Pod Save America - “A Kansas of Whoop-Ass.”

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

Kansas voters deliver a victory for abortion rights, Arizona voters deliver a victory for MAGA extremists, Missouri voters deliver a victory for just one Eric, and the host of Positively Dreadful, Crooked’s Editor-in-Chief, Brian Beutler joins in studio for a special Take Appreciator. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

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Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Dan, it's been a minute. This is the first pod that you and I have done together, or like a Thursday pod in a couple weeks. Yeah, we picked that. We had the tour. Then vacation that we somehow managed to schedule the exact same week in a 52-week year, which was impressive. Yeah, for the amount of time we communicate during any given day,

it was funny that we didn't realize both of us were going to be on vacation. But you know what? You know who won from that? The planet. Because you and I go on vacation, and all of a sudden we got a climate deal. Yeah, yeah, that's right. And Tommy and Adisa got to talk about it. Well, fortunately, we have some good news to talk about on today's pod, too. On today's show, Kansas voters deliver a victory for abortion rights. Arizona voters deliver a victory for MAGA extremists, unfortunately. Missouri voters deliver a victory for Just One Eric.

And we are going to be joined in studio a little later for a special take appreciator by the host of Positively Dreadful, Crooked's editor-in-chief, Brian Boitler is in town. Exciting. All right. But first, you all know Crooked Coffee. It's our ethically sourced coffee brand. And we donate a portion of every purchase to Register Her, which is an organization that helps millions of women across the country vote. We got a medium roast.

We got a medium roast. We got a dark roast. We got a subscription so you can save 25% off and get coffee delivered to you without ever running out. Plus, Crooked Coffee has something new launching next week. You can sign up. Is it a light roast? Well, Dan, I'm getting a few hints here. It says you can sign up for text to be the first to hear about this.

And then they put this in all caps, COOL NEW PRODUCT. Hint, in case you didn't get it from the last one hint it's perfect for summer you know when the best time to roll out a summer product is the middle of august just in time for fall our summer coffee you know what damn anyway go to crooked.com slash coffee i drink a certain kind of coffee i don't want.com slash coffee. I drink a certain kind of coffee. I don't want to give anything away, but I drink a certain kind of coffee all year round because I live here in Los Angeles. So it doesn't have to be for summer. Crooked.com slash coffee. A state that Donald Trump won by nearly 15 points in 2020. Voters overwhelmingly rejected a constitutional amendment that would have allowed the state legislature to ban abortion. And they did so by a margin of 58 to 41 percent. Anti-abortion activists targeted Tuesday's primary because it was mostly Republican races. And so they thought that mostly Republicans would turn out. They were wrong. Turnout was twice as large as it was in the 2018 primaries. Nearly a million voters turned out, including 100,000 independent voters who couldn't even cast a ballot in either party's primary. They were just independent voters who turned out purely to vote on this amendment. And the abortion amendment results were to the left of the 2020 presidential

results in every single county, even the most rural areas of Kansas. Dan, how the hell did this happen? I mean, Nate Cohn wrote about this in the New York Times today. There was like a Times compilation of national polling before the election that showed 48% of Kansas voters said abortion should be mostly legal. 47% said mostly illegal. They also showed the 2020 cooperative election study also showed an even split in that state. So what happened? Well, it had to happen one day, John, that polls would be wrong. Well, it had to happen one day, John, that polls would be wrong. No, look, I think it is worth just taking a moment to feel really good about this.

I mean, this is Kansas. This is not a blue state. It's not a purple state. We're not on the coast. It is a state so Republican that one of the most famous books written about republicans is called what's the matter with kansas right this state hey everyone making your what's the matter with kansas jokes uh on twitter you know we've seen them we've seen them all they are so that's a that's a no on the pod title oh my god it's just every single fucking person has some play on what's the matter with kansas i'm like none of them none of them are funny they are they rank up there with the uh bfd jokes around the inflation reduction act it's also a sign of how old you are by the way yes were you digging deep into the democratic party problems in the early

aughts but if so this joke's for you what that book is called anyway sorry that's just okay all right um but like this is say they're voting for Donald Trump by 15 points. And I think it is worth just stepping back and feeling good about it in part because it shows the absolute power of this issue. Because when we have like this – we're stuck in this mentality that it's reasonable and well-worn that nothing matters. Or even when things do matter, there's like marginal shifts, right? Donald Trump sparks an insurrection. He goes down two points in the poll,

compelling evidence of Donald Trump committing crimes means that we're up to a whopping two in 10 Republicans who think he should go to jail. Right. The, you know, they pass an incredibly unpopular tax cut. Nothing really changes. And that,

you know, in a polarized country, things change on the market. It matters a lot. But the way this has played out thus far since the adoption decision suggests that big shifts can happen. And I think abortion is not just like a new health care bill, a new tax law, minimum wage passes. It doesn't. It is the fact that two-thirds of this country was born after the Roe decision, which means two-thirds of them have lived their entire lives where you had a constitutional right to make a fundamental decision about your own body.

Then an unelected group of six people, most of whom appointed by people who got less votes than their opponent in presidential elections, took away that right. This is something about, it's about the issue of abortion. It's about freedom. And it clearly has sparked something very powerful in the electorate. And so I think that is how we ended up here. This is not an accident. This is not a low turnout situation where sometimes in these situations decide where the passion is, turn out more people, and it doesn't reflect the large electorate. This is a high turnout primary. And so it says a lot about where politics has shifted since the Supreme Court decided to meddle with people's rights. The turnout was two-thirds of the 2020 presidential election.

of the 2020 presidential election two-thirds of a presidential election for a mostly republican primary in the middle of august in a midterm year that's unheard of yeah we call that we call that light roast season registered democrats turned out at higher rates than registered republicans which almost never happens in american politics these days uh Steve Kornacki crunched the numbers. One fifth of all the no votes, no to the amendment, which is the pro-choice position, came from Republicans. One fifth came from Republicans. So, you know, speaking of Republicans, like, should these results scare the shit out of every Republican candidate in every competitive race in the country? Yes. Yes, they should. They absolutely should.

And I think you hit on in your intro the number that scared them the most, which is 100,000 independents turned out only to vote on this issue. They had no other reason to turn out. They were barred by law from voting on any other offices. This is not a case of there is a highly contested gubernatorial primary or Senate primary that caused a bunch of people to turn out and they voted on abortion. They turned out in an election they'd never turned out in before. They have no history of voting in primaries because Kansas has a closed primary process and they voted because they believed this was worth voting on and worth their time and energy.

And I think that should be very, very alarming to Republicans. Well, I also think it's worth noting that just about every Republican candidate in the most high profile competitive races in the country has taken a position on abortion that is so extreme and so out of step with most of the country. And it didn't necessarily have to be like that after Dobbs. We remember after Dobbs was decided, Republican, it was either the RNC or the NRSC or one of those official committees put out a bunch of talking points because they knew the danger in this issue

and they tried to tell their candidates to take a middle path here and say, yeah, course we're against abortion but you know there should be exceptions and we would never want to uh arrest doctors or women or anything like that and they put all these bullshit talking points that we all knew were bullshit but a whole bunch of republican candidates whether it's and we're going to talk about some of the other results but whether it's you know blake masters or our tutor dixon in michigan um they have taken positions on abortion that say we are going to criminalize all abortion with no exceptions by the way some states are trying to say if if the if abortion is banned in one state and you try to travel out of state to get an abortion somewhere else we're going to criminalize that too. These positions are so out of step with most people.

The share of Republicans, Republicans, this is not all voters, the share of Republicans who believe that abortion should be illegal in all cases is now only 18%. 18% of Republicans. So like going back to that first poll result that I read you, that 48% of Kansans thought abortion should be mostly legal. 47% thought mostly illegal. You know, the mostly is doing a lot of work there and has been for a while.

After Dobbs, Republican politicians decided that they were going to polarize the issue as much as possible on the wrong side of public opinion by saying, we want abortion illegal in all cases everywhere. That position is not only out of step with the country, it is out of step with most of the people in their party. And I don't think they fully realize, or maybe they just don't care, what a horrible political mistake they have made by taking a position like that. What a horrible political mistake they have made by taking a position like that. You know, there are times when Republican politicians are lying for the purpose of appealing to primary voters. Like, there are definitely some true believers in the big lie. Some of them got nominated on Tuesday.

But a lot of them just pretend because it's price of admission to MAGA voters, to Trump's endorsement, all of that. But on this one, this is their real position. This is what they have always believed. It has always been their position that abortion should be illegal in every instance. Rape, incest, life of the mother. That is their belief. And they were given sort of permission to avoid acting on that belief in a world in which Roe and Casey were the law of the land. Now that they are not, they are allowed to let their extremist flag fly and push these incredibly cruel and irresponsible and very unpopular positions.

Yeah, and look, I mentioned Blake Masters in Arizona and Tudor Dixon, who's running for governor in Michigan. Blake Masters in Arizona and Tudor Dixon, who's running for governor in Michigan. This is also going to be a central issue in the Pennsylvania governor's race, where Doug Mastriano has said that if he is governor, he will sign an abortion ban into law. If Josh Shapiro is governor, he will not. Abortion will be protected in that state. It's a very clear-cut decision in Pennsylvania. You're going to havecut decision in Pennsylvania. You're going to have this issue in Arizona. You're going to have it in Michigan. There's going to be a ballot initiative likely in Michigan, much like there was in Kansas, where in the midterm election, Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, will be on one side, be on the pro-choice side of the ballot initiative,

and Tudor Dixon will be on the other side. That will probably get more people out to vote as well, or hopefully it should. In Georgia, where there is a very close Senate race, Herschel Walker, once again, has said that he would ban all abortion, no exceptions whatsoever. That's in Georgia. And then there will also be direct ballot initiatives in Kentucky and Montana.

Dan, if you were running a Democratic midterm campaign right now, what advice would you be giving your candidate about two things? One, how to talk about abortion access, and two, how to prioritize abortion as an issue in this midterm race? So I think we have to recognize

that public opinion on abortion is overwhelming on the side of access to abortion, but it is quite nuanced, right? If you have majorities of people who identify as pro-choice, who support supported Roe, who oppose its overturning, of that majority, according to a lot of polls, about three in 10 of those people who identify as pro-choice or angry about the Dobbs decision will tell pollsters they themselves are personally opposed to abortion. You find that some of the limits that are well

below the extremist thing which you put forward, but ones that a lot of Democrats disagree, you know, ourselves oppose, are more popular than strictly overturning or banning abortion. And so what I think we have to recognize is, and the people in Kansas did an excellent job in how they frame their messaging. And there are some Twitter threads that go through all of their ads that I would encourage. Bill Shearer from Politico, I think, has one of those threads that's worthwhile, is that we have to have a message that is broadly appealing to that majority, right? And the polling shows that the most popular message by far in that case is about government interference in the personal

decision to have an abortion, right? That you're going to have politicians, government, et cetera, involved in that. And that is the one that works for people who identify as pro-choice personally and for the broader community, people who identify as opposed. It gets to a lot of those 100,000 independents we talked about. It is this broader issue of freedom. And I think the messaging is going to be a little bit different in every state. So if you have this broad coalition of people who are much more progressive on the side and others who would identify as moderate on the issue of abortion but do not go so far as the overturning of Roe or the outright banning. The mix of those two groups is going to differ state

by state. I imagine in Kansas, it leans more heavily towards the people who identify as moderate because you're getting more Republican voters, people who have spent their lives voting for politicians who identify as anti-choice, as opposed to might be different in a bluer or more purple state. The second thing is, I think it's absolutely essential that we center the issue of abortion here. And there are two ways to do that. One, if you're running for federal office, is to make sure that everyone understands two things. One, if Republicans get control of the House and the Senate, they will ban abortion nationally. So if you are in one of those states that could decide the election, but where abortion remains legal,

that is not a given for the rest of time. Like California, for example. This is one of the most progressive states when it comes to abortion access. It is making itself a sanctuary state. We talked to our friend, Assemblywoman Biff Buffy Wicks about that a month or so ago. But we need people to turn out in the House races that are our only chance of preserving our majority as if abortion was on the line for themselves as well, because it is. And the other half of that argument is that if you send two more pro-choice, anti-filibuster Democratic senators to the Senate and we maintain the House, we can codify, we can make abortion legal everywhere by codifying. And so I think that's part. For state candidates, it's going to be different.

It's going to have to do with what is on the ballot in that state, who you're running against. But we have to center it. And then the last piece of this is we have to make it about freedom, right? It is about your personal choice. The fact, and tied to this larger narrative, one you have articulated on this podcast many times, about a Republican Party who wants politicians in the government to decide whether you can have an abortion,

what kind of healthcare you can get, who you can marry, what books you can read, what teachers can say, what companies can believe, what, you know, on and on and on, and make it a part of that larger extremist agenda of the far right and the MAGA Republicans. Yeah. I mean, you can imagine, and you don't have to imagine, I've talked to these voters for the focus groups of the wilderness, voters who feel cross-pressured, which are most voters,

even though we don't think that. And they are horrified by Dobbs and they're very pro-choice, And they are horrified by Dobbs and they're very pro-choice, but they are upset about inflation. They're disappointed and they don't think anyone in Washington has done anything for them. And I think that the way that this election becomes a choice and not a referendum on Biden and the Democrats is by pointing out the ample examples of Republican extremism over the last several months, year, two years. And abortion and the positions that they have taken on abortion, I believe, are central to that case. You can then talk about them coming for same-sex marriage, coming for contraception, coming for interracial marriage, coming for kids, gay and trans kids, book banning. You can talk about all of that. I think abortion is central. It's the central example since they have now moved to ban it, criminalize it with no exceptions in states all

across the country. And I think making that central to your campaign about Republican extremism is important because on the other side of this, if you're worried about, you know, you're also worried about inflation and you're also worried about costs, then you can say, look, which party, who do you trust to fight for you? Republicans are going to fix inflation and cost of living when all they've been doing for the last several months is trying to tell you when you can start a family, tell you who you can marry, who you can be, who you can love, how many kids you can have. That's what they've been concerned about for the last several months. They haven't been concerned about inflation. They haven't been concerned about the cost of living. Or do you want to go with the party that has been fighting for a couple of years to make sure that you can have all those freedoms and also by the way are trying to pass a bill to make sure that your energy bills are lower that your prescription drug bills are lower that your

health care premiums are lower and that we're going to try to save the planet and save democracy like which which party do you think is going to fight for you what that and that's the choice and that to me is the best chance to get out of the whole referendum frame, which is usually what happens in a midterm election. Yeah. This election should be, and we should do everything we possibly can to make it a referendum on Republican extremism. And there's obviously a fear here that we're going to overly simplistically read the results of this election. In Kansas, it's a just say abortion as many times as possible, or just say pro-choice, or just say Roe, or just say Dobbs. It's this singular issue in and of itself. And it is a preeminent issue. It absolutely has tremendous

power, and we should lean into it. But it is a more nuanced story. People's position on abortion is a signifier of something about them. It's every campaign boils down to a battle over convincing voters you're going to fight for them. Who is the politician going to stand for when they get to Washington? And the fact that you that these candidates would take these extremist positions is a sign that they are not going to fight for you on every issue. Right. On abortion, on health care, on inflation. And that like this is why it's important to raise it, but it doesn't just, you know, you're not, the candidate that says Roe v. Wade the most times is not going to win this election. It's more, it's more sophisticated

than that. Well, I think, you know, what's true about abortion has been true about other issues as well. You know, a challenge we've seen in the past is that ballot measures like minimum wage or Medicaid expansion win in red states where Democratic candidates who support those policies lose. Or same thing we saw in Florida with enfranchising voters who've spent time in prison. And I think the question is, how can Democrats avoid that dynamic on an issue like abortion, where if it's a standalone ballot measure, it does very well, just like minimum wage and Medicaid expansion and all these policies that we care about. But somehow when the Democratic candidate runs, we don't. Now, I think that, you know, the initial reaction would be, well, why do we have such shitty

Democratic candidates? But I think it's a little more complicated than that, partly because, look, I think one caution in Kansas here is we talked about how the rate of Democratic turnout was higher than Republican turnout. In the midterms, more Republicans might turn out for other reasons when it's not just abortion on the ballot, right? There might be some Republicans who abortion isn't the issue that gets them to the polls, or maybe they're pro-choice Republicans, or maybe they're just Republicans who don't want it banned in all circumstances. But in a midterm election, when there are a whole bunch of other issues there, that may get more Republicans to turn out. So how should Democrats handle that challenge?

I think it's largely about issue salience. The example we've given recently is the minimum wage ballot initiative in in 2020, got to the 60% threshold. Biden got like 46% in the state, which means that there's a huge majority for minimum wage, but they did not think the minimum wage was central to their presidential vote. And so this is where if you want to narrow that delta between the pro-choice majority in this country and the Democratic vote share, you have to make the congressional vote, the gubernatorial vote, the state legislative vote be around that issue. It has to be high in voters' minds when they think about it and when they think about who they vote for. That if you want abortion, if you want access to abortion, you want to be legal in the state, then you have to, or in this country, you have to vote for a Democrat. And so it's about raising the salience of it. Obviously salience is very high

right now, but that could certainly change over the next two and a half months until the election. And I do think to the point about messaging, the Republican extremism has also given Democrats space, much more space to talk to a broader audience of voters, which is certainly what they did in Kansas. And you mentioned the ads, like two ads I thought were interesting. One, they both from the no side. One was say no to more government mandates, which you mentioned. They didn't even mention the word abortion in the ad. They just said say no to more government mandates. And they actually superimposed it over a picture of a COVID mask mandate sign. This is clearly not an ad for Democrats, even for independents.

That's an ad for Republicans, no more government mandates, and they do a COVID thing. But again, effective in turning out some Republicans to vote for this measure. So, okay, it works. There was another one I think was a very powerful ad, and it was a woman who is a mother of a three-year-old boy who talked about how she would have died if she hadn't had an abortion. And again, there are places all over this country right now where when they say no exceptions, they mean no of all the people who support making sure that abortion is legal, a third of those people personally oppose abortion, even though they want to make sure that it remains legal. That group of people, you see an ad the country, but to different groups of people. And there are messages that can hold this larger coalition together because of the extreme positions that Republicans have taken is important for Democrats to remember as well. You know, millions of dollars were spent on each side of this ballot initiative. I think it was

$12 million altogether. Organizers were on the ground for months before Dobbs was even announced. I remember far before the Supreme Court, Kathleen Sebelius, who's the former governor of Kansas, served in the Obama administration with us, was telling us to talk about this on Pod Save America and telling us this was coming and talking about how they've been organizing around it for a long time. Like, are there any lessons other progressive organizers should take from Kansas from the success of this organizing effort? Yeah, I mean, obviously, if this can win in Kansas, it can win anywhere. And I don't think that's just true of abortion. That's on a whole host of progressive issues. And if you do the hard work of politics, the organizing, the registering, the grassroots canvassing, et cetera, you can have real success. But I think what – and this comes through in the stories I've heard about how people organized around it in the ads that were done is persuasion.

This was all about persuasion, persuading people that it mattered, persuading people what it was about. It wasn't just we're going to find a bunch of base Democrats. We're going to send them a piece of mail. We're going to tell them this election. They're going to turn out. It was about persuasion, persuading people that it mattered, persuading people what it was about. It wasn't just, you know, we're going to find a bunch of base Democrats. We're going to send them a piece of mail. We're going to tell them the selection they're going to turn out. It was about persuasion. And I think like that applies to everything. The combination of strategic, well thought out, long-term organizing with a persuasion mentality, anything is possible in politics. Yeah. Never give up on voting. Never give up on organizing. Never give up on persuasion. All three of those things. I think that's what's there. And by the way, the debate is not over in Kansas. This November, all but one state Supreme Court justice is on the ballot. And currently there's a pro-choice majority. This is the majority that actually ruled that there is a right to an abortion in the Kansas Constitution. So anti-abortion activists are now going to be targeting the court. So in Kansas and elsewhere, this fight isn't over, which is another thing to keep in mind is we win these victories and we think,

okay, great, now everything's protected. We can go home. You can't. It is an ongoing battle because the forces arrayed against us here are not going to quit, and we can't either. Pod Save America is brought to you by Wealthfront. If you've seen the market lately, you probably didn't like what you saw. Or maybe you did.

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Yeah, we did the good stuff. In Arizona, just about every statewide candidate is now a MAGA Republican who wants the last election overturned. Blake Masters will be the nominee for Senate. MAGA media star Carrie Lake will likely be the nominee for governor, though her race hasn't officially been called yet. And Mark Fincham, a member of the fucking Oath Keepers, hasn't officially been called yet. And Mark Fincham,

a member of the fucking Oath Keepers, the Oath Keepers, the domestic extremist group that was charged with seditious conspiracy for January 6th. He's going to be the nominee for Secretary of State. Unbelievable. Arizona's top election officials.

That's who the nominee is on the Republican side. On the Democratic side, obviously Mark Kelly will be our Senate candidate. Secretary of State Katie Hobbs will be the nominee for governor. And former Maricopa County recorder Adrian Fontes is leading in the race for Secretary of State. Before we get to the Maga Bozos, what do you think about Hobbs and Fontes as candidates?

I think they're both very, very interesting candidates. Katie Hobbs was thought for a long time as the Democrats' best chance to win this governorship. She was a secretary of state who stood up against the big lie believers and the insurrectionists and the cyber ninjas in the 2020 election. I stood up to the Cyber Ninjas and she fought them. Right. Big Cyber Ninja. And Fontes is a Maricopa County recorder. He also was someone who dealt with the election issues in 2020, is someone who, by all reports from folks in Arizona, is a very strong candidate. Arizona is a tough state. This is a tough year.

But these are good Democratic candidates against incredibly flawed Republican ones. So we absolutely have a shot. And winning the Arizona governorship and Secretary of State would really stop Insurrection 2.0 in its tracks. And losing it would have the exact opposite effect and would raise real questions about the ability to actually legitimately count the electoral votes for Joe Biden or a Democrat to win Arizona in 2024. Yeah, remember, it's the job of both the governor of Arizona and the Secretary of State of Arizona to certify the election results, something that both the Secretary of State Dobbs and

Governor, Republican Governor Doug Ducey did in 2020. And Kerry Lake and Mark Fincham have basically said they're, you know, they'll only certify if they want to certify. So very dangerous stuff. Let's talk about the best way for the Democratic candidates to frame their opponents. And let's start with Mark Kelly and Blake Masters. There are obviously a lot of contrasts for Kelly to choose from. Here's his first ad out of the gate. Just released it this morning about Blake Masters. Let's take a listen. Blake Masters has made his dangerous ideas on abortion easy to understand. I think Roe v. Wade was wrong. I think it's always been wrong. It's a religious sacrifice to these people. I think it's demonic. For Blake, taking away health care freedom for

Arizona women is just the beginning. I actually think we should go further. The federal government needs to step in so no state can permit abortion. You make it illegal and you punish the doctors. Blake Masters, too dangerous for Arizona. What'd you think of that ad? It's an excellent ad. Look, I think Blake Masters is perhaps the most dangerous Republican candidate on the ballot in a very long time. Like J.D. Vance is an absolute fraud doing MAGA karaoke. Everyone like you can see the flop sweat from him trying to be something he isn't. He may win anyway, but he is just ridiculous. Blake Masters is a far right, true believing militant cultural revolutionary who believes like he, like MAG has a slogan to Trump. It is a philosophy for Blake Masters. He believes this country is in an apocalyptic downward spiral because the country is changing demographically. Women have too many rights. The LGBTQ plus

community has too many rights. He is trying to return America through any means necessary, through the power of the state, to a different era. He's talked about the importance of women staying home from work, about taking away people's freedoms, about getting rid of marriage equality. And he does all of that. Like we had a bunch of really extreme Republican candidates out there, but they all sort of do – they're all like brains pickled by Fox News, right? Hershel Walker, Ted Budd, et cetera. Blake Masters is young. He has deep ties in Arizona.

He is dangerously smart. And he knows what he is doing. And he knows the ways in which he's going to try to sand the edges of his incredibly radical extremist philosophy in order to win this election. Yeah, I mean, he's already started doing that. His first ad was out this morning, and it's just an ad of his wife and she's like you know blake's upset about the direction of the country there's inflation you know they do the gas station shot and then there's blake pushing his three kids on a swing and it does not seem like a mega extremist candidate kind of thing at all it seems like

you're just your typical white middle-class family in Arizona. Everything seems fine. It's like very, it worried me a little bit only because I'm like, oh, they, he's not, he's not going with his true beliefs here. He knows, he knows he has to sand the edges down. The DSCC had an ad out before Mark Kelly's ad about masters that was similar to Mark Kelly's ad, but went broader than abortion. It had the, I think it's demonic quote, but it also talked about, it had a quote from him saying, Blake Masters saying, maybe we should privatize social security. We have to cut the knot sometime. I think that's going to be pretty effective. Arizona has an older population and I don't think they're going to like the privatizing of social security. Again, that doesn't sound as extremist to some of the things that you mentioned. But I think for a lot

of people who don't follow politics closely and don't know who Peter Thiel is and don't know what like, you know, Blake Masters philosophy is just hearing that he wants to privatize social security is probably going to be a pretty damaging hit. I've noticed that too, because I've been doing this myself. I'm like, I just call him like a Peter Thiel protege. But like, I don't know if a lot of people know who Peter Thiel is or how fucking fascist his views are. You know, like unless you follow this stuff closely, right? You can read plenty of, there's a lot of good pieces out there

that I have been reading lately about how fucking scary Peter Thiel is and Blake Masters and their philosophy. You're right, it's like a, Trump in their view, Sam Adler Bell wrote a great one in the New York Times about this, like Trump in their view was like the disruptor. He was just breaking everything apart, but they actually have a very specific philosophy of, you know, why we need to get rid of democracy, essentially. Yeah, there's sort of three types of Republicans in this era. There are the ones who think Trump is a doofus, but do not have any sort of morality or shame. So they just pretend like they like him as a vehicle for their right-wing extremist conservative views. They're sort of like all ambition.

There are true Trump believers who believe in the man Donald Trump, right? That is Herschel Walker. That is Kari Lake. That's probably Mark Fincham. And then there are the people like Blake Masters who view Trump as nothing more than a vehicle for their even more extremist views. They disagree with Trump on a lot of the things that helped Trump get elected. Heterodox views on preserving Social Security.

Like, you never heard Trump say he wanted to privatize Social Security, preserving Medicare, those sorts of things. They just, they let Trump, you know, as you said, he was the disruptor. He was, they were going to, you know, stay and hit, I can't even think of, which is the most Democrat thing in the world, what the racing analogy is for when you drag behind someone. But I mean, I don't even watch F1, so I'm like really falling by the way. So that's F1, liberals NASCAR, I think is what that is. It's neither here nor there. But I think he is, Masters is deeply, deeply dangerous. In addition to the Sam Adler bell piece in New York Times, there was an incredible Mother

Jones piece from a few weeks ago that dug deep into Masters' writings when he was in college that is very much worth reading. With Lake and Fincham, how much would you focus on the prospect of them refusing to certify a Democratic victory in Arizona? I think their belief in the big lie and their promises to not allow Arizona voters to pick the next president is once again a signifier of their radical agenda. I think it's much more important. It should be much more central for Mark Fincham because he's the person in charge of the election apparatus. But most people do not believe most political attacks.

So you have to give them reason to believe it. And I think the big lie, like support for total bans on abortion and overturning Roe, is a proof point that this person really is out of touch, which will then allow them to believe a whole bunch of other things like privatizing Social Security, stealing elections, gun policies, etc., etc., etc. With Fincham, I don't think we have to complicate the simple here. Like the guy was a member of the Oath Keepers, a violent extremist group that's been charged with seditious conspiracy around January 6th. He wants to decertify the last election and he marched to the fucking capital. He marched to the capital on January 6th. It's not more difficult than that. That's who that guy is. Look, in today's politics, being a member of a right-wing domestic terror organization is a plus and a primary. Plus in a primary. And a downside to general.

That's right. Top for in a general. So Tuesday night was a pretty good night for Trump in other races as well. Most of the MAGA candidates he endorsed won, including John Gibbs in Michigan, who defeated Representative Peter Meyer, one of the 10 Republicans who had voted to impeach Trump. And in the Missouri Senate race, Trump's last minute endorsement of Eric may have been the boost that eric needed to put eric over the top um that's right there were two erics in

the race missouri attorney general eric schmidt the winner and former missouri governor eric the loser and donald trump decided to pick between them by putting out a press release that said he was endorsing quote eric i can't decide if this is one of the dumbest trump stories yet or one of the funniest why can't it be both i think it can be both i think it could be both i mean did you read the politico article i sure did that it's an article by alex eisenstadt who i'm sure who was a good reporter and but this article is just an absolute should be in a museum for journalists trying to make Trump's absolute insanity seem like something normal. Like, you know, I can tell the reporter probably want to say, like, what the fuck is wrong with these people? Because they have this scene where Trump has been.

I mean, the story is just amazing. He's at Bedminster, like they have this scene where Trump has been, I mean, the story is just amazing. I'm sorry. He's at Bedminster, his club in New Jersey, because it's too hot to be at Mar-a-Lago and he's a sweater, I imagine. And,

and he's trying to decide with hours left who, which Eric he's going to endorse. And he had a previous scheduled meeting with Romney, Romney McDaniel, who's trying to convince him not to endorse Eric Greitens. Calls up Kimberly Guilfoyle, who he finds out just happens to be on the property at the moment, who supports Greitens. At one point, he calls the guy who's the head of bikers for Trump, who also just happens to be at Bedminster at the moment. Comes to the meeting.

to be at Bedminster at the moment, comes to the meeting. Then the guy says that he's for Gritens, says, let me go pull my members. I'll come back, leaves to another room, calls a bunch of bikers, I guess, returns, says they're for Gritens. And then Trump has his idea that he's going to endorse these Eric's. And he's, you know, it's like there are these moments in these stories where Trump just morphs into Homer Simpson. And he's like, sure, it's like there are these moments in these stories where Trump just become morphs into Homer Simpson. And he's like, sure. It's brilliant. And he like seriously wants to confirm like three times that they spell Eric the same way so that the Eric ploy will work.

That's the, that to me was the funniest part of this whole story is that Trump's like, wait a minute, wait a minute. Are they both E R I C? Cause if one of them's E R I K, this whole fucking plan is, is not going to work.

I need to know. I need to know. I need to know that they're both with a C because... It's a story that's funny and dumb because it does like, not just the political story, but then other reporters are asking both of the Erics about it. And like when you ask the candidate about it,

you feel like it makes everyone fucking dumb, including us. Yes, we're talking about it you feel like it makes everyone fucking dumb including us yes we're talking about it like it's such a dumb story he put it off but he couldn't endorse a candidate but they're both their names were eric so he just said i endorsed eric what but he called both of them and said told them i think you'll be happy with my statement. And they assumed they were getting the endorsement. And then they got what they just said, Eric. It's just, it's honestly, up until Tuesday, the dumbest endorsement thing in the history of politics was when the New York Times endorsed two candidates in the primary.

But this so far exceeded it, right? Yeah, no, he fucking beat out those eggheads. Yes. Wow. Well, how do you feel about that? right yeah yeah no he he fucking beat out those eggheads yes wow well how do you feel about the and all kidding aside how do you feel about the fact that eric gritton's lost because even i mean he again eric gritton's horrific human being uh accused of both sexual assault and physical assault kidnapping kidnapping he's accused of kidnapping someone to physically assault, sexually assault them. Yeah, and physically assaulting his ex-wife, his children. Just a horrible person.

But Republicans, the RNC thought that if Greitens won, that either they might lose the Missouri Senate seat, or at the very least, they'd have to put a bunch of money into Missouri that they need to win other races. So the Republicans didn't, RNC, in that story that he told, Ronald McDaniel did not want Eric Greitens to win. So how do you feel about the fact that he lost? Because it probably would have been better for Democrats if he won. Even if Greitens had won, I think it would have been an absolute long shot for Democrats to win the race, a better chance than without Greitens on the ballot. But I'm skeptical that Democrats would have had the time, energy, and money to try to take advantage of that long shot. Look, the world is better without Eric Greitens controlling anything in power. He should probably be in prison.

I agree with that. But at the end of the day, I think this is true of whether we're talking about the race in Michigan or anything else, is the true danger to democracy. It's not the individual Republicans who are in office. It's the Republicans controlling government. Right. And the reason they're controlling government is because Republican voters are coming out to vote for them. Yeah. Right.

That's what's happening. Okay. When we come back, we will do a special round of take appreciator with our chief take officer elijah cone and crookids editor-in-chief brian boitler is here uh when we come back today's episode is brought to you by fx's reservation dogs the hollywood reporter called the first season of the original comedy a distinctive, wonderfully cast triumph of representation and ranked it the number one best TV show of 2021. This season, Reservation Dogs continues to follow our favorite gang of indigenous teens

in rural Oklahoma, with each of them trying to forge their own path in hopes of one day making it to California. FX's Reservation Dogs is now streaming only on Hulu. FX's Reservation Dogs is now streaming only on Hulu. All right, we are back for a special round of Take Appreciator. A very special round. First of all, we have Chief Take Officer Elijah Cohn in studio, which is a rare pleasure. Great to be here.

It's great to have you here. And playing with us today, in addition to Dan Pfeiffer remotely, we have Crooked Media's editor-in-chief and the host of the Positively Dreadful podcast, Brian Boitler in studio. Hey, Brian. Hey, guys. How's it going? It's going pretty well. It's good to see you in person. I'm very excited to appreciate some takes. Before we get into the takes, can you tell us, for those who haven't listened, even though I'm sure everyone here has.

All the traitors who haven't listened. All the traitors who haven't listened. Tell us a little bit about Positively Dreadful and what you've got going on there. Yeah, we're four or five episodes in. It's a new interview show that I host. It's sort of inspired by the popular internet phrase, shit is fucked up and bullshit. Yeah. And the idea is to basically take people seriously when they notice trends in society and in law and in politics that are alarming to them

or troubling to them and acknowledge that in many cases, those concerns are real. But also to give them an ability to kind of grasp them more fully so that they don't just become demoralized or deflated or assume that we're just basically on a road to hell. Uh, and that we're in that, you know, no good can come out of these situations or that they can't be made better. It is a fantastic podcast. Uh, and, and, and you're a perfect host for it as one of the, as one of the people who's often sounding the alarm

and unfortunately is right often about sounding the alarm. But I do think there's a lot of hope and optimism that I get out of it as well from talking it through with the guests that you have on. That's the idea. Yeah, it's really well done. So everyone should positively dreadful take a listen. All right, Chief Take Officer.

Let's hear it. Let's do it. Let's get take officer let's hear it let's do it let's get some takes all right let's do it i'm a little nervous i feel like i'm gonna get exposed because when i'm on my laptop it it looks like i'm looking at the camera but now i can't really read the takes and look at you guys at the same time yeah you think you think it's easy what we do here you think we're just don't worry it's primarily an audio format don't you worry about it kills me every time i do you want to hang on an audio format don't you worry about it kills me every time i do you want to hang on do you want it do you want to switch with me so that you can like look up at the camera no i got my own oh you got your own okay all right all right let's do it

welcome back to the take appreciators brian i'm really excited to finally get to play this with you i've been yeah i've been waiting brian is a true take appreciator. Let me explain how it works. I'm going to share some takes with you all. The producers have seen these takes. John, Dan, and Brian have not. I actually tried to get Elijah to give me a peek, and he refused. Wow. So this is like a real rule.

I'm a big integrity of the game guy. Stop the rule follower. So they will react to the takes and then rate them on a scale of one to four politicos, with four being the worst. Brian, Dan, John, are you guys ready? I'm ready. All right. Born ready.

Let's start with this very requested piece. Thank you to everyone who sent it to me. It's from the Washington Post. It is titled, Most Third Parties Have Failed. Here's Why Ours Won't. So right off the bat, the opening line of the piece is political extremism is ripping our nation apart and the two major parties have failed to remedy the crisis. And then throws out some stats about how a lot of Americans don't believe the country's headed

in the right direction and they're more independent than ever. And then we get this quote, the United States badly needs a new political party, one that reflects the moderate common sense majority. Today's outdated parties have failed by catering to the fringes. As a result, most Americans feel they aren't represented. Now, before I ask who wrote it, I'm going to point out that there's an easy mode and a hard mode here because it was written by three people. Okay. So if you can get all three, you get a bonus point, I guess. I know I can get one. I got two, I think. Okay. So if you can get all three, you get a bonus point, I guess. I know I can get one. I got two, I think. Okay.

But I can't figure out the third, even though in my mind's eye, I remember seeing the headline and the byline and now I can't. Andrew Yang. That was mine. Christy Todd Whitman is two. That's gonna be two, right? And then I don't know the third. Dan, do you have the third? I was gonna say

Jill Stein. Josh Barrow? No. It is David Brooks. But the first name is correct. If you can get the last name, it is a David. Oh. Mark Penn.

David Duke. This is David Jolly. Oh, David Jolly. Of MSNBC fame. Yeah, of liberal MSNBC. Yeah. Yes. I feel like the the take that didn't make the cut of the take was in the Reuters write up of this op ed, which says the party, which is centrist, has no specific policies yet. It will say it is Thursday launch. How will we solve the big issues facing America? Not left, not right. Forward.

Yes. You know what? This is how I don't know how you guys feel about this one. But in the true spirit of Take Appreciators, where you give the full playbook for people who really tried to be as trollish as possible. I want to give this only two because I feel like it's so lazy, like specifically from what Brian just cited in the Reuters piece, like they're not even trying.

They're not even, oh, we're a centrist party who just wants to take on the big issues. There's no effort there. There's no effort there. Okay, so I agree with that. On the flip side side it is like the ultimate politico take right it like i believe jim vande hei almost launched a third party yeah the innovation party right right and so and so almost as like an homage to the to the game i

think i'm going to give it the full playbook yeah the innovate yeah it's he wanted to launch the innovation party but instead he just wrote a book called Smart Brevity. And somebody can get that at your local bookseller. It was David Roberts or somebody else. I forget who said the thing that I love most about this like annual ritual of the centrist third party that doesn't have like a specific plan or whatever is that they eventually get bullied into putting out a policy agenda. And it's like the Democratic Party policy agenda. And they just didn't realize that they've been Democrats all along, but want to brand themselves differently. Dan, what do you think? I'm going to give it one Politico. I appreciate Brian's take. I think anytime we can re bring up

the Innovation Party, that is good for laughs. So I think anytime we can re bring up the innovation party, that is good for laughs. So I support it. It's one of the great moments because all people forget that the innovation party ticket was Mark Zuckerberg and Jim Mattis. I think. Oh my God. Oh my God. Wow.

Good, good memory. I didn't even know that existed. Yeah. But it gets one playbook for the, for the, or one Politico for the reason John said, which is like,

they're not even trying. This is basically a shell corporation for Andrew Yang relevance. That's what it is. Yeah. Yes. I mean, again, the article is titled here's why our third party won't fail.

And the reason they cite is because there are more independence now than ever as if independence or a block. All right. Next take. Okay. This next one is a suggestion from our friend, John Lovett. You guys know him.

Heard of him. Yeah. This article is a bit old. Hosts a weekly variety show. I laughed really hard when he called it a variety show on Monday. This article is a bit old, but he said we should do it just for Brian, and I agree.

It's from The Hill. It is a piece titled, Prosecuting Trump Will Ruin nation and might not hold him accountable. Here's a quote. There may be a viable criminal case that Trump corruptly obstructed congressional proceedings, namely January 6th. But that is highly debatable. If the Justice Department brought such a case, much of the country would condemn the indictment as political payback. Such a prosecution of a former president could take years, enmeshing the federal courts in unprecedented questions. President Trump should be held to account. Prosecution would be the wrong vehicle. Here's hoping cooler heads prevail. Anyone want to guess who wrote that? Andy McCarthy? Wow. Yeah. Very good. anyone want to guess who wrote that andy mccarthy wow yeah very good from downtown that was andy mccarthy so uh i was i actually assumed i was wrong about that because but i thought if i'm right about that then that's like the greatest indication uh we have that trump is hyper guilty of all these crimes and definitely needs to be prosecuted

because Andy McCarthy is like, you know, sort of very right wing legal writer for National Review, whose job seems to be painting over crimes Republicans commit and explaining why there's actually nothing wrong there. So if he's basically saying, yeah, Trump did it, but it would just be really it would be really bad for the country to do anything about it, then I think the jig is basically up. Like there's nobody with even a skosh of credibility on the right who can say, no, actually everything he did here is like, by the book, there's no laws against any of it. Trump's fine. I would say that I am equal parts impressed that Brian can can identify an andrew mccarthy take from months ago and alarmed and i really i don't know what brian does on sunday mornings but i really think he needs to listen

to this podcast i read i read the hill takes every day of the week it's not just i was gonna say what's so impressive about it is that like if you said it was a national review take i would start having andy mccarthy as one of my thoughts but the fact that it's andy mccarthy in the hill yeah which was just they publish any trash in the hill a true take appreciator yeah that is so okay so ratings on this one um because he decided not to do here's the legal case why trump shouldn't get prosecuted but did the he might be guilty but it'll tear the country apart that's getting me to i to I'm at like three and a half. I'm at three and a half on that. I want Dan to go first.

I'm still thinking. I'm going to say two and a half just because we're doing, you know, Price is Right rules here. And I want to leave room for some full playbooks later on. But it's a bad and particularly stupid take. books later on but it's it's a bad and particularly stupid take see in my mind you get more politicos as you get more um like silly or or troll stupid or trollish yeah um hot takey yeah this is like a different family of like not really offered in good faith like running interference for republicans because it's pretty clear that Andy McCarthy is really worried that if Trump gets prosecuted, he doesn't really give a shit

what happens to Trump. He does. He knows that that will reflect poorly on the right and Republicans. And, you know, if it was David Brooks or somebody making the same point, which we'll get to at some point, I'm certain, I'd give it three to four. But I'm going to give this one two. Okay. Because it's not coming from a place of trolling. It's coming from a place of fear and lying. Gotcha.

I mean, Brian, do you think he's going to get prosecuted? Do you think about this kind of thing? Should I? You know who does think he's going to get prosecuted, more likely than not, is this week's positively dreadful guest. Tell us. Merrick Erland.

Boy, that's a get. Talk to your bookers. I'm just, I, maybe I should just leave it hanging. Maybe people will think that I got the attorney general. No,

I guess this week was Pete struck. Oh, wow. And, and we got to talk all about this basic issue plus surrounding issues of the complexity of charging uh former president whether it makes sense to approach the investigation the way merrick garland has or not from a from a guy who has you know one of the few people in the country who has done investigations along these lines. So it was a very interesting conversation. That's great.

Yeah. And, you know, I just gave away the main scoop of the show is that he thinks that there's just too much criminal activity out there in the open for Trump to wind up with zero indictments. Still worth listening. In this media environment, Brian, you have to put the best scenes in the trailer. Especially if the ponderous judge

who runs DOJ is listening. We want to make sure he tunes in. All right, Elijah, you got one more for us? Yes, I do. Okay. I have a big note here to ask. How do you guys think this segment is going so far? It's in such large font. How do you think it's going?

I think it's going just wonderfully. This is the best take appreciators you've ever hosted. Yeah, you've nailed it. You nailed it. All right. That was a very Nathan Fielder

sort of move right there. I'll take it. Oh, yeah, Elijah. It's a little horrifying. I've been watching the rehearsal so it's been in my head alright so this last one is a true take appreciators take

it's not a pure take per se so this is from the AP a rare offender on this segment it's a piece titled election skeptics rise in GOP races to run state elections oh this piece sets up that really intense election deniers are winning Republican primaries, as you guys discussed

in the news segment. It references Doug Mastriano. It references Mark Fincham in Arizona, as well as others. Just as a recap, Mark Fincham is part of the Oath Keepers and was at the January 6th riot. And then, like I said, it doesn't have takes, but he uses this language. Here's a quote. Election experts say candidates who dispute the results of a valid election in which there's been no evidence of widespread fraud or manipulation of voting systems pose a danger of interfering in future elections. They warn it could trigger chaos if they refuse to accept results they don't like.

That's what we think of this kind of reporting oh because it's uh like yeah it's an election the experts are saying that if you uh if you deny an election and want to overturn it that could be bad yeah as a as a mostly retired reporter i i feel a little i feel a little for whoever wrote the story. Who is it, Zeke? Get off of this set. No, no, no, no, no. No, it is always hard to tell from the story.

And you're right. Depending on the byline, I might want to take it back. But whether the instinct and the pressure to couch all that behind the voices of experts instead of just saying what's obviously true could have been pressure put on them by the company or their editor or whatever their stupid rules are. Just calling them election skeptics is also a cop out. Did you read their other story? Gravity skeptic injured after walking out of a second story window? Gravity experts say that walking out of a second story window

without believing in gravity could cause chaos. Sir Isaac Newton claimed, what a fool. So, John, it was not Zeke. You guys want to take a guess at who wrote this? I feel like I don't know that many more people at the AP anymore. I know they're rare offenders. Sometimes their headlines are a little rough. Is Lemire still at AP?

It is not. I'll just tell you guys. He's a Politico. It's Bob Christie and Christina Cassidy. I'm not sure if you guys are familiar. I'm not even sure. I don't know. Those aren't even real people.

Those are bots. Those are Dolly generated. Look, like I remember what reporting say on climate change was like 10, 15 years ago. And it was all like this. It was all reporters who knew that climate change was a real thing and that essentially knew what its effects would be if left unchecked, but always compelled by the sort of, you know, the rules of the outlets they worked for to phrase that as experts say or climate experts say and, you know, pair that off with, you know, some industry groups saying it's all overblown. And it was a 10-year process or so of like bullying the mainstream outlets out

of doing that. And just basically saying you can't leave settled science in a he said, she said framework. And unfortunately, like they're doing the same thing for for democracy. And there's like the timelines much shorter. Yeah, I look, I remain a skeptic that Bob and Christy are real people. But if they are, this is likely not their fault. It's the fault of their editors and the Associated Press's absurd both sides is a balance over accuracy sort of approach. But so we don't really want to attack them personally. But you can't call the election skeptic is that is a serious offense. And that gets a full playbook. One for Bob and Christy, three for the editors. A full playbook for journalistic culture. And what a great note to end on. On that note, Elijah Cohn,

Chief Take Officer, thank you for a fantastic round of Take Appreciator. It went very well. And Brian Boitler, thanks for being here. And everyone, go check out positively

Dreadful subscribe listen to this week's Episode with with Pete struck Merrick Ireland and Merrick Ireland who could Be a future guest thank you everyone And have a good weekend we will talk to Y'all next week bye everyone Pod Save America is a crooked media Production the executive producer is Michael Martinez our senior producer is Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.

The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner-Bernstein. Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineer the show. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerard, Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montuth. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash crooked media.