Pod Save America - “Cleanup on Heil 12!”

Episode Date: December 1, 2022

Republican leaders struggle to respond to Trump’s Nazi Dinner, Congress passes a bill to protect same-sex marriage as Washington gears up for a busy lame duck session, the GOP conducts a midterm autopsy, and White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain stops by to talk about Joe Biden’s plans for 2023. 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.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Here we are, Dan, in our nation's capital together. It's like we never left. It's like we never left. On today's show, Republican leaders struggle to respond to Trump's Nazi dinner. Congress passes a law to protect same-sex marriage as Washington gears up for a busy lame duck session. The GOP conducts a midterm autopsy and later went to the White House to talk to Chief of Staff Ron Klain about Joe Biden's plans for 2023, Twitter, Trump, and the World Cup. It's a wide-ranging interview with Ron. But first, check out Crooked Media's newest podcast, Work Appropriate, where author and host Anne Helen Peterson sets out to find solutions to everyday workplace problems,

whether you work in an office chair or a sixth grade classroom. Listen to Work Appropriate now wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Wednesday. Also, it's runoff time in Georgia. Election Day is Tuesday. If you're a Georgia voter, head over to votesaveamerica.com to make your plan. And if you want to help out no matter where you live, you can donate and find remote and in-person volunteer opportunities to make sure the Warnock campaign has the resources it needs to win. All right, let's get to the news and kick things off with an update on the news and kick things off with an update on the meal that Donald Trump shared with anti-Semitic rapper Kanye West and white supremacist Nick Fuentes, also known as Dine Kempf. Do we know what they ate? Has that been

revealed? Wow, that's some, that's, maybe we need some reporting on that, you know, maybe you can break that story. I'm not really a reporter per se, but maybe people I follow on Twitter can do it. Yeah, we should give, of course, Crooked Media's own Sarah Lazarus credit for the title, DynKampf. And all funny things that you hear on this pod. After days of trying to avoid questions on the topic, Republican politicians were finally forced to respond. And here's what the party's two congressional leaders said. First, let me just say that there is no room in the Republican Party for anti-Semitism or white supremacy. And anyone meeting with people advocating that point of view, in my judgment, are highly unlikely to ever be elected president of the

United States. I don't think anybody should be spending any time with Nick Fuentes. He has no place in this Republican Party. I think President Trump came out four times and condemned him and didn't know who he was. Well, he just said he didn't know who he was. He didn't condemn him or his ideology. Well, I condemn his ideology. It has no place in society. What about the former president for deciding to have that dinner? The president didn't know who he was.

So that was Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy. What do you make of the timing and the difference in tone between the two responses? Well, the timing is these people were actually forced to speak to reporters because Congress is back. They could no longer just ignore their phone, not respond to texts

from their press secretary. They had to actually appear in public and answer questions. The differences between the two are Mitch McConnell has his job and Kevin McCarthy doesn't. And Kevin McCarthy needs people who pal around with Nick Fuentes to vote for him to be speaker. He's I mean, it is when you really get down to it, you know, as you know, you guys talked about last week.

But as it currently stands, the vote for speaker is going to be early next year when Congress reconvenes. McCarthy does not yet have the votes. McCarthy does not yet have the votes. One of his key supporters who is holding it together for him is Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was kicked off her committees for attending a conference with Nick Fuentes. Not to defend Marjorie Taylor Greene, and I have to be careful what I say here because Elijah will clip me out of context. But I don't know if you saw the Washington Post story on this brouhaha. Um, but did you, I don't know if you saw the Washington post story on this brouhaha and, uh, it has Marjorie Taylor green saying that, um, after she appeared with Nick Fuentes, uh, at this, at this event, someone showed her things that he had said, and she was horrified and thinks that no one should ever be hanging out with Nick Fuentes.

Even Marjorie Taylor green is now ahead of Trump on this issue. Sure. Like, if we're going to put aside all the other anti-Semitic things, Marjorie Taylor Greene is done. I'm not giving her any credit. I'm just saying that's how bad Donald Trump is. Yeah. And I mean, also, we have lost the thread, people. I don't. The problem.

Nick Fuentes is a problem for sure. But let's say the dinner party had just been Donald Trump and Kanye West. It should be just as big a problem. Well, especially because right before we started recording today, we got it in under the wire, Dan. Kanye West is on Alex Jones's program. Okay, stop. Problem. That's right there. Nothing that comes after that sentence is ever good. A wonderful family program.

And they're talking, as they do on that show. And at one point, Alex Jones says, you're not Hitler. You're not a Nazi. And I don't even know what the context was for that. But that's, you know. Kanye West responds, well, I see good things about Hitler also. Every human being has value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler. Especially. Not like even Hitler, especially Hitler.

So now we're getting into, anytime you're talking about Hitler, it's never going to go well. Look, Kanye's a glass half full kind of guy. That's how we get here. But yes, that's all bad. That is very true. But even before that, Kanye West said horribly anti-Semitic things. All of his sponsors dropped him at great financial cost to themselves. He was a pariah in society and he was able to bring a plus one to a dinner with the former president of the United States. The Nick Fuentes thing is almost a distraction here because Kanye is just bad enough. Like people who die with Kanye. It's tough when the Nazi is a distraction. Yeah. I mean, he's, yeah, I mean. I mean, that, that same Washington Post piece said that, um, aides had been trying to convince Trump up to the moment of the dinner to not have the dinner with Kanye because of all the

anti-Semitic things he said. And Trump basically said, um, well, he's always been nice to me. That's, that was his, he's always been nice to me. And they said that basically Trump just doesn't ever want to denounce people who support him, which is just everything you need to know about Trump. In fact, he may want to pardon some of them. Yeah, exactly. So McCarthy still needs Trump and he needs all the Trumpy people in the House to make him speaker. McConnell doesn't need that as much. But, you know, before we welcome Mitch to the resistance, as we've done a few times already, I think.

I have not. Very clear. You're more of a Romney guy. Here's what Mitch said to a follow-up question about Trump in 2024. If Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination, would you support him? Look, let me just say again. There is simply no room in the Republican Party for anti-Semitism or white supremacy. And that would apply to all of the leaders in the party who will be seeking offices.

I mean, it sort of tells you everything you need to know that Mitch McConnell can't rule out supporting the guy who dined with a nazi if the alternative is like four more years of joe biden like what it gets to the core of modern republicanism yeah which is power at all cost nothing else matters and mitch mcconnell whether he likes or not would rather have an anti-semite in the white House to appoint conservative judges than Joe Biden. Yeah. And that's it. And he's wrong about his party. There is clearly room.

There is a wide lane for people who dine with Nick Fuentes than establishment Republicans who want to cut social security to pay for tax cuts for big oil companies. Yeah. No, that's, that's, uh, that's fairly clear. And I'd also, uh, take issue with McConnell saying, uh, someone who dines with Nick Fuentes is unlikely to be elected president. I don't, I hope not, but we already saw Donald Trump elected once. Also, Mitch McConnell is a professional politician. He's been in life, public life for 50 years. How can he not answer

a follow-up question without melting on camera? He just, he knows, he doesn't want Donald Trump to be president again, but he knows if he says no and splits himself from Donald Trump this early on, he doesn't have an out later if Trump wins the nomination and then he has to get on board because if he doesn't get on board, like you said, that hurts his chances, the Senate's chances of, you know, confirming conservative judges and cutting taxes.

Yeah, he knew that going into that press conference. And so maybe just spend like five fucking seconds to think of an answer. Like, I'm not going to answer hypotheticals. Yeah, no. Like he's a doofus. His press secretary is a doofus. All of them. It's not that hard. So Trump, who is responsible for Republicans losing the last three elections in a row, responded to McConnell's statement by calling him, quote, a loser for our nation and for

the Republican Party. He then said of Fuentes, quote, I had never heard of the man. I had no idea what his views were, and they weren't expressed at the table in our very quick dinner or wouldn't have been accepted. So Maggie Haberman reported that Trump's statement was a version of what his advisors have been trying to get him to say. I assume the latter, not the former part. So mission accomplished, I guess. So what happens now now does everyone just move on from here or what like how do we make sure um dying comp isn't memory hold like so many other trump controversies

this is probably the final piece of evidence we ever needed that donald trump listens to our podcast because this is the he this he is doing the thing to mitch mcconnell we've been telling mitch mcconnell to do to trump and i worked worked with a guy once when I was on the Gore campaign who used to do a lot of cable TV debates with the Bush campaign. And his trick was always to start with the Bush campaign's talking point and just totally confuse them. And I think that's what Donald Trump is doing here to Mitch McConnell. He's getting ahead of the loser argument. That's what Donald Trump is doing here to Mitch McConnell. He's getting ahead of the loser argument. I mean, it's going to get memory old. I hate to say it, but it is going to get memory old. I was even just in the process of preparing for this podcast reading other low moments for Trump.

And you like forget some of them. Yeah. Just the absolute. I mean, some of them. Look, I think very fine people on both sides is one that had some staying power. Like it didn't define staying power. Well, it't hurt him like top worst things about trump right what do we think about very fine people on both sides they're not sending their best rape you know that'll that you know the violent mob to murder mike pence is high on the list yeah well that's always that you'll

remember that yeah greatest hits yeah could this end up in the greatest hits file i don't know like he's now running a presidential campaign again i think every democrat from now until the end of 2024 should be saying like donald trump launched his campaign for president by having dinner with a nazi it's pretty easy yeah it's such a fun it happens to be true and with kanye wet with with yeah i'm not with two nazis including kan West, because the Kanye West part really just like hammers home the absurdity of the whole thing. This is a thing that I wrestle with when it comes to how we talk about Trump, because we are right back into the same problem we had from 2015 to 2021, which is Donald Trump sucks up all the oxygen. He is so outrageous, so terrible, and so worthy of our condemnation and criticism and political attacks that other Republicans just walk around doing terrible shit without facing any consequences. And what I think one of the reasons for our success in the 2022 election is we didn't

talk about Trump. We talked about Trumpism using the term MAGA extremism or MAGA Republicans to talk about it. And is there a way, and I think we should think about this up until the moment Trump is the nominee, is how do we talk about Trump in a way that undergirds the message we want to do about Republicans writ large, including Trump? Yeah. Right. Is it they're standing with a guy who did this? They refuse to condemn him. This is another example of extremism, another example of the dangerous elements within the party. But there is this real fear that, you know, we're going to talk about this in a minute, but Republicans just took the incredibly unpopular positions on marriage equality. They're trying to blow up the economy of Social Security. And no one's going to know any about that because of Trump dines with Nazi rappers.

Yeah. Though I think that's a pretty damning allegation. It's hard because we don't know that we're going to be facing him, right? I don't think this is like, you know, he stood to putin in helsinki and he said nice things about putin right it's like i think this is this gets to the i mean it does fit in with the extremism frame right like i don't think we have to make this like oh he dined with a nazi who wants to give tax cuts to the wealthy and gut medicare yes the nazis have always opposed medicare trump opposes medicare and that's the real problem. The real problem. No, I think that this one is.

And I think you're right, though. You can't just make this about Trump and then split him from the Republican Party because look, the people in the Republican Party, the few people who have condemned Trump for this. I mean, I guess Mike Pence also demanded that not demanded, but said that Trump should apologize. Mike Pence has never demanded anything in his life. Imagine like, oh, he should apologize. Yeah. OK, that's going to do it. I'm sorry I had dinner with the Nazis.

Yeah, he should levitate above the earth. Those are equally likely things. But there are a number of people in the party, most of the politicians in the party who have refused to condemn Trump for this. And I think you hang that around their neck like you don't let them forget that. Yeah, I think that's right. I think you kind of have to. But this is an easy one for people to understand. This is my point.

It's like Nick Fuentes, his comments are not like, they're pretty, you know, we should go back to segregation. Jewish people should leave the country. January 6th was awesome. Like, it's very... Kanye West defending Hitler. Kanye West defending Hitler.

That's one that's going to break through, I think. I think that's one that's going to break through. That's one thing Kanye's been pretty good at is attention. Anyway. All right. Let's turn to some happier news. This week, Congress passed a law that will finally grant federal recognition of states same sex and interracial marriages here in 2022. The bill was introduced after Clarence Thomas suggested in his Dobbs opinion that the court should reconsider not only abortion rights, but precedents that protect the right to use contraception or marry who you want. The Senate vote was 61 to 36, with more than half of all Republicans voting no, even though over 70 percent of Americans support same sex marriage and over 90 percent support interracial marriage. What do you think explains the no votes? And do you think this is now settled as a political issue or will marriage come up again in 2024? We have several times said marriage was settled as a political issue and it has come back again. And I think as long as the Republican Party is in the thrall of right-wing MAGA extremists who want to take away our rights and freedoms,

then it will come up again. You can see a backlash at the state level trying to make life harder for people who enter into same-sex marriages. So I think it will remain a live issue. I think some Senate Republicans clearly wanted to take it off the table. There was reporting that more Republicans wanted to vote yes on this bill, but they faced real pressure from the evangelical right to get them to vote no. And it is worth noting that more than half of Senate Republicans voted against enshrining same-sex and interracial marriage.

This is an issue with 70% approval on same-sex marriage and obviously much, much higher on interracial marriage. it was seen as an issue that Republicans could use to win the election, that they were hoping to put marriage on the ballot in a whole bunch of states that would help drive out Republican turnout. And they ran on a fake constitutional amendment to enshrine marriage as a man and woman. Right. And then in 2008, when Obama ran, it was still only supported by 39% of Americans and 51 percent opposed it. And Obama was obviously for civil unions then and then became for marriage later on.

So an issue like that that went from 39 51 to over 70 percent in this short a time. I think it's worth noting because people should feel that like for all the for all the like difficult issues that are out there and for as much as politics can suck, like the culture can change and politics can change in a pretty sweeping way over the course of several years. And I think that's a testament to not the politicians because they sort of didn't lead on this. It was activists and people on the ground who did this. didn't lead on this. It was activists and people on the ground who did this. It should give people hope that better things are possible in this country, that people can agree, they can change their minds, they can become more thoughtful and more tolerant. And it really happened in ways, as you said, the politicians were led from behind on this one. And it was organizers and activists who push, but it was just the public came around

because they saw people in their lives who were in loving, this is what Obama talked about when he came out publicly for people who he knew who were in loving relationships. They were just as loving as ones between a man and a woman. And it changed their minds.

It widened the aperture to see something different. And so that could happen in the coming years on a lot of issues that seem intractable right now. And so if we think that we are just going down the toilet of polarization and negativity and revanchism and all of that is that there are real world, very recent real world examples of things changing and changing dramatically for the better in this country. Persuasion happens all the time. It's possible. And yeah, don't give up on it. I mean, as you told us last week, you're a big persuasion guy. I'm a big persuasion guy. Congress still has a lot more to do before they leave for the holidays and republicans take over

the house they need to figure out how to fund the government the military covid programs disaster relief and assistance to ukraine they want to pass the electoral count reform act and they want to lift the debt limit because of stories like this one from bloomberg on tuesday quote senate republicans want to leverage the next U.S. debt limit increase to force cuts in projected federal spending and changes to Social Security and other entitlement programs, the party's number two leader said. That would be Senator John Thune, who floated increasing the retirement age in an event that Bloomberg covered. Why wouldn't Democrats make diffusing the debt limit the top

priority in the lame duck? I have to, I mean, of course, the bill they just passed was a top priority, should be the top priority, was a bipartisan bill. I imagine that if it was up to the White House and most of the Senate Democratic Caucus. They would 100% defuse the debt limit tomorrow. I think that's correct. All the folks in the White House that you and I know well were with us in 2011 and 2013 when Republicans pushed the economy to the brink of collapse by using the debt ceiling. And that was a Republican, particularly Republican House caucus that was clearly batshit crazy, but quite sane compared to the one that's coming in this year. The problem is, I assume, Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, and perhaps maybe a handful of other Democrats who were unwilling to use, because you would have to

use, you'd have to do one of two things. You could do it, you could get 10 Republicans. And I imagine there's some, probably some Republicans who, if they could vote in secret, would not want to have to deal with this at some point next year. Yeah. Because the Senate is always, even the most Senate Republicans, the two times we dealt with this in the past, were very resistant to the effort and kind of brought there by the nuts in the House. Or you can do it, and that way you can extend it for, when you do it through regular order, you can extend it for a period of time. We're going to delay the debt ceiling until 2025. If you do it through budget reconciliation, which would get you your 50 votes, and it's very process-wise problematic or time-consuming, you have to do it for a number. So you have to lift it for $3 dollars or something like that to get you or you can get rid of it or you could eliminate it forever i don't can you eliminate forever with budget reconciliation you can you can say that it's like you can pick a number googleplex yeah that would be amazing to infinity and beyond and so that's the the challenge is that there isn't

That's the challenge is that there isn't appetite to do it. That is, in my mind, a massive, massive strategic mistake on behalf of these senators. And as a senator like Joe Manchin, who is running for reelection, a very Republican state, he would be better off ripping the Band-Aid off right now than being in the middle between a Democratic White House and a lunatic Republican Congress with social security on the line in a state with one of the highest retired populations in the country. He should not want this fight, but he's never been super well acquainted with his, some of his best political interests. I asked Ron about this. So you guys will hear his answer in a little bit,

but he did say that obviously the white house wants to lift it, but that they need the votes, which makes me. And I also read some reporting on the way over here that it is Manchin and Sinema. And what they're saying is they don't want to do it on through budget reconciliation because that would be doing it on a partisan basis. So it's like you'd rather have Kevin McCarthy and his band of nuts like be negotiating on this when, you know, you could just the whole economy could end up destroyed because we breached the debt limit because we didn't bow to their crazy demands. And the Senate Republicans are more like the House now than they were then. Right. The Rob Portman's of the world are gone. They're replaced

by J.D. Vance's, right? We couldn't end up with Herschel Walker there. There are a bunch of people from previous cycles like Tommy Tuberville and others. And so there is going to be... When this happened in 2013, it was all the nuts in the Republican House plus Ted Cruz who forced his conclusion. And Ted Cruz was ostracized in his caucus. So they're like, why is this horribly annoying person making us work all this time with such a stupid thing? But now there are a bunch of Ted Cruz's. They're all competing to be Ted Cruz. And it's going to happen with Donald Trump

running for president and a Republican presidential primary happening at the time with a bunch of people egging it on. It is deeply dangerous. And Joe Manchin- Someone's got to talk some sense into Manchin and send him on this one.

We're not going to get. Yeah, let's check. We've been doing that for a couple of years. 2021 again. Oh, if we are headed for another showdown with Republicans over the debt limit, what does that look like? What are the politics? How should Democrats handle it? Let's say let's say the what we think is going to come to pass comes to pass and Manchin and Sinema act like Manchin and Sinema and then we're in a debt limit fight. My recommendation, if someone were to ask me, and they really shouldn't, is to adopt the position that Barack Obama adopted in 2012 and 2013, which is that Democrats will not negotiate over the debt limit. You pass it or you don't. We're not going to be in some situation where we're going to use a esoteric, anachronistic legislative mechanism that simply allows us to adjust for the bills we already paid, to make huge changes to federal entitlement programs, to Social Security, to Medicare, to budget cuts. We are not going to do that. And so it is either

you have to play a game of chicken and center that fight around Social Security and Medicare. And John Thune helpfully laid out what the stakes of that fight were. And so that on paper should benefit Democrats. There was a navigator poll out taken post-election to sort of get an understanding of these are people who said they voted in the midterm elections. And Social Security and Medicare was an issue that was more important to the swing voters who decided the election than jobs in the economy. It was number three behind abortion inflation.

And ending the guarantee for Social Security and Medicare is by far the number one concern of all voters about the new Republican Congress. So that would lend itself. But here's the big caveat. So that's like, well, yeah, maybe Manchin's doing us a favor. We'll get a fight. We can reframe the entire economic question in high stakes. But it is likely to be deeply damaging to the economy and damaging to the president at the same time. what they will see is oh there's a big fight in washington and now the economy's really over government spending too much money over government spending too much money and i hear that republicans might be at fault but i don't know why can't biden fix it he's the president and then that's

that's all they it's very possible they could have this huge fight democrats could win they could emerge strengthened by it uh i think that is that is what happened for obama in 2013 unfortunately the obamacare website stopped working 10 days later so it was a brief honeymoon in 2011 that was deeply damaging to Obama he had his lowest poll numbers after that we were in the middle of preparing for the re-elect the next year the outcome of that fight was Barack Obama was losing to a generic Republican

by several points in our polling after that. Our credit rating was downgraded. Yeah, credit rating was downgraded. We had a month where zero jobs were credited, zero, the exact number zero, which is almost mathematically impossible to land on that number in a country of 300 million people. And it's dangerous. The thing is, it's dangerous. Forget who wins the politics. Both times we came very close to going off the edge, not paying our bills, defaulting on the people, not getting their Social Security checks, massive impact on the global economy, returning to a recession, all bad. You can avoid it. Avoid it. Yeah. And I think this also goes into the book. The way to frame it is to start framing it early. If you're the Democrats that like these extremists are now taking the economy hostage because they can't get social care, Medicare. Yeah. All right. So finally, the RNC announced that they're forming a committee to do an autopsy on their disappointing midterm results.

The committee includes Kellyanne Conway, anti-gay evangelical Tony Perkins and Unabomber fanboy Blake Masters, the failed Arizona Senate candidate who Republican pollsters have said was less popular than the man accused of child molestation who they ran for Senate in 2017. Roy Moore. What a party. What a party. In fairness, I think Masters does seem like the kind of guy who's intimately familiar with autopsies. Just maybe not the kind that they're trying to do here. He just watches

that autopsy channel 24-7. Right? I mean, that's the kind of guy. I think I put him in the outline as serial killer impersonator Blake Masters. I know.

Honestly, that gave me inspiration. Yes. Your joke was better. Or Sarah Lazarus' joke. Someone's joke was better. No, that was mine. That was mine. Do you think this

extremely Trumpy committee will deliver some fresh insights about how Republicans can win the next election? I mean, the context for this is that Ronna, Robney McDaniel, who has been the chair of the RNC since 2017. So she has lost elections in 17,

18, 19, 20, and 22, uh, is running for reelection as chair. There's a chance that she's gonna be challenged by Lee Zeldin, who ran for governor in New York and ran a, you know, he lost by a lot,

but I guess less than most people lose New York by. And one of the things she's trying to... You just left out the other challenger. Who's that? My pillow guy. Oh, is he going to do it? Mike Lindell. Yeah, he wants to challenge.

Oh, you know what? Mike Lindell. Yeah. He wants to, he wants to challenge. Oh, I, I, you know what? He has my full support. It's so funny. It's just, we're going to look back on this period of time and be like, where you can say something called a phrase, the my pillow guy.

And everyone knows exactly what you're talking about. It's like a real thing. You remember the episode where you talked about Kanye West, loving Hitler and the my pillow guy running for RNC chair. Yeah. That was the, that was the interesting episode. I mean,

it's so funny because in the post-2012 autopsy that was done after Obama won was this very serious effort. Our friend Tim Miller wrote about it in great detail in his book where it's all smart people and really trying to ask hard questions about the Republican Party.

Now, their answers were apparently all wrong because they're probably said the opposite of it and one anyway, but it was a serious effort. This doesn't feel like it's going to be a serious effort because ultimately a truly serious effort would be, you would just have like a trapper keeper and you'd open up. There'd just be a picture of Donald Trump's face. Like that would be it.

And obviously they can't do that, but that is the thing. It's like, if we had And obviously they can't do that, but that is the thing. It's like, if we had less Trump, we would lose less. But he's the problem. And so it's like, this is... He's the problem, it's him. Yeah. So no, I don't think it's going to be a serious effort, John.

Even though I don't think it's going to be a serious effort either. I also think that what they learned from 2012 is, oh, if we just ignore the autopsy and go with donald trump we won anyway so we haven't won since then right but i feel like lessons not learned it's like a 16 the exception of the rule who knows they don't they don't know yet on our side even though democrats had a historically good midterm should our party consider doing something similar minus the Blake Masters and the... Whose are my pros? Yeah, I was going to say, I don't know. I don't know whose are who are.

It could be us. Keep the pod save guys out of there. Yeah, what do you think? Absolutely, we should. I think I have worked on winning races and losing races. And you always learn more from the races you lose because you actually approach it with the idea of trying to figure out

what went wrong. When you win, particularly when you win a race, you don't think you're, you didn't think you were going to win. All your ideas seem brilliant at that point. Everything was obviously right or how did you win?

And we, there is a, I think when you look at all the conversation that's happened about why Democrats won, who turned out, who didn't, how we got them to turn out, what were the right messages, what were the wrong messages, there's a lot of conflicting information. There's a lot of information based on the exits or very selective reading of certain turnout data, narratives being pushed by people who have interests in that. There's a lot of confirmation bias. I think it would be very helpful to figure out a real analysis of who decided the election, what messages work with them, where they got their information. You know, was it a validation of this or a vindication of that or a statement against this person? I thought that the navigator poll I referenced earlier is helpful in that, but there could be a real project to help us understand,

because there are some places where things didn't go right. Yeah. Like what went wrong in New York? Why did Tim Ryan not do much better against a candidate like, a great candidate like Tim Ryan, do not any better than other Democrats did against a terrible candidate like J.D. Vance. Yeah. Like, what does that say? What is happening there? What are we missing? And by the way, the truth may not validate either side of a debate.

Right? Like, it could end up being quite complicated and nuanced over what went wrong, what went right. We will not accept that. Well, that's what I'm saying. You know, it's like. You can only do that on Mastodon. It could be the... I'm glad we did a lot of Mastodon jokes in the last...

Just why you're pretty far down the waiting list. A lot of toots. A lot of toots. But yeah, no, I think there's probably a lot of different explanations for what went wrong and what went right. And it could be a lot more subtle than we think. And it's very helpful for us to figure this out

in advance of 2024. Because I think it's been unhelpful that the conversation, at least sort of the online media conversation or the cable conversation has devolved into like the pundits were wrong or the red wave didn't happen or the polls were wrong or you don't. It's like, who cares? Who cares? At this point, we just want to know exactly why certain voters turned out, other voters didn't, and why they voted the way they do. I mean, it's very helpful. I have no doubt, no doubt that Jenna Malley Dillon and Anita Dunn and the Biden team are looking at this. Because if you're trying to figure out your plan and budget, which they are doing as Joe Biden is making his final decision on whether to run or not. You need to know the answer to that. You need to know why black turnout was, according to some reports, lower than people thought it was going to be, why other turnout was higher. How high was youth turnout? There's been a big conversation about

Gen Z and winning the election. And while in raw numbers in vote support, it was high, but as a percentage of turnout, it was lower than 18. What does that say? Why? Talking to people who didn't turn out. We did a big project in preparation for 2012 where we looked at the drop-off voters between people who voted for Obama in 2008 who did not turn out in 2010 to understand why they didn't vote in that time. And that informed a lot of our messaging in 2012. I think I'm confident that that will be a similar project will be done, but I just think that that will be their internal strategic analysis. I think for the rest of the party, all the people are going to be running races in 2024. I was going to say, yeah. You need a more public thing. And if, look, if you, if anyone wants to partner with MessageBox to do that, I'm in.

Wow. I don't I don't have that such a opportunity lately, but I would do it here. Yeah. Well, and yeah, I was going to say, like, beyond the Biden folks, like Sherrod Brown is running again in 2024 in a very tough race in Ohio. He's going to want to know why Tim Ryan did not, you know, overperform Biden by as much as I think a lot of people expected. Tim Ryan did not, you know, overperform Biden by as much as I think a lot of people expected. Folks trying to win back the House, which is very winnable for Democrats in 2024, are going to want to know. You better figure out what happened in New York because if we don't win those seats back in a presidential election year, we are not getting the House back. Yeah. And it's like we can complain about Andrew Cuomo while we want. Great. Yeah, I'm fine. But like, we should figure out how to win those seats back. He's still going to be around. Probably doing some podcast. Okay. around. Are you doing some podcast? Okay.

Yeah. So are you making an announcement? I just feel like that's, that's where everyone, that's where all these fucking losers end up, you know? Anyway, I hope you enjoyed our podcast.

When we come back, my interview with White House chief of staff, Ron Klain. Ron Klain, welcome back to Plot Save America. Thanks for having me, John. It's always good to be back. Good to be here too. First off, congrats on a great midterm. Thank you. I mean, I think that a lot of factors went into it, but we're proud of the role the president played as leadership and to achieve a historic result, to hang on to all of our Democratic senators, if we, you know, knock wood, get Georgia done next week, to have so few seats lost in the House, really historic result, to win some critical governorships, and to actually win

many state legislative chambers. You know, go up and down the ballot. It was really an exceptional result. So you were here in 2010. And 94. And I've seen it all. And 2010 voters were upset about the economy. Obama's approval rating wasn't great. And we got killed in the midterms.

Yeah. Here, people weren't happy with the economy. Biden's approval wasn't great. And historic result. Yeah. How do you think, what was the difference? I do think we delivered a lot of things for the American people that were popular. So look, I'm so glad we did Obamacare back in 2010. And over time, people have come to appreciate it. But back in 2010, it was not popular, as you and I both remember.

And so we had candidates carrying around a bill that wasn't popular with the voters at that time. The things President Biden's done, I think, have really remained very popular. The Inflation Reduction Act, bringing down the cost of prescription drugs, the infrastructure bill, the CHIPS bill. So when the president called winners on election night, one by one, each of them said, you know, I ran on this part of your agenda. I ran on that part of your agenda. They weren't running away from the president. They were running with the president. I think that really helped. I think that kind of sense that things were moving in the right direction, that we'd gotten things done and people liked what we'd gotten done. I think that really helped. There's just no question that abortion had a

big effect on the election. We weren't the only incumbent in 2022. The Supreme Court was kind of an incumbent in 2022, and voters were very unhappy with what they had imposed on the country. That had a big factor. And then finally, we ran against perhaps the most extreme set of Republican candidates in history. I don't even know how you score that, but they were certainly at the high end of that. And I think that had a big effect. I think voters, the president made a strong appeal twice in the closing period of the campaign for voters to show up and vote for democracy, to stand up for democracy. I think that connected with people. And I think when you put that against the kind of election denier, super MAGA extreme candidates, I think that contrast really helped us. So a ton to get done in the lame duck.

Yeah. The other day, John Thune, number two Senate Republican, said that they do want to leverage the debt ceiling to force cuts in Social Security and Medicare. Obviously, you guys don't want to do that. You could lift the debt ceiling in the lame duck with 51 votes if it was attached to a reconciliation bill. I keep reading that people think there's not enough time to do that. But isn't that like a top priority to not let them crash the economy by playing chicken

with the debt ceiling? Well, look, we're going to look at the possibilities of trying to get the debt ceiling done. I think there are some first things first. We have to get this rail shutdown averted. That's an immediate crisis, a crisis for our economy, a crisis for the towns across America that would lose access to clean water, the million workers that get laid off. So that's what we've got the Congress working on this week. We have to get the government funding. That's also a very important thing, an immediate

thing. The government runs out of money on December 16th, and so the clock's ticking on that. And we have other things that need to get done. We have to get the marriage equality bill, which passed the Senate the other day, back through the House again and onto the president's desk for historic signing. So I think debt ceiling's a part of the conversation, but we have to line it up and we'd have to have the votes. Are you worried about a debt ceiling fight with a Kevin McCarthy or someone else led house? Look, I think it is a concern because let's give them some credit. They have been straight up and open about what they intend to do. They intend to cut social security. They intend to cut Medicare. I think we'll win that fight. I don't think the American

people want to see social security, Medicare cut. And I think the Republicans go down that path, it'll be a disaster. But certainly if there's a way to resolve the debt ceiling before that, that would be great. Is the president going to push to get Electoral Reform Act done? Yeah, this has been a very high priority for us. Again, it's one of those things that is very close to the finish line, not quite there. And this is, again, a thing where there's been good bipartisan work in the Senate. I need to credit Senator Collins and others for working on that. And it's very, very important. Look, we saw the near disaster we had in 2020 and the whole thing going off the rails and then the insurrection on January 6th. And so one way to put some guardrails against that

is to make it much clearer what kinds of challenges to election results are legitimate, not legitimate, and how those challenges are reviewed. And I think the Electoral Reform Act is a vital part of that, and that's definitely in the must-do category for the lame duck. Looking ahead to the next two years, are there any legislative priorities you think could get done with the Republican House? Well, we're going to have to see. You know, we have had success working with Republicans in Congress. We've had a number of Republicans vote for our infrastructure bill, for our CHIPS bill, for our veterans bill. All told, those are the three big ones, all told over 150 bills that had some bipartisan support.

So we've shown we can work with Republicans. The question on the table really is, can the Republican leadership work with us? And we're just going to have to wait and see. I think there are areas that should be areas of common concern. Mental health is one that comes up quite often as an area that really should cross party lines. We're going to have to work together to fund the government, to deal with a lot of the basics and essentials, we're going to need their support to fund the war in Ukraine. So again, I think we've proven our bona fides on this. I think the challenge is to see what they can do. You guys looking at any executive actions over the next two years or any areas where the president can sort of take action without Congress?

Look, we have used the president's executive powers when it's appropriate. The president has tried to, has not overreached, but hasn't been shy about using them when it's appropriate on issues like student debt relief, pardoning people with marijuana convictions for simple possession, competition issues, and federal police reform. So we're always looking for things where he has the appropriate authority, and it's in his bailiwick to act by executive action, act by regulation. That certainly remains on the table next year. So the House Republicans have promised all sorts of investigations into President Biden, the administration, his family even. Are you guys going to cooperate with every investigation and subpoena no matter what, or are there some

lines that you're going to draw? Look, I think we will follow the same rules the prior administrations have followed about trying to be cooperative where appropriate and also asserting our rights where that's appropriate too. I think the question really, again, once again, is for the Republicans. They ran around the country in 2022 and said they would fight inflation. They would fight crime. They would secure the border. That was what they ran on. And if they instead turn the house into a political investigations unit, I think they're going to pay a price for that. And I think that's going to fall on them. So former president Trump, current GOP frontrunner, had dinner with a Holocaust-denying white supremacist the other night and Kanye West. So I know a reporter shouted a question at President Biden

about this, and President Biden said, you don't want to know what I think. I want to know what he thinks. Has he talked to you about it? Do you know what he thinks? Yes. I mean, I think what he said, you don't want to know what I think. I think what he was conveying was, I think some very bad things that I as president should not be saying out loud. We've also quite clearly condemned it here at the White House and the president's views are known. Look, this is a president who ran for president, largely motivated to run for president because of anti-Semitic protests in Charlottesville and the people with Nazi-like chants coming down the street.

This is what's motivated his candidacy, restoring the soul of America. So he obviously condemns this in the strongest possible language, a language perhaps so strong you can't even say it out loud. And he takes it very seriously. I think the president's been very concerned about the rising tide of anti-Semitism in this country, some of the violent anti-Semitic acts we've seen in this country. And so this is something that really matters to him. It's something he's going to be speaking out about more and more and something we're trying to fight in every way we can. Yeah, I could imagine him wanting to speak on this because I feel like every time he does,

he's pretty strong. He is. I think he tries to use his voice on these things in a forceful, but dignified way, in a way that reflects the seriousness of his views. I think one thing we learned in 2020 and in the past two years is how to have the right kind of exchange with Donald Trump. And we've tried to avoid having the president go down to his level and, you know, insult for insult, you know, shot for shot, tweet for tweet. But instead, at the right moments, call President Trump out, call out his hate, call out his division. He did that very powerfully. President Biden did that very powerfully on the one-year anniversary of January 6th in the Capitol. He did it very powerfully in front of Independence Hall on the start of the fall campaign season. He did it very

powerfully on Capitol Hill just a few days before the 2022 election. So he has spoken out. He will speak out. But he's going to speak out in a way, I think, that fits who Joe Biden is, which is talking in a serious, important, forceful way about the soul of America and what we need to do to restore it. You mentioned tweet for tweet. You are one of the White House's most prolific tweeters. I hope not. It's okay. I'm a tweeter myself. What do you think about the new owner's changes to the platform, particularly reinstating Trump, Kanye West, and I guess all accounts that haven't broken the law that were once suspended? I will say I don't spend a lot of time thinking about Twitter itself and about how Elon Musk is running Twitter. I Kind of have my hands full here. But look, I think anything that encourages hate speech is bad. And I don't think it's obviously

not good for our society. It's not good for the discourse. I don't think it's good for Twitter. But he owns it. It's his business. He's going to run it, I guess, how he sees fit. We'll see what happens. People are sort of fleeing the platform left and right. You're going to stay on Twitter? I'm going to stay on Twitter. I haven't really figured out the other platforms yet. I think it's very confusing.

So we'll see. Look, you know. Do you find it helpful? Like, you tweet about gas prices falling. You sort of, you know, give the press some well-deserved shit for economic narratives. Do you think that's helpful in sort of shaping the press narrative? Here's what I think about Twitter, which is one thing is it was a piece of gospel in the Biden campaign of 2020 that Twitter is not America. Yeah, right.

And that's true. I think if you go on Twitter and say, hey, is this where the public zeitgeist is, that Twitter is not America. And that's true. I think if you go on Twitter and say, hey, is this where the public zeitgeist is? That's a mistake. I think I find it useful in two ways. First of all, it is a quick way to understand kind of what the press core thinks of things, what certain kind of elite opinion makers think of things. And that's something when you run the White House, you need to understand. Secondly, I find it a way, and I hear this all the time as I go around and talk to people, to communicate to our supporters and our allies a point of view and to reach people that you can't, you know, you worked here, we have talking points, we send out talking points by email.

You know, there are just a lot of people in today's network society who aren't going to get those talking points by email. So I find it a quick way to communicate, here's our perspective on this issue. Here's our perspective on this thing. And I hear from people all the time, hey, thanks for sending that out. I had to go on TV. I had to do this. I had to do that. And it helped kind of navigate things a little bit. Have you made a decision about whether you're going to stay on as chief of staff? Well, look, it's the job of a lifetime. I love it. Love working for the president. I have an incredibly talented team here and great colleagues that I love. It's a hard job. It's

a grinding job. I've stayed longer than any Democratic first chief of staff has. I'm here. I love being here. At some point in time, I'm sure a last day will come, but not now. For now, you're here. Last question, I'll let you go. You were on the Men in Blazers podcast. I was. You predicted a USA win. I predicted a 4-1 win.

I was a little overly enthusiastic. That's okay. You still predicted a win. Yes. Do you have a prediction for the Netherlands? Yes. I do think we're going to win. I think this team is underrated, underestimated.

You know, the president's just in love with this team. You remember from the Obama-Biden administration that he led our delegation to South Africa in 2010. He's been a giant U.S. men's team fan since then. We've also had really close relationships here with the U.S. women's team, working with them on pay equity. And also, for the first time ever, any president to give the Medal of Freedom to a soccer player. President Biden gave it to Megan Rapinoe. And so we're big soccer fans here. I think the USA is going to beat Netherlands. I think it's going to be 1-0. I'm not going to go over the top on goals scored this time, but I do think we're going to win. Okay. We heard it here first. Ron Klain,

thanks for joining Positive America. Thanks for having me. Alright, thanks to Ron for joining us today. Everyone have a great weekend, and we will talk to you next week. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner-Bernstein. Our producers are Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash podsaveamerica.