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3:03

Welcome

3:25

to Pod Save America. I'm John Faber. I'm John

3:27

Lovett. Tommy Vitor. On today's show,

3:29

Democrats keep the Senate. pulled

3:31

off a red wave in the house and look forward

3:33

to a productive lame duck session.

3:37

The knives are out for Mitch McConnell. Donald and Kevin

3:39

McCarthy, while Donald Trump gets ready

3:42

to announce his third presidential campaign.

3:45

Then the people behind John Federman's campaign

3:47

join talk about how they did it. And later,

3:50

a new game that tests our knowledge about

3:52

just how crowded the Trump train is right

3:54

now. But first, We

3:56

are now offering crooked coffee holiday

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this. Everybody buy the boxes. Just buy

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the boxes. You know the insta famous

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so head to cricket dot com slash coffee

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Crooked and Duolingo just released a

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Listen today and subscribe to Radiolingo wherever

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you get your podcast, new episodes drop

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every Tuesday. Alright. Let's get to

5:41

the news. Democrats have retained

5:43

control of the Senate after Arizona

5:45

was called for Mark Kelly on Friday and Nevada

5:47

was called for Katherine Cortez Massto

5:49

on Saturday. Kelly's leading Blake

5:51

Masters fifty one to forty six percent,

5:54

not particularly close. and Cortez

5:56

Massto has squeaked ahead of Adam laxalt,

5:58

forty nine to forty eight percent, just about

6:00

seven thousand votes. Both states

6:02

are still counting ballots, but almost finished

6:04

Democrats now have fifty senate seats with a

6:06

chance to win fifty one if senator

6:09

Raphael Warmock defeats Herschel Walker in

6:11

Georgia's December sixth

6:12

runoff.

6:13

Guys, how big of a deal is this? How much of a

6:16

surprise is it? And do you have any more thoughts

6:18

on how it happened now that we've all had a few more

6:20

days to dig through data

6:22

and just swim through takes.

6:24

Can you imagine if Blake

6:26

Masters was one of the one hundred

6:28

people we send to Washington

6:30

to be in the U. S. Senate. One of

6:32

the many pieces of color from all of

6:34

the great reporting over the last couple days

6:36

about the midterms was how the

6:38

focus group for the fur one of the

6:40

first focus groups of Blake Masters done by

6:42

the Republicans -- Yep. -- was one of the

6:44

worst focus groups they've ever seen in their entire

6:46

life. And he was getting this sort of crude to take

6:48

treatment where people were recirculating

6:51

old videos that he himself had shot

6:53

edited and released that just showed how weird he

6:55

was. One of them was him in a

6:57

random field shooting a

6:59

German pistol with a silencer on it. It

7:01

looked like the ending scene in seven. is

7:03

very off putting. When you when you

7:05

call the Unibommer an underappreciated thinker

7:07

and say that you wanna privatize Social

7:09

Security, Not the best. It's a tough

7:11

one. Yeah. It's a tough tough -- Yeah. --

7:13

sending emails to his vegetable

7:16

coop telling why democracy isn't

7:18

so hot. guys wanna cook his whole

7:20

fucking life. Just spindly, spindly

7:22

and fashions. And also, Adam lacks all,

7:24

by the way, because, you know, we've spent a lot of time on

7:26

Blake Masters, and Oz and Hershel

7:28

Walker. And Adam Maxwell has just kinda gone

7:30

under the radar, but he's a terrible

7:32

candidate. Yeah. Also, like, embrace

7:34

the big lie, like, denier. Wasn't

7:37

as splashy. Wasn't as wasn't as splashy

7:39

in his embrace of election

7:41

journalism. But Dan was right there nonetheless. He used

7:43

the counterroy of Nevada. No.

7:45

John John Rawson, who's the the dean

7:47

of the Nevada press corps, talked

7:49

about how Black Hawk was a terrible candidate

7:52

as well. Just nobody saw him because they did

7:54

let him out of his little candidate cage. And out of

7:56

media. And Rawson took some shit

7:58

for being too polyanish about

8:00

Democrats by saying that he believed Masto

8:03

would hold on and that Democrats would

8:05

win two out of the three seats in

8:07

contention, and actually won all three

8:09

seats. All three seats. Yeah. He got was right about the

8:11

governor's race too. Steve said select the governor. The

8:13

Democratic governor of Nevada is the only

8:15

Democratic incumbent governor

8:18

in the country that that lost. You know, I

8:20

was I think, like, by constitution,

8:22

when I see everybody in

8:25

a state of despair. It's my instinct to be

8:27

like, alright, you're everybody chill out. Like,

8:29

there's here's some things that we should be considering

8:31

and not losing our heads. And I have the

8:33

same thing when I see Democrats for

8:35

Joicing, and I see all this

8:37

celebration thing. Hold on a second. Alright?

8:39

Like, we have we

8:41

we lose the house which means we lose the

8:43

ability to legislate in the same

8:45

way. The Senate map in twenty

8:47

twenty four is pretty tough. Like, let's all

8:49

not act as though all of our problems are You have a lot of

8:51

hard things ahead. But what I was thinking over the

8:53

weekend was, imagine the three

8:55

of us doing this pod

8:57

right now, but with election deniers

8:59

in charge of key election infrastructure

9:01

in Wisconsin, in Arizona,

9:03

in Nevada, in Pennsylvania, and

9:05

us trying to come up with some God for sake and reason.

9:07

They should people should still drop in

9:09

America. Spell a thought for us. No.

9:11

That's free of us. But like the fact that no. I don't mean

9:13

it because of us. I mean, there's I'll take

9:15

down this straw man over here. No. No.

9:17

Shut up, man. You shut up. Shut up. Shut

9:19

up. Shut up. I wasn't

9:21

saying thinking of us. I was thinking of all,

9:23

like, how how bad a situation it would be

9:25

in to try to make an argument for why

9:27

we're gonna still have this fight left in us. And

9:29

actually, we we stopped all these fucking people. Yeah.

9:31

It would've been harder. Here's the truth.

9:33

You know, in eighteen, expectations got

9:35

out of control. The blue wave was supposed to win

9:37

us the senate didn't happen in twenty. Joe Biden

9:39

was ahead by ten points in Wisconsin. It

9:42

was close. this one. It was the red

9:44

wave. It was close. The thing is we were a few

9:46

thousand votes in a couple of states away from that. Of

9:48

course. Of course. Of course, once again,

9:50

super close. We are once again we are in a

9:52

nice edge this country. Thank you. Harry

9:54

Reid. I know you can't hear me because

9:56

you're dead. That that was the joke that I was

9:58

making on Twitter that people didn't necessarily get. Oh,

9:59

now shadow boxes, and mention spam,

10:02

unbelievable. There's nothing more annoying on

10:04

social media than when you make a joke, and

10:06

people don't get it, and then they make fun

10:08

of you, and you're anyway. But Harry may

10:10

build up a machine in

10:12

Nevada that is so powerful

10:14

that exists years after his

10:16

death. It's really impressive. Yeah.

10:19

You know so if Warrnock and Lisa Murkowski

10:21

win because they have ranked choice

10:23

voting in Alaska, so we're still waiting on the

10:25

outcome there. it'll be the first time

10:27

in over a hundred years

10:29

that no incumbent senator

10:31

running for reelection lost. Isn't

10:33

that nuts? It is. And it does go to the larger,

10:36

like, you know, there's

10:38

an Joe Biden's doing some kind of a

10:41

victory lap I think around the dip room.

10:43

Right. He's in,

10:45

like, ball Oh, yeah. He's he's in We're

10:47

in Philly shirts and yeah. He's in Sanje.

10:49

Laazia. He's talking Sanje. She?

10:52

But you look at, like, the kind

10:54

of, the number of people that were

10:56

dissatisfied with Joe Biden's job performance

10:58

but still voting for the democrats.

11:00

And a lot of people went into

11:03

that booth or looked at

11:05

that piece of paper and were like, I'm

11:07

gonna really pissed off mood. but

11:09

I cannot support these people. I just

11:11

can't do it. I can't train myself to do

11:13

it. When I think back to the Wilderness

11:15

focus groups, it's they would

11:17

complain for an hour about Joe Biden

11:19

Democrats inflation, crime, all the stuff that

11:21

the media is talking about, that everyone's mad at the media

11:23

forever has talked about. And then at the end, it'd

11:25

be like, So are you gonna but would you vote for

11:27

Hersha Walker? Oh, no. He's crazy.

11:29

Yeah. And Sarah Longwell's just saying nothing you're

11:31

saying about Blake Masters. They think about Blake Masters. And

11:33

at the end of the day, these can the candidates that

11:35

the Republicans ran I

11:37

mean, people are talking a lot about how it was

11:39

democracy. It was democracy, but it was,

11:41

you know, in the sense that they would embrace the

11:43

big lie, that made them to extreme, that they would

11:45

wanna criminalize all abortions, that made

11:47

them extreme. Sometimes it was just

11:49

master saying things like the Unibomers are an

11:51

underappreciated thinker that makes them excited

11:53

to say, like, it was a whole bunch of things that

11:55

made them just completely unfit for public And

11:57

I do think there's a there was a kind

11:59

of this

11:59

vicious circle in

12:01

the rhetoric that they were using in their

12:03

own information bubble around not

12:05

just a portion, but around trans issues,

12:07

around gay issues, that just

12:09

didn't comport with people's reality, trying to

12:11

scare people about what was happening in

12:13

schools. didn't reflect the experience as people were having, and

12:15

that also weren't on the anywhere

12:17

near the list of the top issues on

12:20

people's minds. that that I think is, like,

12:22

whether someone's gonna vote for or, again, someone

12:24

based on on some of these issues we don't

12:26

know. But I do think there are some ways

12:28

in which someone will say something completely

12:30

unhinged and to signal to you. They're

12:32

like, oh, and this is a this person's throughout the

12:34

lunch. I think if if you look at

12:36

what Democratic candidates

12:38

who won tough competitive

12:40

races did. They basically did four things.

12:42

They went on offense

12:44

on abortion and republican extremism.

12:46

they drew contrasts with

12:49

their opponents on economic

12:51

populism. You know, they said they didn't have

12:53

a plan for inflation or their plan for inflation

12:55

is to cut taxes for rich people

12:57

and gut health care, and we've been

12:59

fighting for the middle class over the last year. This is

13:01

what we've accomplished. They dealt with

13:03

crime attacks by reiterating

13:05

their support for law enforcement and

13:07

gun control. And then they talked

13:09

about their bipartisan credentials while

13:11

pointing out that their Republican candidate was

13:13

extreme. Like, in in almost every single

13:15

Democrat that won did all of those things and

13:17

their ads and their speeches and how they made

13:20

news. What kind of impact will a Democratic

13:22

senate have? mean, if we can get fifty one

13:24

votes in the senate, then

13:26

we will have the majority on

13:28

committees -- Mhmm. -- which means you can vote

13:30

nominees out of committee and not have take everything to

13:32

the floor, which will speed up the whole process

13:34

of moving legislation. You

13:36

can imagine scenarios where,

13:38

I don't know, we'll see what happens in the house

13:40

pretty close. You could see a scenario where you have a weak

13:43

speaker. There are votes that are bipartisan.

13:45

You have Republican House members who want to work with

13:47

Democrats on greet issues. The fact that

13:49

Democrats control what happens on the senate

13:51

floor will be a very big deal in some of

13:53

if we're trying to figure out how to get a

13:55

budget or some kind of must pass thing in both

13:57

chambers. It means there will not be

13:59

impeachment

13:59

trials. The the house

14:00

can do whatever they want the Senate will not take up will

14:03

not hold the will will hold the trial.

14:05

Don't they have to hold the trial? I think they they I

14:07

think it will be that easy. Can they have to

14:09

hold the whole can't they They

14:11

can do it in a kind of prep. They have to

14:14

hold the trial, but it doesn't have to look like

14:16

the trial. Right. The trial that the trial that

14:18

Schumer would hold will look very different from McConnell. Yeah.

14:20

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. But but to Tommy's point,

14:22

there are eighty seven judicial

14:24

vacancies right now in the country.

14:26

There are fifty eight Biden nominees

14:28

awaiting a hearing or a vote.

14:30

So the judicial outcome is that's

14:32

the that's the biggest impact, especially if we end

14:34

up not winning the House here. Then there's a question

14:36

of, like, if there's a Supreme Court,

14:39

opening, we could fill

14:41

it. There's also been some question, you

14:43

know. Sunu Sotomayor is sixty

14:45

eight years old. she

14:47

would be seventy four in twenty

14:49

twenty eight if we lose either the

14:51

presidency or the senate in twenty twenty four. So

14:53

a war timer there. Saint Melito seventy two.

14:55

Clarence Thomas seventy four. So supreme

14:57

court thing could be in play over. Clarence Thomas

14:59

has been in our lives for a thousand years. I

15:01

know. Seventy four. And he's still only it's

15:03

only seventy four. It's still I will

15:05

say Look, Jenny Thomas doesn't do

15:07

anything halfway. You know, she was

15:09

in that cult now she's like gone

15:11

full queue. She's always

15:13

like one charismatic

15:16

scuba instructor out of four

15:18

seasons away. from putting Clarence Thomas'

15:20

life at great personal risk, like

15:22

she can be convinced to do skydiving,

15:24

spelunking, bungee jump thing.

15:26

Like, she is a persuadable voter on

15:28

a number of key issues.

15:30

So that's something to keep in mind.

15:32

Play this out. Are you are you saying that there's, like, extreme

15:34

sports or she's gonna leave him for the SCOOPUS.

15:36

No. I'm just I'm saying that, like, it's

15:38

AAA well placed a

15:40

a well placed person at a

15:42

white Lotus like resort for conservatives

15:45

suggest you know that tomorrow You

15:47

know that thing where they they people jump like

15:49

flying squirrels? Yes. Of course. I think that

15:51

she could be persuaded to do that and maybe bring

15:53

Clarence long. All I'm saying is Clarence may not be

15:55

there. No. Yeah. And if if

15:57

things go a certain way, Another point I'd like to

15:59

make about why fifty two points about why

16:01

fifty one is better than fifty. Again,

16:03

there's gonna be a very tough Senate map in twenty

16:05

twenty four. And also, they're

16:07

all a thousand years

16:09

old. And we never get to the

16:12

this a two year term in the housing

16:14

senate is like the

16:16

Oregon Trail. You don't end up with

16:18

everybody at the end. A lot of disinterest. Yeah.

16:20

People fall in the fucking wayside.

16:22

These are these are a thousand

16:24

years old. Patrick Lee Lee falls down

16:26

the stairs twice a week. Oh my

16:28

gosh. He's not gonna stick

16:30

around anyway. The I wanna go back to your point about the

16:32

twenty twenty four map. They're all the twenty

16:34

twenty form up is important. God makes

16:36

openings. There is

16:38

there is now almost zero chance the

16:40

Republicans can get a filibuster proof majority in

16:42

twenty twenty four, which you might be thinking, oh,

16:44

no. That was there was a chance. It was. There was a

16:46

We lost a couple of these. The magic was

16:48

brutal in twenty twenty four. So

16:50

We will be defending Democratic incumbents in

16:53

three Trump states, West

16:55

Virginia, Montana, and Ohio, and

16:57

then defending incumbents in purple

16:59

Biden states Arizona, Pennsylvania,

17:01

Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada. Our

17:03

best pick up opportunities, our best

17:05

possible flips in twenty twenty four

17:08

are Florida and Texas. And you'll be saying those

17:10

aren't very promising. Well, those are the only

17:13

possibilities. That's why we're gonna be all encouraging everybody

17:15

to go ondors for Kirsten

17:17

cinema. Listen. Phil,

17:19

we'll get you there. Fifty 180

17:21

Ruben Gallego. Maybe I hear you in the right room. Maybe she

17:23

can get her to be some

17:25

some some cabinet position. Yeah. Fifty one takes

17:27

it out of the takes the balance

17:29

of power out of the the Capricious cold

17:32

dust covered hands of Joe Mansion

17:35

and person said about What's the intention that it does right

17:37

now? I think I'd rather slightly more

17:39

liberal hands. They both well, the thing is it's like it's

17:41

it's a double edged sword. Right? because the two

17:43

of them, have stuck together

17:45

because neither one of them wanted to be the

17:47

one to So Right. Right. Any

17:49

kind of votes, but also, I think

17:51

I still think that there's a they can make they can

17:53

make fifty one look a lot like fifty or they can

17:55

they can decide they can split off on things.

17:57

Also, if if, you know, Joe Manchin is facing an

17:59

incredibly tough reelection in twenty twenty four

18:02

in West Virginia if he decides he's gonna, like, go be

18:04

an independent -- Yeah. -- or

18:06

your switch or something in fifty

18:08

one helps with that. And also,

18:10

I saw someone point out, Kamala Harris doesn't have to be in DC

18:12

anymore to cast high breaking votes so she can spend

18:14

more time in other places. That's

18:16

good. Campaigning your network.

18:21

Unbelievable. Also, Ira is, like, oh, all the

18:23

things will happen in the Senate if we have fifty one.

18:25

How about just, like, we have Raphael Warmock

18:27

instead of Hershel Walker? have like

18:29

a brilliant inspiring preacher instead

18:31

of a fucking stone cold

18:33

moron who like who like

18:35

put a gun to his ex wife's head. That's that's that's

18:37

a bonus right there. Yeah. It just seems wrong for

18:39

him to win. Ugh. How do

18:42

you think the fact that control of the senate has

18:44

already been decided should

18:46

impact warnoc's strategy in this

18:48

runoff that's that's happening on December

18:51

sixth? I doubt it does. I mean,

18:53

don't you assume that warnoc's people have

18:55

been running this race the whole time assuming they had

18:57

another month, and then they're just gonna kinda

18:59

execute on that. I mean, look, if I were them, I'd take some

19:01

cash. I would maybe buy a Mar a Lago membership and see

19:03

if I could talk come down to Georgia for a

19:05

few stops. I mean, that's an opportunity. Yeah.

19:07

I do think given that the stakes are

19:09

not control of the senate, it

19:12

makes it more about character

19:15

qualifications record. It makes it more about which man

19:17

do you want to represent you, and it makes

19:19

it a much, much harder word for their part. And I

19:21

think that's the strategy where the warlock

19:23

follows because his first ad

19:25

in for the Runoff was all about character.

19:27

And it said this whole thing is about character. Who do

19:29

you want? And I think it's easier to do that said

19:31

it stakes up. It's just harder for the Republicans to motivate people, I

19:33

think. I mean, I think you could get a lot of these voters

19:35

out again to say, own the lips, keep them

19:37

out of power, vote her

19:39

Schlacher. No one's turning out. You got a

19:42

commercial locker. In your car and

19:44

drive again to vote just

19:46

for this make a plan of it. I did

19:48

see that Kemp is now gonna campaign with

19:50

Walker, and he didn't before probably because he was worried

19:52

about his own election. And, like, the

19:54

Senate Leadership Fund, like,

19:56

they're gonna when they're dad and some money. So,

19:58

like, they're they're all getting behind. They're all

19:59

gonna try. But are their hearts

20:02

gonna be in Which is why everyone should which is

20:04

why we all need to sort of get involved and

20:06

and and send money down

20:08

there and help on whatever we can because

20:10

we don't want Hershey Walker in the Senate and Rafael

20:12

Warner to get one of the best senators we

20:14

have. So One more fun thing before we

20:16

move on to the house. The Republican

20:18

in fighting over losing the senate

20:20

has begun. Mitch

20:22

McConnell's flunkies are blaming Rick Scott's

20:24

flunkies, Rick Scott's flunkies are blaming Mitch

20:26

McConnell's flunkies, and at least five

20:28

Republican senators, including Scott, have

20:30

called for a delay in leadership elections.

20:33

What do you guys think is Mitch in trouble? Here's what I

20:35

wanna say. Who are we rooting for? Who are we for? Who are you

20:37

saying? versus predator. Whoever wins we

20:39

lose. The the the

20:41

I see the points that Rick Scott is making. They're

20:43

great points. I see what Rick McConnell

20:45

is saying about the Trump people.

20:48

they're making great points. Honestly, some of the

20:50

points Trump's making, not so bad. The

20:52

thing is they're all responsible, and

20:55

and they're all trying to make this about the decisions

20:58

they made in the last year. because that's a place where they

21:00

can find consensus and maybe places where

21:02

they can find some purchase to make an

21:04

argument for why it's not their fault that someone

21:06

else's fault. This is the culmination

21:08

of years of years

21:10

of getting exactly what they

21:12

fucking wanted. They wanted to

21:14

overturn dogs, and they got fucking killed for it. They

21:17

wanted all the enthusiasm and

21:19

excitement that came from the Trump base, and then they got

21:21

fucking punished for it. All of these

21:23

people got exactly what they wanted, which

21:25

is exactly what they deserve. and they it.

21:27

Blame each other, tear each other down. You're

21:29

all full of shit. That's how I feel about

21:31

that. I'm obviously rooting for Rick

21:33

Scott here. I am too. Oh, boy. He's because he's not

21:36

weak. It's Telehealthcare

21:38

thieves, telegenic. Brilliant

21:42

policy minds. just expert

21:44

recruiting. That guy is fuck We know

21:46

what each McConnell is capable of. He's an

21:48

obstructionist and he can raise a lot of

21:50

lobbyists money. I would love to see

21:52

Rick Scott. take the reins here. He's one of the

21:54

most personally unappealing, politically

21:57

toned death, personally damaged,

21:59

corrupt goons in that entire city. Yeah.

22:02

Go for it. Sure. Look, let's not

22:04

it's not like

22:04

Mitch McConnell is is is like

22:07

George Clooney. Right? Like, he's not gonna

22:09

be personable or, like, another Our grade

22:12

Straumann, gone down. I

22:14

said, I don't even want

22:16

it. Do you want it? It was a good

22:19

observation. any more Twitter mentions you wanna

22:21

argue with. I don't want anyone to tell

22:23

me whatever happened to when they go

22:25

low, we go, how This is your Republican in

22:27

fighting. We're not hard. That's part of it. All I'm saying

22:29

is, I think some look, minority leaders

22:31

often look like geniuses. It's

22:33

not it's easier to have struck when

22:35

you're in the minority in the

22:37

senate. He has benefited from a lot of decisions, a

22:39

lot of other people have made. I'm not saying Mitch

22:41

McConnell isn't a smarter and better politician than

22:43

Rick's got. but I'm, a done with the, like, Mitch

22:45

McConnell strategic genius. The

22:47

Washington Post has, like, a an extremely

22:49

long story that is very good

22:51

about everything that happened in the last year with Republicans

22:53

or two years, whatever it was. And there was

22:55

just one great moment where they're, like, at one

22:58

point, McConnell's people

23:01

blamed Scott and his people for

23:03

the plan to cut Medicare and Social

23:05

Security and every other government program after

23:07

five years and also raised taxes

23:09

on working people, but then

23:11

Scott blamed McConnell for

23:13

letting Lindsey Graham do the fifteen week abortion

23:15

ban. Mhmm. So I'm like, which goes to your

23:17

royal midpoint. There's just plenty of good points.

23:19

Plenty of dumb ideas to go around.

23:22

There are. I will yes. I will I will

23:24

pause and say, The Rick Scott,

23:26

sunset Medicare, Medicaid, raise taxes

23:28

on half of taxpayers' plan

23:30

is -- Excellent. -- one of the greatest unforced

23:33

errors in my entire

23:35

life of paying attention. There was absolutely

23:37

no need for it. drove three

23:39

hundred miles to step on a rig. It, like,

23:41

was completely unnecessary If

23:43

you look at the amount the Democrats

23:45

spent on ads, abortion, obviously,

23:48

number one, as we've talked about

23:50

before. But right after that,

23:52

ads about Medicare, ads about Social Security, ads about

23:55

it wasn't in the headlines, it wasn't being covered

23:57

by the media, but it was Democrats were

23:59

the

23:59

hitting that message Those are all the like, the clips of

24:02

Obama on the road that we're going around with all

24:04

those sorts of hits. Absolutely. And

24:06

and and also, like, Mitch

24:08

McConnell was in this mess because he and his

24:10

flunkies realized that Trump is the

24:12

problem, but they are all too weak to

24:14

take their carat. It's not completely dark. They it's

24:16

not just that their carat. It's they,

24:18

like, where is the enthusiasm

24:21

for other like, you can maybe point to around

24:23

DeSantis. They have not just they

24:25

didn't just concede the kind of party

24:27

to Trump. Like, they have been relying

24:29

on the enthusiasm and

24:31

excitement and, like, engagement that Trump

24:33

generates. They have really outsourced the

24:35

kind of grassroots part of politics to

24:37

Trump as a person, and

24:39

they're kind of shit out of luck. And and you know

24:41

what he does? That deal with the devil gets you.

24:43

Emails from Trump that are ostensibly

24:45

about raising money for the Walker

24:48

campaign where it actually

24:50

splits the thing nine to one --

24:52

Yeah. -- in favor of money to

24:54

Trump versus money for McConnell people have no

24:56

sympathy for them because they could

24:58

have voted to impeach Donald Trump

25:00

and and taken this table

25:02

to some extent. They were worried that he would leave the

25:04

party to his own third party sort

25:06

of new MEGA party thing, and they

25:08

were afraid of him. and that cowardice

25:10

and that weakness is what got us here.

25:12

Yeah. I'd also, you know, look, you can try

25:15

to burn down the capital and you can

25:17

insult and degrade every instant titution

25:19

and aspect of our political life. Don't

25:21

you lose a Don't lose a mid to

25:23

don't look. I mean, now you're costing a seat that's

25:25

a sin we can't abide. Now as much

25:28

as I would love Rick Scott

25:30

to to take over for Mitch

25:32

McConnell, I did look at the the

25:34

senate Republican caucus page and looked at

25:36

all those pictures, I could only count

25:38

about ten true

25:40

yahoos that

25:42

were back that might back over McConnell. Like,

25:44

there's too many sort of establishment

25:46

cuts there who are just McConnell.

25:49

There's just There's a

25:51

delay, caucus, which is like cruise,

25:53

Rubio, Holly, Rick Scott.

25:55

Wait. What the the argument is

25:57

let Hershel Walker what

25:59

they want, get elected, then we should have a

26:01

vote. I think that's also supported by right

26:03

wing organizations like the Heritage

26:05

Foundation that go up for growth but you're

26:07

right. It's still, like, eleven. But yeah.

26:09

It's still hard to get it's still hard

26:11

to get the number you need to to house

26:13

McConnell. Well, let's talk about the house. So democrats

26:15

path to keeping a two hundred and eighteen

26:17

seat majority is incredibly

26:19

narrow right now. Dave

26:21

Wasserman of the Cook political report says that have

26:23

won or will probably win

26:25

in two hundred and twenty districts

26:27

for Democrats. It's two thirteen.

26:30

and two seats are still toss

26:33

ups. Either way, this will be the smallest number

26:35

of house seats lost by the party in power in

26:37

twenty years. Even though the

26:39

overall House vote is so far,

26:41

eight points more Republican than

26:43

it was in twenty twenty, that number

26:45

could come down. a bit as as California gets counted

26:47

but probably not a ton. Any more

26:49

thoughts on why that is or how we got here

26:51

in the house? Not especially. You

26:55

can put a

26:58

better than that. I mean, to

27:01

give it a whirl. It's

27:03

I think some bad candidates

27:06

cost some notable ones that

27:08

John Gibbs in Michigan -- Mhmm. --

27:10

completely whack a doodle out there candidate.

27:12

Clearly, the concerns about Republican

27:14

extremism outweighed anger at Biden or the

27:16

economy. I think we

27:18

were greatly damaged in

27:20

our efforts to keep the house by

27:22

the Republican gerrymander in

27:24

Florida. I think the Republican's got four seats

27:26

out of Florida -- Yeah. -- didn't help

27:29

that we nominated a

27:31

completely warmed over uninspiring

27:34

gubernatorial nominee against Rhonda Santos, and

27:36

he just mopped up. You

27:38

contrast that with Ohio, right, where Tim Ryan

27:40

lost the J. D. Vance, but helped flip house

27:42

seats. We talked about New York last week

27:44

and how we Do you get you well there? Yeah.

27:46

I mean, look, you can put together a

27:48

Democratic majority by just undoing the

27:50

gerrymandering Florida, a couple of their southern

27:52

states. a better map in New York, better map in Wisconsin,

27:54

just the fact that Salt Lake

27:56

City is divided instead of being a district on

27:58

their place is all across the country you

27:59

can look and find. Yeah.

28:03

Find

28:03

the find the find the gerrymender

28:06

to to

28:06

lose. Cook

28:07

political says Democrats won a hundred percent

28:09

of solid d seats

28:12

likely d seats and lean d seats, a

28:14

hundred percent of all those. Sixty nine

28:16

percent of toss ups. Nice. And

28:18

a one leaner. That was the other very

28:20

extreme candidate, Joe Kent, in Washington. The

28:23

guy I was that guy's bonkers. Bunkers.

28:25

And that was another that was another topic

28:27

because Jamie Herrera Butler -- Mhmm.

28:29

-- was a Republican who voted

28:31

to impeach Trump, the party, ousted, because,

28:33

you know, you can't be impeaching Trump in

28:35

that party anymore. Joe can't want the nomination

28:37

they thought was still gonna be safe. They

28:40

lost. Yeah. There there are

28:42

there are a few plays I mean, one reason

28:44

you will see Democrats winning all

28:46

the places that lean Democrat is because if

28:48

they are places that lean Democrat, they were

28:50

not gerrymandered. And these

28:53

Republican gerrymanders are so

28:55

strong that it makes it possible if you

28:57

just like, basically, they got a little greedy here

28:59

and there. Mhmm. And there's a couple of seats we're picking off because

29:01

they got a little greedy in their driving matters. Yeah. And

29:03

then the other reason you had that gap between the

29:06

swing for the House vote and how many seats

29:08

Republicans picked up is there's real low

29:10

turnout in safe Democratic seats.

29:12

And then there were more contested Republican races.

29:14

I mean So so The

29:16

Wall Street Journal reported

29:19

that right wing representative Andy Biggs of Arizona will

29:21

challenge Kevin McCarthy for speaker.

29:23

There's a vote today where McCarthy only needs a

29:25

majority of House Republicans. which

29:28

he'll get. But Biggs wants to show that

29:30

McCarthy does not yet have the two hundred

29:32

and eighteen votes he'll need when the house convenes

29:34

in January. What do you guys think

29:36

is McCarthy in trouble? This is a hard

29:38

one. It's I don't know. It it's hard

29:40

to see how this thing shakes out.

29:42

There was reporting that McCarthy

29:44

called Henry Quayard to see if you get him

29:46

to flip. Yeah. It didn't work.

29:48

It didn't work. I've been saying, not our

29:50

Henry. But,

29:55

yeah, it's you got Matt Gates

29:57

running around proposing every

29:59

fucking numbs call. Can we can we listen we I

30:01

think we have the Matt Gates Club, which we have

30:03

to play. I've heard the name Tulsi

30:05

Gabbard, someone who might actually bring us a few

30:07

folks from the left who are tired

30:09

of the corrupt ruling class

30:11

in of this town. Right now, there are a

30:13

lot of the establishment Republicans in

30:15

denial believing that

30:17

Kevin McCarthy can somehow still become speaker. What

30:19

I'm here to tell you is there

30:21

are definitely at least five people, actually a lot

30:23

more than that, who would rather be

30:26

waterboarded by Liz Cheney.

30:28

then vote for Kevin McCarthy for speaker

30:30

of the house. And I'm one

30:32

of them. So one thing I just wanna point out is

30:34

that, like, who water boards you? Doesn't matter?

30:37

It's more the process. It's the experience. So it's a

30:39

weird thing because he's done. He makes comments like this

30:41

in the past, and it always ends up having a

30:43

kind of vaguely state domestic exceptional

30:46

elements. You think that I wanted to point You think that Cheney

30:48

could have some expertise that others don't

30:50

possess? Does that make it It's like like

30:52

We're similar. You're better or worse. the founding fathers

30:54

of Also, by the way, good for Liz Cheney. You know

30:57

what? Good for Liz Cheney. She she

30:59

stuck her neck out. She campaigned with Liz of Slot

31:01

good. Yeah. She you know what? prefer.

31:03

On this Telsie Gabbard thing,

31:05

I think I saw that Adam

31:07

Waxalt was the eighth loss out

31:09

of the twelve Republicans endorsed

31:12

by Tulsi Gabbard in her little

31:14

tour where she pretended that

31:16

she was suddenly leaving the Democratic

31:18

party for reasons other than her being

31:21

just completely weird person. I think if Carrie Lake

31:23

loses, Telsey will lose her ninth

31:25

endorsement. So let's not pretend that

31:27

anyone cares what she thinks or No. I

31:29

don't think so. So, like, if if

31:31

Republicans end up if House Republicans end up with two hundred

31:33

and nineteen or two hundred and twenty seats, they can

31:35

only spare one or two defections, Kevin

31:37

McCarthy. that's on the, like, he could be in trouble side.

31:39

On the other side, like, you can't beat

31:41

something with nothing. Any kind of

31:43

challenger would also need

31:45

two eighteen and only could spare a defection or

31:47

two. Apparently, Donald Trump is telling

31:49

people to back McCarthy. One Trump

31:52

adviser said to CNN, The

31:54

strategy is to protect McCarthy from blame because Trump needs

31:56

him for his presidential run. So so

31:59

Trump's trying to use McCarthy. And

32:01

then apparently, Taylor Green went

32:03

on. Tommy's favorite podcast. Yeah.

32:05

Fans wore them. And she said it would be

32:07

She's a bad strategy to challenge Kevin

32:10

McCarthy. I mean, Kevin has to get two hundred and eighteen

32:12

votes. The question becomes what

32:14

concessions you make along the way to get

32:16

there. The some of the House Freedom caucus members

32:18

are pushing for a rule change. that make

32:20

it possible for any member at any

32:22

time to call a vote to depose

32:24

-- Awesome. -- or to chair.

32:27

Indors. In practice, it just means,

32:29

you know, Kevin's gonna spend the next couple

32:31

months sucking up the dudes with

32:33

names like Chip Roy. You know what I

32:35

mean? But, like, he might get there. There's no one

32:37

on various and unsupported. Yes. There's no

32:39

alternative, but there

32:41

are what will these k these

32:43

right wing chaos agents be willing to

32:45

take in terms of heat from

32:47

the kind

32:48

of serious adjacent

32:51

people that are telling them to just go along with Kevin

32:54

McCarthy. Like, how long can this go? How much can they drag

32:56

out? How long can go without a

32:58

speaker before they kind of relent? I

33:00

don't know. I don't know. Also, I

33:02

I think this is a little bit wishful. I can also see this coming together

33:04

pretty quick. Yeah. But in my but in the

33:06

but in the part that wishes, the

33:08

same candle I'd lit before the election, let

33:10

it drag out. let it go

33:13

on. But I do think if it does come together for McCarthy,

33:15

he's still gonna have a just a

33:17

a really tough time -- Like, our job

33:19

to the impeachment conversation

33:21

I don't know that there will be an impeachment with

33:25

that size of caucus because you need

33:27

three You need everyone on board. You have a couple people on board.

33:29

And again, these people like, there's

33:31

a very real shot that Democrats retake the house

33:33

in twenty twenty four. We we

33:35

lost five seats in New York that

33:37

Joe Biden won by four points or more in twenty

33:39

twenty. So, like, there's a real chance Democrats will retake

33:41

the house in twenty twenty four. So, there's a bunch of

33:43

Republicans sitting in districts that are pretty

33:46

competitive. Like, you really think going

33:48

forward with the impeachment of Joe Biden is the best

33:50

move here? I don't I don't Right. They don't wanna and

33:52

if they would've if let's say they've gotten their thirty

33:54

or forty Nobody wants to be part of the ten to twenty

33:56

that defect for something that passes. Yeah. But to be

33:58

the ten to twenty that just stops something from happening

34:00

-- Yeah. -- feels much more palatable.

34:03

hard thing is that the hard

34:05

right base of the party, the kind of

34:07

TP USA, kinda Goobers, are all

34:09

going they're very mad at

34:11

McCarthy to begin with. and they were all

34:13

are going to be demanding blood. They wanna own the lips. That's all

34:15

they care about. Right? They want honeycomb investigations,

34:17

which could still happen in a Republican house and

34:19

they want impeachment.

34:22

yeah, they absolutely will happen. Fauci in jail. They want

34:24

Right. So, like, that how Kevin --

34:26

You get back to the Wuhan lab. Yeah.

34:29

-- how Kevin balances him

34:32

wanting the title of speaker with the

34:34

demands of the genuinely crazy

34:36

people like Paul Gossar within his

34:38

caucus is gonna be I don't know how you do that. Yeah.

34:40

Like, I mean, look, the same

34:42

dynamic. That's why it's like this, you know,

34:44

there was like a weekend of Trump's

34:46

toast. Okay. The the same

34:48

dynamic is at play, which is a

34:50

lot of

34:50

Republicans, whether they

34:51

said out loud or not, believe

34:53

that election denial was a losing issue. A lot of

34:55

them believed that abortion was

34:58

a losing issue. A lot of them believe these cooks were gonna cost them

35:00

them races and seats. They thought maybe the wave would be

35:02

big enough to overcome it, but now we've been

35:04

given this proof point. Okay. We've now seen it.

35:06

These are

35:08

losing issues. they still have to do the hard work of

35:10

that, like, base to leader to

35:12

base to leader and back and

35:14

forth conversation. where

35:16

a big group of people that are supposed

35:18

to be the adult starts signaling down that

35:20

we're not doing this anymore. But they're all

35:22

afraid to do that still. Kevin McCarthy cannot do

35:25

that now. So for all the

35:27

talk about how they've learned their lesson,

35:29

they can only that is only

35:31

true if over the next six months

35:33

to a year, they start the hard

35:35

work of like basically

35:38

like trying to civilize

35:40

the base that they've let go rabbit

35:42

over less thirty years, and I don't believe it's gonna happen. And I think you need a

35:44

party leader to do that. I think Donald

35:46

Trump could do that. He could tell the days

35:48

to chill out if he wanted to.

35:50

Rhonda Santos did do it to a small

35:52

extent in Florida. Right? Just gonna say When

35:54

when they were going they were for

35:56

him to pass six week abortion ban. He said no, in suck at fifteen weeks,

35:58

which was one of those moments where you're like,

36:00

this guy actually has some political instincts

36:04

that are smart that Trump does not. Yeah.

36:06

Before we get too excited that they're not gonna be able to pull this together, like

36:08

Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, Some

36:12

of these red states did not like, they

36:15

were able to deal with

36:17

the headwinds from

36:20

abortion bans extremism -- Mhmm. -- threats of democracy, which

36:22

weren't popular in their states and these

36:24

governors won anyway. So

36:28

but If Donald Trump's leading the party, that's gonna be tough. Yep. Yep.

36:30

Yep. So we still have a few months

36:32

before the new congress has seeded, and

36:34

there's a a long list

36:36

of things to get done

36:38

in what's known as a lame duck session of

36:40

Congress. Nancy Pelosi said she wants

36:42

to lift the dead ceiling. The senate announced

36:44

they'll be voting to codify same sex

36:46

marriage protections There's also the

36:48

electoral account reform act,

36:50

government funding debates. What do you guys think is

36:52

most realistic and important here in this

36:54

list? Because really there's not a lot

36:56

of time. the single most important thing that they

36:58

can do is raise,

37:00

ideally eliminate the debt ceiling. There's

37:02

nothing more important that they can do

37:05

in this period of time. Ideally, they could scrap it

37:07

forever. I don't know if that's possible. It seems like a

37:10

like, maybe too hard a road to

37:12

hell. But look at what is

37:14

happening in the house right now. It is

37:16

a dust cloud of

37:18

right wing arms and legs. They

37:20

don't know they don't know what they're

37:22

gonna do. to stop the country from going into default. You cannot

37:24

rely on this group of people. You know,

37:26

Schumer, Pelosi, they both said they wanna do something with the

37:28

dead ceiling

37:30

mansion today. kind of echoed what has been

37:32

a party line, which it should be bipartisan. I

37:34

need to done so that year down to weekend as well.

37:36

That's just what you say.

37:38

Obviously, like, whatever concessions

37:40

or deal you need to make with a few Republicans

37:42

in the senate right now is far better

37:44

than taking the country to the precipice with

37:46

a Republican house that has already said

37:48

They will use the debt ceiling to get concessions on social safety net

37:51

and taxes. They are telling you they're gonna

37:53

hold a gun to the country's head

37:56

already don't wait for them to do

37:58

it. Yeah. And on the because I saw people freaking out

38:00

over a mansion saying it should

38:02

be bipartisan. The reason the

38:04

Democrats for a long time and I think is back to the

38:06

Obama administration would say, oh, it should be

38:08

bipartisan is what they mean is one

38:10

party shouldn't use it to ring concessions,

38:12

to policy concessions out of the other

38:14

party. So it should be if management

38:16

changes to, oh, it must be bipartisan. I don't know if

38:18

somebody can do it, then we're all fucked. I know

38:20

it. Look, people like Romney and others

38:22

are looking and they don't want to get the

38:24

country through it either. This is where the business

38:26

interest will lobby against it as well. This is where the traditional

38:28

Republicans have a little slot. They're also gonna

38:30

have to pass some some must pass spending bills or else

38:32

we're gonna go in to a government shutdown in mid December, which by

38:34

the way, I don't I'm I'm wondering if they're just gonna they

38:36

they need to do a couple spending bills

38:39

you can do the debt sailing without a not

38:42

having to do a deal with the filibuster.

38:44

If you do a budget resolution,

38:46

that only needs fifty votes. So why don't you do a budget resolution that funds the government and everything else?

38:48

All those other priorities. And then just tack the document

38:50

on there and just do it all at once.

38:53

The debt ceiling is like if

38:56

you were trying to cut credit took a picture of

38:59

yourself in full Nazi Regalia, and you set

39:01

an auto send on your

39:04

email. to go to everyone in your context, if you ever hit your limit.

39:06

Okay. But it doesn't stop you

39:08

from spending money on the credit card. You just keep

39:10

raising your credit card limit. Yeah.

39:14

and you risk sending that picture. I think this has to delete the photo.

39:16

a Nexium documentary I'm watching. Yeah. Yeah. Just

39:18

don't this is that don't

39:21

do it. Alright. debt so the debt ceiling we can do

39:23

if we get management and send them onboard. Right?

39:25

That's good idea. Let's let's do that. That's

39:27

what it comes down to. I think

39:29

it sounds like from all

39:31

the reporting today that same sex marriage

39:34

protections will pass. The respect for marriage act.

39:36

Yeah. I'm very happy. Tammy

39:38

Baldwin was in that it wasn't a political message bill. It was actually protect

39:40

marriage equality. For me, it was a political message

39:42

bill. So pass it on a good fuck.

39:44

Pass the house with forty seven Republican

39:48

grants. I think I think the electoral account

39:50

reform act is in very good shape as

39:52

well. And we've talked about that before. I think

39:54

they have, like, thirty co sponsors,

39:56

including Mitch Connell.

39:58

It would clarify the vice president's role. It

40:00

would basically put the judiciary

40:02

in charge of state

40:04

certification or at least as a

40:06

backstop for state certifications so that people and state legislatures and

40:09

governors couldn't just overturn the election with

40:11

no judicial review, which

40:13

is very important. and then it would

40:15

raise the threshold in congress to objecting to any electoral results. Let's do that. I

40:17

do think it was a bit untoward to include as a

40:20

concession to some of the more conservative members of

40:22

the House that

40:24

we will hang Mike Pence to get it done in there.

40:26

He's maloney's on a book tour. Look, people don't read these

40:28

bills. They didn't know you couldn't vote on Saturday before the Georgia

40:30

run up. They don't know that this electoral

40:34

panic will kill Mike Pence. There's some talk. He'll be hung

40:36

to death. That's what it says,

40:38

until he is dead. There's

40:40

some talk of trying to get

40:42

child tax credit done. I what that Some version of

40:45

the permitting reform bill that was promised

40:47

to mention is associated with the IRA. I don't

40:49

know if that's gonna happen. Look,

40:52

These people barely work three days a week here, and we got two months. We are

40:54

we got debt sailing, we got same sex

40:56

marriage, we've got electoral account reform

40:58

act, and then all this other funding

41:01

for Ukraine, for the government, for everything else, that sounds like a

41:04

pretty full that's like a pretty full agenda. Yeah. I mean,

41:06

these are these people these people run out of steam at

41:08

four thirty. I mean,

41:10

it's so do I. They're

41:12

early risers too. They got e three

41:14

times a night. They're all of this, what

41:16

I'm saying. Last but not least, Donald

41:19

Trump. is expected to announce his third

41:21

presidential campaign from Mar a Lago at

41:23

nine PM eastern tonight, and a

41:26

growing number of

41:28

Republican politicians are not all that jazzed about it. Now that the

41:30

twice impeached two time popular

41:32

vote loser is responsible for the

41:34

party's poor performance in

41:36

the last three elections

41:38

in a row. A new YouGov

41:40

poll also shows that more Republicans now

41:43

want Ron DeSantis to be

41:45

the party's nominee over Trump

41:47

by a slim forty one to thirty nine

41:49

percent. I just saw another poll come through. It's from

41:51

the club for growth. It did state by state in

41:53

the early stage. and it's got DeSantis beating Trump

41:55

by eleven points in Iowa, fifteen

41:58

points in New Hampshire, twenty points in

41:59

Georgia, twenty six points in

42:02

Florida, no prices. I guess, not all

42:04

early states. I'm not sure what their calendar is, but

42:06

those Iowa New Hampshire numbers. They look,

42:08

it could be juiced. I have no idea if a club

42:10

for growth is a a good poster, but

42:12

not gonna make mister Trump very happy. No. Club for growth freaks.

42:14

I love it. Just I'm gonna

42:17

stop myself. I I wanna

42:19

hear what you're gonna do. got

42:21

masturbating to the Dow and then making up

42:23

the numbers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's where

42:25

I was. Workshopping a little bit, come back to the next spot. I

42:27

didn't have it. Are you guys pretty psyched for another

42:30

Trump campaign? I get my it is

42:32

funny. This is the last thing we talked to you about

42:34

today in a very long list. Donald Trump is

42:36

fucking running for

42:38

president again. We're gonna it's happening, guys. Yeah. Do you think he

42:40

is as weak as he seems right now? Love it. You seem

42:42

to think no from our earlier comps?

42:44

Absolutely. I just I

42:46

look. maybe he is. Maybe he

42:48

is. I'm not gonna make any predictions. All I would say is why our predictions are perfect

42:52

that, you

42:54

know, there was a week after the insurrection where it

42:56

seemed as though his political fortunes had turned.

42:58

I would say burning down the capital should

43:00

be a bigger deal breaker than

43:03

not getting as big of a majority in

43:05

the house, but we will

43:07

see. But to voters who knows, they

43:09

wanna win. If this was a

43:11

conversation just about, like, will the Republican

43:14

politicians break from him finally or

43:16

back him in the end? They'd be, like, yeah, of course, they're gonna rally around him

43:18

in the end. That's what they always do. but the voters The

43:20

base is a different story. Laura

43:23

Ingram on her show the other night was

43:25

like, we can't be doing this

43:27

anymore right now starting to lose -- I know to lose --

43:29

I just think, like, I really do think it's an

43:31

open question. We forget how much

43:34

institutional opposition

43:36

he faced before he started

43:38

winning primaries in twenty sixteen. He

43:40

never had a supportive majority of the party.

43:42

He won because they were divided amongst

43:44

the other

43:46

people decided to run. So who knows? We'll see. Little run

43:48

to sanctimonious. Let's see if it works. I I think

43:50

the challenge for all these guys I

43:52

agree that I think that Much

43:55

like Democrats in twenty twenty, Republican voters

43:57

this time around will be care most

43:59

about electability -- Mhmm. -- and not losing again.

44:01

And so that would be the Achilles heel. I think

44:03

the challenge for DeSantis and anybody else is

44:06

that Trump politically is

44:08

Mike Tyson and he punches everyone as

44:10

hard as he can all the time, and these guys

44:12

come out, and they shadow box him, and they slap

44:14

box him, and they go for these sort of

44:17

a bleak criticisms in, you know,

44:19

the Washington Times on background like

44:21

it's not gonna work. Trump has been

44:23

able to consolidate the right

44:25

wing, the maga base, the Fox

44:27

News prime time host. time and time

44:29

and Brake or Sean Hannity Brake,

44:32

then I will start to wonder. But it yeah.

44:34

But not the, like, you

44:36

know, elitist London

44:38

based owner of the New York Post that,

44:40

like, Semaphor is all fired up about.

44:42

Like, that to me is not like where the base

44:44

is. so far

44:46

So far, just about every Republican

44:48

candidate who has lost a race in

44:50

this midterm has conceded. or

44:53

at least has not claimed

44:56

victory. I think that is wonderful for

44:58

democracy first of all. But second

45:00

of all, it hurts Trump, and

45:02

it hurts it hurts Trump's cause. Because

45:04

one of the reasons

45:06

he embraced the big lie in the first place

45:08

is because he knew the worst thing that could happen

45:10

to him was for him to be viewed as a loser. And

45:12

now, Republican voters are once again

45:14

thinking, we've now lost

45:16

again. We've lost

45:18

a bunch. from twenty twelve to twenty twenty except for twenty

45:20

sixteen and not a great midterm in

45:22

twenty fourteen. Democrats have

45:24

won every

45:26

election. And so I think at

45:28

some point, at some point,

45:30

the voters might say,

45:33

I wonder because if I'm just making the argument No. I I don't know.

45:35

None of us knows, obviously. But but I look at this too,

45:37

and they're like, I wanna I'm a I'm a

45:40

Republican. I

45:42

wanna win And

45:43

I got my two options here. I Donald Trump who

45:45

won in twenty

45:46

sixteen, and I kinda think probably

45:49

one in twenty twenty. I

45:51

mean, I've got Ron DeSantis, who I like a lot, but who

45:53

I know if he defeats Donald Trump in

45:56

a primary, will be torn to

45:58

absolute fucking smithereens by

46:00

this guy. and will come out like a wounded Trump.

46:02

oh. Like, I I just Trump,

46:04

it is inconceivable to me, like, that

46:06

Donald Trump

46:08

goes lightly into the night. Or you could see alternative. Because even

46:10

if, like, whatever like, if a Republican

46:13

defeats a Democrat, in twenty twenty

46:16

four, Donald Trump will view that as a

46:18

personal rebuke to him. It cannot

46:20

be allowed to happen. Yeah. Yeah.

46:22

He'll burn the whole thing good for it. Run as a third

46:24

party candidate. He will never do that because he's too late. He won't actually

46:26

get on the ballot. It'll just be like a chaos

46:28

agent -- Yeah. -- on truth

46:30

social. Yeah. which, you know,

46:32

isn't isn't gone to work for anything.

46:34

Alright. When we come back, Rebecca Katz

46:36

and Kip Hebert from the Federman campaign

46:38

joined Tommy to talk about

46:40

how they pulled off a big win against

46:42

doctor Oz.

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51:50

I am thrilled

51:52

to be joined now

51:54

by two of the brilliant minds

51:56

that help propel John Federer

51:59

in to victory, Rebecca Katz, and

52:01

Kip Hebert. Thank you both for being

52:03

here. Thanks. Good to be here. Thanks, families. So when

52:05

we just started the basics, why don't

52:07

we can you guys just like quickly tell folks what you did for the campaign

52:09

once you start Rebecca?

52:12

Sure. So we've been with John

52:15

now for about years. So

52:18

we basically had been working with

52:20

him on communications and

52:22

just, like, general strategy that

52:24

Hold on.

52:25

That's excellent. I should note

52:26

for just for history that Rebecca and I

52:29

worked together on the John Edwards a

52:32

very long time ago. In two thousand and four

52:34

campaign, which that was

52:36

I called the good one, the good AdWords campaign

52:38

because I remember that that as well.

52:40

We'll let go there. Okay. So we're gonna get to the

52:42

big picture stuff in a minute about how you guys

52:44

won and all the strategy. But first question,

52:46

it just has to be about Snokey

52:50

because In case listeners don't know what I'm talking about, the campaign

52:52

released the funniest video

52:54

I've seen from a campaign maybe

52:58

ever It starred the Jersey Shore Star

53:00

snooki. Do we call them stars, I guess,

53:02

we do. Talking about doctor Oz leaving

53:04

his home in New Jersey to go find a new

53:08

job in Pennsylvania, like genuinely hilarious.

53:10

I read that you guys first tried to

53:12

get a video from the situation.

53:15

another Jersey short cast member, but that

53:17

he didn't deliver. What happened there? What happened

53:19

with with Mike? I mean, where where did

53:21

it begin? So first of all, you have

53:23

to know that New Jersey

53:24

wasn't just about, like, shit posting. It was actually

53:26

the number one thing that was popping off

53:28

on odds with regular voters that,

53:31

you know, people from Pennsylvania especially

53:34

Philly, don't like New

53:36

Jersey. And so we

53:38

were we were having some fun with this New

53:40

Jersey theme. John was doing

53:42

the memes. And so we had a a bunch of ideas about, you know,

53:44

people from New Jersey and then

53:46

tactics. So it's just, you know, I remember

53:48

calling up, Kevin, we were

53:50

talking about Jersey Shore

53:52

and Cameo. And then and

53:54

then we tried the situation. And then, Kip, why

53:56

do you talk about what happened? We got

53:58

it back. Yeah. I

53:59

mean, to his

53:59

credit, he turned it around in a couple of

54:02

days. He took some liberty

54:04

to get much else to do,

54:06

man. Yeah. So I believe it's, like,

54:08

in mid June, we we first had this

54:10

idea. I wrote up, like, a a

54:12

script, sort of sent that

54:14

to the situation. He sends back something a

54:16

couple days later that was I guess you could say off

54:18

message. Uh-huh. Still better

54:20

like our, you know, our our white whale was

54:22

was was snooky whale was that's one we

54:24

always wanted. and we submitted

54:26

it and she there's this thing

54:28

on CAMBIA where if you don't if the

54:30

celebrity doesn't do it within seventy seven days,

54:32

they refund

54:34

your money. and then you have to submit it again. And we submitted it

54:36

four times. Yeah. And then

54:38

finally, in I think we'd given up a

54:40

hope that

54:42

it would actually ever really happen. And then in mid July, we were in the middle of,

54:44

like, a staff meeting. And I got an email from Cameo

54:46

that said it she'd done it, and we just stopped

54:47

everything, several

54:50

times in a row. We were screaming. I mean, it was it was

54:52

the

54:52

most perfect piece of

54:54

of video presentation I've ever seen

54:56

in my life. It was just she she

54:59

nailed it. It was broken. And then and then

55:01

it exploded. It really felt like there was,

55:04

like, a time on the campaign before snooki

55:06

and then

55:07

after snooki. Yeah.

55:08

I I agree. I mean, did you enjoy more than Cruttante? Yeah.

55:10

Not that ranch. I mean, did

55:12

the Cruttante was him, but snooki was us.

55:14

You know what I mean? Like, we had

55:17

crude well, I

55:17

think you guys actually discovered a lot of the

55:19

the crude to tape video. That was, you

55:22

know, missed by some folks, but because

55:24

he recorded it, like, back in

55:25

April or something. but Snowy was just something

55:27

that we had been having

55:28

so much fun with New Jersey. Like,

55:30

do you remember that he recorded

55:33

a message for Pennsylvania voters from

55:35

his mansion in New Jersey like that. I

55:37

know that

55:38

because you guys told everybody

55:40

and you waved at that. Gabriela on

55:41

our team found that out.

55:44

And, you know, he was he was looking at the video. He's like

55:46

and he's sending the group

55:48

chat. I I think

55:48

this is a new I

55:49

think this is a New Jersey house, and we

55:52

all stopped everything that we were doing. We

55:54

spent the whole day trying to

55:56

figure out if it really was the same house.

55:58

And I think, Kip, you were the one

55:59

that found the book

56:02

case. Right? Yeah. There's

56:02

there's no way to talk about this

56:04

without sounding completely crazy, but I found

56:07

I love it. Eight books in a row that

56:09

were the same color and in both of the two photos. I

56:11

was like, okay, this is definitely it. But we were analyzing it, like, was the the super

56:13

duvet foam or something. So God. I love it.

56:15

But I mean, like, so the snooki video gets

56:17

at a broader point

56:20

about campaign that John ran, which is that the tone of the messaging.

56:22

You guys seemed like you were having fun

56:24

or having fun talking about it right now.

56:27

the attacks on doctor Oz, they were tough, but they didn't

56:29

read it read as harsh or

56:31

mean especially especially when compared to

56:33

what the monsters who work for doctor

56:35

Oz eventually ended up saying about John's health.

56:38

How did you, like, settle on

56:40

that approach in that

56:42

tone? Is it a strategy that's

56:44

uniquely suited to running against someone who is a let's

56:46

face it a clown, or is it like something

56:48

fraud? Always the clown. I mean, that's I

56:50

mean,

56:50

we I feel like we made him a

56:52

clown. mean, when he was running in the

56:54

primary, they didn't view him as a clown. They were running

56:56

xenophobic and hateful negative

56:58

ads. Right? Like, we

57:01

John is from

57:03

Pennsylvania. Like, he he gets it. Right? So he knew we had

57:05

real research to back up that people

57:07

did not, like, you know, the fact

57:09

that Oz just moved here try

57:11

and win senate race. And and John

57:14

wanted to have fun with it. Remember, these are the early days

57:16

that he was recovering from his stroke. We

57:18

were we were having internal meetings, but he

57:20

wasn't out on trail yet. And

57:22

he just I remember he just started sending

57:24

us memes, and they were

57:26

really funny. You know? And so

57:28

he really started it wasn't that, like,

57:30

when they go low, we go, you

57:32

know, we go high. Like, we didn't go high. Sure. We

57:34

just tried to have some fun, you know.

57:36

And, like, like and it worked, and it

57:38

it it comes from the candidate,

57:40

really. Usually, the campaign

57:41

that's having more fun is the campaign

57:43

that's winning. Right? Yes, John is a

57:45

unique person in Oz is also very unique. But I do think

57:47

that there's something that here that more Democrat

57:49

should take advantage of because

57:51

using humor allows you to deliver

57:53

a negative message so that just doesn't feel

57:55

negative. Right? And it especially when you're doing it in

57:57

a bunch of different ways, like, you know, we

57:59

found that

58:01

I mean, exit polls show that,

58:03

like, fifty six percent of Pennsylvania voters said

58:05

that doctor Oz didn't know Pennsylvania well enough.

58:07

And this wasn't something that had been a message focus

58:09

of our sense summer. So the

58:11

good thing that really did stick

58:13

in or sink in. And, you know,

58:14

in attack ad, you

58:15

can respond with,

58:18

like, okay, we'll hear the facts, but, like, a good joke. Like, mockery

58:20

is hard to respond to I

58:22

mean, the only way is rent is by being

58:25

funnier. And if I might

58:27

overgeneralized

58:27

Republicans are not funny. Like,

58:29

I think

58:30

that this is the thing that Democrats need to do more

58:32

because professional Republicans at least they've

58:35

like as you alluded to with the, you know, making a bunch of drama stroke, they

58:37

view cruelty and humor as the

58:39

same thing. And and

58:42

they just instinctively punched down, which is something that just, you

58:44

know, as human beings is not funny. So

58:46

I think this is an area where Democrats

58:48

have an advantage and produce more.

58:51

I not agree

58:52

more. I mean, so, like, against just

58:54

stepping back a little, like, I can't imagine anything more

58:56

challenging on a campaign than losing

58:58

your greatest asset, which is

59:01

your candidate affordability to campaign for several months during

59:03

the during the race. That's obviously

59:05

what happened when when John had the

59:07

stroke. How did you guys even

59:09

begin to think out how to deal with

59:12

that knowing, you know, that you're not gonna be

59:14

able to move election

59:16

day. I

59:17

mean, it was hard. I'm not I'm not

59:19

gonna pretend it was easy. I mean, it was there was like

59:21

shell shock coming. Like, really, we

59:23

drove right from

59:26

the hospital. to the election night party on primary day. Like, it was and

59:28

then we won every county in

59:30

Pennsylvania. Like, it was happening

59:32

quickly, and then there was

59:35

And then we went right into focus groups. Honestly,

59:37

we had we were running on two

59:39

tracks. And, I mean, the research showed

59:42

exactly what John had been saying all

59:44

along that you know, like that people care

59:46

about real human issues.

59:48

You know, and he was just he was real.

59:50

And so we decided

59:54

to share the recovery a little bit, and it it wasn't easy for

59:56

him. You know, when you have something like a

59:58

stroke, you wanna go away for a few

59:59

months and and recover

1:00:02

in private. And there

1:00:04

was such a a drumbeat

1:00:05

of, like, when is he coming out there?

1:00:07

And it was just it was

1:00:09

it wasn't That part

1:00:12

wasn't fun, but we decided

1:00:14

to to go out before he was

1:00:16

perfect and to show people a little

1:00:18

bit about like

1:00:20

that humanity. And I think a lot of reporters

1:00:22

just thought, like, looked at him and just said, like,

1:00:24

he's not he can't do

1:00:26

this. And a lot of folks

1:00:28

actually, like,

1:00:30

this resonated with them. It was like a family member. Howard Bauchner:

1:00:32

Yeah. I mean, like, the biggest

1:00:34

obvious instance of this was the debate.

1:00:37

I mean, when we had John on Pod Save America --

1:00:39

Mhmm. -- I didn't do that interview when I listened

1:00:41

back. You know, there were times where I wince a

1:00:43

little bit, you know, I watched the

1:00:45

debate online. I found it hard to watch in moments

1:00:47

in part because, like, I felt for him as a

1:00:49

human being. But also because, look, I'm a hack. I

1:00:52

worried about how it would play politically.

1:00:54

Now, I have, like, made a fool of myself do

1:00:56

that anymore. Right? So I shut the fuck up.

1:00:58

But a lot of reporters in pundits predicted

1:01:01

doom and gloom What do you

1:01:03

think they got wrong? Is it

1:01:06

I mean, I think when

1:01:07

I when this debate, people came

1:01:09

out of it believing that John had had a stroke and that

1:01:12

Oz was like

1:01:14

a snake oil salesman who was gonna take

1:01:16

away their abortion. Right? They're right to an abortion.

1:01:20

Right? And people already knew that John had a

1:01:22

stroke. So it wasn't like they were learning something

1:01:24

he knew, but they also knew he was getting

1:01:26

better. And and

1:01:28

he was he

1:01:30

was brave. He was reading through captions. He was doing something that no one

1:01:32

had really done before and mistakes were very

1:01:35

high. As he And his kid likes to

1:01:38

he

1:01:38

was, like, lying on television

1:01:40

for twenty years. It it it

1:01:42

was a place where he felt comfortable. and

1:01:44

he didn't do that

1:01:45

good a job. And then he was a little too honest in terms of talking about

1:01:47

local political leaders taking away

1:01:50

abortion rights.

1:01:52

And people people looked, I mean, that was the

1:01:54

takeaway. I mean, we turned the

1:01:57

women on on the the

1:01:59

team, the second that

1:02:02

I was said that about local political leaders,

1:02:04

all of us kind of yelled at the same

1:02:06

time, and we turned that into

1:02:08

an ad. And we we,

1:02:10

you know, when people in Pennsylvania think of

1:02:12

local political leaders, they think of people like Doug

1:02:14

Mastriano. They don't want him, you know,

1:02:16

in charge of

1:02:18

their rights. AND SO IT WAS A REAL BLUNDER AND MOST

1:02:20

REPROTERS MISSED IT. I ME

1:02:22

KEPI SAID REVEXXO

1:02:22

SAY THE COVERES THE NEXT DAY

1:02:24

WAS BASEL LIKE CANADA SPAR candidates

1:02:27

trade barbs. Right? Like, typical stuff.

1:02:29

What, like, were the DC pundits

1:02:32

not reading the local coverage? Or is that a

1:02:34

ready fire aim approach? Like, how do you think it

1:02:36

got so I don't know, twist it

1:02:38

on on social media, mostly. I think there's a tendency

1:02:39

for reporters and political insiders because we are the

1:02:42

ones who care about sound

1:02:44

bites like like, nobody's harder

1:02:46

on our, you know, on candidates than than

1:02:48

ourselves to think that this is how

1:02:50

voters think, but pretty

1:02:52

much everything that we know suggest that that's, you know, just another

1:02:54

sort of deep sea obsession. Like, I think it

1:02:56

also John was also able to

1:02:58

survive it in part because he had never been a

1:03:00

candidate who

1:03:02

try to come up as as the slickest or most polished.

1:03:04

Like John was real. Like, the first

1:03:06

and foremost, that was his biggest asset,

1:03:08

and that really continued through the stroke.

1:03:11

group, you know, showing him flaws and

1:03:14

all. You know, people sometimes say that

1:03:16

John is an effective

1:03:18

politician because he's like a regular I don't know regular

1:03:20

person. Like, if you just look at him, doesn't

1:03:22

look like that. But he's a real person,

1:03:24

you know. Right. You're getting the

1:03:26

real the real thing it's, you know,

1:03:29

unfiltered. It's not scripted. It's not polished. And I think because John has always

1:03:31

been that way, because we ran the

1:03:33

whole campaign that way. we

1:03:35

were able to show people what

1:03:38

the what was really happening here, and I think

1:03:40

to their credit, I think the voters

1:03:42

Pennsylvania were a lot more sympathetic to John than some of quarters covering

1:03:44

him. Yeah. Yeah. Certainly. And now,

1:03:46

frankly, I I also thought that

1:03:49

Oz came off as like, really,

1:03:51

like, slick and fast talking and aggressive

1:03:53

and it didn't play that well to

1:03:55

me. It wasn't His whole

1:03:57

campaign was me. I mean, that's -- Yeah.

1:03:59

-- thing, like, you can pretend to be

1:03:59

mister NICE guy when you say the things that your that

1:04:02

campaign has said. And I think it caught up with

1:04:04

it. saying that

1:04:06

if John had eaten a vegetable, he maybe wouldn't

1:04:08

have had a stroke, because one of the most insanely

1:04:10

tone deaf, like, disgraceful things I've

1:04:12

ever seen a flax it. I'm surprised that person wasn't

1:04:15

fired. that's the whole point. He didn't fire her. Right? Like,

1:04:17

she still had

1:04:18

the job. And and if if anyone on

1:04:20

our staff had said something like that, like, there

1:04:22

would be zero tolerance for that kind of

1:04:25

And and then what Oz did, which

1:04:27

was so Oz like, is then he just

1:04:29

said, well, she doesn't speak for me. She

1:04:31

only speaks for, like, I mean, it was just he

1:04:33

just he he couldn't no

1:04:36

matter even as a stroke survivor, John was

1:04:38

much stronger.

1:04:40

than us ever was. And and voters saw that. Yeah.

1:04:42

There was this huge

1:04:42

debate at the end of the campaign in all

1:04:44

the races about whether Democrats should be

1:04:46

talking about abortion access, democracy, and

1:04:50

inflation, the economy. Like, some Twitter geniuses wanted to focus

1:04:52

on Paul Pelosi for a cycle. What

1:04:54

did you guys hear at the end from voters?

1:04:56

And what worked when it came to

1:04:58

persuading and turning them out? I mean, so the

1:05:01

voters who were

1:05:01

still, like, the ones that we

1:05:03

were persuading were those independent suburban

1:05:06

women. And

1:05:08

then for turn out, we were still making know,

1:05:10

like, everyone in Philadelphia got out to vote and

1:05:12

things like that. And I think,

1:05:14

first of all, we had Oprah.

1:05:17

which was the most beautiful gift I think we could

1:05:19

have ever asked for. And she said

1:05:21

this very devastating quote

1:05:24

about us where she's,

1:05:26

you know, She said if if if she lived in

1:05:28

Pennsylvania, she would have already voted for John

1:05:30

Federman, and she said for quote

1:05:32

unquote, many

1:05:34

reasons. I thought that was the most devastating thing I've ever heard because it's just like,

1:05:36

you don't know what they are, but you know it's bad.

1:05:38

And she just kinda dropped that

1:05:42

news on on a Thursday at night, and then we

1:05:44

had the view the next day where we

1:05:46

were talking to the same

1:05:48

women. And then we had Obama

1:05:50

come in on that

1:05:52

Saturday. And it just felt we just felt like

1:05:54

we had momentum. Like, it just

1:05:56

felt really,

1:05:56

really great on

1:05:58

ground the ground. I mean,

1:05:59

Kim, you

1:05:59

you guys did those events with Obama at the end

1:06:02

of the campaign. They looked big. They felt

1:06:04

exciting. Right? I was sitting here in LA on

1:06:06

Twitter, like, I'll inspire it all over again because I'm a,

1:06:08

you know, has been.

1:06:10

But did those rallies translate into votes

1:06:12

in a way you guys felt you could quantify?

1:06:14

I mean,

1:06:15

it certainly it

1:06:17

translated into great coverage. well to all end.

1:06:19

Also, you know, Donald Trump gave us a basically in time contribution

1:06:21

by coming to Pennsylvania on the same day. So

1:06:23

really, like, it couldn't have been

1:06:26

a better way to close out the campaign by showing the contrast between, you know,

1:06:28

somebody who's like, he was trying to present himself

1:06:30

as moderate, but was standing with Trump literally

1:06:32

standing with Trump

1:06:34

in masteriano. whereas John, you know, he might be have an unconventional

1:06:36

style, but he's, you

1:06:38

know, a relatively mainstream Democrat. Obviously,

1:06:40

you know, he's I'd say he's a good Democrat, but

1:06:42

he's not they

1:06:44

were trying to portray him as extreme and scary. And, like, there's nothing extreme. And,

1:06:46

like, Biden's ratings might not have been great,

1:06:48

but there's nothing extreme or scary about

1:06:52

your Biden. No. No. There is not. I mean,

1:06:53

the flip side is you guys got a barrage of attacks. A lot of

1:06:55

them were on crime from doctor

1:06:57

Oz, from Supramax, were

1:07:00

there ones that really stuck or worried you? And if so, how

1:07:02

did you rebut those? I mean, it was a hundred million

1:07:04

dollars in attack ads. Like, let's just

1:07:06

talk about, like, from the middle of August

1:07:09

to the end of September. We were out there

1:07:11

basically by ourselves like the the in

1:07:13

the the we didn't get

1:07:16

real back up until October

1:07:18

with the outside group. So so for

1:07:20

six weeks, they were just beating the

1:07:22

shit out of us all

1:07:24

day long, and then Fox News all night long,

1:07:26

which is going after Sean

1:07:28

Hannity, Tucker Carlson, the

1:07:30

words. So it was just it was like

1:07:32

nonstop attacks, and they were going

1:07:34

after his character. because they didn't

1:07:36

they knew that Oz' ratings were

1:07:38

so low that they couldn't they couldn't

1:07:40

bring him up so they wanted to tear John down.

1:07:43

So they spent just, like, going after

1:07:45

everything Fox News, went after John's

1:07:47

wife, Gazelle, and just, like, pretended that,

1:07:49

you know, John was a vegetable, and Gazelle was

1:07:51

behind us. He just, like, crazy bad shit

1:07:53

stuff, and they they just didn't stop. And

1:07:55

they were they were relentless. And our

1:07:58

side wasn't like we weren't as we

1:07:59

weren't neat. we

1:08:02

were talking about what was on the table. And

1:08:05

I think voters at the end

1:08:07

of the day decided they wanted more

1:08:10

normal, you know, representation than

1:08:12

these these crazy people out there. And it

1:08:14

was it was very mean spirit

1:08:16

too. Yeah. It

1:08:17

was nasty. A hundred million dollars. That's so much money. But

1:08:19

that goes back to our July stuff. Like, when, like, when John was

1:08:21

doing all the snookie, you know, you

1:08:23

can make fun. thought

1:08:27

he was funny and they liked him. Right? Yeah. And if you have a

1:08:29

candidate for a state like Pennsylvania where the the

1:08:31

Republicans are gonna

1:08:33

come after with everything they have, which is like a hundred

1:08:35

million dollars, you gotta be fucking likable

1:08:36

at the end of the day. Because,

1:08:39

like, they're they're they're just

1:08:42

gonna bring those negative you know, approvals down as much as possible.

1:08:44

So you have to at the end of the

1:08:46

like, you have to get people to to, like,

1:08:48

you know, to to say

1:08:50

that they're gonna vote for you. Yeah.

1:08:52

Yeah. Alright. This is a long question, so bear with me. But,

1:08:54

you know, the strategy you guys ran was very smart in my opinion. Like, John Outran Biden

1:08:57

in these rural,

1:08:59

more red counties, push down Oz' numbers

1:09:01

there, and then you run up the score in Philly and other sort of urban places to to

1:09:03

win. That sometimes gets short handed, including by you

1:09:06

guys, I think, is like a strategy where

1:09:08

Democrats to

1:09:10

go everywhere, right, you go to every county, you count on

1:09:12

every vote, that's the key to victory.

1:09:14

The pushback I hear when I

1:09:17

sort of evangelize that kind of strategy from

1:09:19

Democrats is They point to Beto O'Rourke's race Texas and they say, that guy

1:09:21

went everywhere literally for four years. I couldn't

1:09:23

have worked harder, still

1:09:26

fell short. was talking to a statewide elected official the other day

1:09:29

who said to me, like, if I hear

1:09:31

you guys talk about this

1:09:33

go everywhere shit one more time on your podcast. My head is

1:09:36

gonna explode because I go everywhere, I go

1:09:38

to Red Counties, and it gets me nothing.

1:09:41

So I guess the question is, is it

1:09:43

better to describe the strategy as

1:09:44

Democrats need to pick candidates

1:09:47

like John who for

1:09:49

whatever reason background

1:09:52

policy look can get a hearing everywhere

1:09:54

versus go everywhere. I mean, so there's a couple different

1:09:55

arguments here. Right?

1:09:58

Like, yes, I think I

1:10:00

think you want we need

1:10:02

better candidates. I think there's been this, like, milk toast kind of cookie cutter democratic

1:10:05

ideal candidate that loses

1:10:07

a lot of general actions

1:10:10

that we've seen run statewide a lot. I also think a lot of this is about having candidates who know who they

1:10:13

are and who

1:10:16

have back bone. I mean,

1:10:18

John went into those those counties, those deep red counties, and he talked about what abortion rights,

1:10:20

gay rights. He like, there was

1:10:22

no there was nothing he said there.

1:10:27

that he wouldn't say in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh. And he went into

1:10:29

those counties and he said, I wanna be

1:10:31

the fifty first vote for

1:10:33

Democrats in the Senate. he wasn't afraid to

1:10:35

be a Democrat. I mean, you remember when when

1:10:37

Obama was we had people running for Senate

1:10:39

who were afraid to say they voted for him.

1:10:41

you know, like, we can't have

1:10:43

that kind of, like, if we as a party need to

1:10:45

actually be a little bit more confident and not ashamed of who

1:10:48

we are, And

1:10:51

I think that's part of it too. So it's about going to every county, but then having something

1:10:53

to say when you go there. Kip, you got

1:10:55

a thoughts from

1:10:56

my go everywhere. Critics

1:10:58

who yell at me. Well, I mean, I think

1:10:59

another thing another lesson for from Johnson's race that

1:11:02

I think applies could apply to a lot of

1:11:04

democrats as, you know, as Rebecca

1:11:06

said, stop apologizing for being a Democrat. Just

1:11:08

be confident in who you are and what you

1:11:10

stand for. I think people will respect that.

1:11:12

But I think it's also

1:11:14

illustrative that, you know, John one in

1:11:16

a year when the president was unpopular and then he did it. He didn't do

1:11:18

it by trashing his own party. He didn't do it by throwing by an under the bus.

1:11:21

He didn't do it by running hard to the right.

1:11:23

He did it by being himself. not

1:11:26

apologizing for it and just, you know, having

1:11:28

confidence in its convictions that, you know,

1:11:30

whatever they're going to say, we are still

1:11:32

the party that's closer to, like, what the

1:11:35

mainstream of Pennsylvania actually wants. Howard Bauchner: And not just confidence in his but courage in

1:11:37

his

1:11:37

convictions. You know, I

1:11:39

think that was

1:11:40

That's

1:11:42

part of it too. Like, they came after us

1:11:44

on crime. They came after

1:11:45

us about his truck. Whatever it was, we

1:11:47

just talked about it. Right?

1:11:49

And and John had a a record to point to, and he

1:11:51

wasn't just gonna sit, like, I think there's been too many Democrats

1:11:53

who try to beat

1:11:56

Republicans on

1:11:58

on on some of these issues just because

1:11:59

they're afraid to be get attacked. And I mean

1:12:02

John was head of the board of parties. You

1:12:04

know, he let like,

1:12:06

he allowed innocent men to leave prison

1:12:08

because he was the right thing to

1:12:10

do. Right? But he knew when

1:12:12

he did that, that people were gonna come

1:12:15

after him and use it in a tuck at, and they did. And

1:12:17

it was like and he

1:12:17

did it till people wouldn't die in prison for for crimes they were wrongly convicted of

1:12:20

doing it.

1:12:23

you know, like, it's like he had humanity. And I think it

1:12:26

comes back to that a lot. Yeah.

1:12:28

Yeah. No, I'll be honest.

1:12:29

When I saw his response

1:12:31

to those attacks, and

1:12:34

the idea that he should have just sort of let a couple guys rot in prison for the rest of their lives, who wrongly convicted

1:12:36

just because it would have been bad politics. That's when

1:12:38

I was like, alright. This this guy's for me.

1:12:43

Okay. Looking ahead, you know, I

1:12:45

luckily in this job, I've

1:12:47

gotten to work with, like, talk

1:12:49

to a lot of smart people like

1:12:51

you. I talked to Ben Wickler, the head of the Wisconsin

1:12:53

Democratic Party all the time. I, like,

1:12:55

thank God that for what he

1:12:57

and his team are doing every

1:12:59

day, there's just like, two years,

1:13:01

four years, like, party building infrastructure. What do you think Democrats need to do to be

1:13:03

prepared in the same way

1:13:06

in in Pennsylvania in twenty

1:13:09

twenty four? And is there the same sort of

1:13:11

state party infrastructure that we should be investing in and building off of? Right. I mean, as I come from

1:13:14

the Harry Reid

1:13:16

machine. Right? And, like, this

1:13:18

is this is all about, like, investing in the party infrastructure and, like, building something for years years

1:13:20

and years. I think

1:13:22

we should be doing that

1:13:25

everywhere. I also think we need

1:13:27

better, more confidence that, like, in a way like, there's a lot with

1:13:30

campaign staffers that you kinda just

1:13:32

go and

1:13:35

you do it for a little bit and then you, like, be I think

1:13:37

we we actually need to get some

1:13:39

professional staffing staffers who can

1:13:41

get better and and

1:13:43

wiser and help ushering like a new generation

1:13:45

of talent. We we need a bench. We don't have that right now. I

1:13:47

think we're starting to get some

1:13:49

some rising stars. We need more

1:13:52

of them. But

1:13:55

I think, I don't think these

1:13:57

scary right wingers are going anywhere, and

1:13:59

I think we need to be

1:14:01

able to fight back that card and not

1:14:03

just, you know, say, like, you know, there there's some

1:14:05

good people on that side. Like, you know, like,

1:14:07

I think we have

1:14:09

to understand what some of these risks

1:14:12

are and and what's out

1:14:14

there and fight back. Yeah. Kip,

1:14:16

you

1:14:16

mentioned before that that snooki

1:14:18

was on your white whale. Were there any white whales that didn't get back to

1:14:20

you? Or, like, hits you wish you could have delivered that

1:14:22

you never that got left on the

1:14:25

cutting room? I

1:14:26

mean, we really would have loved to have done

1:14:28

something with it. It's always sunny just given the connection

1:14:30

there. It just sort of seemed like a match

1:14:32

we didn't have end of that, you

1:14:34

know, proved to be difficult contractual issues. I

1:14:37

mean, for a long time, a we

1:14:39

had been hearing about we had been hearing about

1:14:41

there's this puppy story that's coming. And we just kept

1:14:43

hearing about it in the background for months and months and months. And

1:14:45

it just sounded like the worst, you know,

1:14:47

the worst thing ever, and then it

1:14:50

it came out because it kind of

1:14:52

was. It was

1:14:53

worse than we had to hurt it would be. Yes. Howard

1:14:55

Bauchner: Yeah. It was just as disgraceful. I mean, like,

1:14:57

inhuman. I

1:14:58

mean, that's such a good example of

1:15:00

how politics

1:15:04

and, like, campaigning has changed

1:15:06

because when I was, like,

1:15:08

doing Oppo hits against Sarah

1:15:10

Palin. Right? Like, you beg the Wall Street Journal to write story up

1:15:12

for six months based on Samapoo. And, like, if

1:15:14

if they run at your site, if not,

1:15:17

it can just die. Like, the fact that where where did that end up? It

1:15:19

was a Docker yeah. It was Jez

1:15:22

About. Right?

1:15:22

Like, it didn't matter that it

1:15:24

was on, you know, a blog that some

1:15:26

people might not have heard from about

1:15:28

before. Like, it exploded either way. Well, because it

1:15:31

it was true. I mean, it exploded because, like, he couldn't he

1:15:33

couldn't

1:15:33

deny it. Like, he was

1:15:36

like,

1:15:38

he

1:15:38

did the most horrible horrible things.

1:15:40

And the contrast of that with John

1:15:42

and Gisele

1:15:43

having these like rescue pups.

1:15:45

Like, I mean, they have AAA3 legged dog who had been

1:15:47

abused. I mean, they they really they are they are

1:15:50

rescue dog people. So,

1:15:52

like, oz could

1:15:54

not have been more like the the the cartoon villain, I would say, except he was actually like

1:15:56

killing puppies. I mean, it was

1:15:58

like you couldn't make

1:15:59

it up. it would like

1:16:02

you could make it Yeah. That's just the

1:16:03

worst. Final thoughts just any, like, final

1:16:06

thoughts from from both of you on

1:16:08

lessons to learn from this

1:16:10

cycle and and things we should

1:16:12

should be thinking about going forward because obviously, you know,

1:16:14

the results were better than a lot of us anticipated. Maybe they're better than we anticipated because

1:16:19

Democrats, sometimes myself very much included, assume the worst is gonna

1:16:21

happen based on recent history. But Rebecca why

1:16:23

don't you go

1:16:26

first?

1:16:26

I mean, abortion. Like, let's let's talk

1:16:28

about that for just one more

1:16:30

second. Like, we would not be

1:16:32

where we are today. The

1:16:34

all the democrats in unless women's rights were taken away very

1:16:36

drastically and horribly. Right? And we

1:16:38

can't just sit around and high

1:16:41

five. Like, we have to fight

1:16:43

back. We have to cautify

1:16:45

Roe. We have to codify same sets of marriage. Like, we have we have a lot of

1:16:47

work to do. And as we go into the next Congress,

1:16:52

we gotta try and push through as

1:16:54

much as possible because I I think there's some really bad things coming. And

1:16:57

I think the lesson here is,

1:16:59

like, when you get power like,

1:17:03

let's produce some

1:17:03

results. Use it. Yeah.

1:17:05

Skip thoughts. I mean,

1:17:07

one thing I

1:17:08

would love the party to take

1:17:11

away from this is reevaluating the idea, its

1:17:13

idea of who we consider to be electable.

1:17:15

I mean, I think often It's

1:17:17

just this assumption that bland and generic candidates are going to be our best chance of winning. And

1:17:19

I just don't know that it's really played

1:17:21

out that way. I think

1:17:24

in fact, a

1:17:26

lot of these white bread candidates, they try to appeal to absolutely everyone. And as a result, they excite pretty

1:17:31

much no one. And I think one

1:17:33

of the reasons John was able to succeed this year is in large part because he's not straight from central

1:17:35

casting. It'll allow him to

1:17:38

establish his own sort of

1:17:40

independent image. I mean, he, you know,

1:17:42

he doesn't necessarily like rise and fall along with Biden. And I

1:17:45

think, you know,

1:17:47

we could be missing we we missed out on a

1:17:49

lot of candidates like John before by I think Guys, we missed out on him in

1:17:51

twenty sixteen

1:17:52

when

1:17:54

he ran.

1:17:55

That's right. That's right. I'm not trying to argue with somebody else.

1:17:57

I mean, this isn't

1:17:57

John, but I was trying to

1:17:58

think when was the last time you think

1:18:01

the democrats ran a candidate

1:18:03

for a statewide office? who had not graduated

1:18:05

from college, for example. Like, that's there's there's clearly,

1:18:07

like, a massive gap in terms

1:18:09

of Republicans and Democrats,

1:18:11

in terms of college educated voters. And I wonder

1:18:13

if we tried speaking to those voters from a place

1:18:16

of experience,

1:18:19

for example, you know -- Yeah. -- or embraced shamelessly embracing economic

1:18:21

populism. We know how it works, but

1:18:23

too many Democrats don't aren't

1:18:26

aren't into that. So Yeah. and super, super tall

1:18:28

US senators. I think you can hear me from

1:18:30

them. No. You can hear me here. Well, listen,

1:18:32

Kate Rebecca, thank you

1:18:34

guys for everything you did.

1:18:37

to make this happen. We literally can't thank you enough for,

1:18:39

like, you know, saving democracy. And a special thank you to all

1:18:41

the Pod

1:18:42

Save Boys. I mean, we

1:18:45

we were up against Fox News

1:18:47

and we had like you. So thank

1:18:49

you because it's just it is

1:18:52

there is there is not

1:18:54

an apparatus to really effectively deal with with the right wing media that's coming at us. And so

1:18:56

we thank you for what

1:18:58

you do as well. Listen,

1:19:01

you're very nice to say

1:19:03

that we are trying to build a

1:19:05

progressive media infrastructure. If you

1:19:07

wouldn't mind letting some of the folks over

1:19:09

the White House know that it would be

1:19:11

a good thing to help cultivate and build -- Yeah.

1:19:13

-- and and care and feed places like us, that would be helpful. But listen,

1:19:15

we're gonna do it anyway. So I appreciate it.

1:19:18

Not sure if they listen to me, but

1:19:20

sounds good. Thanks,

1:19:23

guys. Talk

1:19:25

to you. Hey.

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ZipRecruiter is the smartest way to

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hire. Alright. Before we

1:23:30

go, Hallie Kiefer is back. She's

1:23:32

back by popular demand. By

1:23:34

waving it as the podcast. I

1:23:38

know we're in the same room.

1:23:40

We're gonna play a game

1:23:42

about Donald Trump honor of

1:23:44

his announcement today. It's exciting. Hailey, take it away.

1:23:47

I will. Thank you. Okay. Good. Over the weekend,

1:23:49

to send it running back.

1:23:51

Josh Hailey tweeted,

1:23:53

the old party is

1:23:55

dead, time to bury it, build something

1:23:57

new. While Hollywood might wanna enter Trump's

1:23:59

legacy, his fellow Republicans are running in circles,

1:24:01

trying to decide the party line on the

1:24:03

for president, given that O'Daddy Boy is

1:24:05

going to be announcing his twenty twenty

1:24:08

four run on Tuesday night. Are they all

1:24:10

gonna run like rats off the ship? Or are they are they excited to scrape turbos ketchup off the White House for

1:24:15

four

1:24:15

more years?

1:24:17

Well, plenty of Republicans seem confused

1:24:19

about whose boots to start licking? Trump's or Rhonda Samson's gorgeous white knee

1:24:24

high numbers Others have made a definitive statement, and that's

1:24:26

all I needed to bring you a game. Here's how this is gonna work.

1:24:28

I'm gonna read you the name

1:24:30

of Republican. You're gonna tell me

1:24:33

what you think they've indicated post midterms with regards to Trump?

1:24:35

Are they riding the Trump train, exiting the Trump

1:24:38

train via the urgency

1:24:40

exit? or they

1:24:42

started just dangling precariously, holding on with one hand to the Trump chain as like a bond henchman as

1:24:47

the republican party hurdles around

1:24:50

a sheer cliff. So those are the options writing, exiting or dangling.

1:24:52

Got it. I'm just

1:24:55

gonna

1:24:55

read the name

1:24:56

And you let me know

1:24:58

where do you think we've landed? I'm gonna read you the quote that, again, could any of it be trusted? No.

1:25:00

And also, I don't you

1:25:03

might have all heard this. it's

1:25:06

been the post election cycle has

1:25:08

been, like, insane the news. But are you ready to

1:25:10

play? Oh, yeah. Alright. Senator Bill Cassidy, or Republican

1:25:11

of Louisiana, and love

1:25:15

it. I get grown

1:25:15

teeth. You probably don't know the answer to

1:25:18

this. Mhmm. What did he say

1:25:19

with regards to Trump

1:25:21

on meet the press? And is he

1:25:23

writing? Is he exiting or is he is

1:25:23

he dangling? I know what he said. Okay. I know what he

1:25:26

said. Well,

1:25:26

where do you think you said it? He said,

1:25:28

it's not a we're

1:25:31

not a is what he said. Mhmm.

1:25:33

But honestly, it seemed like a way out of answering to me

1:25:35

he's dangling. Okay. That's how

1:25:37

I feel about it. It

1:25:40

felt like It

1:25:41

was it was between dangl and exit. I know. But I think I'll I go with dangl. Yeah.

1:25:44

I I think you're you're dangling for deer

1:25:46

life. I think you can't jump off that

1:25:48

train yet. I

1:25:51

think he'd like to leave the train. Mhmm. But he doesn't feel I mean, most

1:25:53

of these people are They know their heart. They're

1:25:55

they're leaving in their hearts. Yeah. How do we

1:25:57

adjudicate this? Do we call them? No. III

1:25:59

think there's unfortunately, no way

1:26:02

to know. It's just a game no meaning. exist a time. Hopefully,

1:26:04

they'll also, even if

1:26:06

they were definitive answers, they just

1:26:08

change

1:26:10

their minds. That's

1:26:11

what all the public department. I think I think it's

1:26:13

majority rules dangling. dangling. It's a dangl.

1:26:15

Quote. We're not a cult. We're

1:26:17

not like, okay. There's one person who leads our

1:26:19

party. could have fooled

1:26:19

me the electricity. How do we feel that senator elected? I'm

1:26:21

sorry. You would say that J. D. Vance out

1:26:24

of Ohio. I

1:26:26

think yeah. Oh, he is he is on that

1:26:28

train. Got it. He's riding that train

1:26:30

everywhere. Peter Teal paid for that with good money.

1:26:33

Yeah. And that's how he got his ticket. this

1:26:35

indicates

1:26:35

definitively yes, because he said every year the media

1:26:37

writes Donald Trump's political obituary, and every

1:26:39

year we're quickly reminded that Trump remains the

1:26:41

most popular figure in their Republican party. That,

1:26:43

of course, was saying, He's

1:26:45

excited to for Trump to be

1:26:47

the twenty twenty four nominee. J. D. Vance absolutely writing. Fact check true,

1:26:48

the event absolutely

1:26:49

that whole

1:26:51

statement. Fabulous. Senator John

1:26:52

Thune, Republican of South

1:26:54

Dakota, and

1:26:55

I guarantee you might not

1:26:57

know. Does it make sense to do

1:26:59

it to the voice? Well,

1:27:02

like, it's just it's it's beautiful. I feel as though he's going to exit the Trump train sooner or later.

1:27:04

Oh. Oh,

1:27:09

well, it blew my hair back. Obviously, you can't see it

1:27:11

again. hard to begin taping this. My

1:27:14

eyebrows are just seething.

1:27:19

Wow. I mean, I think

1:27:21

he wants to exit. He's probably wanted

1:27:23

to exit for a while.

1:27:25

I bet he I bet he said something that's a

1:27:27

dango. Yeah. I think he's a dango. He's he's not trying he doesn't wanna make not because he doesn't want to make Yeah.

1:27:32

I think he's And he wants to

1:27:34

be minority leader or majority leader. I

1:27:35

wanna say he actually went public. He basically blamed Trump's endorsements for

1:27:37

the midterms

1:27:38

losses. And he said,

1:27:40

You can't have a party that's built

1:27:42

around one person's personality. Again, they really did try though. Wow. It's -- Yeah. -- sooner later

1:27:44

he's out

1:27:47

of here. Okay. Just if it comes

1:27:49

out. I know. Nobody's funny what he said. It was

1:27:52

funny. It it felt

1:27:54

better when he said it.

1:27:56

So that I think that was an accent.

1:27:59

That's more of an accent than Cassidy. Yeah. I appreciate it. a little bit more. And then

1:27:59

how about

1:28:04

representative Elise Stefanik from New York. Where do you

1:28:06

think we're headed with? She's the she's the conductor. She's in she's

1:28:10

a yeah. She's in she had one of those hats with the lines on.

1:28:12

Yeah. Well, I I don't even know if you asked

1:28:14

her to or wanted her to, but she already

1:28:18

preemptively endorsed Trump. So I'll throw her way behind him.

1:28:20

I'm my boss. I'm president

1:28:22

president Donald Trump for president twenty four.

1:28:24

It's

1:28:24

time for Republicans to unite around

1:28:26

the most popular Republican in America was

1:28:28

a proven track

1:28:29

record of conservative governance. I

1:28:30

just I just wanna say one more time about this place called Harvard. They

1:28:32

they take all these

1:28:34

kids, half of them turn evil,

1:28:37

and then the evil ones battle the good

1:28:39

ones for five hundred years. It's so stupid. Shut it down. Take away there

1:28:42

and down to tax it. Do simple. Wow. The place has to be

1:28:44

stopped. Hybridgrads,

1:28:47

let us know what you think.

1:28:48

And they waitlist to

1:28:51

me twice. The 0II

1:28:54

was gonna

1:28:54

tell terrible story on going to Harvard. But what millions of people listen to this.

1:28:56

It's not really word types.

1:28:57

It doesn't stop love it. Oh, yeah. Oh, I

1:29:00

forgot that. I went to

1:29:02

Harvard once and I got crap. And

1:29:04

that's that's all I'm saying. Oh, wow.

1:29:06

Wow. Nice. That's

1:29:06

so that's my experience with the institution. Tom Cotton.

1:29:08

Tom Cotton. Where

1:29:10

do we think use? Is he riding? Is he jumping out

1:29:12

the back of the train, or is

1:29:13

he holding on to your line? Like, he's gotta dangle.

1:29:15

He's gotta dangle.

1:29:18

I'm gonna gonna I have no idea, but I'm gonna say riding because

1:29:20

he did float hilariously that he

1:29:22

was considering a run, but

1:29:25

he decided against it, not people decide they hated them and

1:29:27

they didn't want to run. So I'm gonna say writing.

1:29:29

So I heard that he said over

1:29:31

the weekend that, like,

1:29:33

McConnell should still be minority leader. So that's gonna lead me

1:29:35

to a dangle position because if you're with

1:29:37

McConnell, you gotta you gotta leverage up

1:29:40

your space. I think you're absolutely right.

1:29:42

Here's a quote

1:29:42

I pulled. When any party

1:29:44

out of power as the

1:29:46

Republicans are now. We don't have a single leader. Trump is obviously very popular with many of our voters.

1:29:51

We also have other

1:29:52

important leaders as well. Yeah. What are

1:29:54

your thoughts about it? That's a dangl. That's a dangl. That's

1:29:59

a dangl. Yeah. I'm not quite a Republican's thing though. It's

1:29:59

the strain. They don't wanna say

1:30:02

too much, too soon. Oh, my

1:30:04

god. Oh,

1:30:06

man. Oh my god. I think he's gotten it on to some of this.

1:30:08

No. Black and Black. Black and Black. There

1:30:10

we go. How many people will turn

1:30:13

this off? Just let's know. Hey. Stay stay tuned

1:30:15

for this a c block for a lot of puns. David Axorad

1:30:17

is here. Little Mark Overbyo.

1:30:19

Mhmm. Oh. Are

1:30:22

we done? So He's one of

1:30:23

the little mini in intersectionists saying they should

1:30:25

delay the vote on senate

1:30:27

minority majority leader, whatever it turns out

1:30:29

to be no minority. There is a McConnell. There is

1:30:31

not an there is not a he is he

1:30:34

has to dangle.

1:30:34

It's in his it is in his bones. He

1:30:36

does not know how to ride the train. Doesn't know how

1:30:38

to lead the train. He is dangling. Yeah.

1:30:41

There's no courage. Yeah. There's a He never breaks with

1:30:43

the five inch wheels. There's nothing wrong with

1:30:46

big short, big chair. that's

1:30:48

nothing nothing being short is fine. He tweeted, you're

1:30:50

going to be strong, to be the senator. That's We get it. We

1:30:52

get it. That's unbelievable. A

1:30:54

man of a certain height? job.

1:30:57

Love

1:30:57

it. What does heidl do now? Nothing. That's true. We're all sitting anyways. Yeah. We love

1:30:59

to sit. The sit if I'm a

1:31:00

computer. We love sitting. Tell President

1:31:02

Trump Where are we? What's

1:31:04