,
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty eight election, you know, into focus in
Speaker 2: terms of going for the full kahuna, like, you know,
Speaker 2: let's push for a public option. Now he'll probably stay
Speaker 2: none of that, but at least we're talking about something
Speaker 2: a challenges insurance company that are very unpopular. Right. But
Speaker 2: if we start off with would ever support of public
Speaker 2: option and you look at his donors and it's like, well, no,
Speaker 2: now we won't talk about anything but the smallest boar
Speaker 2: of things with healthcare, that makes no sense, right. You know,
Speaker 2: there's a growing movement to have publicly manufactured pharma, particularly
Speaker 2: for generic drugs, but also just like a competitor to
Speaker 2: the big pharma companies and use public muscle to do that.
Speaker 2: It's really popular when you pull it. I don't think
Speaker 2: we're going to pass what.
Speaker 1: You know, I wouldn't fully roll out Trump's interest in
Speaker 1: something like that. You're not wrong to be thinking about it.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, maybe pass it and see what he thinks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's the thing. Like maybe that day pharma
Speaker 2: pisses him off and he's like, you know what, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna go, right, and so maybe maybe you know broken clock, right, twice,
Speaker 2: two accidental bills that are bowl he'll sign apart from
Speaker 2: the smaller down payments. But we just can't go into
Speaker 2: that moment thinking we're gonna from our sales. I honestly
Speaker 2: be if even how Kim Jefferies or Schumer, Yeah, started
Speaker 2: with that position, because that would just be.
Speaker 1: You No, And I get that. You know, I look
Speaker 1: at this and it's sort of like because I think
Speaker 1: that in this to me gets at the why I'm
Speaker 1: a little skeptical of those that consider themselves presidential candidates
Speaker 1: who are dining out on the resistance messaging that's working
Speaker 1: well for now versus how much do you think resistance
Speaker 1: messaging should be leaned into going into twenty twenty eight
Speaker 1: or how much it should you know, it's like how
Speaker 1: much energy should be about the post Trump era versus
Speaker 1: putting a check on Trump right twenty six. I get it,
Speaker 1: it's a check on Trump. I think it's a I
Speaker 1: think it's a bigger it's a larger debate about how
Speaker 1: much should be check on Trump versus and resistance messaging
Speaker 1: versus turning the page messaging.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you mentioned the UK before. I was just
Speaker 2: in the UK a couple of weeks ago talking to
Speaker 2: people on the ground there, and one of the things
Speaker 2: that they put their finger on, which I think is
Speaker 2: accurate and is a potential warning to us, is Keir
Speaker 2: Starmer's only message was I'm not Conservatives and they're unpopular.
Speaker 2: Electo me. His mandate was fulfilled on minute number one,
Speaker 2: and then he had nothing.
Speaker 1: You know what you just described, You just described that
Speaker 1: Joe Biden presidency. I always thought this was Biden's biggest problem,
Speaker 1: that ultimately the one thing people voted for him to
Speaker 1: do he accomplished on election day. Yeah, and they didn't
Speaker 1: actually want him to do much more than just eradicate that.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and then well then you know, maybe do something.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, right, And unfortunately he didn't really
Speaker 1: campaign on a vision beyond I won't be him.
Speaker 2: Yes, I will do something I really don't want to do,
Speaker 2: which is make the case for Joe Biden. But at
Speaker 2: least he on paper campaigned on big, big, ambitious ideas.
Speaker 2: Particularly because of COVID, he was the rare person who's
Speaker 2: like funding for a bunch of stuff went higher in
Speaker 2: the general than the primary, which is usually the reverse.
Speaker 2: That's true, it's because COVID happens. So at least now
Speaker 2: I think to your point, I don't think that most
Speaker 2: people going to the polls were thinking about his build
Speaker 2: Back Better agenda. They were thinking about Trump versus not Trump.
Speaker 2: But at least he tried, or didn't even try. Like
Speaker 2: his manifesto, that's what you call it, there is like
Speaker 2: do nothing. We're just not them, right, I really do worry.
Speaker 2: Like the part of the reason that we supported Tall
Speaker 2: Rico is, you know, I like Das mccrockett over personally.
Speaker 2: She's a good you know, team Blue versus Team Red,
Speaker 2: spar you know spark, you know, jouster, but she was
Speaker 2: not offering an academic vision. Tell Rico was. And I
Speaker 2: really believe that we will do better off this election
Speaker 2: cycle if, of course we're anti Trump, but we also
Speaker 2: are trying to appeal to people's you know, working class lives.
Speaker 2: And this is the muscle memory time. We have to
Speaker 2: prove to ourselves that we can do it now because
Speaker 2: twenty twenty seven, you know, it's gonna be weeks after
Speaker 2: this election that people are announcing for president, and if
Speaker 2: all we've done is train ourselves to week.
Speaker 1: It might be hours after that week. I have a
Speaker 1: feeling we will have three candidates in the race before
Speaker 1: the Friday is before all the counting is in in California.
Speaker 1: How long it always takes to do the California counts, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I imagine we'll have three active candidates. Oh yeah, that
Speaker 1: we'll use the momentum, especially if de Gret's win, like
Speaker 1: they're gonna want you know, they're gonna want to try
Speaker 1: to ride a financial wave, you know that that would
Speaker 1: come with it.
Speaker 2: Interesting, So all you CALCI fans out there, I.
Speaker 1: Know how she Yeah, but you.
Speaker 2: Know, we haven't touched on it yet. But you know,
Speaker 2: the tension I feel with the presidential race right now
Speaker 2: is this instinct that we're living in an outsider moment
Speaker 2: and looking at our bench and liking some people on
Speaker 2: the bench, but feeling like so many of them.
Speaker 1: Feel all feels it all feels re tready. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna you know, It's funny. My wife and I talk
Speaker 1: about this and she's like, where's you know, where's the
Speaker 1: compelling outsider? And you know, part of it is we're
Speaker 1: all so anxious to find that that even those that
Speaker 1: would have been seen as outsiders in a previous era
Speaker 1: have already started to, you know, make the run right,
Speaker 1: have already started to make noise in their own way,
Speaker 1: whether it's Andy Basheer, Joshapiro, Alyssa Slacka, whatever, I mean,
Speaker 1: I could you know. I get that you may not
Speaker 1: be happy about some of those. But my point is
Speaker 1: is that there isn't like I can't think of any
Speaker 1: candidate that I've heard floated that I'm like, well, I'm
Speaker 1: curious what that's going to look like. I feel like
Speaker 1: I know already exactly. Oh, they're gonna run this way.
Speaker 1: They're gonna run this way, They're gonna run this way,
Speaker 1: and it feels familiar. It's twenty twenty. It's a twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen field all over again, just with different names. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I think the one exception is AOC in terms
Speaker 2: of like, I think she's if.
Speaker 1: She runs, yeah, I don't know if she like she
Speaker 1: I don't view, I don't see. She doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: It seems that she's if she were running, well, I
Speaker 1: don't know, she'd be out there a little bit more.
Speaker 1: But she doesn't look like she's running to me. But
Speaker 1: maybe she doesn't have to do it, have to lean
Speaker 1: in the way others do.
Speaker 2: We'll see. But you know, if she ran, she still
Speaker 2: has her outside her cred I think some people would
Speaker 2: think that she's less leftable because of that, But I
Speaker 2: don't think it's arguable that she's that She's not a
Speaker 2: creature of the political system. She's an outsider.
Speaker 1: I subscribe to the Jonathan Roush theory, which is you
Speaker 1: do get a sell by date, like when you appear,
Speaker 1: and you need to make a move in your first
Speaker 1: ten years in the system. And she's twenty twenty eight
Speaker 1: becomes the ten year anniversary of her election in twenty eighteen, right,
Speaker 1: so you know, it is about time for her to
Speaker 1: take the next step. Whatever that step is, could be Senate,
Speaker 1: could be.
Speaker 2: President's sound of political advice. I'll run two names by you.
Speaker 2: I am not endorsing them, but I allow my mind
Speaker 2: to go there. So when is Stephen Colbert right, somebody
Speaker 2: you know he just got you know he now is
Speaker 2: an avatar for anti media consolidation, something that I believe
Speaker 2: you might know something about, you know, trust in media.
Speaker 1: I'm more intrigued by the Colbert idea all the time
Speaker 1: because I look, I think it's pretty clear that performance matters, yeah,
Speaker 1: and communication skills. This is now true of every fortune
Speaker 1: five hundred company. I mean, if you don't have the
Speaker 1: leader of your company can't communicate, you're not going to
Speaker 1: be a I don't care how good you are behind
Speaker 1: the scenes, you're going to be an unsuccessful leader period.
Speaker 1: You have to be able to communicate. Now, so it's
Speaker 1: a it's a primary skill, no longer a nice to
Speaker 1: have skill.
Speaker 2: I completely agree, and just to side down on that.
Speaker 2: You know, when the Medagalasius of the world criticize the
Speaker 2: better parts of Biden's agenda like hiving Lena Khan, bust
Speaker 2: up monopolies, and they're like, oh, so we lost the
Speaker 2: next election, so why try that again. My first thought
Speaker 2: is he didn't communicate anything he was doing.
Speaker 1: He couldn't. He never campaigned on anything. I mean, I
Speaker 1: you know, to me, the Biden presidency is the presidency
Speaker 1: that didn't happen because he never sold his agenda. He
Speaker 1: never traveled the country, he never you know, because I
Speaker 1: guess he couldn't write. I mean, look, we all realized
Speaker 1: that he didn't do this. We don't know if his
Speaker 1: agenda was popular or not. He didn't even try to
Speaker 1: sell it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, back to Iran, I mean's iron takes
Speaker 2: time every day to do something on social media and
Speaker 2: tell a story. Right, Yeah, so.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I think he's too much on social media, but
Speaker 1: I understand. I understand why he does it. It's part
Speaker 1: of who he is, it's his brand. And if we
Speaker 1: stopped doing it, there'd be some people going, oh, you've
Speaker 1: gone mainstream. You don't need this anymore, so right, like
Speaker 1: it would be a problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Colbert is asked full at that. But you know,
Speaker 2: he's not a Mathew mcconic. Hey, he's not just an actor.
Speaker 2: I think that with the Colbert rapport, we actually saw
Speaker 2: a fairly you.
Speaker 1: No, I agree, there's substance there.
Speaker 2: I agree the right. So yeah, I'm not endorsing, but
Speaker 2: I'm curious and I'm willing to go there.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm with you there, I'm Colbert curious. I'll
Speaker 1: give you that.
Speaker 2: Colbert curious. Can we can we point that hashtag right now?
Speaker 1: Look, Colbert curious? Right Yeah, and hey he's got South Carolina.
Speaker 1: Nothing like having a little early state, small advantage, even
Speaker 1: if it's a small one.
Speaker 2: Fascinating Yep, good point.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The other person to I don't know personally, but I
Speaker 2: just were out there as a hypothetical, like a Sean Fain,
Speaker 2: the UAW president, right, and somebody who you know a
Speaker 2: third of his members wroted for Trump. He is mister
Speaker 2: picket line. Again, I don't know him enough to be like,
Speaker 2: oh I love this guy, but on a vibess level,
Speaker 2: I could see someone like a union president being the
Speaker 2: right fit for this moment. I feel more comfortable if
Speaker 2: I knew that Elizabeth Warren would be their chiefest staff
Speaker 2: and they'd actually do the competency stuff right. But you know, again,
Speaker 2: I allow my mind to go there just because I
Speaker 2: feel like this is an outsider moment and we.
Speaker 1: Can I agree. I've been looking for, you know, one
Speaker 1: of these fired generals, fired admirals, and just trying to
Speaker 1: learn more about them. It wouldn't surprise me if one
Speaker 1: of them, you know, with somebody, and look, I don't
Speaker 1: think we just know, right, some of them. Sometimes you
Speaker 1: have to meet them and you're like, you don't you
Speaker 1: have to let them know, you know, you actually would
Speaker 1: make a really good candidate. Have you ever thought about it?
Speaker 1: Type of thing? Let me throw a different question at you.
Speaker 1: That's the same idea, because normally you know twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: Beto o'rouricx near victory made him a presidential candidate. Who
Speaker 1: of the twenty twenty six victors on the Democratic side,
Speaker 1: could you see who you think that their victory? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what it ought to translate to kicking the
Speaker 1: tires on presidential.
Speaker 2: I think the obvious one is James Tilrico. I mean
Speaker 2: if he certainly, if he wins.
Speaker 1: It's an eye opener. So everybody goes, oh, well, what's
Speaker 1: that right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know I would still put Graham Platner there.
Speaker 2: I know that, you know, they're Democrats that have opinions
Speaker 2: about that. But let's see what you can do. Let's
Speaker 2: see how he perseveres through some of the attacks. And
Speaker 2: you know, it's interesting you put it as his near victory,
Speaker 2: because if I'm arguing against myself, like the biggest reason
Speaker 2: that someone like James Telrico would not run for president
Speaker 2: is if they win and they're setting up a Senate
Speaker 2: office and they're skinning.
Speaker 1: No, that's the irony is that Bato was able to
Speaker 1: do it because he didn't win, right, And but to
Speaker 1: me that's a weird. It's weird to well, he almost one.
Speaker 1: So it's like Pete Budaget. You know, same thing, right,
Speaker 1: you know, he lost d n C chair, but let's
Speaker 1: let's see it does for president.
Speaker 2: Right, So there's there's that political question, But I'm actually
Speaker 2: raising a separate logistical question, which.
Speaker 1: Is, oh, I think it is hard to immediately win
Speaker 1: and then turn right around and run. I think that's
Speaker 1: very difficult, and especially you know, I sit here, I
Speaker 1: watch Wes Moore continue to pledge to serve that he's
Speaker 1: not running. He's serving four years, and yet he shows
Speaker 1: up to every early state thing. He shows up to
Speaker 1: all the You're like, I know, you think, hey, Bill
Speaker 1: Clinton got away with this, other Barack Obama got away
Speaker 1: with this. But I think we're in a different trust period.
Speaker 1: I think we're going to roll our eyes if you
Speaker 1: do the politician lie, if you get my drift meaning
Speaker 1: the politician white lie. Well, you know everybody kind of
Speaker 1: knew it was a wink and a nod. Well we're
Speaker 1: kind of tired of the Lincoln and a nod politician.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's right.
Speaker 2: So maybe those who announced days after the election are
Speaker 2: actually the most credible. You know, I I Matt Butler
Speaker 2: and Jamal Simons, you know, have a podcast focused just
Speaker 2: on the presdential race, and when I talked to them,
Speaker 2: they raised an idea of Tallerico for vice president, which
Speaker 2: I found intriguing because that would actually give him the
Speaker 2: year to get his d legs and then he yops
Speaker 2: in a year later and there's no real downside. He's
Speaker 2: not giving up.
Speaker 1: That was kind of jd vance, you know, wins in
Speaker 1: the mid term and ends up on the ticket within
Speaker 1: two years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the tempolate, So we'll see. I I kind
Speaker 2: of wish the timing was off a little bit different
Speaker 2: a little bit, but we all where we are. Well.
Speaker 1: Look candidates that I think about on that score, and
Speaker 1: I'm curious. I'll throw them out at you. Mally McMorrow
Speaker 1: she interests me because she sort of forced her way
Speaker 1: on stage right her own viral moments. She's a good communicator.
Speaker 1: If she becomes the Goldilocks candidate, right, she's figured out
Speaker 1: how to unite this coalition. She intrigued me. Swing State
Speaker 1: Rob sand a victory there in Iowa. He's running on
Speaker 1: a different type. It's very anti corruption, it's a it's
Speaker 1: it's certainly it's a different you know, it's not going
Speaker 1: to fit cleanly in anybody's bucket. Yeah, but he's interesting
Speaker 1: to me potentially on that.
Speaker 2: Score, they're both interesting. I like them, both his people,
Speaker 2: and I hope Rob wins Mallory gets the nomination. I
Speaker 2: hope she wins. I really don't think that anything short
Speaker 2: of having a systemic critique and a willingness to kind
Speaker 2: of summon up the rage and be again the shake
Speaker 2: up the system candidate is is the way. It is
Speaker 2: the way to go. You know, Rob sand has almost
Speaker 2: a technocratic way of being bipartisan an anti corruption. He
Speaker 2: could do it in part because Iowa they have read
Speaker 2: the rules. I mean, they pretty much defanked him of
Speaker 2: power like he was the way, so he had no choice.
Speaker 1: He had to do this the way he's done it. Right.
Speaker 1: He almost has to do it, forcing media attention, forcing
Speaker 1: sort of gimmicks, frankly, to make it hard to say
Speaker 1: no to some of his anti corruption time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and just for your listeners. And he's a state auditor,
Speaker 2: the only Democrats state wide official, and they've pretty much
Speaker 2: robbed him of his ability to audit, right, so now
Speaker 2: he just has to use the bully pulpit to shine
Speaker 2: the spotlight on things that are corrupt and that's good.
Speaker 2: I'm glad he's doing that. I don't think that that
Speaker 2: addresses you know, we have AI, we have Crypto, we
Speaker 2: have things changing in society, and we need someone who
Speaker 2: is willing to tell a story. That's why again and
Speaker 2: come back to tell Rico, Platner, Abdul. They tell a
Speaker 2: story about power in America and the forces that are
Speaker 2: rigged against every day people in America. And they can
Speaker 2: apply that critique to healthcare or your banking, or your
Speaker 2: schools or your housing. It is one critique across issues.
Speaker 2: It's not an issue. And I just think that has
Speaker 2: to be the future if we're going to be credible
Speaker 2: and be able to speak to so many people so
Speaker 2: many parts of the.
Speaker 1: Country, Adam, and we may not agree on every single fix,
Speaker 1: but I think you're one hundred percent right that this
Speaker 1: is systemic. This is I think both parties, you know,
Speaker 1: in a perfect world, we'd get rid of both of
Speaker 1: them and get to a four party system of some
Speaker 1: form because it's failing the public. Right. It's sort of
Speaker 1: like what would what would what would animate the American
Speaker 1: public better if they could find is I always say
Speaker 1: the problem with the two parties, it's like imagine going
Speaker 1: into a T shirt store and finding out the two
Speaker 1: choices were extra large and extra small, right, and you're like, well,
Speaker 1: I can't find the shirt that fits me. And I
Speaker 1: think today's two political parties. I think more people would
Speaker 1: say it doesn't fit me than it does. Right. That's,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the questions we're not asking. You know,
Speaker 1: we've got a lot of people under the age of
Speaker 1: forty whose knee jerk decision is to register as no
Speaker 1: party or independent. And we spend all this time going, okay,
Speaker 1: but if you had to choose, which side do you choose?
Speaker 1: It's the wrong question to ask these voters. It's the
Speaker 1: right question to ask these voters if you're simply trying
Speaker 1: to win election. I get that. It's the wrong question
Speaker 1: if you're trying to represent those voters, which is here's
Speaker 1: the question. I want to know, what keeps you from
Speaker 1: registering with the party that you hold your nose and
Speaker 1: vote for each time. That's the question we've not spent
Speaker 1: enough time asking, and certainly I don't have We don't
Speaker 1: have the answers because we haven't asked them those questions
Speaker 1: that huh, well put man. I always learn a lot
Speaker 1: from you, mister Green, what's your favorite primary in May?
Speaker 1: What's the big thing that what you'll feel good if
Speaker 1: things in May happen? Where? Like where? What's your what's
Speaker 1: your sort of current early early primary state obsession?
Speaker 2: Yeah, my obsession is more June and in Maine. I
Speaker 2: am interested in Pennsylvania primaries. We endorsed Chris Rapp recently,
Speaker 2: who's running in a swing there. But you know, we
Speaker 2: might get involved with something. The California is also right
Speaker 2: around the corner, right.
Speaker 1: Right, Oh, yeah, it's June. But yeah, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that first Tuesday in June. What's your uh, what's your preference?
Speaker 1: Styre or Porter?
Speaker 2: Wow, Chuck Todd, I thought we were finishing up. We
Speaker 2: you know, we've engaged both campaigns in recent weeks and
Speaker 2: currently our postures do what we can to facilitate a
Speaker 2: race to the top on economic populism. You know we are.
Speaker 2: We coined the phrase the Elizabeth Warren wing. She endorsed
Speaker 2: Katie Porter. We've support her many times.
Speaker 1: She didn't endorse Katie Porter this time? Did she?
Speaker 2: I think she she did? She did?
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, I gotta get I got to get.
Speaker 2: Credit to Tom Styer. He is out there making a
Speaker 2: systemic case and talking about billionaire power. The one thing
Speaker 2: that I want people to keep in mind with him
Speaker 2: is that he should not stand for the proposition that
Speaker 2: you have to be a billionaire in order to be
Speaker 2: non bought. Right, AOC raises the most money.
Speaker 1: That bothers that bothers you a little bit. That that's
Speaker 1: his messaging.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not not that that's his message. I do
Speaker 2: hope he chooses his words carefully, but more I hope
Speaker 2: that people's impression is not, oh, billionaires can be unbought,
Speaker 2: but nobody el should make that case. I think that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean my concern is that's what the you know, Oh,
Speaker 1: all right, they're getting their billionaires. The le's going to
Speaker 1: get their billionaires. What about the rest of us, you know,
Speaker 1: and who don't have a billionaire looking out for us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll see.
Speaker 2: But again, AOC raises the most money of anybody in Congress,
Speaker 2: and that's because people trust her. Right now, everybody, if
Speaker 2: you're exceptional by definition, everybody can't be exceptional, right, But
Speaker 2: you know, Maxwell Frost, right, because are there's a lot
Speaker 2: of people that have people power behind them. That's my
Speaker 2: preferred way of being unbought. So this is my way
Speaker 2: of punting on that question and saying, I hope that
Speaker 2: they both keep leaving the put.
Speaker 1: We'll see I hear the punt, mister Green. Always a pleasure, sir.
Speaker 1: I hope you're well.
Speaker 2: You look you and thanks for inviting.
Speaker 1: Ask Chuck. All right, let's do a little ass Chuck. Hey.
Speaker 1: My first question is actually in response to the conversation
Speaker 1: I had with the meteorologists from Watch Duty, Pete Current,
Speaker 1: Jeff are Wrights. Hey, great info and guests. My input
Speaker 1: from living through the twenty eighteen Thomas fire in Ventura, California.
Speaker 1: If the wind is howling, there isn't much you can
Speaker 1: do but get the heck out of the way. Eighty
Speaker 1: mile pour winds then, but I've had anything over fifty
Speaker 1: is critical too. There was a block home of the
Speaker 1: flat roof, no attict and a metal framed dual pain windows,
Speaker 1: and all that survived was the blocks. Just devastating. Also,
Speaker 1: a friend that stayed to protect his home had a
Speaker 1: stroke a few days later. Yeah, I bet the local
Speaker 1: stroke center told him that there was a significant increase
Speaker 1: in cases afterwards. The bottom line is get ready and leave.
Speaker 1: Your life is worth more than protecting property. Jeff, I
Speaker 1: know that that's just great advice. Same thing is true
Speaker 1: with hurricanes. You know, everybody thinks, you know, what are
Speaker 1: you going to do against? In this case, thirty mile
Speaker 1: an hour wins. You're not going to do a thing.
Speaker 1: I remember during Hurricane Andrew, we were trying to prevent
Speaker 1: two French It was a French door set up at
Speaker 1: the house I was staying at, and we're literally three
Speaker 1: of us for about an hour because the doors were
Speaker 1: buckling and we leaned against it. But it was kind
Speaker 1: of ridiculous that we were putting ourselves. It's sort of like,
Speaker 1: if there's an evacuation order, follow the evacuation order because
Speaker 1: mother nature is undefeated. Matt from Upstate New York rights, Hey,
Speaker 1: love the podcast. Been following you since your time at
Speaker 1: Meet the Press. Keep up the great work. Well, thank you, sir.
Speaker 1: What do you make of the pete Hegseth firing more
Speaker 1: than a dozen generals. My first thought was that the
Speaker 1: administration was getting ready for larger military action against Iran,
Speaker 1: that this was a way to purge officials who were
Speaker 1: not in line with what the administration is planning. However,
Speaker 1: were with your recent opinion that Trump is just seeking
Speaker 1: a way out of this war with Iran for any
Speaker 1: type of offering possible. I'm not sure what to make
Speaker 1: of this purge. Keep up the good work. Look, this
Speaker 1: purge is just ideological, right. You know, at first, he's
Speaker 1: going after anybody that he thinks were somehow an affirmative
Speaker 1: action or some sort of minority driven. Right. He's gotten
Speaker 1: rid of women that were high ranking, He's purged African Americans,
Speaker 1: anybody that he in his own head has decided got
Speaker 1: it because of identity rather than merit. And even though
Speaker 1: apparently there's plenty of evidence that these people were worthy
Speaker 1: on the merit. But that's what this is. This is
Speaker 1: sort of an ideological purge. And then some of the
Speaker 1: stuff's personal, right, like the guy at the Navy secretary,
Speaker 1: and he certainly has been trying to get rid of
Speaker 1: the Army secretary. But that's almost more like political rivalries,
Speaker 1: if you will. But you know, it's no different than
Speaker 1: what Trump and Steven Miller were trying to do at
Speaker 1: the start of the second term with those which was,
Speaker 1: you know, they believe that the civilian staff, they believe
Speaker 1: that the nonpartisan a political staff, whether it's in the
Speaker 1: Interior Department or at the Pentagon, are somehow standing in
Speaker 1: the way of their ideology, right because these people do
Speaker 1: things like follow the Constitution. These two these folks, you know,
Speaker 1: actually try to keep politics out of their decision making.
Speaker 1: And so that's what this has been about. When you
Speaker 1: really start to look at the list, you'll notice there's
Speaker 1: quite a few women that he's purged from these ranks,
Speaker 1: quite a few minorities that he's purged from these ranks.
Speaker 1: Next question, he goes, great episode. Oh, this is a
Speaker 1: question on dynastic. I probably I'll put it on a dynastic. Okay,
Speaker 1: we speaking of dynastics, it's a good time for me
Speaker 1: to say that the latest episode is up. We do
Speaker 1: the Stealers. It is fantastic. I promise you. If you're
Speaker 1: a Steelers fan, I can't wait to hear from you
Speaker 1: because I want to know if we did you right
Speaker 1: on this. But here, let me get this question. He goes,
Speaker 1: great episode. Please pass along my thanks to Jaa as
Speaker 1: well partner Jay Adande. As someone who watched those seventy
Speaker 1: Steelers teams, I loved hearing Bill Nunn get his due,
Speaker 1: and I'd even argue the seventy sixteen might have been
Speaker 1: their best despite not winning an all quick note, the
Speaker 1: Dolphins would have been fifteen to No, not sixteen to
Speaker 1: no heading into that game. Also, I didn't realize the
Speaker 1: Steel Curtain was the first all black defensive front. Such
Speaker 1: a cool piece of history. Thanks for all the great
Speaker 1: content and really enjoying it. Well, I appreciate it. And
Speaker 1: that's that's what our goal is with Jay and I
Speaker 1: with these series. Is said, so I call it sports
Speaker 1: History podcast, but it's about it's not just sports history,
Speaker 1: it's our history, right, It's you know, especially both Jay
Speaker 1: and I are pretty close in age, and you know,
Speaker 1: the seventies and the eighties were our coming of age eras,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, we're these the seventies Steelers sort of
Speaker 1: had a different type of imprint on us. But that's
Speaker 1: how we want to deal with this, with all of
Speaker 1: these franchises is to you know, let them live and
Speaker 1: breathe and the eras that they were in and you
Speaker 1: know what the cultural moments at that time meant. And
Speaker 1: you know, the we're getting ready to dive in to
Speaker 1: tell you, I read the book I read for this
Speaker 1: one to prepare the one. I read the most thoroughly
Speaker 1: was Dan Rooney's memoir about his seventy five years in
Speaker 1: the NFL, and it was just amazing. And in fact,
Speaker 1: it was Dan Rooney's decision to open with his perspective
Speaker 1: on the immaculate Reception that made me think, that's how
Speaker 1: we've got to open the show. So, man, this makes
Speaker 1: me feel good. Thank you for that question. Dan from Arlington,
Speaker 1: Right hey, longtime listener, also a neighbor here in Arlington,
Speaker 1: Yes you are. I was intered in your take on
Speaker 1: Israel and the Democratic Party and it made me wonder
Speaker 1: how you see this evolving politically in a post Trump,
Speaker 1: Postnetanahu era. Do you think Democrats return to or more
Speaker 1: neutral or traditionally supportive stance on Israel or is this
Speaker 1: shift more permanent? And relatedly, does someone like Josh Shapiro
Speaker 1: have a viable path given where the party is today?
Speaker 1: So that's a great question. I'm going to take the
Speaker 1: second part first. There's a and I don't know if
Speaker 1: I'm seeing this with clear eyes, I will confess to that.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, we all have our biases that
Speaker 1: we're born with and all of that. Right, which is
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be hard for a Jewish
Speaker 1: Democrat to win the nomination. I hope I'm wrong about that,
Speaker 1: but I think it will be this cycle. I think
Speaker 1: there's always now. I think if you're going to I
Speaker 1: think Josh Shapiro is addressing it better than any of
Speaker 1: the other Jewish Democrats that are thinking about running for president.
Speaker 1: It's quite a few, by the way, including Ram Emmanuel, J. B. Pritzker,
Speaker 1: Josh Shapiro, maybe even John Ossa. But Shapiro sort of
Speaker 1: leaned in and I think, you know it, I do
Speaker 1: think it his candidacy if he runs, even if he
Speaker 1: doesn't win, and let's say we all decide that's the reason,
Speaker 1: right that that's you know, there were some people that
Speaker 1: never were going to vote for him. There if he
Speaker 1: uses his candidacy to remind Democrats that you can be
Speaker 1: a defender of Israel's right to exist and be a
Speaker 1: critic of their policies and that there is space for that,
Speaker 1: you know, I think right now. Unfortunately, you know, even
Speaker 1: a guy like now who's not creating space for that,
Speaker 1: but I think there is. You're asking, I, look, I
Speaker 1: think this is a generational shift, and you know it
Speaker 1: might be a generation before before this goes back to
Speaker 1: you know, when I first entered politics, the Democrats were
Speaker 1: more pro Israel. It was the Republicans had more anti
Speaker 1: Israel politicians in their coalition than pro Israel politicians.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Pap Buchannan was a loud voice on that, but he
Speaker 1: went alone. Bob Novak, one of the leading conservative journalists
Speaker 1: of the seventies and eighties, was was a loud voice
Speaker 1: against military support for Israel. And so it's I'm certainly skeptical,
Speaker 1: and in twenty eight you know, I certainly think it is.
Speaker 1: It is a higher hurdle for Joshua Barrow. I'm saying
Speaker 1: it should be a higher hero, of course, but I'm
Speaker 1: just saying I think it's a higher hurdle. But I
Speaker 1: actually appreciate how he's been trying to lean into it
Speaker 1: and sort of deal with it rather than sort of
Speaker 1: try to avoid it. Right. I think this is one
Speaker 1: of those riped the band aid off, and let's see
Speaker 1: if we can have the correct, nuanced conversation on this
Speaker 1: and get back to being supportive of democracies in the
Speaker 1: Middle East period, right and promoting I mean, to me,
Speaker 1: it was always I thought pretty easy to support Israel,
Speaker 1: was at the time, it's only real democracy in the
Speaker 1: Middle East, and the United States should always be on
Speaker 1: the side of democracies that exist and should be supportive.
Speaker 1: But you know, you could be critical of policy, and
Speaker 1: I think that that's something our politics isn't mature enough
Speaker 1: to handle at the moment. Vinc Berkeley, California. Right, Hey,
Speaker 1: long time listener here. I've lived in New or for
Speaker 1: most of my life and now I'm in Berkeley, California.
Speaker 1: I wanted to revisit a question I said earlier about
Speaker 1: statehood for Puerto Rico and DC. How do you see
Speaker 1: the political path forward for either becoming states and what
Speaker 1: would the implications be for national politics. Well, Vince, I'm
Speaker 1: a believer that the only way for either to get
Speaker 1: statehood is to go together. I think I think that
Speaker 1: there is Republican support for Puerto Rican statehood. Rick Scott
Speaker 1: supports Puerto Rican statehood. I think Marco Rubio supports Puerto
Speaker 1: Rican stated and Puerto Rico has a Republican elected governor.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty bipartisan island. It's a very two party
Speaker 1: competitive politics on the on the in the Commonwealth of
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico. By the way, as an aside you may
Speaker 1: have heard it in my interview with with the Teamah.
Speaker 1: But you know, if if if the right really wanted
Speaker 1: to put a wedge in the Democratic Party, not only
Speaker 1: do you propose giving Arlington back to d C, but
Speaker 1: then be and say, well, we'll give We're going to
Speaker 1: take Arlington back from Virginia, give it to d C
Speaker 1: and let d C be a state. Right. That's that
Speaker 1: would be if you really wanted to quote own the
Speaker 1: Libs on the right, you know that that would create
Speaker 1: a wedge issue how badly do you want statehood? Right?
Speaker 1: But in some ways that just shows you, right that
Speaker 1: the rights not very clever. Everything is every everything is
Speaker 1: a sledgehammer. You know, every problem is a nail and
Speaker 1: every solution is a sledgehammer. But that's you know, it
Speaker 1: sort of reveals, you know, because if you if you
Speaker 1: gave Arlington back to d C, then you really are
Speaker 1: disenfranchising a big chunk of voters. You better franchise, enfranchise
Speaker 1: them and so come out and support a statehood if
Speaker 1: that's what if that? And I am curious, I wonder
Speaker 1: if the price of statehood was Arlington, would Democrats still
Speaker 1: be in favor of it? I actually think they would.
Speaker 1: I mean again, I'm not trying to carve up Virginia,
Speaker 1: and I you know, I'm fine with with with my
Speaker 1: tax bill right now in Virginia versus what my tax
Speaker 1: bill would be in the district. I only tease a
Speaker 1: little bit there, But in all seriousness, I think d
Speaker 1: C statehood in Puerto Rican statehood, either they both happen
Speaker 1: together or neither happens, because right now DC is just
Speaker 1: seen as more likely to be two Democratic Senate seats.
Speaker 1: And if you can convince Republicans, and look, you know,
Speaker 1: we've got to enfranchise voters, and things are going to
Speaker 1: be competitive in Puerto Rico, and it will be a
Speaker 1: competitive state. You might win both. You might win one,
Speaker 1: you might win the euro right, but you certainly get
Speaker 1: you know, it won't. It won't be the dilution of
Speaker 1: advantages that you think. And I think those on the
Speaker 1: right that think Puerto Rico is just part of this
Speaker 1: grand plan by the left to quote unquote rig the Senate,
Speaker 1: well that's pretty insulting to Puerto Ricans, plenty of whom
Speaker 1: have voted Republican for decades. And I think it exposes
Speaker 1: an interesting form. You know, I think if that is
Speaker 1: your mindset, then you don't believe in a diverse Republican party.
Speaker 1: You believe in the in the a white, homogeneous Republican party,
Speaker 1: because again, Puerto Rico's, like I said, pretty competitive politically.
Speaker 1: All right. Next question comes from uh Trevor in Austin, Texas,
Speaker 1: and he writes, hey been a fan since the Tim
Speaker 1: Russer days and really appreciate your perspective. Always wondered why
Speaker 1: interviewers don't more often pres Lindsay Graham by replaying his
Speaker 1: January sixth remarks distancing himself from Trump and asking what
Speaker 1: change is that a matter of access, time constraints or
Speaker 1: something else? With his reelection coming up, do you expect
Speaker 1: him to shift his posture again? Well, part of it
Speaker 1: is how you know how long you know the expression
Speaker 1: beating a dead horse? Right? You know it's early on
Speaker 1: a lot of those questions were asked of them, and
Speaker 1: then you know it's sort of like when and you know,
Speaker 1: you get caught up in the news of the moment
Speaker 1: versus sort of you know, like to me, if I
Speaker 1: had Lindsay Graham for for forty five minutes, a darn right,
Speaker 1: I definitely asked that question. Frankly, if I'd had him
Speaker 1: for ten minutes, I would still want to ask that question.
Speaker 1: He somehow was afraid of coming on Meet the Press
Speaker 1: after January sixth. I wonder why that was. But he
Speaker 1: is somebody that has always been fearful of tough interviews,
Speaker 1: and because he you know, and he used to be
Speaker 1: a fairly easy guest book, right, and then as soon
Speaker 1: as as soon as sort of he made his decision.
Speaker 1: But again, you know, Lindsa Graam's got a lot of problems, right.
Speaker 1: You know, the Steele Dosia got spread around Washington thanks
Speaker 1: to Lindsey Graham. Right. He was one of the biggest
Speaker 1: proponents of the Steele Dosia. He was one of the
Speaker 1: bigger contributors around town of saying, hey, this is serious.
Speaker 1: People need to take this seriously. So look, he's always
Speaker 1: done this for political survival and I think he's a survivalist.
Speaker 1: And so what does that mean you're asking, is he
Speaker 1: going to shift his posture again whatever it takes to
Speaker 1: keep that sentency if he has to become a liberal Democrat,
Speaker 1: Lindsay Graham's will become a liberal Democrat. I think we
Speaker 1: kind of see, right, you know, Lindsey Graham was one
Speaker 1: type of Republican. And then Donald Trump came around, John
Speaker 1: McCain passed away, and he became a different type of Republican.
Speaker 1: So and part of that was simply his state shifted right.
Speaker 1: South Carolina Republicans were more maga than they were McCain,
Speaker 1: and they were pro Lindsey Graham. And ultimately, Lindsay is
Speaker 1: going to go where his voters go, And if his
Speaker 1: voters suddenly shifted hard left, Lindsay Graham would suddenly shift
Speaker 1: hard left. I think he wants his Senate seat that bad.
Speaker 1: To the last question for the weekend, This one also
Speaker 1: comes from the Texas Kelly Acts from Aubrey Texas Rights. Hey,
Speaker 1: why died to push back in your point that Democrats
Speaker 1: need to tone things down and focus on being more
Speaker 1: measured than Republicans. To me, that approach can come across
Speaker 1: as passive, especially when many voters respond to more direct
Speaker 1: and emotional messaging. Should Democrats be more willing to call
Speaker 1: out what they see as harmful rhetoric and actions more forcefully,
Speaker 1: even if that means matching some of that intensity, or
Speaker 1: does that risk doing more harm than good politically? Well, Look, Kelly,
Speaker 1: I think I've made my point clear on this. I
Speaker 1: think that and I look, I'm just going to look
Speaker 1: backwards over the last ten years. I think that Democrats
Speaker 1: have benefited by being the adult party, and I think
Speaker 1: anytime they're not behaving like the adult party, like the
Speaker 1: grown ups in the room, it may make the base
Speaker 1: feel better, like finally you're punching back. And I know
Speaker 1: that there's this mindset of what wrong and strong beats
Speaker 1: weak and right, and short term that might be true,
Speaker 1: but long term, being right is going to mean something.
Speaker 1: And I just think that this goes back to and
Speaker 1: maybe this is a good place to end, because I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about the Democratic autopsy that we're not
Speaker 1: seeing and Ken Martin and I have a few theories
Speaker 1: and they're just theories, and I want to throw them
Speaker 1: out there, but finish your question. Answering your question, I
Speaker 1: get it, and I think that there's there's sort of
Speaker 1: this fine line. I think that the Democrats need you
Speaker 1: need to be strong, but you can be strong in
Speaker 1: your rhetoric about like adults right versus deciding, oh, let's
Speaker 1: just start saying the f wort a lot more and
Speaker 1: that'll make us cool in the manisphere, right, Like I
Speaker 1: think it's learning the wrong lessons from Trump. You know,
Speaker 1: I think the right lessons to learn from Trump's success
Speaker 1: is show up everywhere in you know, whether I don't
Speaker 1: love this style of politics, but frankly, you know, be
Speaker 1: everywhere all the time. Now, I think you got to
Speaker 1: do it and in a tad more disciplined way. But
Speaker 1: you know, whatever you think of Trump, he is who
Speaker 1: he is, right, you know, this is the authentic version
Speaker 1: of whatever he is. I always say he's authentically and authentic.
Speaker 1: But it works, right, Nobody denies that that that Trump
Speaker 1: bars all these things. So, yes, be a bit more authentic,
Speaker 1: don't be so cookie cutter. But I think that there
Speaker 1: is a group of voters that gravitate towards the adult
Speaker 1: in the room, and if there's no adult in the room,
Speaker 1: they're gonna look elsewhere. I just think it it is,
Speaker 1: it is. I know right now politics feels binary, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't always have to be binary. If you're not
Speaker 1: if you're if you're not careful, I mean, just you know,
Speaker 1: maybe it gets you a hollow victory like Labor got
Speaker 1: in the UK, right, Labor, Keir Starmer got these massive majorities,
Speaker 1: but you know, all they were was a reactionary anti
Speaker 1: Tory party. They got their big majority and they had
Speaker 1: no idea what to do with it, and they're afraid
Speaker 1: of offending different aspects of the coalition, so they don't
Speaker 1: end up doing anything. So I again, I know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying is not popular in the more partisan corners,
Speaker 1: and I guess what I'm trying to speak from is
Speaker 1: from this. You know, look, I'm I I Others will
Speaker 1: call me a centrist or a moderate. I consider myself
Speaker 1: an incrementalist, meaning you know, I'm I'm You know, I
Speaker 1: do think it should If you're going to make change
Speaker 1: for three hundred fifty million people, you got to bring
Speaker 1: as many people along as you can, and so you
Speaker 1: take incremental steps in order to get there. I think
Speaker 1: that you know, these are the voters that decide these elections.
Speaker 1: They are not a large chunk of the primary electorates.
Speaker 1: And I know this isn't what wins a primary, but
Speaker 1: like I said, I think it. I think it's I
Speaker 1: think there's a chunk of voters, which brings me to
Speaker 1: and I'm going to close with this. Actually I've got
Speaker 1: one sports item I want to share, but I'm going
Speaker 1: to close. I want to close my sort of political
Speaker 1: side of things. So Ken Martin went on Pods of America.
Speaker 1: It was clear that they had a strategy of finally, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to let the Pod save America boys beat
Speaker 1: us up over not releasing the autopsy, but we're going
Speaker 1: to make it clear we're not releasing the so called
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four autopsy. And I've talked to people who
Speaker 1: were involved in being interviewed for the autopsy, and nobody's
Speaker 1: quite sure where it comes down. And I think the
Speaker 1: question is it clearly is going to have make some recommendations.
Speaker 1: And the question I have and I think I get
Speaker 1: what Ken Martin fears, it will start a fight, right
Speaker 1: whatever you release, And obviously the longer you wait, the
Speaker 1: more you impact. Right, this autopsy should have been released
Speaker 1: last Thanksgiving. Let everybody sort of get their anxiety out,
Speaker 1: you know, complain about it, beat up each other, all
Speaker 1: that stuff could have been done over the holidays. Turn
Speaker 1: the page, you focus on on the midterms, and you
Speaker 1: move forward. But I've been trying to think, what is
Speaker 1: it that the autopsy discovered. Is it going to be
Speaker 1: too critical of Biden and they don't want to do that.
Speaker 1: Is it going to be too critical of the old
Speaker 1: democratic establishment, is going to be too critical of progressives?
Speaker 1: Is it going to be like who is it that
Speaker 1: they're afraid of picking a fight with that? The autopsy
Speaker 1: is going to say, hey, you know, the big problem
Speaker 1: is this, right? It's you know, is it a branding issue?
Speaker 1: Is an ideo ideological issue? Is it too much identity politics?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: Do the groups have too much power? Right? Is it
Speaker 1: too many billionaire donors? What you know, there's there's a
Speaker 1: variety of constituency groups that any individual one of those
Speaker 1: groups might have been picked on in this autopsy, and
Speaker 1: maybe that's what they're afraid of. But it's certainly not
Speaker 1: giving you know, I think it's it's a and I
Speaker 1: think we know why. There's just no money going to
Speaker 1: the d n C. Right, Democrats are keeping up with
Speaker 1: Republicans on fundraising at every level except one the DNC,
Speaker 1: And I don't think showing this type of fear of
Speaker 1: being a party leader, which I think Ken Martin is
Speaker 1: showing here. It feels like beer of his coalition being
Speaker 1: upset about something that was said in that you know autopsy,
Speaker 1: perhaps is why he wants to keep it sealed. I
Speaker 1: don't know how it's helpful. I hope they at least
Speaker 1: share it with Democratic strategists, or they share it with candidates,
Speaker 1: or they share it with somebody, because what's the point
Speaker 1: of doing it if you're not going to try What's
Speaker 1: the point of trying to figure out how to learn
Speaker 1: lessons from a loss if you actually don't share the
Speaker 1: lessons that were learned from the loss. Right, But it's
Speaker 1: possible that this autopsy will help will help resolve the
Speaker 1: debate that Kelly X and I are having about whether
Speaker 1: Democrats ought to take the high road or not on
Speaker 1: things like this. I just want to make one comment
Speaker 1: and I want to just make a mass one comment
Speaker 1: about because I'm going to take an unpopular opinion here
Speaker 1: being happy that the NCAA back is expanding the men's
Speaker 1: and women's basketball tournament from sixty eight teams to seventy
Speaker 1: six teams. Look, I wanted to see it to ninety six.
Speaker 1: And I think I even outlined an idea of how
Speaker 1: easily it can be done. And yes, it means Tuesday
Speaker 1: and Wednesday become Thursday and Friday, you know, as packed
Speaker 1: of a schedule as you have on Thursdays. And yes,
Speaker 1: the more. Yes, we're gonna have more games on Tuesday
Speaker 1: and Wednesday. I don't think the two best days of
Speaker 1: the NCAA tournament are Thursday and Friday, those first round
Speaker 1: one games, right, the round of sixty four? Are you
Speaker 1: telling me I could have two more days that are
Speaker 1: filled with that many games. You're gonna give me two
Speaker 1: more days of sixteen games each? Count me in. That's
Speaker 1: a good thing. Isn't that what we want? Here? More schools, rightly,
Speaker 1: more money, more everything for everybody. Right, It's one of
Speaker 1: those again. It's like even the House of Representatives, right,
Speaker 1: you expand the table rather than fight over a minimum
Speaker 1: number of seats. But I want to make one more Look,
Speaker 1: and some of you may say, well, ninety six is
Speaker 1: too much, but I know the argument, well, seventy six
Speaker 1: is too much. But here's where you're actually wrong. And
Speaker 1: I'm just going to just do a math equoid for
Speaker 1: everybody arguing that somehow this tournament's being diluted by making
Speaker 1: it seventy six teams. In nineteen eighty five, when the
Speaker 1: NCAA expanded to sixty four teams, there were actually only
Speaker 1: two hundred and seventy six Division one basketball programs. So
Speaker 1: you had, which meant the round of sixty four meant
Speaker 1: twenty three percent of all Division I programs got into
Speaker 1: the tournament. Well, now there are three hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: one Division one men's basketball programs. Okay, there are more
Speaker 1: actual programs than there were an nineteen eighty five with
Speaker 1: sixty four. So this is just twelve more in the field.
Speaker 1: And so what is the number. Seventy six teams out
Speaker 1: of three hundred and sixty one means twenty one percent
Speaker 1: of all Division I programs will get into the field.
Speaker 1: It's actually a lower ratio of Division one programs making
Speaker 1: it into the into the NCAA Tournament than when they
Speaker 1: expanded it in nineteen eighty five, when it was sixty
Speaker 1: four teams out of two seventy six. I know math
Speaker 1: is a problem for many people and they don't want
Speaker 1: to hear it, but nobody seems to be aware that
Speaker 1: we keep expanding the size of Division one men's basketball
Speaker 1: and women's basketball. There are more Division I basketball. We
Speaker 1: have Grand Canyon. Now we didn't have Grand Canyon. We
Speaker 1: have Florida Golf Coast. We didn't have Florida Golf Coast. Right,
Speaker 1: you can keep going and going, basically almost one hundred
Speaker 1: more NCAA programs, So of course you had to expand.
Speaker 1: The point is not only do seventy six, not dilute,
Speaker 1: and you know the biggest beneficiaries are going to be
Speaker 1: the sort of the high mid majors, the A ten.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's why I'm happy fight GW revolutionaries have
Speaker 1: a better shot in than ever before. A ten probably
Speaker 1: becomes a four or five bid league. Now should should
Speaker 1: become a maybe a three or four consistently a three
Speaker 1: to four bid league, and maybe as many as five.
Speaker 1: This should be good for the AA whatever they call
Speaker 1: the American Conference. I guess we're only supposed to be
Speaker 1: called the American on that front, and possibly the Mountain West.
Speaker 1: But this I think the criticism is a bit misplaced,
Speaker 1: and we actually look at it by the numbers, we
Speaker 1: were overdue for expanding the NCAA tournament to where it is,
Speaker 1: and again next year with seventy sixteams, fewer per cap
Speaker 1: at A TEA teams will make the NCAA tournament then
Speaker 1: when it was expanded to sixty four in nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 1: It's been a math heavy episode of the check podcast.
Speaker 1: But hey, this is what you get when you sign
Speaker 1: up from my podcast. I'm always gonna throw some data
Speaker 1: at you, throw some by the numbers at you, because
Speaker 1: sometimes arguments are just that arguments. Data trumps it all.
Speaker 1: And with that, have a great weekend, enjoy the enjoy
Speaker 1: the NBA playoffs. I still am. I'd like to see
Speaker 1: a few more competitive games. It feels like we've had
Speaker 1: way too many blowouts. Hopefully that'll change. That'll change when
Speaker 1: we move from the first round to the second round.
Speaker 1: But enjoy that, enjoy weekend, and I'll see it Monday. Hey,