0:01

Today we're going to talk about the fallout from

0:03

the Supreme Court decision granting Trump his delay in

0:05

the immunity case, and I interview Potsy of America's

0:07

John Favreau about how our strategy should change given

0:09

the Supreme Court's decision, the warning signs for Trump

0:11

in the Republican primary contests, and what to look

0:13

out for as we await the State of the

0:16

Union address. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen and you're listening

0:18

to No Lie. You

0:22

know by now that our far-right Supreme Court

0:24

has just decided to grant Trump the delay

0:26

he so desperately wanted in the DC prosecution

0:29

by agreeing to review this insane notion that

0:31

a president has complete and total immunity to

0:33

commit crimes while in office, which at the

0:35

end of the day, even this Supreme Court

0:37

won't uphold. And so I want to

0:40

be clear about what the implications are for Trump and how

0:42

we should react to this. So first, the

0:44

implications for Trump are pretty simple. Because the Supreme

0:46

Court agreed to hear this case at the end

0:48

of April, Trump now gets a nice long delay

0:50

and virtual assurance that he won't be convicted for the

0:53

2024 election. End of

0:55

April hearing means we likely won't get a decision for at

0:57

least a month, which puts us into June. Assuming

1:00

the court rules that he doesn't have immunity,

1:02

then Judge Chutkin already assured him that he'll

1:04

get three months to prepare, so that's September,

1:06

then four to six weeks for a trial,

1:08

plus jury deliberations, plus sentencing, puts us after

1:10

the 2024 election. All

1:13

thanks to a court that is purportedly there to

1:15

defend the Constitution, not help a despot set it

1:18

on fire. And yet, here we are. So

1:20

Trump wanted a delay. He got the delay.

1:22

And I'm sure to Clarence Thomas and Samuel

1:24

Alito and these other right wing hacks on

1:26

the court, which brings me to the second

1:28

point. And this is the more important point

1:30

because this is what we can actually control.

1:33

So I know it's impossible not to see what's happening here

1:35

and to feel completely disillusioned. Like

1:37

this guy incites an insurrection in fucking

1:39

January of 2021. And

1:42

somehow it's March of 2024 and

1:44

he's still gallivanting around the country and not sitting

1:47

in a jail cell. Like this goes without saying,

1:49

but if a black dude on the corner did

1:51

one one thousandth of what Donald Trump did, we

1:53

all know where he would be. And

1:56

so I get the feeling of hopelessness that you

1:58

might feel like the feeling of exhaustion. and powerlessness

2:00

and futility. I get it. But

2:03

you throwing your hands in the air and giving up

2:05

is exactly what Donald Trump wants. He wants you to

2:07

feel like you have no power and

2:09

that your voice doesn't matter and that your participation

2:12

doesn't matter because he's already won. That's what he

2:14

wants. There would be nothing in the world that

2:16

he would benefit more from. And so

2:18

not only would he get the delay that he's

2:20

seeking, not only would he score that win, but

2:22

he'd also be rewarded by you checking out. It's

2:24

a double win for him. And so we can't

2:26

reward his corruption by also giving him a clear

2:29

runway to keep barreling forward. The answer

2:31

here, the only answer is to keep fighting

2:33

and in fact to let this inspire you

2:35

to fight harder. Because I promise you, this

2:37

will all seem tame compared to a Trump

2:39

presidency. And we'll all wish that we could have

2:41

done more when we actually had the chance, which is right now.

2:44

And keep in mind too, if you're feeling discouraged

2:46

by the Supreme Court thing, by the polling,

2:48

by just politics in general, all

2:51

that matters are the votes. And in election

2:53

after election, the Democrats are winning. That is

2:55

what matters. We've won out in every election

2:57

since 2018. And most

2:59

recently, we've won even in states like Kentucky and

3:02

Ohio and Virginia. So don't be swayed by a

3:04

media that wants nothing more than to ramp up

3:06

the drama to keep you hooked. And

3:08

look, would it be nice for the courts in this country

3:10

to like meet the moment? Absolutely. But

3:12

let's be clear, our strategy here was never,

3:14

never to just sit back and allow the

3:17

courts to take care of it for us.

3:19

Our strategy was always to do the work

3:21

and focus on our circles of people and make

3:23

sure that everyone is informed and engaged. And that

3:25

doesn't change at all because of the Supreme Court

3:27

decision. Again, it would be nice if

3:29

they did their job, but we still have to

3:31

do ours. So if you're upset, don't let it

3:34

stop you. Let it push you even more to

3:36

keep going. Next

3:39

up is my interview with Jon Favreau. I'm

3:42

joined now in his own studio by Jon

3:44

Favreau, President Obama's speech writer and the co-host

3:46

of Pots of America. Jon, thanks for taking

3:48

the time. Thanks for having me. We didn't

3:50

even have to go anywhere. Yeah, that's right.

3:52

Easy for you. So let's talk about the

3:54

Supreme Court because this is obviously a big

3:56

piece of news with the Supreme Court granting

3:58

Donald Trump the gift. of the delay that

4:00

he was seeking with this immunity case, pushing this thing

4:03

all the way back to arguments aren't going to begin

4:05

until April 22nd now. Does

4:07

that change our strategy? It

4:10

shouldn't change our strategy because while

4:13

I've seen the same polls everyone

4:15

else has, if you ask people, would

4:18

you vote for Donald Trump if he's convicted of a felony,

4:21

lose a bunch more Republicans, lose more

4:23

independents, as one would hope, not enough

4:25

Republicans and independents, but you do lose

4:27

a bunch of them. And in

4:29

a lot of those surveys, it goes from either

4:31

a Thai race or a small

4:34

Trump lead to a Biden victory. So

4:37

that sucks. But I think at the end of the

4:39

day, it's

4:41

going to take voters going

4:44

to the polls. And the

4:46

most important jury is going to be the American people. That

4:48

was always going to be the case. Because

4:50

even if the trial happened on

4:52

time, even if it happens before the

4:54

election, there's always a chance that

4:57

what people are telling pollsters doesn't actually happen,

4:59

and that Republicans now are telling pollsters, oh,

5:01

yeah, if he's convicted, I won't vote for

5:03

him. And then they just cut to. Yeah.

5:05

And they change their minds. Or there's also

5:07

a possibility that something goes wrong with the trial.

5:09

There's a possibility that he's acquitted. We don't know.

5:12

And then so we shouldn't ever have based

5:16

our strategy on the fact that Donald

5:18

Trump will be convicted before the election.

5:21

I do think it

5:23

sharpens the argument that Donald

5:25

Trump is not running for

5:28

president for the country to

5:30

help people. He is running for his

5:32

own selfish gain, which he

5:34

was before. But now it's more

5:36

magnified because Donald Trump is not running

5:38

for president. He is running from prison.

5:41

Yes. He is running from

5:43

the law. He is running just for his own

5:45

freedom. And if everyone knows that

5:47

the American people know that if

5:50

Donald Trump wins, puts him in the White House,

5:52

and he'll never be accountable for anything, Donald

5:55

Trump Lost means that he will at least face a jury

5:57

of his peers. And That's a good point because I know

5:59

a lot of people. Can see this and become like

6:01

disillusioned with the whole process and sit with what's the

6:03

point is always going to get away with it. But

6:05

the fact is that if Joe Biden does when than

6:07

these proceedings will move forward fine. The only the only

6:10

way to these prosecutions would actually be in jeopardy is

6:12

down from becomes president he can try to use his

6:14

own the O J to withdraw their own prosecutions of

6:16

him. Yeah so I think that that's that's a that's

6:18

a great point And also your point about the fact

6:20

that it was never on the courts to save us

6:23

was never on lawyers or lawmakers or stay parties or

6:25

anyone. This whole thing was always going to be about

6:27

us in the end and so I know. I know

6:29

it's say. We want

6:31

not to have to do all the work

6:33

that we're going to have to do. See

6:35

who's was to be like less let off

6:37

the hook. Somehow Korea is is not going

6:39

to have them. And for gaffe a grinder

6:42

know Joe Biden has been cautious about mentioning

6:44

these prosecutions because or Trump in Republicans are

6:46

already claiming that job and has something to

6:48

do with it which of course he doesn't

6:50

But but that's not gonna change the talking

6:52

points. So given that Trump was was indeed

6:54

had handed this gift by by the Supreme

6:56

court's i'm. Do you think that. Joe

6:58

Biden said, then lean in now that

7:01

he doesn't have to that he doesn't

7:03

have that benefit anymore. No matter what,

7:05

he still can't talk about a case

7:07

that has been tried by his own.

7:10

just ah, I'm I just think that's

7:12

A if it gets into pretty tricky

7:14

territory. ah, legally A institutionally, but I

7:17

don't think he needs to. Joe Biden

7:19

has talked a lot in speeches and

7:21

interviews about what down some did. And

7:24

January Six about the fact that Donald Trump

7:26

has, ah you know, mishandled classified information. He

7:28

talks about the stuff before so he could

7:30

continue to talk about why Donald Trump is

7:33

a threat to democracy. What remind people were

7:35

Donald Trump did when he left office. Remind

7:37

him that he mind people that he tried

7:39

to attempt a cougar at. All things that

7:41

are binder said before, you didn't keep saying

7:44

the things you don't meet actually. Talk about

7:46

the widow amigo. The little know that I

7:48

don't think it gets him anything else. I

7:50

don't know, I don't know. What?

7:52

would affect voters differently if joe biden sir

7:55

talking about our the supreme court did this

7:57

sense jojo you know down Trump should be

7:59

on trial. That's not much different than, hey,

8:01

remember Donald Trump tried to steal the last

8:04

election and then stay in power and sent

8:06

a violent mob to Congress? You

8:08

can say that? I think the crime that

8:10

led to these prosecutions is probably more front

8:12

of mind and more important for these voters

8:14

than the legal processes that determine what his

8:16

punishment is going to be. Absolutely.

8:19

And also, everyone's following

8:21

the legal process, right? Like they're getting coverage. And

8:23

Trump's talking about it. So like, I don't know

8:26

if Joe Biden needs to talk about it. So

8:29

I want to go over to a slightly

8:31

different issue, and that is the issue of

8:33

the Republican primary writ large. We're now through

8:35

four Republican primaries. Donald Trump failed to consolidate

8:37

full support in all of them. He got

8:39

51 percent, 54 percent, 60 and then 68.

8:44

So how much of a blinking red light is

8:46

this for him? Because like Joe Biden, he's running

8:48

as the incumbent and Joe Biden has the advantage

8:50

of getting 96 percent support or

8:53

in this most recent one,

8:56

81 percent support. So these are, you know,

8:58

this is an apples to apples comparison because

9:00

both guys are running as the respective party's

9:02

incumbents. But one of them is getting far

9:04

less numbers than the other. Yeah, we don't

9:06

know. And like you

9:08

said, because we are in an unprecedented

9:10

situation where two presidents are in

9:13

a rematch, which we haven't had, we,

9:17

you know, it's hard to sort of compare to the past.

9:19

But I can remember in

9:21

2008 when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had

9:25

a very long primary and it

9:27

was pretty clear in the late winter, early

9:30

spring, that Barack Obama had sewn up the

9:32

nomination. But Hillary Clinton stayed in the race

9:34

till June. And we got our asses

9:36

handed to us and a lot of those primaries. And

9:38

everyone kept saying, well, Barack Obama couldn't

9:40

consolidate the party and he's going to have

9:42

big problems in the general. And they would

9:44

interview Clinton voters and like half half of

9:46

Clinton voters said that they

9:48

wouldn't vote for Barack Obama in the general, which did

9:51

not happen. So that that's only to say that it's

9:53

not a guarantee that just because someone voted for Nikki

9:55

Haley in the primary, they won't vote for Donald Trump

9:57

in the general. But what I think Nikki Haley has.

10:00

done for the Democrats and for Joe Biden is

10:02

to like sort of leave a

10:05

trail of breadcrumbs of voters that Democrats can

10:07

target with persuasion efforts because now we're going

10:09

to know every voter that voted for Nikki

10:11

Haley in all of these swing states we're

10:14

not going to know where they live, demographics,

10:17

and Democrats are going to be able to make

10:19

their case to those voters and spend more resources

10:21

targeting those voters than we would otherwise if she

10:23

hadn't run. So and I do think for some

10:25

of those if you believe a lot of these

10:28

polls and a lot of these exit

10:30

polls a lot of these voters that are voted for Nikki

10:32

Haley are saying things like Donald Trump

10:34

is not fit for office, they

10:36

believe that they don't believe in the big lie, they

10:39

believe that Joe Biden won the election, some

10:41

of them are saying that if he's convicted they're not

10:43

going to vote for him, and a lot of them

10:45

are saying that yes they voted for Nikki Haley but

10:47

we will not vote for Donald Trump in the general

10:49

right. So that's a

10:51

non-insignificant portion

10:53

of Haley's voters have said this to

10:55

exit polls, it's had this in exit

10:57

polls, so you know I think it's a it's

11:00

a good thing for Democrats and but

11:02

you know we won't know until the fall but

11:04

I think that's where a big chunk of the

11:06

persuasion efforts should go. But also this isn't some

11:08

insignificant portion of her voters, this isn't like two

11:10

percent of Haley voters, this is like 40 percent

11:13

of her voters, there was as much as

11:15

82 percent of her voters in the

11:17

most recent race who said that if Donald Trump

11:20

was convicted of a crime he would be unfit

11:22

to be to be president, these are not small

11:24

numbers, even if even if Haley has you know

11:26

a quarter of the Republican electorate of true Republicans,

11:28

that is still like half of that quarter is

11:30

like not a small amount especially in a

11:32

race where Donald Trump's only goal right now

11:35

is to expand his coalition, is to expand

11:37

his tent, I mean he lost Wisconsin, Arizona,

11:39

Pennsylvania by small margins in 2020, his

11:42

job right now is to be reaching out to

11:44

independents and suburban moms and young people and people

11:46

of color and like if he's if he's got

11:48

massive defections from within his own base that

11:51

ain't it. Yeah one way to think about Michigan

11:53

is 100,000 protest

11:55

votes against Joe Biden in a state that

11:58

he won by 150,000. votes.

12:01

Donald Trump basically 300,000 protest

12:03

votes against Donald Trump in a state he'd lost by 150,000

12:06

votes. So he already needs 150,000 votes just to get even

12:08

in Michigan. And

12:13

now, in addition to the 150,000 he's down from 2020, another

12:15

300,000 voted for Haley instead

12:19

of him. So that's part

12:21

of the math. And how

12:23

much misplaced optimism do you

12:25

have with regard to Nikki

12:27

Haley endorsing Trump for endorsing Biden at the

12:29

end of this? I

12:32

think there's a 0% chance she endorses Joe Biden.

12:34

I think there is a I'm at like, I guess

12:36

the real question should be does she endorse Donald Trump

12:38

or does she endorse nobody? Right. So I think I'm

12:40

at like a 20, 30% chance she

12:44

endorses nobody. But I think it's

12:47

I think she ends up getting behind Trump. But

12:50

again, I would make the case to her that

12:52

like even for her own political future, that

12:55

like she should not endorse anyone.

12:57

Well, do you think that she's past the point

12:59

of no return? I mean, she's now she is

13:01

the only person standing in between Donald Trump launching

13:03

his like a full scale campaign against Joe Biden.

13:06

Definitely. And no return, which is why I was

13:08

in. What are you doing? What are you doing?

13:10

Right. Because if she so let's let's

13:12

go down the path. She endorses

13:14

Donald Trump and then

13:16

Donald Trump loses. Right. Then

13:18

she is not the future of the party because she endorsed Donald

13:21

Trump. She's part of it. Someone else is going to come along

13:23

and say, you know what, this whole Trump thing that's cost us.

13:25

Yeah. Now, say she

13:28

endorses Donald Trump. Donald Trump wins. He's

13:32

not going to forget. He holds the

13:34

grudge. Right. She's out. She's out no

13:36

matter what. So there's no benefit to

13:38

endorsing him. There's no future for Nikki

13:40

Haley in a Trump led Republican Party.

13:43

There's just not. So and I

13:45

think she knows that. So she knows that then

13:47

stepping back, right. She's getting a lot of shit

13:49

from the Trump people. She's going to be exiled

13:51

from the Republican Party. She's going to have no

13:53

future. But if Donald Trump loses and Joe Biden

13:56

wins and she didn't endorse Donald

13:58

Trump, then she can say, I think. I still

14:00

think she doesn't get a nomination because I think the party

14:02

is too Trumpy, the base of the party. But at least

14:04

she has an argument in 2028, which is I told you

14:06

so. I told all of you that this is gonna happen.

14:08

Yeah. I want to move over

14:10

to IVF, because this is a big issue. I

14:13

feel like this is the first moment where Republicans

14:15

seem to be on the defensive to such a

14:17

degree since Dobbs. Does that kind of portend how

14:19

potent of an issue this is gonna be for

14:22

Democrats moving forward? I think it should

14:24

be. Um, I think we

14:26

should. I mean, it, it, like, can you,

14:28

can you square this for me? Because, because

14:30

the Republicans are out there claiming that they want

14:32

to do anything they can to promote, like, building

14:35

families. This is, for a lot of people in

14:37

this country, the only way they can actually do

14:39

that. So this goes so far beyond, I mean,

14:41

it gives the game away in terms of the

14:43

fact that, like, it was not really just about

14:45

Roe. That was a big part of it for

14:47

them, but, I mean, now they're attacking every facet

14:49

of reproductive health. So I think there's a segment

14:51

of the right that just

14:53

doesn't believe in IVF, right? There

14:56

is another segment of the Republican Party

14:58

and Republican politicians,

15:01

uh, I'm talking about here because most, most Republican

15:03

voters are in favor of IVF. Yeah. Um, but

15:05

there's a bunch of Republican politicians who are like,

15:08

well, I am in favor of IVF, right? Because

15:10

it helps people get family, helps people grow their

15:12

families. But they've also

15:14

signed on to, like, fetal personhood

15:17

legislation. Which is the same basis.

15:19

Same basis. And so when you ask those same,

15:21

you're gonna, you're getting answers from Republican politicians that

15:23

are like, I support IVF. Well,

15:25

are you okay with embryos

15:27

being discarded? Right? Which happens all, which is the only

15:29

way you can do IVF, right? That happens all the

15:32

time. You say, oh no, I don't want an embryo

15:34

being discarded because an embryo is a... So you're not

15:36

okay with IVF? So you're not okay with IVF, right.

15:38

And they, and so it's either ignorant to science, it's

15:40

either just lying, whatever it is. I don't know, I'm

15:43

not gonna guess the motivation. But either way, I

15:45

think all that matters for Democrats is, Tammy

15:48

Duckworth had a bill. You

15:50

know what? You say you're for IVF, this bill

15:52

will protect IVF, right? On a federal level. So we don't

15:54

have to worry about what happens in Alabama. We don't have

15:56

to worry what happens in the next day. We don't have

15:58

to worry about what courts do. This bill

16:00

will protect IVF. They blocked the

16:03

bill. And in addition, a

16:05

whole bunch of Republicans in the House

16:07

signed on to a fetal personhood bill

16:09

that would also render

16:11

IVF, you know, that would

16:13

also prevent IVF nationally. So,

16:15

like, that's it. That's how they

16:18

voted. State

16:20

of the Union is this week. You obviously have a lot of

16:22

success with this. So first off, I want to talk about what

16:24

does success and what does failure look like for Joe Biden as

16:26

far as the State of the Union address goes. I

16:29

think success is that

16:31

he lays out an

16:34

agenda for a second term that

16:36

people walk away with, you

16:38

know, some general knowledge of that it

16:41

acts as a blueprint for his campaign

16:43

that he's about to run. And

16:46

so, and that he lays

16:48

out a contrast with the other side. And I say

16:50

the other side and not Trump because obviously it's not

16:52

a political, it's not a campaign speech. So it's not

16:54

going to mention Trump a bunch. But

16:57

we saw it in 2012 when Barack Obama

16:59

was running for re-election at the State of the Union.

17:01

We saw that as like, okay, this is our chance.

17:04

The biggest audience we're going to have all year. It's

17:07

probably, it's like slightly bigger even than your

17:09

convention speech audience. Not

17:11

as big as the debates, but who knows what

17:13

the debate is this time. We're probably not going

17:15

to have debates. So, could be Joe Biden's biggest

17:17

audience from now until November. And so you have

17:19

that many people tuning in. And

17:22

what you have to think about is, forget

17:24

about the Yahoo's in Congress. Like

17:26

you are talking to the American people and so

17:29

you have to make your case as

17:31

to why you should be president for another four years.

17:34

And why the opposition

17:36

is not the people that you want to be putting

17:39

back in power. Yeah. And that's it. Like if you

17:41

can do that, then that's a success. To

17:43

what degree is the inevitability of someone like

17:45

Marjorie Taylor Greene interrupting that, which has become

17:47

like a feature of these speeches. Is

17:50

that going to be part of the prep

17:52

for the address? Yeah, it's definitely part of

17:54

the prep. Because I think

17:56

ever since Joe Wilson screamed, you lied Barack Obama

17:58

during the day. joint session

18:00

for health care. They've all

18:03

been prepared for it. Obama has been prepared

18:05

for it. Biden has gone back and forth

18:07

with Republicans as recently as last year. So

18:09

and I honestly I think it's it's

18:12

almost always a good thing for him because it

18:14

definitely helps last year. If you're standing up and

18:16

this goes for whoever the president is. If you're

18:18

standing up shouting at someone giving a speech, no

18:21

one thinks that's cool. Yeah. Voters don't like that.

18:24

Maybe like political people on your side like that. Voters

18:26

don't like that. They don't want to be people being

18:28

interrupted. They think that's that's rude. What

18:30

is the worst memory you have from writing a State

18:33

of the Union speech? All of them. All the memories.

18:35

I can't even remember I can't

18:37

remember which speech was which memory but like it's

18:40

just it's a brutal process. I remember be

18:42

like you are up till three

18:45

in the morning, two weeks in

18:47

a row, seven days a week, just

18:49

constant edits from every department, every federal

18:52

agency. The edits just keep coming in

18:54

and then the president he's giving his

18:56

edits while policy people are doing their

18:58

edits and their fact-checking and the whole

19:01

time you were just trying to

19:03

cut cut cut cut cut because the speech just

19:05

gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and

19:07

all I wanted to do is just keeping under

19:09

an hour and have some kind of a message

19:12

and some good moments that people would

19:14

remember. Yeah. And just making

19:16

sure that happens is like the biggest struggle. What

19:19

was the most insane thing that somebody had requested

19:21

that you put into the State of the Union?

19:23

Because everybody gets their moment like this is where

19:25

everybody kind of converges on you and and wants

19:27

to have their few seconds. I would

19:29

ignore most people who try to get something in

19:31

because if like the president didn't want it then

19:33

I'm not gonna like put it in the speech.

19:36

I used to say in the White House the

19:38

president is not your PA system like some people

19:40

thought that like speeches that Barack Obama gave were

19:42

an opportunity for him to make an announcement that

19:44

could be made via press release but they just

19:46

wanted him to make it because it was a bigger megaphone so

19:48

like that's not what you do but there was a moment where

19:52

Bill Daley was the chief of staff and he

19:54

had been commerce secretary in the Clinton White House

19:57

and he was and we were talking about

19:59

government reorganization. Really. exciting part of the speech so love it

20:01

and I thought we'd make a joke in that section and

20:04

we found out from Bill Daley that the

20:07

Interior Department monitors salmon

20:10

when they're freshwater and the Commerce

20:12

Department monitor salmon when they're in

20:14

seawater and Obama said why

20:17

do we need this and by the way it

20:19

gets even more complicated once they're smoked not that

20:21

funny but anyway right before the

20:24

speech Gary Locke the Commerce Secretary called me up

20:26

and was like this is not true commerce is

20:28

supposed to have this kind of salmon and Interior

20:30

is supposed to be doing that and it's not

20:32

an example of things that need to be reorganized

20:34

it's find the way it is and this is gonna be a

20:37

big problem and then Bill Daley's like no you're right you can

20:39

keep it in the speech and they're arguing it's like a

20:41

half hour before the speech and we're arguing about fucking salmon

20:43

yeah and I put

20:45

it in the speech anyway and then they did like a polls

20:48

after the speech and they did like the

20:50

word cloud thing and like you know in

20:52

that word cloud you want the biggest word

20:54

to be like jobs economy middle class and

20:56

that speech with salmon that was a myth

20:58

let's finish

21:02

off with that with this so we're both in California

21:04

right now obviously we have the the California Senate race

21:06

coming up now according to the

21:08

latest the latest polling that we have I believe

21:11

it was the UC Berkeley poll it looks like

21:13

Schiff and Garvey are running away with it Schiff

21:15

obviously the Democrat Garvey is the Republican Katie Porter

21:17

and Barbara Lee seem to be boxing each other

21:19

out both both occupying the progressive

21:21

lane what are your thoughts on this because

21:24

the way that I view this is like

21:26

it would be more beneficial for Democrats to

21:28

have two Democrats that advance because the jungle

21:30

primary in California so the top two boaters

21:33

regardless of party will advance to have two

21:35

Democrats advance so that then

21:37

like moving forward you have you have like

21:39

two really popular Democratic candidates who pull it

21:41

like drive out voters across the across the

21:44

state and like have down ballot implications for

21:46

all of these house races and California is

21:48

not like we have a lot of races

21:50

that we lost by super close margins and

21:53

so having that in my opinion

21:55

would be a big boon like an unpaid boon

21:57

to draw out a lot of voters in the state is

22:00

otherwise like just this blue bastion where it

22:02

doesn't really matter that much. Absolutely. I just

22:04

I'll highlight the point about the down ballot

22:06

races. So we could

22:09

flip the House of Representatives just based on

22:11

the races in California alone, the competitive House

22:13

races in this. If you have

22:16

Adam Schiff and Steve Garvey in

22:19

running against each other in November, that's going to

22:22

bring out a lot of Republican voters. Those Republican

22:24

voters are going to turn out in a lot

22:26

of these competitive House races. If

22:28

you have Adam Schiff

22:30

and Katie Porter in November

22:33

running against each other, a lot

22:36

of those Republicans that were going to come out for Steve Garvey might

22:39

not come out. But a lot of Democrats will

22:41

come out, a ton of Democrats will come up because they'll

22:43

want to choose between who they like better and who they

22:45

like better. And so it is better for not

22:47

just like not just all down ballot races,

22:49

but especially the U.S. House races. And look,

22:51

so the reason that Garvey is has been

22:53

going up in the polls is Adam Schiff

22:55

has been running ads to boost

22:58

Steve Garvey's name ID so

23:00

that he could get Garvey

23:03

as an opponent and not Katie Porter because then he has

23:05

a better chance to win. And which I

23:07

get if like I get the strategy there and that's

23:09

like Adam. Adam Schiff can do that if he wants

23:12

to do that. Right. Like that's just it's just politics.

23:14

Yeah. But if I were someone

23:16

who liked both Adam

23:19

Schiff and Katie Porter, which I do a lot,

23:22

I would vote for Katie Porter just because he's

23:24

got this big lead. And I'd really I really

23:26

want to see Schiff and Porter in the final

23:28

race so that then once we get to November,

23:31

then everyone can make up their minds. They can have a

23:33

couple more months of Katie Porter and Adam Schiff talk going

23:35

back and forth. Everyone's like, yeah, well, that's wasting a lot

23:37

of money. You don't have to give a lot of money.

23:39

That's the thing. You don't have to give them any money.

23:41

Yeah. That was the biggest criticism because I'd spoken about this

23:43

a bit on like on Twitter, which was my first mistake

23:46

to engage with people on Twitter. Always. I have not learned

23:48

that. But that was the number one

23:51

criticism. It's like, look at all this money that's going to be

23:53

dumped into this race. We can choose not

23:55

to dump money into that race. Like we all have

23:57

agency here. Arizona,

24:01

Ohio, and so like put your money toward that

24:03

race. We're not like devoid of agency in all

24:05

of this. We can choose if we want to

24:08

donate to certain races and if we don't. And

24:10

so if we don't want to like dump money

24:12

into a California race between two Democrats, then just

24:14

don't. It's as easy as that. Yeah, no. My

24:16

view on this is we should want two Democrats

24:19

in the runoff and we

24:21

should also donate money elsewhere.

24:24

And you know what? It doesn't even have to

24:26

be out of California. Donate to a

24:28

house Democrat or donate to one of

24:31

these house races that is really competitive in California

24:33

so that we can help flip the house. Yeah,

24:35

but I mean the benefit of this, of having

24:37

two Democrats in the Senate runoff ultimately would be

24:39

like, it would be an in-kind contribution to every

24:41

Democrat across the state running in these house races.

24:45

John, where can we see and hear more from you? Well,

24:48

I'm always on PODSave America. We have our YouTube

24:50

channel. And

24:52

I'm also hosting offline. You can

24:54

do that. We got a

24:56

book coming out in late June, Democracy

24:58

or Else, How to Save America in 10

25:01

Easy Steps. You can pre-order now by

25:03

going to cricut.com/books. It's funny.

25:05

It's got illustrations. If

25:07

you're someone who's like, all

25:10

this politics stuff is crazy, but I want to get involved and

25:12

I'm scared. I don't know where to start. It's a good way

25:14

to start. Perfect. We'll put the link to that in the post

25:16

description of this video and the show notes of the podcast. Favs,

25:19

thanks so much for taking the time. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. This

25:21

was fun. Thanks again

25:23

to John. That's it for this episode. Talk to you

25:25

next week. Thank

25:52

you.