Pod Save America - "Evening Joe."

Episode Date: February 9, 2023

Joe Biden had a surprisingly good time at his State of the Union address by shooting down Republican hecklers like they were a Chinese balloon. Democratic strategist Michael Podhorzer stops by to discuss what the midterm results can teach us about 2024. And later, House Republicans take on the peoples’ business by asking what Twitter knew about Hunter Biden’s laptop. 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. On today's show, Joe Biden has a surprisingly good time at his State of the Union address by shooting down Republican hecklers like they were a Chinese balloon. House Republicans take on the people's business in their first big oversight hearing that asked the question, what did Twitter know about Hunter Biden's laptop and when did they know it? But first, we are very excited to announce the return of Stuck with Damon Young, an original podcast from Crooked and Spotify. The award winning author is back for more off the cuff conversations inspired by today's most culturally relevant headlines and roundups of Damon-approved listener-submitted questions. He's joined by some of the brightest minds and bold voices of the Black community, including Kiese Lehman, Roy Wood Jr., Elaine Welteroth, Nicole Hannah-Jones, and more. The trailer is live right now, and the first episode drops on February 16th. Listen to Stuck with Damon Young

for free only on Spotify. Before we start, we also want to thank everyone who donated or organized in Pennsylvania for the special elections that were held this week. A lot of VSA folks helped out on this one. Three statehouse seats were up for grabs and Democrats won all of them. And the reason this is such a big deal is because Democrats are now officially in control of the Pennsylvania Statehouse for the first time in more than a decade and can work with Governor Josh Shapiro to enact a more progressive agenda for the state. So thanks to everyone who's part of the Vote Save America community who helped out for that. It's a big deal. All right, let's get to the news. President Biden is barnstorming the country this week after delivering a malarkey free State of the Union on

Tuesday night that lasted 72 minutes and framed his expected reelection bid as a contest between a bipartisan leader who fights for working people and an unserious party that's been captured by out-of-touch extremists, an argument that some Republicans helped him make by heckling the president for telling the truth about what they've proposed. We'll get to that later. Biden focused most of the speech on the economy, both the progress we've made under his presidency and the work left to be done, which he repeatedly punctuated with a phrase that seems tailor-made for a campaign slogan.

We've been sent here to finish the job. Let's finish the job this time. Let's finish the job. Let's finish the job this time. Let's finish the job. Let's finish the job. Let's finish the job, Dan. Come on. Where's the t-shirts? Let's get some,

where's the merch? What was your first reaction after listening to this speech? I will say going into this speech, I dreaded it. Not because of Joe Biden. I mean, you and I have been through a lot of State of the Union together. It's safe to say we hate them. Whether Barack Obama is giving them, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Joe Biden. It's just this,

the speeches are always kind of the same. We know what the notes are. We know. It's an anachronistic format. Yeah, it's just, it's restrictive. Some people, half the room applause is half dozen. Kevin McCarthy looks like he ate some bad beans or something while he sits there.

It's none of it's great. And I was like, what a way. And I even remember when the crooked staff was like, you guys want to do a group thread? And I was like, no, but I guess I will. But I have to say it was great. I enjoyed it. The Biden did a good job. The speech was, I think, a very politically smart speech. He

delivered the shit out of it. The heckling was interesting. It was, it was great. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Exceeded expectations. Good way to spend a Tuesday night. I mean, I wouldn't say that i enjoyed it i did i mean i thought i here's what i think i think every state of the union uh is always one of the most challenging speeches you'll ever have to write and for presidents one of the challenge most challenging speeches they'll have to give a 72 minute state of the union that's not a laundry list but actually has a theme and a message that breaks through to people is a monumental achievement and that's not a laundry list but actually has a theme and a message that breaks through to people is a monumental achievement and that's what i think the speech was um because it's really difficult to break through in a state of the union and i do think that they succeeded at doing that

my first reaction was that if joe biden loses re-election it will not be because of his message in this speech he has the message for his reelection. What a bold take that is. I mean, Joe Biden loses it will be for his speech in 2023. Well, he's got a message like he has a very clear, politically astute message that he laid out in the speech. You know, it's the it's he's it's Scranton Joe. Scranton Joe is back. He's he's fighting to rebuild the American middle class. And he's willing to work with people on that. And he has in the past. And he's also willing to take on people who are standing in the Union. One, what do you think have finished the job? I think all slogans are stupid.

So therefore, you lower your expectations on them. And I think you can overthink these things. You have a bunch of consultants in a room. They're doing the polling. You need to get middle class in there, right? All this bullshit.

You can't overthink it sometimes. It makes sense right every president running for election wants some version of finish the job as their slogan and you know it's very it's very biden right it's very sort of down to earth i'm good with it we had what what was ours i was looking it up because i forgot what the obama 2012 one was for a second. Forward. Yeah, I was on that campaign. It clearly was not as memorable as our 08 slogan. So it's like, was forward some stroke of genius? No, I don't think so. It was fine.

It worked. But I think finish the job is great. Yeah, I think it's interesting. Not because the words finish the job are somehow going to change the election. You're exactly right. Slogans are stupid. Slogans in the State of the Union are somehow going to change the election. You're exactly right. Slogans are stupid. Slogans to say that the unions are particularly stupid. I mean, you remember that in this exact, this speech of this exact juncture in our presidency, we debuted the monstrosity that was winning the

future. A slogan that made it through an entire policy process and multiple focus groups and no one ever realized it abbreviated to WTF. Here's what slogans are for. Now that I live out in Los Angeles, every time you'd come here for a fundraiser with a politician, you'd get in a room with a bunch of Hollywood producers and writers. And inevitably, the first question would be like, why can't Democrats have more of a slogan? We have a bunch of writers and producers out here who could help you develop a slogan that actually sticks, that's on a bumper sticker, just like the Republicans, because the Republicans are always good at slogans. You always fucking hear that in Los Angeles. And that's what I think of when I think about people asking for slogans in 2023.

Here's what I think is interesting about it, though, is, putting aside the words, Here's what I think is interesting about it, though, is putting aside the words, it is an acknowledgment, I think, from Biden that he is in a unique situation. In most cases, presidents are – in this exact point in their presidency are looking for a way, an argument for why they should be reelected. Biden is coming up with an argument for why he should run for reelection because of his age, the fact that a lot of people viewed him as a bridge, potentially a one-term bridge. And so now he is, as far as we know, decided to run. And the polling shows that even among people who did vote for him and probably will vote for him, there is some skepticism about that. So why me? To finish the job I was doing. There was more work for me to do. And I think that's interesting. Yeah. He promised to be a bridge to the next generation and that bridge isn't finished. Yeah. Look, some bridges are longer than others. He went across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. I think

it goes on for fucking forever. Yeah. I'm still going to be the bridge. It's not done yet. I also think he was having fun. He was energetic. He was lively. He enjoyed interacting with the people in that chamber, which is saying a lot. He enjoyed it even when they were booing him. He was bigger than his detractors, right? Which is important. And I think, you know, altogether, he was just, he was a happy warrior and he's always best when he's a happy warrior.

His kind of approach was, oh, you think I might be a little old or maybe not be up to the job? I'll see you assholes stand up here and deliver a speech like this for 72 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. And I may be old, but these people are fucking crazy. That's that's the that's the real that on a book. Oh, look, another Hollywood producer came up with the slogan. So the White House has surely been looking at some of the same polling we all have. Most voters are unhappy with the direction of the country, the economy

and the job that Biden has done as president. Knowing that, what do you think they set out to achieve with this speech? Remind people of what he did and what it means and how it's impacted the economy, which is, I think you could say that about 90% of state of the unions ever delivered. President Biden, because of the type of presidency that he has decided to have to be a little less in the news necessarily, or the center of the conversation as sort of a response to Trump and perhaps, and because of the media environment he's in,

those things are less well-known. The things that are less well-known, in part because they weren't controversial. Everyone knew Obama passed health care because half the country, sometimes care because half the country, sometimes more than half the country, hated it. People, the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, this is, I know this is shocking, but the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill did not spark an outcry. People didn't have a strong reaction to that.

And so he has a lot of non-controversial achievements. And one of the only ways, and since the press covers controversy, the only way you can get that known to people is to stand up there and tell them. Yes. I also think he could have done that in a way that I was worried about, which was just listing off a series of accomplishments. And I think they did a really good job putting the accomplishments in a context that lets people know, I have been fighting for you. We're not done yet. And I will continue to fight for you. And he also wanted to remind people not just of what he achieved, but that he cares about them, that he's a president who gives a shit about

people and always has been. And I think that sort of placing himself as on the side of most people in this country versus the powerful interests that are standing in their way, whether they be corporations or crazy Republicans, I think was part of the goal of the speech. And I think they achieved that really well. You wrote a message box about the speech that focused on Biden's economic agenda, which he called a blue collar blueprint to rebuild America. What do you think they were trying to do with that branding? Now, it's just a big branding conversation. You're in Hollywood. I live kind of near Silicon Valley. We're basically do it.

We become what we hate. How can Biden get the State of the Union on a bumper sticker? Can you do it in 280 characters, Mr. President? He doesn't have to now. How do you make this a TikTok? Not if he's a subscriber to Twitter Blue. He can write all the fucking words he wants. They should just put the Sea of the Union full thing on Twitter just now

to see if it breaks it. Perfect. Great. The reason I wrote a message box post about this is I found it to be very interesting that you and I have talked many times in this podcast about how the existential threat to Democrats, despite all of our recent success, is continued erosion with working class voters, with voters who did not go to college. U.S. politics has become more polarized on educational lines. Democrats, a much larger

share of our electorate has become college educated. A much larger share of the Republican electorate did not go to college. And we could survive in that world when our erosion among voters that didn't go to college was limited only to white voters because the country is getting more diverse. Barely. Barely. But we could survive. We could barely survive. We could barely survive. You need – what you really need in an ideal world is less erosion with white non-college voters and sky-high turnout.

What you want is what Obama's coalition in 2012 looked like. Yeah. Well, I will say, just to remind people again, about a third of the Democratic coalition, the voters who come to vote for Democrats in the presidential elections and other elections, is non-college educated white people. Still. Even with all that erosion, that's still about a third, one in every three voters. Now, when you remember that we won the election by 40,000 votes over a handful of states, you don't want to lose a lot of them, right? Right. Exactly. Yeah. And then in 2020, we saw erosion for the first time among voters of color who didn't go to

college, particularly men. And if that trend were to continue, we are doomed. There is no math where we win. It is game over. And Biden, he's been doing this for a while in his presidency, but this is the most high profile way, is to try to center his economic agenda as a specific remedy for the challenges that people without a college education may have in our economy, to rebut the idea that Republicans have very successfully to rebut the idea that Republicans have very successfully pushed that despite the fact that our economic policies are good for the working class and good for the middle class and much better than Republican policies, that we are somehow a party of elites who look down their nose at people who didn't

go to college. And so I think he's very clearly making an attempt to tackle the biggest political problem and the biggest threat we have for 2024. And that, you know, you can quibble about whether you like blue collar blueprint or whatever, but I think the strategy underneath it is very, very interesting and absolutely essential. I also think that he executed that strategy in the speech in an interesting way. It wasn't just about him reciting policies that would help blue-collar workers. Like, when he got to – we talked about the infrastructure bill, which, you know, us very online libs tend to roll our eyes over, right?

Not very exciting. You just did earlier about the infrastructure bill, the bipartisan infrastructure bill. I roll my eyes at bipartisanship. I fucking love a road, okay? Oh, yeah. Okay, good, good, good. And same thing when people talk about the heartland or politicians talk about blue collar america there's a tendency for you know us us online libs to roll

our eyes but he during that section of the speech he tells the story about finally fixing the brent spence bridge that's between ohio and kentucky two states that he did not win and the person he points out to illustrate the story is this young black woman who's a member of the local iron workers. And he talks about how she's really proud to rebuild this bridge. And I think it's part of the strategy is Biden showing that he cares about people, whoever they are, wherever they are, whoever they vote for. Like, it doesn't matter. Right. whoever they vote for like it doesn't matter right it's not one demographic that he's trying to win over one place in the country or he's just trying to help democrats or just grow the democratic coalition like what he's trying to do is be a president for all americans wherever you

are and i think he's also trying to say that this this group of people in the country who don't have a college degree and are in the heartland and have been watching jobs move away and have seen their communities hollowed out. It's not just the white working class people that the New York Times talks to in the Pennsylvania Diner that have become the stereotype. It's folks of color. It's people who are in suburbs. It's people who are in exurbs. It's people all over the place. It's most of the country. It's most of the country. And I think he did that really well in the speech.

There's two versions of this appeal. There's one that does not work, which is when we just try to grab voters by the lapel and say, don't you know that our policies help you? You're voting against your economic interests. You make minimum wage. We're going to You make minimum wage. We're going to double the minimum wage. Do you hate money, person? That is a very typical way of doing it.

And then there's this other sense that the only way to live a good life in America is to have gone to college and had a white-collar job. And Biden is doing something very different here. He is using his policies as a proxy to say that it all, you know, doesn't have to be college or failure, right? There are lots of different career paths in America, and I'm going to support those as well. And I think it's, he is very constitutionally designed, set up to do that. That is, that's the Scranton, that's the parts of Delaware that he grew up in. That's his community. That's the way he relates to his dad. And I think we're going to see that be a big part of this campaign. And it's not, this is not going to upend the demographic move in this country over the last 50 years, but it's on the margins, right? Can you pick up some voters who are disillusioned by Republicans or who maybe see Joe Biden differently because you

communicated with them in this way. Like we said, 40,000 votes doesn't take a lot to make sure that he wins reelections. I think it's really important. And by the way, this is what most people in the country care about, right? You sit down in focus groups with people from any region, any state, any demographic group. They'll start talking about the cost of living. It's the first thing they cost of living. It's the first thing they'll talk about. It's the most important thing on most people's minds. All right,

so the most memorable part of the speech was the impromptu call and response that briefly turned the U.S. Congress into the House of Commons. It all started when Biden mentioned the Republican plan to hold the debt limit hostage. Let's take a listen. Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans, some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset. I'm not saying it's a majority. Let me give you anybody who doubts it. Contact my office. I'll give you a copy. I'll give you a copy of the proposal. I'll give you a copy of the proposal. That means Congress doesn't vote.

Well, I'm glad to see you. I tell you, I enjoy conversion. You know, it means if Congress doesn't keep the programs the way they are, they'd go away. Other Republicans say, I'm not saying it's a majority of you. I don't even think it's even a significant. But it's being proposed by individuals. I'm not politely not naming them, but it's being proposed by some of you. So, folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the books now.

I'm politely not naming folks. Call my office. I love it. Call my office. First of all, do we need one of these for this? Red Hen. Civility alert. Red Hen.

Civility alert. Paging Chuck Todd. Paging Chuck Todd. Tip O'Neill. Ronald Reagan. You are needed with a bourbon in the West Wing. Red Hen. Red Hen. It always goes on a little longer than you want it to.

I mean, this joke is so old that the person at the center of it is now the governor of Arkansas delivering the State of the Union response. You know what? I like it i i think people yelling at a state of the union and then joe biden being able to slap it this is great it reminds me of speaking of being old remember when obama went to like the house republican retreat to like basically debate them about the health care bill back in what 2009 and it turned out 2010 it turned out really good i think that like i think people would benefit from more sort of back and forth with uh politicians like this i don't care about the civility yeah it was great it was the most entertaining part of the whole thing wonderful and it's the thing that's good for biden in is it happened – these are the sort of moments that go viral.

And this happened to Obama in 2010 as well when Joe Wilson, a congressman from South Carolina, yelled, you lie, when he talked about the Affordable Care Act. And that sort of became a bit of a – that became a bit of a distraction. Republicans heckle Biden for Social Security and Medicare, right? That's like a, if that's going to go viral, that's a pretty good thing to go viral. Yeah. I mean, most people who aren't partisan Republicans seem to think Biden won that exchange. Why do you think he won? Because he had it with Marjorie Taylor Green, George Santos, and Matt Gaetz. I mean, presidents almost always win those sort of engagements. They have on, they have the big podium.

They're with Congress. Yeah, I was going to say, the yahoos in the crowd didn't have a mic. Yeah, the peanut gallery doesn't have a real, historical winning record. I mean, it was great. I would offer one cautionary note on that exchange, I think. I thought Biden was very quick on his feet in making them basically agree

not to cut Social Security and Medicare. And then a lot of people became a thing in the immediate minutes after that, be like, dark Brandon, trick the Republicans into supporting Social Security and Medicare. And sort of, yes. But I don't think we should concede the fact,

and I don't think the White House is, but I don't think we as Democrats should concede the fact that Republicans don't still want to cut Social Security and Medicare. Maybe they're not going to do it on the debt ceiling, which they probably never were. But the reason they lie about their 50-year desire to cut Social Security and Medicare is so they can get into power to cut Social Security and Medicare. And so we should continue to hammer them on that because they – we were talking about Rick Scott's plan and the Freedom – or the Republican study committee knows people want to do it. Mitch McConnell, one of his goals in life is cut Social Security. Every time Barack Obama ever had a conversation with Mitch McConnell about is there anything we could work on?

Mitch McConnell would say, if you cut Social Security, maybe I'll do some stuff like that is why he exists. One of the Republican senators who has wanted to gut Social Security and Medicare for a long time is Wisconsin's Ron Johnson. He was asked in an interview after the State of the Union, in an interview while he was talking about how angry he was that he has apparently been called out for telling the truth about what he wants to do. And this is what he said about Social Security in that interview after the speech. Yeah, so that's why what I've talked about, from the first time around in 2010, I just laid out the reality of Social Security. It's a legal Ponzi scheme. Yeah, yeah, this program that I promised not to cut or get rid of is a Ponzi scheme.

I love keeping Ponzi schemes around. That was great. that's great these people it's just i mean i think the other i mean the other reason that joe biden won this exchange is like it showed that he's sharp and quick on his feet right like look he he is he's 80 years old and he's not just old but he's like an old, but he's like an old school politician. He likes to tell long stories, rambles, he fumbles words, not just because he has a stutter, but because he says a lot of words. He likes words. But the guy is sharp. Like Republicans boo him for telling the truth about their position on Social Security, Medicare. And as he's getting booed on national television, he quickly realizes that the best move is to back them into a corner by ad-libbing, oh, I love conversions. I guess now Social Security is off

the table. That's not an easy thing to do. And I do not think that that was a careful trap laid out that they gamed the whole thing out. I think that he was quick on his feet and just decided to say that he loves conversions. And it was great. Yeah, well done, Joe Biden. I mean, I do think they probably, if you think this, they gamed out during speech prep, that he was probably going to get some kind of booing, you lie shit from the Republicans in the House. And what will you do if that happens? I'm sure they gamed that out in speech prep. Oh, for sure. Because I mean, Joe Biden is very transparently authentic. And it was very clear in how he set up that hit that he had some discomfort in what the

response would be, in part because reportedly he sat in a room with Kevin McCarthy a few days ago. And Kevin McCarthy said, we don't want to cut so security Medicare that's off the table. So he was like, I'm not saying it's all of you, maybe not even a majority of you, just to be very clear. And I'm too nice a guy to name Rick Scott and Ron Johnson. So it's like he knew where he you and I have been in this world where you have tried to get a politician to make a hit or to say something that they have some discomfort with for whatever reason. And he he did it in a very Joe Biden. And the thing about it was, is it was a he didn't get mad. He didn't snap. He was a happy

warrior. And that is always the best Joe Biden. And that's the prep talking because I'm sure like you get heckled like that. And we've seen it happen with our, our boss, Obama. Not once. You get a, you can, you could snap, you really could snap snap and because it's not easy you know when like you're getting heckled like that in the middle of a speech on national television so lawrence o'donnell went even further and said that biden didn't just win that exchange he won the entire debt ceiling fight with that exchange uh what did you think of that does he have a point or is that just the uh msnbc talking it's over it's. Put your money back in the bank. Buy the dip. Everything's great. No, I do not think that's the case. I don't think Social Security and Medicare

were ever going to end up on the table in this battle. Even these incredibly stupid Republicans like Kevin McCarthy know that that is a losing proposition. This is what I've been thinking. And we have to be careful that now it's not like, well, Joe Biden won that, Social Security and Medicare are off the table. So now we can finally engage in the conversation we've been wanting to have, which is how much do we cut from education and food safety? And that is the fear. And the principle has to be, we will negotiate on the budget after you take the fault off the table. That is the conversation. And we can't fall back into that. Joe Manchin is already just going deep down

into massive cuts to discretionary domestic spending to the things that affect people's lives and help people as a way to try to solve this self-created crisis, how to put out the fire that we're threatening to light. And so that's the sense that, no, we did not win it. It is not over. And we can actually make it a little bit worse if we overplay the hand we have right now.

Yeah, he's busy leafleting all the green rooms in D.C. with his op-ed. Right to the center for responsible budgeting. Look, he's just a guy who knows that the best way to communicate with the people of West Virginia is with an op-ed in the Washington Post. So I thought one of the more moving and compelling parts of the night was when the president welcomed Tyree Nichols' parents and talked about police reform. Let's listen. Most of us in here have never had to have the talk, the talk that brown and black parents have had to have with their children.

Bo, Hunter, Ashley, my children. I never had to have the talk with them. I never had to tell them, if a police officer pulls you over, turn your interior lights on right away. Don't reach for your license. Keep your hands on the steering wheel. Imagine having to worry like that every single time your kid got in a car.

Here's what Tyree's mother shared with me when I spoke to her. When I asked her how she finds the courage to carry on and speak out. The faith of God, she said her son was, quote, a beautiful soul and something good will come of this. Imagine how much courage and courage that takes. Left unsaid there is, you know, the fact that he was, I think, connecting to Tyree Nichols' parents as another parent who has dealt with the loss of a child and just a lot of loss and tragedy in his life,

just in a different way. So I thought that was, I thought the entire section on police reform was quite moving and effective. What other moments stood out to you? And was there anything you were surprised Biden didn't include, or at least didn't say much about? I hate to get into the game of, he only spent 37 seconds on X or he didn't do Y because – and we are very insular and biased on this point. But you've written the speech. I've run the policy process on the speech before. Fitting in everything – it's impossible to give anything, let alone everything, to just do in a State of the Union. But I would say I was surprised he did not spend more time on

abortion and the Republican assault on freedom that is happening around the country. And I think that that was a centerpiece of what he ran on the campaign, and I imagine will be a centerpiece of his next campaign. And they obviously mentioned abortion, he talked about what he would veto if a ban ever came to him. But given the political environment, the continuing assault on reproductive freedom, on personal freedom, that he did not talk a little bit more about that. the speech on things he could get done in the next couple years. And I think he probably learned from the first term, from the first two years, that you want to be careful about over-promising and setting expectations too high, as the bill formerly known as Build Back Better taught us. And all he can really do do aside from all the executive actions he's taking on abortion right now is to promise to veto a national ban um and so he sort

of kept it at that uh i also think that democracy and abortion were such big themes of the midterm elections and the economy was not and so talking about the economy really was themes of the midterm elections and the economy was not. And so talking about the economy really was sort of the like business left undone from the midterms. And so they really made a choice, which again is a hard choice to make, that the first basically 50 minutes of the speech 5-0 were about the economy. And like if you were watching on TV, the second hour was everything else. And that's a lot of economy, but I'm sure they thought to themselves, we have not been talking about economic issues now enough, and we didn't get to much during the midterms because they were scared off of inflation and they were talking so much about democracy and abortion. So I kind of

think that's probably why they did it. Yeah, I completely understand the strategic logic behind it because it's not even that they're not talking about the economy, it's that when they talk about the economy, no one covers it. Yeah, that's right. And so Obama had the same thought, which is, I've done all this, people don't know about it. Here's how what I've done has impacted people's lives or improved the economy. And this is my one chance to say it in front of tens of millions of people. With no filter, with no media filter. Because the next time I do a visit to a factory in Michigan or a rose garden ceremony on the GDP

numbers, ain't no one going to hear it. So this is the one chance. That's how you get there. Which, you know, he went to Wisconsin the next day, didn't get a lot of coverage. Talked about the economy, didn't get a lot of coverage. Talked about the economy. Didn't get a lot of coverage. That's why he spent 50 minutes in the speech on it. I was also surprised, by the way, that he got away with only talking about the war in Ukraine and he had like a couple lines on China.

No other foreign policy. What an achievement. Not to piss off the worldos. Sorry, guys. Sorry, worldos. I was guys. Sorry, worldos. I was surprised. Usually the government, everyone in the government, from DOD to state to everyone else, they want like at least half the speech on foreign policy and they want you to cover all seven continents.

You miss Antarctica, they're pissed. We missed a region once and boy, did we hear about it. I guarantee you there are some people getting the phones burned up in the Office of Public Engagement. We did not mention South America and we did not hear the end of it. Rhodes had to fall on his sword for that one. I would say that I would imagine that various people

on the Biden national security orbit are going to be on the phone with Ben Rhodes in anticipation of next year's day that you're going to figure out how you can wedge in 15 minutes on everyone's lowest political priorities. Anyway, they'll cry about that on Pod Save the World next week. All right. So during the speech, our friends at Navigator Research

held a focus group in Las Vegas. It's my all-time favorite place for focus groups. With a diverse group of 29 Nevadans, equally split between Democratic-leaning voters, Republican-leaning voters, and independents with no partisan lean. Pretty great reviews all around. 62% had a positive reaction to the speech. The percentage of people who believe the country's headed in the right direction moved from 17% to 55%.

And there was a 21-point jump in people saying Biden is, quote, up to the job. Pretty great. Anything else stand out to you in the Navigator? I think it's just the dial groups usually work out very well for the person giving the State of the Union. Absolutely. But the magnitude of the jumps here is interesting. And it is, I think,

a bit of optimism for 2024 because the voters in this group are almost by definition, people who pay less attention to political news on a daily basis. So they were hearing a lot of these things for the very first time. Like we have, I guess, theoretically rolled our eyes at the bipartisan infrastructure bill. They're like, you passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill? That's cool.

And so you see those jumps. And we all have short attention spans. Everyone's going to forget this tomorrow. But come this fall, or more likely next spring, Joe Biden's going to have an extremely well-funded, always-on paid media program telling people these things. And it shows you what the ceiling can be when people are informed on a regular basis and we're not relying on CNN and The New York Times to tell them when you're just paying to tell them. And you can see those numbers on Biden's leadership, on the economy moving pretty quickly once the paid campaign starts, if the economy continues to improve, as we've seen in recent months.

So before we move on, we should just talk briefly about Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders' very forgettable response. Here's a clip. left-wing culture war we didn't start and never wanted to fight. Every day we are told we must partake in their rituals, salute their flags, and worship their false idols. That's not normal. It's crazy. Whether Joe Biden believes this madness or is simply too weak to resist it, his administration has been completely hijacked by the radical left the dividing line in america is no longer between right or left the choice is between normal or crazy i mean she nailed it choice is between normal and crazy i mean look that message worked for the democrats in 2022 why couldn't it work for the republicans does that MAGA brainworm salad tell us anything about the Republican Party and its message ahead of 2024? It is actually an object lesson in the dangers of building a hermetically sealed ideological media ecosystem.

building a hermetically sealed ideological media ecosystem. Because their brains are so pickled from Fox and the online right-wing media that they have lost touch with reality. They turn on Fox and they think it's a window when it's really a mirror. And that is dangerous because you need a PhD in MAGA media to understand what the hell she was talking about. in MAGA media to understand what the hell she was talking about. And you end up in a situation where you are running against the right-wing media caricature of Joe Biden, not the Joe Biden everyone sees. Look, there are credible arguments against Joe Biden that could very well win this election. The polling shows them. This will inevitably be a close election. I'll tell you

this right now. Joe Biden is a crazy radical leftist is not one of those arguments. It's just not. It is absolutely not. Joe Biden forcing everyone to say Latinx, that's not what the election is going to hinge on. Yeah, it is. There's probably a lot of people being like, what? What is she talking about? They're so far up their anasses, they cannot see straight. I had this conversation with Jane Koston for Offline many months ago, and she was talking about how Trump's stump speech in 2016 had like a real message, even if you didn't like the message. Trump's stump speech in 2020 was him talking about like the lovely Lisa Page and Peter Strzok and like all of these things that you have, like you said, you have to have a PhD in MAGA media to even understand. And he was just too online to really resonate with anyone beyond the people who are huge Fox news fans or Ben Shapiro fans or whatever.

And it just makes them say, and Tim Miller was telling me about this on, on offline. He's like, it's not just that they sound republicans sound extreme is that they sound weird like they just sound and to normal american voters don't pay much attention to politics just show up and vote on election day they're like this woman is saying all kinds of weird shit and joe biden's out there telling me that he's going to take on ticket master

that sounds pretty good yeah good. They have started doing Fox News fan service. They're playing all the hits for the people who are... It's like going to Comic-Con for Marvel fans. That's who they're speaking to. You can't reach the rest of the country that way. Alright, when we come back, Democratic strategist Michael Podhorzert gives

Dan the definitive take on what the 2022 midterm results tell us about 2024. Joining us now is the former political director for the AFL-CIO. He's also a longtime Democratic strategist and one of the few people who accurately predicted there'd be no red wave in November. Michael Potorzer, welcome to Pod Save America. How are you doing? Great. Glad to be here.

Thanks for having me. I'm very excited to talk to you on camera. We've had a lot of conversations on the phone over the years. But your analysis in both – in 2020, you went against the grain and you were one of the people warning a lot of Democrats privately that that election was going to be much closer than people thought and much more close than the polls showed. Then in 2022, not in the fall, not after Roe v. Wade was overturned, but in 2021, you were someone who said, so a lot of Democrats, myself included, that Democrats had a real shot to upend the historical precedents in the 2022 midterm,

that Democrats could actually do well. Help us understand what it is you're seeing in American politics that's led you to both those conclusions. Sure. So what happened, basically Donald Trump, right? And the reason this seems fairly obvious the way I tend to look at it, but not clear to many others, is that he really changed the electorate in a profound way. two years, brought out a new set of voters on both sides, but more against him than for him, that saw his being in charge, seeing people like Harry Lay, anybody who subscribes to that kind of agenda as being dangerous enough to be worth going to vote. And the first demonstration of that was 2018, when turnout went up by 14 points and Democrats won by seven and a half, right? That was mostly people who had

never voted in midterms before, but had, say, voted in 2016, were usually presidential voters saying, no, this is a national emergency. I still need to go out and vote. Right. And so the argument I was making in 2022 was that to the extent that those voters continue to see this as that serious a threat to their freedoms, to the country they want to live in, they're going to come out and vote again. And in 2022, thanks to the January 6 hearings and then Dobbs, in the 15 or so states that were competitive and that had MAGA candidates at the top of the ticket, Democrats actually did better in most places than they did in the 2018 year, which is really like, try to get your head around that, right? Gretchen Whitmer, Tony Evert, Josh Shapiro, they won by more in a Republican year than they did

in a Democratic plus seven year, because more and more people understand the danger that they're facing, right? And on the 2020, what was going on was that the people who were looking at it did not see the enthusiasm that sort of new Trump voters had in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, because they really were not on pollsters radar, but we could see it on the ground in that they were registering to vote, you know, 30 somethings in sort of white rural areas where had decided that Trump was actually finally someone who was filling your pejorative enough to be joining the electoral process for, right. And that just wasn't getting picked up on your sub stack you have a very pretty granular analysis looking at the which i weekend reading which i recommend everyone subscribe to uh looks you have a granular analysis so looks the difference between states where maga was on the ballot and maga wasn't there are some exceptions to that rule colorado an example

where uh a not the non-maga the the lesser MAGA candidate won the primary, but the Democrats still did quite well. Texas, where I think you'd probably consider, like Greg Abbott, a MAGA candidate. No. So the criteria was actually that it isn't exactly the perfect set of states, but for the purposes of people understanding it more clearly, the key thing is whether or not the race was seen as competitive, whether because the key driver here is the media in the state about that raises the alarm for voters, right? And so I used an objectives measure, which was just whether it was considered very competitive by Cook Report,

so that it didn't look like there was any cherry picking. Texas was not competitive. So even though it's obviously MAGA, that wasn't part of those states. So it was really for people who are that familiar with it, it's basically the six to eight core presidential battlegrounds, plus a few others that had competitive races. There's, I guess, maybe two ways to look at the idea of MAGA being on the ballot, as you put it. One is the candidates themselves, right?

Whether the MAGA candidate was, you know, the nominee, that person Trump endorsed, the person who pushing the big lie. The nominee, that's the person Trump endorsed, the person who's pushing the big lie. And then there's just the overall threat of MAGA extremism overlying any Republican victory. Right. which the attorney general in Arizona had been the nominee as opposed to Kerry Lake or Blake Masters or maybe David McCormick for his Dr. Oz or something like that. And I say that in the context of what happened in Georgia, where a very MAGA candidate with a set of problems that include not limited to his ideological extremism. And Hershel Walker was running, Warnock wins. Kemp, someone who we all would have considered to be a very extreme candidate prior to Donald Trump's opposition to said candidate, winning with relative ease. How do you separate just the overall Threaded Magazine and the specific candidate? Sure. And that's a really great, bringing Georgia in is really instructive,

and it's really instructive, right? Because if you remember in 2016, when Trump upended everybody by winning Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, there was this whole idea that Democrats are doomed. Those are lots of white non-college voters in those states. It's only going to get worse. And because the conventional analysis just tries to pick the electorate apart by

demographics rather than to what actually is happening, you would have thought, and it's really landed on almost everybody who talks about politics. But since that moment in 2016-21, at that point, in those five states, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, fulcrum of American politics, there was one Democratic governor and four Democratic senators. Now there are four Democratic governors and nine Democratic senators. Democrats have almost not lost any statewide race in those five states since it was supposedly the death of the Democratic Party that these states have become important because of their demographics,

because the resistance to MAGA is really the driver there, right? Now you go to Georgia and Kemp, who was in a very close race with Stacey Abrams in 2018, and who is very much seen as the Trump candidate, right? Trump pulled him out and gave him the primary victory, right? those 11,870 votes. Because notwithstanding, you know, his politics, he is seen now not as scary as the rest of them, right? I mean, they were actually tested from most voters' perspective, and they stuck with, from their perspective, rule of law, right? So the only place they're continuing to hang on is where they've actually demonstrated something. When you look at 2024, what is your level of concern? You have obviously Trump, who is the embodiment of MAGA. And then you have a bunch of candidates running on a MAGA who have built their political careers on a MAGA extreme agenda.

But if it is someone other than Trump, that person is going to have been opposed by Trump and defeated Trump. Do you worry about a Kemp-like dynamic happening, or do you think that's very specific and isolated to Kemp's handling of the 2020 election? I think it's something that only he has personally, because I think that, and here, right, a lot can go wrong, but the most predictable thing that will, I think, affect what we're talking about in 24 is the Republican primary process, right? And right now we're thinking about it mostly as, you know, will someone take out Trump, right? But just remember 2016, right? The forces that drive who's going to win are Fox and right-wing media and the evangelical churches and

all of the drivers in Republican primaries. And you're going to see whoever is in that recognizing their need to appeal to those voters and making themselves into what everybody hates, right? And that's the most important thing. So basically, whoever comes out of that process, by definition, will be an extreme candidate, which is essentially the process we saw in 2012. I mean, Mitt Romney emerged from that quite damaged by having to engage in a race to the bottom with Newt Gingrich and Michelle Bachman and Herman Cain and the rest of that parade. side, right? Because if there's a way in which it isn't clear, it isn't generally accepted by the media that whoever it is poses as great a threat, you have a real problem, right? That's the fatal problem. And we saw that in a sort of really like a sort of random control trial in 2022. Right. In New York, California and New Jersey, the Biden voters who stayeding Kevin McCarthy, Speaker of the House, right? And that's sort of a failure of the media. It's a failure of the campaigns in those places, that the thing that brought all those Biden voters out was hating MAGA. And those folks stayed home.

Turnout was way down in those states. There was no sense of alarm over this. And that's the danger in 24 is that the media will not treat this in the way they treated 22 and 20. Right. I mean, you can read that on the wall right now. It defines the Trump-DeSantis coverage. You can see it in the anti-Trump Republican opinion leader, Republican slash quote-unquote conservative opinion leaders who think DeSantis is a viable alternative because he's essentially a less clumsy vessel for that right-wing MAGAism, if you will, than Trump. And you see how that is already

playing itself out. So as you think about what Democrats need to do over the next year and a half here to prepare for that moment, what do you think are at the top of the punch list in terms of messaging or strategic objectives? Yeah. Well, one thing I think that really was so instrumental in 2022 really should be understood is going to be repeating, which is June and the Supreme Court. Right. We saw what Dobbs could do. And it was so big that even though most of the folks you're talking about in the Democratic Party were really not ready for it, it still had that big impact, right? The Supreme Court this term and in June 2024 is going to be doing a lot of very unpopular things.

And those are the things that convince Americans that this isn't just partisan mudslinging. It's my freedoms are getting taken away. This is going to affect my life in a real way. So I think that's one thing really important is for folks to get to understand what the important rulings that are going to be coming, how that's going to really take things away from people and center that in the story of the next two years. President Biden in the State of the Union earlier this week seemed, if you sort of read beneath the search, policy rollouts and accomplishments and framing the economy, but he seemed to make a very specific effort to make a very specific appeal to the very voters that you pointed out, Democrats were very afraid we're going to cost us every subsequent election in the industrial Midwest. Is that a fool's errand to try

to appeal? And I'm asking this of the former 25-year-old political director of the AFL-CIO. Is that the right thing to be doing? Or should the conversation be centered around Republican extremism? Or is it a bit of both? One of the things that I know you've written about that a lot of people have written about because of the recent poll showing how little credit Biden gets for what are objectively enormous accomplishments and policies that affect the voters that you're talking about. I think one of the things that's really not understood, especially if you're coming to politics from, say, the 70s on, the 80s on, is the reason Democrats did so well with working class voters

in the 30s and the 40s and the 50s had a lot to do with the fact that the only way rank and file working people believe that the government is helping them is when people they trust are telling them that the government's helping them, right? You can't come up with a message that says, I helped you, right? People are just too cynical of that, right? And it isn't part of their daily life. But back in that era, when Democrats could count on overwhelming support from working class voters, it wasn't just what they were doing. It's that if you were a working class voter, you were probably hearing how much your job depended on that from your shop steward or from

your ward chair. I mean, there was an actual grassroots Democratic Party. And I think it's very difficult for any politician to get credit for policy right now because people don't believe politicians, right? So they should still do it and it still gives people material to talk about, but the voters you're talking about reaching won't believe it coming from an ad or from a politician or something like that. I think the danger, less so in 23 than 24, is making bipartisanship seem credible, right, when it's not, because that reinforces people who are saying that those of us who think that this is a serious, serious threat are exaggerating or being alarmist. And either the Republican Party, as it's constituted now, is a severe threat to the nation or it's not. And to sort of toggle back and forth between saying they're the greatest threat to democracy since the Civil War and we can get along and do things is undermining.

civil war and we can get along and do things is undermining. Interesting. Okay. Last question for you. I remember you and I had a conversation. It was basically, I think, the week before the pandemic hit. And it was about your deep concerns about how the Republicans would try to overthrow the election by abusing their control over the electoral process, the loophole to the Electoral Counts Act.

And then you spent the next many months of your life preparing and helping organize efforts to try to protect the integrity of that election. Since then, we have reformed the electoral count out in some way. Democrats have held on to critical governorships and battleground states. We've won secretary, you know, we averted worst case scenarios with, you know, members of the Oath Keepers being in charge of the electoral process and all of that. What is your fear about Republicans being able to overturn a electoral college victory for President Biden in 2024?

Is there, are you less concerned about it, or is there a specific thing that is still, you know, is there still specific loopholes you think they're going to come after that Democrats should be aware of and try to tighten up if we can? Sure. So not surprising, it's something we're really thinking through. The threat of a failed election changes very differently from 2020 to 2024, right? Because there the problem was going to be, how do you get the person who basically has the tanks out of the White House, right? And who has all sorts of untested extraordinary powers and all those other things, right? Here, like Democrats are running the election, right? So the most important thing is actually winning the election, right? And which some people sometimes forget as they get sort of caught up in the crisis.

But that's the main thing, like got to win. I think the greatest threat to the 2024 election is the Supreme Court and what it could do either in its independent state legislature ruling or in other decisions it has to make between now and the election, either big ones like that or if it's going to be a close election in a Bush v. Gore kind of way in 2024, in that sort of week before, week after the election, where who knows what happens. And I think a lot of people have become complacent about the Supreme Court because of the way it just didn't do anything to help Trump in 2020. And I think there are two big reasons why the Supreme Court

did not get involved in 2020. One was that the business community had decided before the election that they were pretty much done with Trump. And so once it was clear that everybody accepted that Biden had won, they wanted stability. They didn't want everything disrupted. And that also because of the electoral college system, once Biden picked up Arizona and Georgia, he had to overturn three elections, not one. three elections, not one. And that's really difficult, right? I mean, to figure out a way to do that. So I think they just stayed away. But if it's too close, the Supreme Court has a very dangerous role to play there. The other potential situation that, again, creates a crisis for the Supreme Court is if Republicans take the Senate and keep the House, right? Because then the January 4th of 2025, they're the ones doing the whole thing. So the threat continues, as you would say. Michael, thank you so much for joining us. Everyone, follow Michael on Twitter, subscribe to his sub stack. You will learn a ton about politics as I always do.

All right. Thanks, Dan. Okay. Before we go, the new Republican House spent the week counter-programming Joe Biden's State of the Union with a congressional hearing focused on the financial struggles of middle-class Americans. Just kidding. It was about Hunter Biden's laptop. Specifically, it was about the decisions that Twitter made regarding the initial New York Post story about the laptop over two years ago. Republicans hauled former Twitter executives before Congress to testify and use the hearings as an opportunity to air personal grievances about their own experiences on the social media platform. Which, you know, who among us? I'd say it didn't go as planned, but that would be assuming that they ever had a plan.

We're going to talk about a few highlights so you can translate your uncle's crazy Facebook posts about this topic. Let's play the first clip where you'll hear from three of the greatest legal minds of our time, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, and Clay Higgins. 52 United States law 10101. No person shall intimidate, threaten, coerce, or attempt to stop any other person for the purpose of interfering with their rights to vote or to vote as he may choose. You didn't shadow ban or permanently ban my Democrat opponent. No, you did that to me.

And that was wrong. And it was against the law. Is this a violation of the First Amendment when the government sending you an email saying we think these accounts need to be looked at because they violate your terms of service? That's a different standard. So you at because they violate your terms of service. That's a different standard. So you got the government saying your terms of service, which don't have to comply with the First Amendment, but the government saying we don't think these accounts comply with your terms of service. Please take them down. You, ladies and gentlemen, interfered with the United States of America 2020 presidential election knowingly and willingly.

That's the bad news it's going to get worse because this is the investigation part later comes the arrest part your attorneys are familiar with that what first of all i've seen clay higgins his name a couple times never seen him in person or heard him speak he sounds like uh that he's a sounds like a real winner i've never heard clay hickens's name i don't know who that is it's possible you missouri missouri is a representative from missouri yeah sure real looney tune just going out there arresting people any reactions to all that legal, all those legal takes? Seems incorrect in a number of ways. I like that Large Marge just slipped in there. It's not just wrong.

She's like, and that is wrong, and it is illegal. Did she just make a Goonies reference? No, that's a Pee Wee's big example. Oh, Pee Wee is Pee Wee's big example. Yeah, you're right. Get your 80s movie references right, Dan. I am honestly embarrassed by that. And no one producing this podcast has any idea what we're talking about.

Andy laughed. Andy's with us. My fellow denizen from Gen X. Yeah, and that was not correct. None of that legal advice, none of those legal takes were correct. Just one small point to make on this. This has nothing, zero zilch to do with the First Amendment. You have no First Amendment right to be on Twitter.

This is a fact. It's a private company. Full stop. Okay. So, you know, you heard at the beginning of this podcast about Chrissy Teigen's tweet. I want to apologize to the parents that we did that. Having against my wishes, I will say. In this second clip, we'll hear about how there was a conspiracy at the highest levels of our government to silence an American citizen for sharing political views that the D.C. establishment didn't want you to hear.

Let's listen. And according to notes from a conversation with you, Ms. Navarroli's counsel, your counsel, the White House almost immediately thereafter contacted Twitter to demand the tweet be taken down. Is that accurate? Thank you for the question. In my role, I was not responsible for receiving any sort of request from the government. However, what I was privy to was my supervisors letting us know that we had received something along those lines or something of a request. In that particular instance, I do remember hearing that we had received a request from the White House to make sure that we evaluated this tweet and that they wanted it to come down because it was a derogatory statement. They wanted it to come down. They made that request to my recollection.

I thought that was an inappropriate action by a government official, let alone the White House. But it wasn't Joe Biden about his son's laptop it was donald trump because he didn't like what chrissy tagan had to say about him is that correct yes that is correct my my my uh democratic representative jerry conley from virginia obviously a big chrissy tagan fan yeah he's like i thought he was about nailing that the delivery it was like a fucking episode of matlock the way he was doing it. And then he fumbled the name at the end. Amazing.

The Trump White House reached out to Twitter to ask them to take down Chrissy Teigen's tweet because they were upset that it was derogatory towards Donald Trump. Just that didn't make it in Matt Taibbi's Twitter file thread or Barry Weiss's thread. What do you think's going on there? Oversight. No one even knows. Now we have fucking brain worms. No one knows what we're talking about. No one knows what we're talking about.

Are you guys deep in the hole of a very esoteric, small and still dying social media platform? Then stay here. Well, you know what? The United States Congress held an entire hearing on it this week. Unbelievable. All right. In this next one, we're going to finally learn the answer to the question on everyone's mind. Why can't I find all of Lauren Boebert's best tweets? So I'll ask again. Did you shadow ban my account? Yes or no? Again, not to the best of my recollection. So the answer is Mr. Roth, yes you did. I found out last night from Twitter staff that you suppressed my account being the sinister overlords that you all are. You placed a 90 day

account filter so I could not be found. And now we see here that Twitter staff said the visibility filter on my account excluded me from top searches, prevented notifications for non-followers, and much more. This is considered an aggressive visibility filter. You silenced members of Congress from communicating with their constituents. Can I just say, oh, the filter prevented, it prevented notifications from non-followers? Like, I hope so. I don't follow fucking Lauren Boebert for a reason. I don't want to know what the hell she's saying.

If only there were some other way for a member of Congress to be heard. Could they go to the floor of the house and speak where the TV cameras are on 24-7? Are there other social media platforms she might possibly use to get her word out? Is there an entire right-wing propaganda

network for which she could speak to people? She was complaining because she had some fire tweet making fun of Hillary Clinton that the world couldn't get. Maybe your tweet just wasn't that good. Yeah, shitty tweets. All right. Finally, the panel obtains a damning admission of bias from a former Twitter executive that the company's leaders changed the platform's policy in order to accommodate the leader of one political party.

Let's listen. party. Let's listen. Donald Trump publicly incited, you know, violence at a rally, targeting for Congresswomen, including myself, saying, go back to where you came from. Ms. Navarro, as I understand it, you were the most senior member of Twitter's content moderation team or a senior member of Twitter's content moderation team when this was posted. As part of your responsibilities, did you review this tweet? And what did you conclude? My team, Ray, made the recommendation that for the first time we find Donald Trump in violation of Twitter's policies and use the public interest

interstitial. And at the time, Twitter's policy included a specific example when it came to banned abuse against immigrants as they specifically included the phrase, go back to your country or go back to where you came from, correct? Yes, that was specifically included in the content moderation guidance as an example. You brought this up to the vice president of trust and safety, Del Harvey, and she overrode your assessment. And something interesting happened after she overrode your

assessment. A day or two later, Twitter seemed to have changed their policies, didn't they? Yes, that trope go back to where you came from, was removed from the content moderation guidance as an example. Unbelievable. Just unbelievable. I mean, believable. So that was AOC proving that Twitter was not changing their policies to please the libs, but to please Donald Trump. the libs, but to please Donald Trump. It's kind of a piece of evidence that we have lost the thread on the threats of social media in this country, and that we are playing this stupid game of whack-a-mole where we're trying to deal with specific pieces of content that should be suppressed or not suppressed or disinformation, when ultimately we have left ourselves in the hands of a bunch of tech billionaires who are going to do what's in the best interest of their company,

whether that is let Donald Trump do what he's doing, stop Donald Trump what he's doing. Jack Dorsey said they did one thing. Elon Musk comes another. It's just the issue, if we want to truly deal with this problem of social media, it's going to have to be regulation. It's not going to be through the policies of these companies because they cannot be trusted to do things right, wrong,

left, right, anyway. It is going to be what's in their interest. Or we just wait for Elon to completely break the platform and then we don't have to deal with it anymore. Yeah. It's also so funny that we are so worried about this one small platform that barely communicates with anyone. And just, you know, it is the equivalent of the Chinese balloon thing, which is, oh my God, there's a balloon. It's like, oh, what about the 70 million people walking around with the app from the Chinese government on their phone? Same thing. Like maybe we should, we should worry about that or Facebook, which reaches exponentially more people than Twitter.

We are very focused on Twitter because we are, we are in the political media bubble. Who cares? Who cares? Well, you're all in it with us. Thanks to Michael Podhorzer for joining us today. And everyone have a great weekend. You know, get offline. And we'll see 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 Gerrard, 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 Pod Save America.