Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. As we keep our
Speaker 1: eyes on the prize, and by that I mean the
Speaker 1: price of gasoline four dollars and fifty five cents today nationally,
Speaker 1: the price on this twenty second of May. Yes, that
Speaker 1: means we're about to do the big driving holiday this weekend. Right,
Speaker 1: And as I read here, you know they do these
Speaker 1: these studies every time we get to the Memorial Day
Speaker 1: or fourth of July Thanksgiving. How many people are going
Speaker 1: to go out on the roads. I don't know where
Speaker 1: they come up with these numbers, but forty five million
Speaker 1: Americans were told and estimated forty five million will travel
Speaker 1: at least fifty miles over the holiday weekend, up from
Speaker 1: forty four point eight million in twenty twenty five, just
Speaker 1: under forty three million in twenty nineteen. Gas Buddy says,
Speaker 1: for the average American, they're going to be paying well
Speaker 1: over a dollar more than they were a year ago. Right,
Speaker 1: we're about four and a half dollars, as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: that's up from three dollars and fourteen cents last year.
Speaker 1: If you're keeping score and playing along on your home game,
Speaker 1: and knowing that Republicans are very busy trying to redraw
Speaker 1: maps across the country, and Democrats are try and like
Speaker 1: heck to keep up with them. There's a thought that
Speaker 1: you've heard on this program before that the fundamentals in
Speaker 1: this race will outweigh the technicals. Broadly speaking, in the midterms,
Speaker 1: the issue of affordability, energy prices, a war that is
Speaker 1: not popular with the American people, not to mention the
Speaker 1: attempt at reforming ICE, and all the rest will come
Speaker 1: together in a wave election that will leave the congressional
Speaker 1: maps irrelevant when it comes to the final score. We've
Speaker 1: got six months to figure that out. And I was
Speaker 1: delighted to hear today that Ram Emmanuel was going to
Speaker 1: join us. I don't know how we put the titles
Speaker 1: in correct order here. I will always think of him
Speaker 1: as President Obama's chief of staff, but you might think
Speaker 1: of him as the mayor of Chicago or maybe the
Speaker 1: ambassador to Japan. Either way, he's with us right now
Speaker 1: and the state of the Democratic Party, Rob e Manuel,
Speaker 1: I understand you can't turn your camera on. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Bloomberg. It's great to see you, and I'm wondering
Speaker 1: your thoughts on this now that we've got this autopsy
Speaker 1: in hand. Do you have the message that outweighs the maps.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So you asked two questions. One is, look, I've
Speaker 2: seen more throw reports autopsies from a local coroner's office
Speaker 2: than that. And you knew more about what happened in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four before that autopsy was issued. And everybody
Speaker 2: acts like this is complicated. But I want to be
Speaker 2: straightforward about this. Having worked on President Clinton, President Obamas
Speaker 2: both election re election and taking back the House and
Speaker 2: making Nancy Pelosi Speaker, which is we're minority party. You
Speaker 2: want to win, you got to find common cause with
Speaker 2: independent voters. Second, in the last three presidentials, seven states,
Speaker 2: five hundred thousand voters have decided who's president of the
Speaker 2: United States. They're all swing states. So you can't win
Speaker 2: based on Democratic votes. You gotta find common cause with independence. Three.
Speaker 2: That is true for Senate candidates, and it's true for
Speaker 2: House candidates. You're going to win or turn a red
Speaker 2: district to a blue district or a red state to
Speaker 2: a blue state senator. You're going to have to win
Speaker 2: in places Democrats aren't just talking to democrats. That's it.
Speaker 2: That's the combination of lock and they both buy candidate
Speaker 2: message and capacity find the common ground that builds a
Speaker 2: broad based majority coalition with independent voters and getting caught
Speaker 2: in what I call the cultural wars. Where we decided
Speaker 2: to have cultural wars into our schools, we lost and
Speaker 2: our kids paid the price for it. Don't worry about
Speaker 2: bathroom access. Start worrying about classroom excellists. You'll find out
Speaker 2: that's where parents are. Stop talking about defunding police and
Speaker 2: start talking about better policing. That's where the residents of
Speaker 2: all major cities and counties and communities are. Stop worrying
Speaker 2: and debating with your college faculty lounge on whether the
Speaker 2: term latinix applies nobody cares. Start talking about what matters
Speaker 2: to people that their kids get a college education. I
Speaker 2: have thirty thousand dollarsand dead are living now in the basement,
Speaker 2: and you're not having your best years and they're not
Speaker 2: having their best years. Your healthcare you spend. Your doctor
Speaker 2: says X and your insurance company says X minus. Come on,
Speaker 2: that's where the world is today. Have focus on it. It's
Speaker 2: not that hard.
Speaker 1: It's the unapologetic progressivism democratic socialism of Zoron Mamdani. Challenge
Speaker 1: that view, though, what happens if Democrats go full liberal
Speaker 1: or is liberalism dead?
Speaker 2: Joe? I mean, let me just say this. The same
Speaker 2: day that this autopsy came out, which again I wouldn't
Speaker 2: need to use for cat litter, and I don't have
Speaker 2: a cat. The New York Times have wrote had a
Speaker 2: poll of just Democratic primary voters. They told you what
Speaker 2: the Manhattan is, the two poles set of twenty five
Speaker 2: hundred primary Democrats, and what the third way? Fifteen hundred
Speaker 2: Democratic polls in one all three fifty percent of the
Speaker 2: voters in the primary self describe or want a more moderate,
Speaker 2: pragmatic nic which helps you get independent. Only twenty five percent,
Speaker 2: that is less than two to one, want us to
Speaker 2: go quote unquote left. They want us to be quiet
Speaker 2: and be more mainstream on immigration, on crime, on transissue,
Speaker 2: and what I call the cultural landscape where we made
Speaker 2: ourselves look like a caricature of a stereotype of ourselves.
Speaker 2: That so, when you say to me, and I always
Speaker 2: say this to everybody that covers the lad left, the
Speaker 2: fact is in politics, sound is not always fury. Do
Speaker 2: I believe that there's more sound in and around the
Speaker 2: cultural left and the quote unquote progressives, Yes, but look
Speaker 2: at what primary voters are telling you about themselves. Now,
Speaker 2: I will tell you historically, in the party, when we
Speaker 2: are out of power, you know what the number one
Speaker 2: geological check that people care about. It's not left or center,
Speaker 2: it's winning. Winning, that's our primary.
Speaker 1: I want to have this conversation with you in an
Speaker 1: opportunity where we can see each other and spend some time. Manual,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining. That's all right, We're going to
Speaker 1: figure it out because I'll come find you. We'll do
Speaker 1: what we have to do. I want to get to
Speaker 1: the bottom of this and spend some time with Ram
Speaker 1: and Manuel here are on balance and power. Thank you
Speaker 1: for chiming in.