Pod Save America - “Getting tense out there!”

Episode Date: February 25, 2020

Jon, Jon, Tommy, and Dan break down the results of the Nevada caucuses and the ensuing freakout that Bernie Sanders is now the prohibitive favorite to win the Democratic nomination.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Levitt. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Dan Pfeiffer joining us remotely. From Philadelphia, home of the cursed Philadelphia 76ers. Trust the process, Dan. All right, on today's pod, we've got the results of the Nevada caucuses,

which we managed to cover in person without rigging anything. We'll talk about Bernie Sanders' momentum heading into South Carolina in Super Tuesday and what to expect from Tuesday's Democratic debate, which you can watch along with us at crooked.com slash groupthread. Before that, Lovett, how was the show this week? We had an amazing

A-plus, Lovett or leave it. A-plus. With Emily Heller, Sean Ramos-Varn from Vox, and Darcy Carden came by to play a person who gave a toast at Stephen Miller's wedding, which you don't want to miss. Wow. It was delightful. It was a great episode. Check it out. Also, a quick note for me, if you haven't listened to season two of The Wilderness yet, now is the perfect time to check it out. Right as everyone's trying to figure out what voters in swing states actually think about politics, Trump and the Democratic candidates.

states actually think about politics trump and the democratic candidates there's also some really good advice in there from lefty progressive candidates who won big in some very tough states in 2018 so check it out at the wilderness podcast.com all right guys um we are back from las vegas uh where we covered the caucus like the good journalists that we are um and with 96 percent of precincts reporting it was a blowout for Bernie Sanders, who won with 47% of the vote and will get an estimated 24 of the state's 36 delegates. Joe Biden, who received 20% of the vote, and Pete Buttigieg, who received 14% of the vote, are the only two other candidates who will get any delegates at all from Nevada. Biden probably gets nine. Pete probably gets three. Again, these are estimates. After them came Elizabeth Warren at 10%, Tom Steyer at 5%, and Amy Klobuchar at 4%.

So before we dig into the results, Tommy and John, since you guys were there, do you guys want to talk about what we saw in Vegas over the last few days? We went to a Warren event, went to a Sanders rally, and then we saw one of the Culinary Workers Caucus sites at the win. Yeah, I mean, we can just go chronologically, I guess. I mean, Warren's event was 300 people, 400 people. You know, it was not that big. It was a crowd that kind of, you know, look, I'm clearly stereotyping here, but that kind of looks like what you think a Warren crowd would look like, according to exit polls. Then we went to Bernie's event after. It was four or five times bigger.

It was a lot more diverse. It was a lot younger. There's a lot of work that went into making it look big and cool and exciting, and it was very impressive. And then the caucus event we went to was weird. We went to the Margot room in the Wynn Hotel. It was a big ballroom. What do you guys think?

Like 95 people were there, I think they said. It's about right. Yeah, it was 95 caucus cars. Took a couple hours. Everybody lined up in their corners. Tom Steyer was viable. Bernie Sanders was viable. Joe Biden was viable. Nobody else. And, you know, which meant there was four or five minutes of jockeying to get six Warren supporters and two uncommitted to come to each corner and love it. I'll let you break the big news on how that went. Four went to Bernie. Three went to Biden. One went to Steyer. I think that's right.

And yeah, I mean, I think that was sort of the big news. I will say- And Bernie won our location. And Bernie won our location handily. You know, look, something I felt when we were at the satellite caucus for Bernie in Iowa that I felt at the Bernie event, that I felt at the strip caucus we went to, which was, by the way, not... A strip caucus is a bit disappointing compared to what you'd expect in Vegas. No truth in advertising.

It's like, there's no... There's nothing happening down under. I think they got the joke. Don't explain the joke. Don't explain the joke. But the Bernie crowd wasn't just bigger. It was pumped. I mean, it was enthusiastic. And just the observers we were with,

there were incredibly excited Bernie organizers there as well. And you just feel that at the Bernie event. You feel a group of people who feel like they're on the precipice of being behind the nominee. And they're extremely excited, extremely hungry. And you see that everywhere you go. I'll also say, just shout out to Mike Bloomberg, the only person who can help me out of the hole I got into in Vegas. And that's all I have to say about that. I'll also just add that, like the caucus site that we went to in Iowa, there was so much more democratic, let's say, unity and goodwill than

you would expect from the news and online. The woman who gave the speech on behalf of Joe Biden supporters to try to get people to come to the Biden side said, I love all the candidates and I just think that Joe Biden would be better to beat Donald Trump. No offense to the Sanders supporters. And, you know, the Sanders people were cheering on the Biden people and the Warren people to try to get them to come over. Like, it's just it's just much different than you. Yeah. And despite the public fight between Bernie Sanders campaign and the culinary workers leadership, it was clear that there were a lot of rank and file union members in the room that caucus for Sanders, which is something we saw repeated throughout the

state. Yeah. And really split between Sanders and Biden, too, at least in our caucus. I would have thought it was some of the other candidates as well. And then the woman who spoke for Bernie Sanders, we actually spoke to and we have a clip of that now. My name is Lizette Ramirez, and I'm from born and raised here in Las Vegas. I just feel like he has the potential to beat Donald Trump. And that's why I voted for Bernie Sanders. He's going to change. And hopefully if he does win, he'll make our generations for our children way better than what it is now.

You know, I hope so. That's what Bernie Sanders is a strong candidate for me. I think first I was going for Joe Biden. Then I switched to, what was it, Tom, and then Bernie Sanders. Finally, he just got my heart, for sure. Are you a member of the Culinary Union? Yes, I am. It stuck to me when Bernie Sanders, when he was talking in the little debates, he was talking about how insurance should be for everybody, not just for certain people. So

insurance for all, that's why Bernie Sanders to me sticks out. So Medicare for all is something that you're into and something that you would like. Yeah, everybody deserves to have good healthcare. So I just feel like Bernie Sanders speaks to all ages and the younger generation sees that he has that new green deal that they're going for. And that's definitely going to help global warming and everything. I want my baby to have good, fresh, clean air, and Bernie Sanders is the way to go. He goes for the new Green Deal, so he endorsed it, so I endorse him as well. The most important issue for me would be just for everybody to be together as one and for all of us to come together.

That's what's important to me. We're divided right now and we want to be united. So Democratic turnout has already beaten 2016, but probably won't beat 2008. So Dan, you've been sort of concerned about turnout issues. How are you feeling on this now? I think turnout was pretty good. I think you probably would have expected a little bit more given that there was an early voting option this time that did not exist in 2008. And I think it's even more notable because there are a lot more registered Democrats in Nevada now than there were in 2008. So like on a per percentage basis, it's still down. But the fact that it beat 16 is something I think we should feel pretty good about. And I would say, I think you're suffering from the same problem in a caucus state that I think

we saw in Iowa, which is there are a lot of undecided Democrats. And when you're undecided, you're much less likely to go stand for two hours in a casino ballroom or at a church or high school than you would be to maybe just show up at a polling location and vote. The party also registered 10,000 voters. Yeah, that was really good. Through early voting, which is great for general election prospects. Yeah, fantastic. All right. So let's talk about Bernie's big victory.

which is great for general election prospects. Yeah, fantastic. All right, so let's talk about Bernie's big victory. He won every demographic except voters over 65 and black voters, where he finished a pretty close second to Joe Biden. Bernie won men and women, college and non-college educated voters, union and non-union households, all voters under 65, very liberal voters, somewhat liberal voters, tied Biden and Buttigieg among self-described moderate and conservative voters.

He won independents. He won first-time caucus goers who made up 50 percent of the turnout. And he dominated among Latinos with 51 percent of the vote. Here is a clip of Bernie's election night speech, which he actually delivered in Texas. Now, Trump and his friends think they are going to win this election. think they are gonna win this election they think they're gonna win this election by dividing our people up based on the color of their skin or where they were born or their religion or their sexual orientation

we are gonna win because we are doing exactly the opposite. We're bringing our people together. How significant do you guys think the coalition that Bernie put together in Nevada is? You know, I think Bernie's strength with Latinx voters could be the most important thing we learn in this primary. It's truly impressive. They've been organizing early in Latino communities. They've been doing it in California as well. They've already spent a million dollars in Spanish language ads in California alone. So that's something they've put time and effort into. time and effort into. I think that he's trying to build a coalition that is diverse and broad. I mean, the only place he's not doing well so far is voters over 65, which still seems to be Biden's wheelhouse. Yeah. And P2. Yeah, P2. So look, I mean, it's impressive. I'll just add to that, you know, it is true that Biden, according to the entry and exit polls, won among African Americans. But Bernie also did really well among black voters. And Amy Klobuchar and Mayor Pete did abysmally. And the time has now run out for the two of them to make the claim

that those voters are going to give them a chance, give them a look. We're here. You know, South Carolina is this Saturday. Super Tuesday is the Tuesday after that. You cannot be the Democratic nominee if you are not exciting and turning out African-American voters. And as of right now, it has really been those two candidates, Bernie and Biden, who have so far been able to do that. Dan, what did you think about Bernie's coalition? Obviously, you can't, or at least it's fraught to draw parallels between coalitions that turn out in a primary and the general election. But does it tell us anything about sort of the coalition that Bernie can put together? Well, it's also fraught to draw huge conclusions from entrance polls in a caucus with a sample size this small. I mean,

the thing that's sort of stunning is Bernie is going to win with nearly half the delegates by getting, I think, when the votes are kind of less than 40,000 Nevadans to choose him. Now, this is not one of the situations that you saw in 2016 where Bernie would crush in the caucus. And then if there was a non-delegate awarding primary later, Hillary would win by like 15 points. I think Bernie would have won a Nevada primary as well and maybe by at least the margin he had in the first preference vote, which was like, I think, 3018 or something over Biden, or 3418 over Biden. I think the most significant thing that we saw here is that Bernie won among voters who priced electability most. And that is what I, in that clip we just listened to, is the journey that Bernie has gone through when he was at 16% in the national polling in December

to 29% in the national polling average where he is today, is he has convinced a lot of Democrats that he can win. And the other Democrats have not done a good job of convincing voters that he can't win or that they would do a better job of beating Trump than he would. And so he's been able to bring all of these groups together. And in terms of his general election coalition, the real question, the real sign of hope is his strength among Latino voters. And if he could replicate that in Arizona, he has the potential to put that state into play. Yeah, I want to echo that point about Latino voters too. And the one piece of research I haven't seen, and I don't know if anyone has it yet, is did Bernie Sanders in his

campaign sort of register new Latino voters who hadn't voted before? Are they expanding the electorate among Latino voters or are they just dominating within the Latino voters who usually show up and vote in Democratic primaries and caucuses? I think that remains to be seen. But, you know, the New York Times said many Latinos who showed up at the caucuses wearing Sanders buttons and stickers said his campaign was the only one they had ever heard from. Some of our friends at Equus Research, who do a lot of good polling in the Latino community, have a lot of research from the last week that shows that Bernie now has the highest favorability among Latino voters of any of the Democratic candidates. Not just they did some polling in Nevada, but also in Colorado and some other states with heavy Latino population.

So I do think that's something worth watching, not just for his strength in the primary, but looking for signs of potential strength in the general election. And to me, that hinges more on, you know, are they actually bringing in new Latinos into the electorate who tend to be sporadic voters and tend to be difficult to organize because Democrats haven't spent enough time trying to organize them. So I do think that's something to sort of watch as we go along. All right, let's talk about the other candidates. Joe Biden, who finished second, said in his caucus night speech, I feel really good. You put me in a position. We're coming back and we're going to win. He also tried to contrast himself with Bernie and Bloomberg saying, I ain't a socialist. I ain't a plutocrat. I'm a Democrat. How good should the Biden folks feel about his performance in Nevada?

And what do you think about his message there? I'll just say that I felt it was, um, very unfortunate, but I think, um, memorable bit of timing that I watched NBC. And as Biden said, I'm alive, I'm back and we have momentum. It cut to them giving Bernie Sanders the victory. Uh, and it was just sort of a brutal contrast. I mean, look, we'll talk about all of them. But what we saw is a bunch of candidates going to the podium. Tom Steyer tried to do it, but Pete did it. Biden do it, explaining why this puts them in a great position heading into South Carolina. But of course, the truth is, if they're all in a great position going into South Carolina and all saying that they're going to stay in through Super Tuesday, they're all putting

themselves collectively in a position to lose to Bernie Sanders. Yeah, I mean, look, it's hard to feel great when you get doubled up by the person who won, you know, just being Bill Clinton famously pulled off the comeback kid narrative in New Hampshire in 92. But that was a different time, a different era, there was a lot more space between the primaries that allowed you to build momentum. And so, you know, look, South Carolina has been his firewall for a long time. And it's clear that Bernie Sanders is now putting a whole bunch of chips on the table in South Carolina, going in with ads, all the structural challenges, like the game theory problems that the so-called moderates have in every other state still exist in South Carolina. Nobody has dropped out. There's a chance that

they split a bunch of the vote. So I would be pretty nervous. But look, Biden could win South Carolina. We'll find out soon. But it's hard to tell how much of a bounce he'll get out of winning the first state out of four that you were expected to win the whole time. Dan, what do you think? Look, Biden needed to come in second here, and he did. It would have been better if the gap between Bernie and Biden was closer, but he should feel very good about the gap between himself and Buttigieg. And so he's still in the game. I think if he had come in third or fourth here, they might have been over for him. He obviously would have been on the ballot in South Carolina, but he would have had another week of stories about the faltering,

failing Biden campaign. And so he makes it to the next round and he has a chance to have an upside surprise and get a little momentum going into Tuesday. So going into Super Tuesday. So I think they should feel good about that, given what the alternative was. Yeah, I'm trying to trying to game out all the scenarios for the non-Bernie candidates here who are trying to now fight to be the alternative to Bernie. You can see from the Biden campaign perspective why they might be feeling better than some of the other center-left candidates who are still out there because he gets second in Nevada. He goes to South Carolina where he's still the leader in polls right now, even though that lead has narrowed dramatically with Bernie Sanders. And

he's got Tom Steyer sort of nipping at his heels as well. But you could imagine a scenario where if Biden has a good debate this week, he ekes out a win in South Carolina. Now he was second in Nevada, wins South Carolina, and now he's heading into Super Tuesday at that point. He might benefit from the fact that, well, when's the last time Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg have won anything? And now Joe Biden has been able to do relatively well in some diverse states. And maybe he's the best alternative to Bernie, right? I mean, at least on paper, that's what it could look like. looking for a Bernie alternative to rally behind. Pete's speech made the case that he's that alternative. Biden's trying to make himself the alternative. Warren is now suggesting she's going to be either the one or one of two people to be the alternative after Super Tuesday. So they're all out there with a case, none of which is strong enough to cause anybody else to behave differently.

I spent a lot of time this morning going through, way too much time actually, when I should have been doing other things, but trying to figure out what the path is for anyone other than Bernie. And I think Biden and Warren have the best chance. And it is, don't get me wrong, they are distant, distant, far behind Bernie in terms of probability of being the nominee, of how this could play itself out. And maybe even Biden does because he has the best chance of gaining some momentum from South Carolina. If he were to do that, Bloomberg would falter in this next debate. There are a bunch of Southern states that Biden could win on Super Tuesday. And so if he could win some states, net some serious delegates there, and then have either himself or Warren come close to Bernie in California and

Texas, he would still, I think, be significantly behind in the delegates, but would have a claim to being the person to continue on after this. I mean, I think a lot of things have to break away and you have to get lucky and you need Michael Bloomberg to fall flat on his face again, which may not require luck, but it is there. Warren- Just gravity. Warren, similar situation. Challenge for Warren is she needs an upside surprise in South Carolina. We have not seen data yet that suggests that that is likely, although maybe her numbers will rise in South Carolina like they rose nationally

after the last debate. Yeah. And in terms of Biden's message that night, I ain't a socialist, I ain't a plutocrat, I'm a Democrat. I think, you know, it's a decent start. But again, I haven't heard Biden sort of make a real coherent, bigger case about why he should be the nominee and not Sanders or not Bloomberg or not anyone else that doesn't rely solely on electability, which at this point is a hard argument to make since he has lost a bunch of states. And since in the general election matchup polls, which he and his campaign relied on early in the game, do not now show a significant advantage or any advantage for Biden vis-a-vis the other candidates running, particularly Bernie, which I think is a tough thing for him. And so, you know, and I don't actually have a good answer for that. But if you're on the Biden campaign, I wonder how you solve that

problem, what you make your message in this next week as you head into South Carolina. I was thinking about the same question. And Dan, it's fine. You know, it seems like that's what the Warren message coming out of Nevada seems to match what you're looking at in terms of the delegates. I think that when they say they believe they'll be one of two, I think they mean Biden. And, you know, we have now Mike Bloomberg today going really hard at Bernie. You had Pete in his speech going pretty hard at Bernie. And I just I don't think you can attack your way to being the alternative. And I just I don't know what these candidates should be doing. But I do wonder if it's time for them to be extremely explicit, not about some grand narrative of the race, but about where the math is and the fact that one person has to emerge or Bernie Sanders will be the nominee. The other thing that's just so hard, though, is like, let's say Joe Biden gets 50 percent of the vote in South Carolina.

He then has like two or three days to translate that momentum into something in, say, California, where millions of people have probably early voted. People have been on the air. You don't have time to fundraise and place an ad buy. It's just all so squished together, this cycle, that it's structurally very difficult. I guess the question, Dan, do you think, I guess that can work both ways. On one hand, you're right, there's no time to actually build an organization and run a bunch of ads between South Carolina and Super Tuesday. On the other hand, I wonder if the earned media coverage in a couple days between South Carolina Super Tuesday can be even more powerful momentum wise than some of the organization and paid stuff just because of the nature of what it looks like almost

a national primary. But I don't know, Dan, what do you think? I think that's right. Nate Silver made this point the other day that on Twitter that three days is almost the most amount of time you could possibly want between contests if you were hoping to ride away from momentum. And Super Tuesday is all about momentum. Bernie has run ads places. He has organized places. And that is his advantage over everyone else. Bloomberg has obviously run ads everywhere. But for every candidate who's not Mike Bloomberg, the ads are a drop in the bucket of what it costs to run a national campaign. Right?

Like none of them – even if they had Bernie-style money, they couldn't run enough ads in a two-week period to really move the needle in California because it's so big. And so it's all momentum. I think Biden would need a huge win. Right? He would need a huge win, right? He would need a win like Obama's in South Carolina in 2008. And I actually think we might have won California against Hillary Clinton in 2008 if California had been the Tuesday after the South Carolina primary. But instead, it was 10 days later. And over that period of time, the race reverted to the mean and Hillary Clinton ended up winning

by seven or so points because it was a state that more demographically favored her. But isn't that a lot harder when you have a bunch of states like California, Massachusetts, Texas that have been early voting for weeks now? Oh, yes. 100%. Look, I don't think anyone other than Bernie is winning California. It is a question of whether some candidate who has banked some vote in early vote, right? And I think Warren probably does well in there. I think there's a lot of talk that Buttigieg has banked some early vote here. I don't know about Biden. Can you build on your early vote with late deciders to get yourself into a position in second close enough to minimize the amount of delegates that Bernie nets on that day?

And the state that people really aren't talking about as much is Texas too, which is the next biggest prize after California, I believe. Where Bernie went. Right. And so, yeah, where Bernie went. And so the question, I think, Dan, is if someone can bank early vote, keep it close with Bernie in California and then win Texas, then does the race become competitive again? But all of that is predicated on something coming out of South Carolina that defies what we're seeing. that defies what we're seeing. I mean, Biden's challenges among many is the fact that there are two billionaires dropping tens of millions of dollars in this race that amounts to just a wealth tax on Biden. Tom Steyer is what? I've seen polls with 17% of the vote. I mean,

that is extraordinary. Those are people that Biden needs if he is going to outperform Bernie Sanders, who is slowly closing and by the way, spending in South Carolina like a billionaire. Yeah, like maybe 20 million By the time they vote. All right, let's talk about Pete Buttigieg, who came in third. He used his speech to make the most direct contrast with Bernie Sanders of any candidate, saying that Democrats should, quote, take a sober look at what's at stake before we rush to nominate Senator Sanders and that, quote, Senator Sanders believes in an inflexible ideological revolution that leaves out most Democrats, not to mention most Americans. Got to imagine Pete really wanted

second here to keep up his momentum from Iowa and New Hampshire and start consolidating the center left before Super Tuesday. It does not seem like he did that. So what does Pete Buttigieg do from here? What is his path? I don't know. It's very hard. He really has to show that he can do better with African-American voters in South Carolina or some of the Super Tuesday states to have any chance of winning the nomination. Yeah, that's it. I mean, you know, again, like he can launch a broadside against Bernie Sanders to try to pit himself as the alternative. But that has not worked thus far. And there are multiple alternatives that he would also need to be making a case against at the same time, which he has chosen so far to not really do. like realistic-ish path forward for Pete Buttigieg requires a upside surprise in South Carolina where he does much better with the African-American vote than he has done in any poll to date or in any race to date. And so if he were to – let's say he came in a close third but he got 20% of the African-American vote. I don't even know if that math is possible. But

like where he could demonstrate a capacity to broaden his coalition, math as possible, but where he could demonstrate a capacity to broaden his coalition. Super Tuesday is actually a little bit better for Pete demographically than it is for some other candidates if he can replicate some of the strength he showed with Latino voters in Nevada. I think he got 19%. Is that right? So if he could do that and show some strength. And then in some of those states like Colorado are ones that Pete with momentum could do well in.

Virginia's one state with momentum Pete could do well in. If he could do that, then he – like he still would have to do better with the African-American vote after that when you get into a run of southern states later on in the calendar. But if he could get a little momentum, he's more demographically – he's in a better position demographically with his voter base than some of the other candidates are. Dan, can I push on that? Look, we're back into this thing where momentum is determined by the timing of primaries rather than actual changes in the race. If Pete Buttigieg performs abysmally with African-American South Carolina, even if there are some positive states, even if previous states, you just simply cannot win the nomination without winning. Really, no one has ever won the nomination without winning the African-American primaries. So simply doing fine is not good enough, let alone doing mediocre, right? So he would need to do much better than we've ever

seen him possibly do. And I want to say, just as a caveat, all of these scenarios that we're talking about here are incredibly low likelihood with all these candidates still in the race. regardless. But it's not as if he is dominating among college-educated white voters or non-college-educated white voters. He's doing well with both of those groups, but he's not dominating because the field is very crowded and other candidates are doing well too, which makes his challenge even tougher. And the other thing that Pete's facing is, you know, sometimes you see Pete on stage at the debate, and I think you could argue that he in many ways has been a better candidate than Joe Biden. He has a sharper message. He's very nimble. His campaign is very smart. You know, like I said, he's probably made the strongest case most directly against Bernie Sanders in that last debate and then again in his speech. But Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders

both have near universal name ID. People know them. Right after them comes Elizabeth Warren, right? She doesn't have universal ID like the other two, but she's up there as well. Pete's still largely unknown to a lot of voters in the country, even primary voters, when you look at the polls. So he's got that challenge. He's got a couple billionaires putting a lot of money in the race when he is now sort of running out of money. And he doesn't have the grassroots fundraising base that either Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren does. So he's sort of facing multiple challenges all at once just to get himself known and to get his message out there to as many voters as possible.

Yeah, I think it's just also worth noting that Pete's campaign is contesting the results of the Nevada caucuses. They said they've seen irregularities. And, you know, it doesn't surprise me. I mean, you had 75,000 people vote early, which is crazy, because then it just shouldn't be a caucus, it should be a primary, but that's beside the point. But those votes, you had to rank your top three priorities. And then those early votes got, you know, sent off to the precinct where you lived and then layered in with the first choice, second choice, third choice viability. So it's an incredibly complicated process. I think they're probably right to make sure it was done precisely. But that doesn't help you

when you don't get a bounce out of a second place finish that you thought you might get which which again by the way that just brings me back to iowa and all the you know the conspiracies about sort of pete uh pete reagan iowa or whatever like the fact that the iowa caucus was a debacle hurt pete so badly now it is clear because that week between iowa and new hampshire he did not get the bounce he probably would have got if the story out of iowa was just pete budajieg wins Iowa or won the delegates. And therefore, he came in a close second in New Hampshire when, who knows, possibly he could have came in first if he had more of a media boost at that point. It is extraordinary. I mean, it's also, you know, you look at Pete Buttigieg made it this far.

I mean, he's like he's the gay mayor of south bend indiana he's an extraordinary politician an extraordinarily intelligent person who has built an incredible campaign that took a lot of luck but a lot of hard work and he hit some really bad luck uh between iowa and new hampshire not to mention the fact that amy klobuchar having the debate of her life yeah uh meant that it deprived him uh uh possibly of winning um let's talk about the fourth place finisher, Elizabeth Warren. Were there any signs that Warren got a boost from her, as we all called it, stellar debate performance? And what is her path from here? Well, she raised $21 million so far this month. Wow. So that's a hell of a fundraising total. I think if the Nevada debate performance was a

couple weeks earlier, you might have seen her do better because it seems clear that she did better with Nevada participants who showed up in caucus on caucus day and did poorly in the early vote. I don't think the delta was that big between the two, but, you know, might have been something. But she did get a bump in the latest national CBS YouGov poll that has her up at 19%. So, I mean, that's a that's a hell of a bounce out of a debate. Yeah, it seems like, you know, she has spikes in favorability since the debate, national polls, the poll you just mentioned. The other stat you mentioned, so in Nevada, of the late breaking voters, people who decided at the end, 19% chose Warren, while 12% of earlier voters did. And that seven point jump is the largest of any of the five front runners. Although it's worth noting that Warren did not come in first or second with either group, late deciders or early voters, which is tough. Dan, what do you think her path from here is?

money had she not had that debate. Right. So that changed everything. It'd be interesting to see whether this national poll that was released on Sunday is a leading indicator of a surge around the country. You know, just we'll have to see. It's unfortunate. She has had a run, I think, of bad luck in terms of when her good moments come because now we're running into another state that's challenging for her. Like actually, if Super Tuesday was next, I think she'd be in a better place because there are a number of states she can win on Super Tuesday if she comes in with some strength. Like obviously, Massachusetts is there. Oklahoma, where she's from originally. Virginia is a place where Warren also potentially would have some strength.

Tennessee. I would expect Bernie to be favored in Colorado. That's another place where Warren could have some strength. So if she can come out, if she can have another great debate and then come out of South Carolina with some momentum, which I think is very challenging given where she has been in the polls to date, she's got a shot. I think we can have a conversation about how Super Tuesday plays itself out at some point, but there's going to be this battle between who wins delegates and who wins states.

And if you win some states, that can be your rationale to continue. And she has at least a chance to win some states. Let's talk about Tom Steyer and Amy Klobuchar, who barely registered at 4.7% and 3.9%. Klobuchar said in a speech that she had, quote, exceeded expectations and bragged to the audience that Donald Trump mentioned her in one of his rally speeches for the first time. So that's cool. At this point, does a candidate like Tom Steyer or a candidate like Amy Klobuchar have any path to the nomination at all? I do believe Klobuchar got a raw deal at the most recent debate. I don't think she did particularly well, but I also think that just she got some she got some sort of relentless questioning from the moderators and from her fellow candidates. And I don't think her ongoing romance with Pete Buttigieg has helped her on that stage.

So, you know, look, her rise in New Hampshire was born of an extraordinary debate performance. And I think that that has now settled out. You know, 4% is not good. It's not momentum. It's not on the rise. It's very low. And, you know. Exceeding expectations is putting it charitably. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. Yeah. I mean, you know, soft bigotry of low expectations for Amy Klobuchar for herself. But yeah, you know, I have actually just, I feel like there's a little bit of a swan song element as we go through these various candidates, the Super Tuesday approaches, but I will actually just, I feel like there's a little bit of a swan song element as we go through these various candidates as Super Tuesday approaches.

But I will just say, I have been surprised by how effective a candidate Amy Klobuchar has been, not in terms of her as a person, but her as an avatar for pragmatism. I think that she can, I think, fairly claim to make the best argument for pragmatic consensus building center left governing of any candidate I think I've ever seen. That's why I think she's still on this stage after a lot of bigger names and people that had higher expectations dropped out earlier, people like Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Beto O'Rourke and others. And but she has been a victim of what we've talked about a million times, whether it's Biden's name ID or the crowded field and what have you.

And money. And now I think it's looking pretty rough. On Klobuchar, like when I was doing this exercise this morning, like the Super Tuesday states, I really could not even construct a path. I just could not figure out how she could head into Super Tuesday with momentum and then

pick up a bunch of delegates to find herself as the alternative. I mean, maybe someone smarter than me can figure it out, but I was able to at least like stretch the realms of reality to do it for the other candidates and I could not do it for her. And the answer is, does Tom Steyer have a path after South Carolina? The answer is no. The Steyer thing is a real head scratcher because he, you know, someone has the amount of money he spent in Nevada.

It was a shitload. That's my scientific calculation. And getting what he did with that much money four percent or whatever in in nevada is not very promising he you know in fairness has been doing a lot better in south carolina i think he was like third in the poll that came out there over the weekend and um you know he spent a lot of time not just on the air but on the ground there really meeting voters organizing in the african-American community. But I just don't think when you look ahead to the Super Tuesday states, you know, there's any there's any real path there, even if he because I guess what he can hopefully I guess

he's hoping to place third in South Carolina or maybe second. Like, does he maybe think he could go Bernie Sanders, Tom Steyer if like Biden collapses? I don't know. But even then, does Steyer become the alternative? I just don't think he has quite the... He definitely has the money, but I don't know. I mean, look, it's a strange reality, but we have been given a pretty good political science experiment as to what people are looking for in a billionaire and what you get for that money. the fact that Tom Steyer has not just been outperformed by other candidates with far fewer resources, the fact that in a lot of polls, he is now underperforming the other billionaire tells you that there is zero path for him, given who is still in this race. Yeah, I mean, there's only I guess he's back in the next debate. So yeah, he'll be on the stage

tomorrow. And that's something, you know, he spent a lot of money in South Carolina, it's clearly helped him get some support. There's actually some reporting questioning that spending and whether it was, you know, not illegal, not even unethical, but, you know, tasteful, essentially, the New York Times had a piece on it today, you know, look, anyone who thinks that there's some monolithic democratic establishment that pulls strings back in DC, Just look at this clown car of candidates who are all losing their fucking minds about Bernie Sanders winning. And not one of them can get it together to say, Hey, you, you, and you drop out so that these other people can become an alternative and actually take Bernie Sanders on. They are setting it up perfectly to

ensure that Bernie Sanders gets the nomination. So maybe we stop pulling back the curtain and looking for the Wizard of Oz and instead realize that it's just a bunch of people, goobers, people with different ideas. We are and some pretty big egos. Yeah. So after the first three primary contests, it seems pretty clear that Bernie Sanders is not just the front runner, but the prohibitive favorite for the Democratic nomination. Dan, can you talk a little bit about why that is? I know we've done this before, but, you know, I see I saw a lot of people over the weekend say, look at the calendar. Only three states have voted. Only a tiny percentage of delegates have been awarded. This thing is just getting started, which is technically true. But can you tell us about why, you know, in reality that Bernie has such a commanding lead here?

Yeah, a lot of people have been tweeting out this historical fact that Bill Clinton lost every single contest up until the Georgia primary on, I think, March 3rd or something like that. And that is all true. But a couple of important points. The calendar is much more compressed than it was before. That was this unique election where Iowa didn't count because Tom Harkin was running. Bill Clinton was actually the winner of the New Hampshire primary, but then he came in second because Paul Songress from the neighboring state of Massachusetts was running, so it was presumed he would win. The next contest was the South Dakota primary. That one did not count because Bob Kerry was running from neighboring Nebraska.

And so when the – but they were also, as Tommy pointed out, they were spread out far enough that there was time for candidates to build momentum between them. And so Bill Clinton did win later. But now the campaign is pulled completely forward. Forty percent of the delegates will be off the table after Super Tuesday. But two of the biggest states, which also happen to be states that Sanders has demonstrated true strength in, California and Texas, are on the calendar on that day. And so it is very possible that Sanders will amass enough delegates, particularly by winning California by eight, nine, 10 points, that it will

be virtually impossible for any candidate to catch up to him after that. And so everything is much more moved forward and Sanders has momentum and he's heading into a very favorable Super Tuesday. There's another big difference this year from previous Super Tuesdays, which is because Texas has moved forward and California, which was on Super Tuesday in 2008, moved in 2016, has moved back to Super Tuesday. It is now incredibly Latinx heavy group of states and very much diminishing the role of African-American voters on Super Tuesday. And so that also benefits Sanders who's winning that group of people. So this is a huge opportunity for his campaign that is looming

there to potentially put the race away. Yeah. I mean, look, in 1992, they're faxing press releases, everybody. So, you know, I'm all for like learning history, but let's not delude ourselves here with the order of events. And again, you know, we just talked about how challenging it is for any of these other candidates to surpass Bernie. But, you know, it is at least possible unless the field looks like it does right now. I mean, I think the split field is one of the biggest advantages that Bernie has going for him in Super Tuesday. And Dan, I know you said this on Meet the Press over the weekend, but like if the field looks like it does now on super tuesday i don't see any way that someone could overtake bernie i mean anyway like i think in order for there to be some chance and

you know we're about to talk about sort of the the freak out over bernie as a potential nominee but i see a lot of people freaking out about a lot of things but not a lot of people talking about that the probably the first best way to stop Bernie would be to figure out who's the one candidate or two candidates that are going to stay in the race to challenge him on Super Tuesday. Because, you know, like I said, Amy Klobuchar said, it's crazy for me to drop out. I'm not doing it. Tom Steyer is still spending money. He's in there, too. So I don't you know, I don't it's pretty it's I have to say it was very fresh. It's been are losing their fucking minds on twitter we'll get to it but but man it seems like there are a lot of people who think it's free to talk about how dangerous bernie sanders is the nominee while

not saying why they believe one of the alternatives must be the alternatives there's a lot of people who want to be very critical of bernie sanders without telling amy pete biden steyer bloomberg any of them to drop out. Yeah, or just saying which one they favor. Or saying which one they like. Or saying which one they favor. Yeah, you'd think if people were scared about Bernie, then today we'd see a lot of, I love Joe Biden, or I love Pete Buttiger,

I love Elizabeth Warren, but it's a lot more just like, why are you scared? Because they can't. Well, they don't know. Well, they don't know, but also I think there's no one alternative that's obviously more electable than Bernie Sanders. They all have liabilities. So it's easier to attack Bernie Sanders and explain how worried they are about Bernie Sanders than it is to explain why their personal choice of candidate is a better bet. I think that's just much harder to do.

I think there's one person who should drop out. Who's that? Bloomberg. I mean, dead serious. We already talked about Mike Bloomberg. out. Who's that? Bloomberg. I mean, we already talked about Mike Bloomberg. Yeah. I mean, he is the biggest problem in this. He is getting 13 to 15 to 18% in some of these polls. If even half of that support allocated to one other candidate, it would dramatically narrow the gap. He didn't compete in the first four. And as the Republican mayor, former Republican mayor of New

York with the lowest approval rating of anyone running. And so he's just causing a giant mess and not being a solution to it. Sanders, too, which I don't know. You know, maybe that helps one of the other non Bernie candidates. I don't know if it helps him too much, because like you said, his approval rating is favorability among Democrats and among the general electorate really is maybe now the lowest of any of the candidates in some polls, at least. I've seen over the for the first time in head to head matchups against Trump. Now, Bloomberg can't really say he's doing better than the other candidates. In fact, I think at the he's he's doing a little poorly compared to Bernie and Biden. And so that's tough for him. So he's sort of losing whatever advantages he had besides money

when he jumped into the race in the first place. Hey, everyone. Pod Save America and Love It or Leave It are going on tour for 2020. Between the news, this primary, and the general election. That's right. We're going to have a lot to talk about. So come see us live when we're in your town.

Get those tickets at crooked.com slash events and come hang out. That's crooked.com slash event. So, you know, quite a growing number of establishment Democrats, centrist Democrats, never Trump Republicans, MSNBC media personalities and other blue checkmark pundits are, to put it mildly, freaking the fuck out over the prospect of a Bernie Sanders nomination, mainly for two reasons. One, he's a self-described democratic socialist who they believe is too ideologically extreme to win a general election. And two, they're worried he'll also cost Democrats the House, the Senate and other down-ballot races. Matt Bennett of the

centrist democratic group, The Third Way, told Politico, quote, in 30 plus years of politics, I've never seen this level of doom. And just to give you an example of how some folks are reacting to this, we have two MSNBC clips from Saturday night with one from Democratic strategist James Carville and one from hardball host Chris Matthews. The happiest person right now, it's about 1.15 Moscow time. This thing is going very well for Vladimir Putin. I promise you. He's probably staying up watching us right now. How are you doing, Vlad?

That's absolutely right. He's probably staying up watching us right now. How are you doing, Vlad? That's absolutely right. James, there's reporting that that's exactly what the intelligence agencies think is going on. Of course it is. I mean, the Sanders campaign was briefed that Putin is helping him, plans to help him in the primary. Amazing. And I don't think Sanders wants Putin to help.

The only reason, think, why would Vladimir Putin be helping Bernie Sanders? Of course, because he wants Donald Trump to win. I mean, it's a straight line. And I don't think that the Sanders campaign in any way is collusion or collaboration. I think they don't like this story. But the story is a fact. And the reason that the story is a fact is Putin is doing everything that he can to help Trump, including trying to get Bernie Sanders the Democratic nomination. If you remember when Bernie ran in 2016, his chief strategist was Paul Manafort's sidekick in the Ukraine. I mean, this thing just didn't start right now. And it's something that people need to know about. They need to be made aware of it.

The candidates on the debate stage in South Carolina on Monday night need to quit attacking each other and start talking about where where this country is. And how do you push it forward under some some real choices that Democrats have to make? And let's let's hear Chris Matthews. Bernie, on the other hand, did his job. He got more than a majority, more than a majority of that 67 percent. That is the name of the game. It is pretty much over unless that changes. I was reading last night, Brian, I know you're a history guy, too. I'm reading last night about the fall of France in the summer of 1940. And the general, Renault, calls up Churchill and says, it's over.

And Churchill said, how can it be? You've got the greatest army in Europe. How can it be over? He said, it's over. So I had that suppressed feeling. I can't be as wild as Carville, but he is damn smart. Wow. Honestly, guys, that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Because this morning, it's really, everyone's gone into full freakout mode, which, you know, confused me for two reasons. We can talk about whether the concern is warranted or not. And I think there's a good debate about that. I'm more surprised that it like it took everyone this long. Like we've been saying here, at least for the last month, that Bernie Sanders is the front runner for the nomination. It doesn't seem like a lot of people actually believe that was true until now. Like, I guess it's Chris Matthews comparing a Jewish American to Hitler is a lagging indicator. So let's start with I mean, forget about the sort of the craziest freakouts.

I mean, what do you guys think about the worry that Bernie is a democratic socialist who's too ideologically extreme to win? Like, is there something to those concerns? Yes, I'm worried about it. I remain worried about it. I've been worried about it. And I think it's a challenge that he's going to have to face. It's worth noting that last week Quinnipiac had a poll that showed Bernie beating Trump in Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Trump in Michigan and Pennsylvania. And I think that same poll corrected a Wisconsin result that freaked out a lot of people and showed that actually Wisconsin is tracking a lot closer to those other states. Now, Bernie has not faced a deluge of RNC and Trump campaign attack ads that will be as brutal and vicious as possible, but every campaign will face that. So I think we need to be honest that this is a challenging general election matchup. But, you know, look, I'd love to address the Putin thing at the right time, because I think that's crazy. I also think Chris's history is insane. So we could talk about that, too. But I do think like the pundit class meltdown is so absurd, in part because they never, like you said, love it, present an alternative. And like seemingly the like the Morning Joe set alternative favorite is Mike Bloomberg, who, if you look at the polling, actually shows like he might be the weakest general election candidate. the shift of Republicans to this more radical extreme direction, which is cable news generally is much more comfortable and accustomed to the sound of vicious right wing, revanchist,

extremist, radical policies and people than it is to even moderate Democratic leftists who outside of the United States in places like Europe are part of the mainstream. The narrow band of what is mainstream to exclude a lot of people who have Bernie Sanders views has made it, I think, more comfortable for people on television to freak the fuck out over Bernie Sanders because it just seems so crazy to them. And that's just a small part of it that was bugging me. Dan, what are your concerns? What's your level of concern? Let's do that. I mean, it's high, but I think if one of our other candidates was right now in this poll position where they were potentially about to become the nominee, I'd probably have an

equally large set of concerns. I think it is very clear that Bernie Sanders can win this election. And anyone who says he can't both slept through 2016 and has looked at none of the limited data that is available to us, we absolutely can win it. But anyone who tells you that Bernie Sanders labeled himself a democratic socialist with the positions that he has does not make him a vulnerable democratic nominee is also, I think, being naive about this. So he can win.

He is going to have to run an incredible campaign, which the primaries indicated he is most certainly capable of, to navigate this fundamental question about socialism, which because you have this, and I think it's very important to understand how it's going to play itself out in the election, which is you see a lot from some of the Democrat, the DSA people on Twitter or some of the other lefties who are behind Bernie saying, well, look at Bernie's policies. His policies are popular. You know, if we test Medicare for all, we can get it to, you know, generically very popular with some details, we can get it to even, we can survive that free college is popular. If we test Medicare for all, we can get it to generically very popular. With some details, we can get it to even, we can survive that. Free college is popular. Bernie's positions are popular. But socialism is not about ideology, it's about identity. And what they're going to

try to do is make Bernie Sanders seem scary and un-American. It's the exact play they tried to run against Obama in 08 and in 12. It is what Madrasas is about. It's about what Reverend Wright was about. Bill Ayers. Bill Ayers, not putting your hand on your heart, no flag pin. That's what they're going to do to Bernie. And I think Bernie could learn some lessons from how Obama was able to blunt that. And I think Bernie did the 60 Minutes interview last night where he was – I thought he did very well in a lot of ways despite, as you've pointed out, a complete freakout about some of the things he said.

He had a hesitancy to tell his own story. And I think the Obama lesson is the best way to combat Republican attack ads who try to make you scary is to be able to tell your story in a way that firmly roots it in the American tradition, which I think Bernie Sanders' story is, if he is willing to tell that story both on the stump and in ads. Yeah, no, I agree with that. I mean, look, I think there is plenty of political science research data that shows ideologically candidates that are further to the ideological right and left have a harder time winning elections. People say, well, we have Donald Trump as president. You know, you look at polls, you look at data after 2016, and a lot of voters did not see him as ideologically extreme on a number of issues, partly because he lied to us about Medicare, Social Security. He lied to us about how he was going to raise taxes on hedge

fund managers, all this kind of stuff. So he lied to make himself appear more ideologically inconsistent than maybe your typical Republican. And I think if you look back at 2018, the candidates who were further to the left, a lot of the Justice Democrats backed candidates did not succeed in the midterm elections in red and purple states. That is just a fact. But then, but the reason that I, and so I have all those concerns as well. If Bernie Sanders wins and I agree with Dan that he can win, it will be because he has somehow separated. So he doesn't seem like your typical leftist candidate. And so then you look at some candidates who are more progressive that did win in 2018, right? Like Tammy Baldwin, Medicare for all supporter, first lesbian member of the Senate,

runs in Wisconsin, wins by 11 points in a really tough state that Donald Trump won where Tony Evers, the Democratic governor, only won by a point. So learn lessons from Tammy Baldwin. How did she do that? Sherrod Brown, Ohio was slipping away from the Democrats and Sherrod Brown still crushed that state. Learn from Sherrod Brown. Katie Porter in Orange County, she's a Medicare for All supporter. Elizabeth Warren protege, she wins in a very red county and she's a progressive. despite their policy positions is they presented themselves as tough economic populists who didn't talk a lot about some of the more social and cultural positions that they've taken on the left, even though they still held those positions. And, you know, they organized, they introduced themselves to voters. Like you said, Dan, they told their personal story. Like there are a lot of things you can do to present yourself as an acceptable choice. Like my whole mantra for

this whole thing is like Bernie Sanders should become Sherry Brown if he runs in the general election and he should run as an economic populist and also take care to make sure that the election is about economic populism and, you know, being an outsider and being independent and that the election is not about democratic socialism, which is what the Republicans want it to be about. One more thing about Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders can win, but he will not win if the Democratic Party does not develop an inner fucking monologue. Like, I mean, there's no shit.

There's a self-perpetuating nature of having this public panic right now. And look, we should have a debate on Bernie Sanders electability. He is not the nominee, right? Like that is that is a fair question for the other campaigns to raise about Bernie Sanders because it is the elephant in the room. But if he becomes our nominee, we are either going to hang together or we're all going to hang separately, like potentially literally. And so we like we. So like we're only going to win this united. And so people, I think, have to even if he's not your chosen candidate, we've got to get on board. The really other smart conventional wisdom thing people are saying now is, oh, Democrats are going to lose the House if Bernie Sanders is the nominee. And like, yes, if someone does poorly, the top of the ticket, it can be a drag. But Chris Matthews decided to go back to France for his history lesson. Like, I'd like to point to 1972, which was the worst electoral defeat in history of the country.

Richard Nixon won 49 states with 61% of the popular vote, but Republicans lost two seats in the Senate and they gained a dozen seats in the house, but the Dem majority was like 243 to 192. So my point is just different time, different era, but like this is complicated. It's hard to predict. Voters can split tickets. So just everyone stop predicting the biggest doom and gloom you can possibly think of. your typical left-wing candidate, right? So you go to polls and you ask people, would you vote for a socialist? Is that a problem? And the vast majority of Americans say, no, they don't want to vote for a socialist. That would really worry them. And yet, Bernie Sanders has the highest favorability ratings of anyone in the Democratic field right now. And he has some of the highest favorability ratings among the general electorate than any of the other Democrats right now. I think he's close to Joe Biden in many polls. He's doing better than Joe Biden on favorability in the general

electorate. And again, nearly 100 percent of voters know who Bernie Sanders is. He ran for president before. So he is not some left wing candidate who just came out of the blue and started running for president. And you can define him like he has defined himself to an extent. And again, if you look at the real clear politics averages of all the candidates against Trump right now, Bernie is 4.4 points ahead of Trump. Biden is 4.3. Bloomberg is 3.3. Pete's 1.8. Warren's 1.8. Klobuchar's 1.7. Again, general election matchup polls aren't super predictive when you have a candidate who's not as well known like a Pete, a Warren, a Klobuchar, people like that. But Bernie and Biden both have near 100 percent name ID. And

Bernie is still, you know, close in that and in some of the swing states as well. I think part of this freak out is we don't get to run an experiment where we see what happens after a billion dollars is dumped on the heads of our nominee. We don't get to see it. Right. We have to pick and go in with the person we think is best able to win. And I think there are people, right, I think undergirding a lot of what we're hearing and whether it's James Carville saying, basically, take Putin.

I agree with Putin, right, that you don't say that part of it, but that's what he means. He thinks Putin's right about Bernie. It's not that he cares that Putin has this opinion. It's that he thinks he's right. Is this assumption that the attacks, that billion dollars spent is going to hurt Bernie more than it would Joe Biden or some

of the other candidates. And I just don't know that to be true. And nobody does. The point, like all the data points you offer about Bernie Sanders' popularity are very valid and Democrats should feel good about that. It does speak to the very important and large task before the Sanders campaign to feast the nominee is that large swaths of voters don't know that Bernie Sanders is a socialist. According to some polling, 40% of Democratic voters don't know that. And so when you get to the voters who are going to decide this election in general, it's not like they know Bernie Sanders identifies as a Democratic socialist but like him anyway.

There are a lot of who like him but don't know that fact. And so you have to get ahead of that with aggressive messaging. Yeah. And that's the big challenge. But you're right. Look, the Republican campaign against the Democratic nominee is going to look completely different depending on who it is. But you can go through all of these candidates and talk about the scary scenario of what the ads will target. and talk about the scary scenario of what the ads will target. And right, for Joe Biden or Pete Buttigieg, it's probably not, or Mike Bloomberg, it's not going to be ideology. It's not going to be you're too far left wing, or at least that's not going to work as well, because voters don't see them as super left wing like they do Bernie. You know, a campaign against Warren would probably be similar to Bernie,

though she doesn't call herself a democratic socialist, which is a big difference. But she's taken a lot of the same positions as Bernie Sandersie sanders as well so you know it depends on the candidate but like you know joe biden's the nominee we're gonna hear more about hunter and more about all this stuff and more about the ukraine fucking bullshit and um not if it's going to be fair not if it's going to be true but like that's going to be biden's thing there'll be a whole bunch of things for pete so like you said love it you just don't know what's going to work better what on on different candidates. Well, here's what we do know.

We do know which candidates have run great campaigns and which candidates have shown themselves live and able to adjust based on what's happening in the race. Right. And I do think I think we undercount just how good a politician Bernie Sanders is sometimes and just how effective he is. And by the way, just how much stronger a candidate he's become in the four years since he ran in 2016. I think you can look at Mayor Pete and look at somebody who, love him or hate him, has shown an ability to adjust and pivot to try to stay in this race, which is incredibly impressive. And then you have Elizabeth Warren's campaign that has proven to be an incredible machine. So not just in terms of policy, but in terms of organization. And so, you know, I guess it just, no one knows what the future holds, but it is amazing how many

people have taken the last 48 hours to confirm every bias they had long before Bernie Sanders even announced he was running for president. So, you know, I do think the one fair criticism of Bernie is he hasn't taken as much incoming as some of the other Democratic candidates in this campaign. And that's now changing as a result of this freakout. There's been quite a few attempts to finally go after Bernie Sanders. It started on Friday with a leak to The Washington Post, probably from the White House, that Bernie received a classified briefing last month that Russia may be trying to help his campaign. Then in a 60 Minutes interview, he talked about Fidel Castro's literacy program as an

example of why more Cubans didn't help the U.S. overthrow the dictator decades ago. Mike Bloomberg is out with an ad this morning about Bernie's gun record. He's being challenged on the cost of his plans, his proposed ban on fracking, which could hurt in Pennsylvania. So all of these attacks feel it feels very kitchen sink right now. But what do you guys think? Which of these attacks should sort of worry the Sanders campaign the most? I just want to start by talking about the stupid Putin thing. Everyone needs to stop invoking Vladimir Putin and crediting him with everything. First of all, you just sound stupid and conspiratorial. And it's, you know, like, don't, don't give him more credibility than he deserves. So we don't really know what this intelligence says. The reports are sort of all over the place. Like, I think we know that the Russians like having Trump in office because he undercuts NATO and, you know, their global alliances. Trump in office because he undercuts NATO and, you know, their global alliances. But the idea that like Putin wants Bernie in office is laughable. I think I don't think they want someone who has pledged to fight authoritarianism and kleptocracy as the next president United

States. That's probably an agenda that Putin would find threatening. Maybe people think that Putin thinks Trump can beat Bernie. Therefore, he would intervene in support of Bernie as a three-dimensional chess to get a weaker opponent up there. But that means that Putin is just another dumb pundit, right? And that's the thing that everyone needs to chill the fuck out about. They don't have some special vault of secret genius information. He can't predict the future. He doesn't understand.s politics better than like 538 does right so like sure maybe vlad can guess that bernie would be weaker in a general election matchup against trump and therefore will you know so chaos and intervene again but that doesn't mean he's on bernie's side it doesn't mean it's effective just shut up with the putin's nonsense like bring me

the latest quinnipiac poll. Literally. One caveat. We never know when the next scandal will break out that Don Jr. emailed him all of Trump's internal numbers.

Yeah, but even though there's like tons of polling out. They're just so stupid. He has no special information. Can I clarify the meet the press thing? Yeah, sure.

I saw you had a good time online there. Yeah, it was a fun Sunday on Twitter. But so the clip went around Yeah, sure. I was responding to a comment from Mark Short, who is Mike Pence's chief of staff, who had been on Meet the Press immediately prior to this segment, who said that Putin wanted Bernie to be president. Putin supported Bernie because Bernie honeymooned in the Soviet Union. I was trying to make the point that Tommy just made, which is Putin does not want Bernie to be president.

And we know that from the statement that Bernie put out. So I just wanted to clarify that. I'm sure everyone will acknowledge it and we will move on. So what about some of the other attacks, the Castro thing, what are the attacks that you think, Dan, that should concern the Sanders campaign the most? Or do you think they should be concerned about everything?

Electability. That's the conversation. And all these other candidates. Well, primary general. You're talking general, right? I'm thinking also as they go to the general and they're trying to build a larger coalition. Oh, I thought you meant in terms of the attacks on debates tonight. Yeah, well, I mean, I guess I guess both because electability is going

to obviously what Democrats are concerned about now to win the primary. But then electability becomes a real thing when you're actually trying to persuade voters in the middle or on the sidelines for the general election. I mean, they're like in terms of what these candidates could potentially say either on the debate stage tomorrow night or at some point in this primary before Bernie Sanders arrives on the convention stage as the nominee that could potentially change the trajectory of the race. The only thing that I can think of, because Bernie Sanders' policies are popular within the Democratic Party, as they should be, is to surf the panic that is currently happening in Washington, D.C. Because you hear all the time, we have frequently on the show pointed out that it's odd these

candidates never draw contrast with the person who's winning the election. They always fight with the person they're battling for second or third with. And then some people will say, well, Bernie's people are locked in. And that is not true. The evidence is very clear. He has doubled his support in two months. In that, those 15% of people or so that he has added since December are people who either were undecided two months ago or supported someone else two months ago.

So the race can move if you can make a compelling case on the most valuable and most important question people are asking, can you beat Trump? Now, the challenge for all of them is it's hard to say you're better at winning elections when Bernie keeps beating you in elections. Yeah. So on the debate stage, what's your strategy if you're Biden, Pete, Warren, or Bloomberg, which are basically the people who possibly could have a path, I think? Well, I mean, Mayor Pete just tweeted out some criticism in a clip of Bernie Sanders talking about Cuba. So it does seem like he views this as a potential path to attack Bernie going forward, maybe at the debate. It's worth pointing out that like

the Trump administration has made a concerted effort to reach out to Cubans and Venezuelans in Florida. I think it's probably one of the savvier political things they've done over the past three years, and it's created challenges for Democrats there. That said, you can be critical of Fidel Castro and the Cuban regime and their human rights violations and everything else, and then also point out that they've been able to educate young people and develop a great medical care community and lots of doctors without becoming a communist, right? Like there's this like unhinged absurdity where the American exceptionalism dictates that we can only viciously attack any other country that disagrees with us, when the reality is Barack Obama said very similar things when he visited

Cuba during the rapprochement at the end of the second term. So first of all, we can't have a politics in which you can't note that one of the dangers of authoritarianism is that it offers things to people, which sometimes entrenches its power. You need to be able to have an honest conversation about how these regimes take hold. And I would also point out that a lot of the people being very critical of Bernie have said wonderful things about Saudi Arabia or said wonderful things about China or Bloomberg has denied that China is a dictatorship. There is a long list of hypocritical remarks by a ton of people currently criticizing Bernie for this.

Look, this is a danger area for Bernie Sanders. Anytime he's going to be asked about socialist or especially communist regimes that have been immiserating and cruel to their people, he is going to have to be very careful in how he answers that question. That said, we do not need to play the game of what Republicans will surely do. People like Marco Rubio already filming a little fucking TikTok in his car to criticize Bernie Sanders because it's an easy punch for him to throw. So that's all I have to say. Look, it's definitely a challenge for him and is especially a challenge for him in Florida. The focus group I did there in Miami, I was surprised how many voters said that socialism was such a big problem.

It was such a concern for them. Latino voters said this to me. They said it about Bernie Sanders, you know, and so he's got a lot of work to do there to fix that. But I think on this specific comment, you can definitely over torque stuff. Right. And a lot of people and people have you can say that because, you know, we point a lot of people pointed out that Barack Obama said something similar. And then everyone's like, well, that he said that in his last year. He didn't say that when he was trying to run for office. He said that in his last year. He didn't say that when he was trying to run for office. But also, he did run for office in 2008 talking about an opening with Cuba, which was not super popular with some of these same people at the time.

Also, can you guys just clarify your jingoism? Is it because it's bad policy to be nice to communists? Or is it an electability question? We're all over the map. Where are we coming from here? Hey, when you do a bad faith attack on Bernie Sanders, you do me a favor. Keep it consistent. Clarify.

All right? when you do a bad faith attack on Bernie Sanders, you do me a favor. Keep it consistent. Clarify. All right. All right. Just keep that bad faith message limited and focused. But to Dan's point, like having a couple of members of Congress in Florida immediately jump on the story, retweet what Bernie said, along with stupid cat gifs and or criticism of Bernie. It's like, you know, you don't have to lead with your chin here, guys. You can you can not tweet. Yeah, that might work. Dan, what do you think? Yeah, I agree with anything you guys said. I think that the reaction to this was totally over-twerked. And it, like, this is

the environment in which people are going to have to make the argument against Bernie. And the argument I think really boils down to is, and I'm not saying that this argument is correct. It might be. It might not be. No one knows. But it's that Bernie is the riskiest choice. And are you willing to go with the riskiest choice in the most important election in the history of the planet? Right. And that's the case that Biden and Buttigieg and Warren and Klobuchar and Bloomberg and everyone else are going to have to make if they want to have any success. And what do you think is Bernie's smartest strategy in this debate?

Because, you know, there's also a history of people who are the frontrunners sort of resting on their laurels and then getting caught. And like, what if you do what do you what are you trying to do if you're Bernie Sanders at this debate? Survive. What he hopes to do is demonstrate to voters who like Bernie Sanders because he is the most popular Democrat on that stage in much of the polling, demonstrate that he can handle the incoming, which he has not had to do in any sustained way in any debate yet, which is sort of mind boggling because he's been winning for like the last six debates. But like he like if he looks like he can handle those attacks and brush them off and gives voters the opportunity to imagine him doing that with Trump, he will he will come out of the debate in the same position he went in, which is a prohibitive front runner for the Democratic nomination. I will say, though, that, you know, I think that's right. I think that he has probably faced a disproportionate lack of of attacks in these debates. But that doesn't mean he hasn't faced hits. Pete has taken shots at him. Warren has taken shots at him. Bloomberg, certainly the last debate,

tried. And I do think it is Bernie's strengths as a candidate, how easily he moves from those attacks into a broader, bigger message about what he's for. And he does that really successfully. And I think that's it. Like of all the candidates who have a job to do at debate, I do think his is the easiest. He needs to make a big appealing case. He needs to seem like the front runner. What he did at that at the during the Bloomberg debate, I thought was incredibly effective. The debate before that, he took a question about his liabilities and turned into a big case for for his movement, you, a multi-generational, multi-ethnic movement of Americans, of working people. And so every time he does that, I think he makes his case stronger. So, you know, it's- I think he's just going to say, Amy, I disagree with what Pete was saying about you earlier, and then just kind of drift away. Also, by the way, also, like, if Bloomberg comes to this debate loaded for bear to take on Bernie Sanders, I mean, man, could Bernie Sanders have picked a better enemy?

I mean, that's what happened with Warren last time. I don't think it's a bad thing if Bloomberg has a bunch of fucking can lines in his rucksack that he pulls out and throws at Bernie Sanders. I don't think that hurts Bernie Sanders. I think it does only if the other candidates on stage decide to piggyback on Bloomberg. They let Bloomberg take the lead and then they say, well, I agree with the mayor on this one, you know, that which you could you could you could see happening. Look, I think that Bernie, I think the best thing for him to do with this debate is start pivoting to look like and present himself as a general election candidate. I think, you know, in one of these stories about sort of the Democratic freak out in the Washington

Post, they talked to Ro Khanna, congressman from California, who was on Pod Save the World before. And, you know, he was one of Bernie's earliest congressional endorsers. And he was talking about sort of the down ballot challenge. Everyone's worried that Bernie's going to sort of drag down the rest of the ticket if he's the nominee. And Khanna said he's going to build a coalition through persuasion and a grassroots movement.

And he's going to give people the ability to depart on issues if they are representing their districts. He's a person who recognizes the value of intellectual dissent, which Bernie Sanders coming off like that is great. That's one of the ways to sort of give some people who are on the edges of this coalition some comfort. And then Kahn was also saying about some of his platform as well. He goes, you know, you can talk about these issues

in a way that is pro-economic growth. You can talk about these policies in a way that is pro-business. Now, there's a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters online who would not like hearing something like that. But I think Bernie gets that. I think his campaign gets that. I think a lot of people who are supporting him understand that. And I think he should take Ro Khanna's advice on both of those things. I'd also just, you know, look, I think there's going to be a lot of fear mongering about Bernie Sanders. You know, there weren't executions at the town square in Burlington, Vermont. You know what I mean? Like, like he's a practical person. He's a low bar there.

No, no, I'm saying that that was a liability. I think there probably should have been. But, you know, the other thing he's done in these debates, which I think has also made, you know, honestly, it's ingratiating. I've appreciated personally. I do think it's the right thing to do is he's always talked about the importance of coming together at a party and how we will unite behind a nominee, no matter who that is. It makes him seem bigger. It makes him seem like the leader of the party and which as of right now he is. I mean, being anti-establishment is a powerful force in any election.

It worked for us in 2008. It's worked for Howard Dean for a while in 2004. It's been working for Bernie Sanders. When we were at his rally in Vegas, when he said, I've got news for the democratic establishment, they can't stop us. That was his biggest applause line. And then when he tweeted it, there was a meltdown in upper income parts of Washington, DC, like nothing I've ever seen before. And like, look, I do think in the next days, weeks, maybe Bernie should transition away from that kind of rhetoric and just try to be more inclusive, because ultimately this is about building a bigger coalition. I tweeted a mild critique

of Bernie's speech after Nevada caucus night and just got hammered by, you know, DSA based blue check marks for tone policing him. But like, you know, at some point, I do think we have to reach out to some of these disaffected voters who went Trump, we cannot win without them. And so thinking through all the best ways to reach them is important. And I don't have those answers. No, you know, I think he made a good start at that in his in his speech in Nevada. Look, we have seen that when you ask people what they want in a presidential candidate in the Democratic electorate, like number one in a lot of these polls is bringing the country together. And people who want a president who can sort of bring the country together, a lot of them are Bernie Sanders supporters.

You heard the woman who was the precinct captain for Bernie at the Nevada caucus. We played the clip earlier and she said, I just, we're so divided right now. And sure enough, you know, Bernie in that speech, and we played the clip earlier, said, you know, Donald Trump and the Republican Party are going to try to divide us, try to divide us. Race, class, gender, they pit us against each other. Our movement is about bringing people together. That is a very powerful message. It is not some kind of centrist mushy message. It is about working class solidarity, which is what Bernie's movement is about. And I think if he starts And it's something that Bernie does really well. It's actually, if you want to see the most, I think, moving and uniting message Bernie Sanders offers, I think it's both a part of his speech that he often gives, but also in his ads that

are these incredibly moving, multiracial ads about coming together and the power of the moment. And when Bernie says, look at the person next to you, think of the stranger, are you willing to fight for them as hard as you're willing to fight for yourself? Very powerful. I think sometimes, you know, we get into the politics, we get into the electability argument, and then you look at all these millions of young people who have come behind Bernie Sanders and believe in Bernie Sanders. And I think it's important to see that positive vision of what he's offering and how

exciting it is to people and how motivating it is for millions of people who see hope in Bernie Sanders. And I think if he can show other people who aren't yet on board why so many young people feel that hope, I think that he'll be president. Yeah. But again, it is on the Bernie Sanders campaign to do that. It is on his supporters to do that. Running a campaign like he has a lot of vulnerabilities and it takes incredible discipline to run a campaign in any environment, let alone this environment. And there is very little room for error. And so that is, you know, and that is partially the source of some of the freak out here. But and I think we have all said that the freak out is way too much. But on the other side of this, let's not minimize the challenge here.

I do think the person who gets that better than anyone is Bernie Sanders. He's a smart, savvy politician that won repeatedly in a state that leans culturally conservative in a lot of ways. He's talked to these people before. He'll figure it out. Yeah. OK, that's all we got for today guys i don't think we have a guest today right no we don't here he is mike bloomberg so i think bloomberg's here there's a there's a bunch of rose petals uh leading a path and i think that that must be that he's coming um all right so we have a uh was it worth it we have a debate tuesday night in south carolina and we will be doing a post-debate pod on Wednesday.

So we'll talk to you then, guys. Woo. Bye. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Thank you.