Pod Save America - “Happy Podsgiving.”

Episode Date: November 23, 2017

In the first annual Pod Save America Thanksgiving mailbag, Jon and Dan answer questions about #MeToo, Doug Jones, net neutrality, how they got into politics, how to argue with relatives, and what they’re thankful for. Then Run For Something co-founder Amanda Litman joins to talk about the thousands of young Americans who’ve decided to run for office for the very first time. 

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. This is your Thanksgiving edition of Pod Save America that you can be listening to, you know, after you're finished eating, done talking with your relatives, and just want some alone time. Here we are.

Or, don't want to talk to your relatives, but rather listen to us. That's also an option. On the pod today, we have the co-founder of Run for Something and the author of a new book also called Run for Something, Amanda Littman. She has an outstanding organization that is helping people run for office for the very first time. They've had a great success rate. Very excited to talk to Amanda. What else do we have to tell people? Tomorrow, there'll be another episode of Majority 54 out.

I believe Tommy's in D.C., but he's still recording an episode of Pod Save the World, so that'll be out. On Saturday, you'll hear the Love It or Leave It that was recorded a few weeks ago, the late night show at the Beacon. We're finally going to have that one out too.

So all kinds of content to get you through the weekend. Yeah, you may not have to talk to your relatives once other than saying like pass the gravy. It'd be great. Just all crooked media all the time. So today we thought we'd do something a little bit different because we are recording this Tuesday evening. And Dan, you very wisely pointed out

that there's quite a bit of time between Tuesday evening and Thursday, Thanksgiving, and so all kinds of news may break between then. So we thought we'd do a mailbag and take some of your questions. I would also point out that I said to you this morning that not that much has happened since you guys recorded on Monday, and then like seven things happened. But we'll get to those things in the questions. We'll get to it all because you all asked about them today. We asked for your questions on Twitter and Facebook and you sent more than we'll be able to answer, but we'll take as many as we can. Okay.

Question number one comes from Libby and she says, I think the ultimate answer to the Me Too movement is more equal representation of women in positions of power. Great question, Libby. Dan, what do you think? Well, I think the part of it is get out of the way, right? Listen, believe the women who come forward. There are going to be changes in cultural changes, structural changes in how workplaces operate, and men need to be partners in supporting those efforts. But we also need to let women lead the conversation, and we can support and help.

And I think that's a key element is that one of the reasons we are in this position right now as a society where these things have been happening in the workplace, whether it's at, you know, the new revelations about Charlie Rose, or some of the stuff we'll talk about that's happening in Congress is men have not been listening to their female colleagues. And we need to do that and support them and then back the changes that need to happen to ensure that we can do better as a society going forward.

Yeah, I think that's such a good point about listening because we are in an age where everyone has an opinion and everyone feels the need to express their opinion all the time. And sometimes that's a good thing. But I think throughout the Me Too movement, I know I've been trying to, you know, you can tweet a little less and you can talk a little less

and you can listen more, especially to the women in your life, the women who you're friends with, the women in your family, the women you're colleagues with, about, you know, what they've been dealing with for so long. And I also think it's important for men to realize that while, you know, all men may not be sexual harassers, sexual abusers, sexual predators, all of us are part of a culture that

allowed this to happen. And this is not just about individuals, you know, who we're seeing in the headlines right now. This is about an entire culture, an entire system that has allowed this to happen. And we have to make sure that we speak up and we have to make sure that, like you said, that we believe women. And yeah, and we just have to do a lot fucking better than we've done so far. I think that's so right about speaking up, right? If you know things or hear things, you know, when we were in the White House, the White House had a public awareness campaign called It's On Us, targeted at men, particularly young men, to help prevent sexual assault, particularly on college campuses, right? That men had to also take responsibility. It's not just for

women to avoid situations. Men have to speak up, see situations, act, etc. I think that that same advice applies here. If you hear of things in your workplace or in your life, it's men have to speak up. It can't only be about women coming forward. Men have to speak up as well. That's right. That's right. This also brings us to the news of the day. Well, actually, it was a BuzzFeed story that broke last night about Democratic Representative John Conyers. Basically, BuzzFeed reported that Conyers settled a wrongful dismissal complaint in 2015 with an unidentified woman who alleged that he, quote, repeatedly made sexual advances

to female staff that included requests for sex acts. The report included other allegations of harassment by Conyers as well. You know, aside from this being just, you know, despicable, disgusting behavior, it also shed light on the process in Congress for what happens when you file a complaint of sexual harassment or sexual assault, which is really just this terrible, opaque process. You know, someone said it's like having to go through the abuse and the harassment twice, once at the hands of the abuser and once at the hands of the government, because basically you file a complaint, There's this long, long waiting period. They actually call it a cooling off period, some of it, where you still have to be working with

this person who has assaulted or harassed you. And then there's a hearing. And then if it gets to the point where there's a settlement, first of all, the settlement is paid out of the congressional office. So it's taxpayer money that's paid out of a congressman's office. And then there's an NDA that you have to sign for the settlement so that no one knows about it. may go to work in that same office in that same environment where the congressman who is just you know harassed or assaulted another woman is still there and still doing it so you know the conyers behavior again whereas we're as i was just saying it's not just these individuals it's a whole system um the conyers behavior was deplorable but like the whole system in congress just seems crazy to me i mean, it is absolutely insane.

So much of Congress, and Congress is a microcosm of institutions writ large, but is about protecting the power of the people in charge. Right. And whether it's the way the Ethics Committee operated for a long time. Right. And run by men, right? Overwhelmingly, but not exclusively because I was seeing Nancy Pelosi ran Congress for a long time, right, and run by men, right, overwhelmingly, but not exclusively, because I was seeing Nancy Pelosi ran Congress for a while, too. But the system is set up in this way, where this is designed to limit the fallout for the guilty members of Congress and their staffs, right, and not to protect the victims. And, you know, as it comes to, I mean, Conyers' behavior in this situation is

entirely unacceptable. It doesn't seem to me that there is any world in which he should stay in Congress. No. If anyone accused of these things, you know, we just saw this with Charlie Rose, who the Washington Post reported just yesterday that he had been guilty of a pattern of absolutely deplorable behavior, sexual harassment, hostile workplace, just about just really, you know, just absolutely disgusting behavior. And he was fired from CBS today. I mean, he's the host. Charlie Rose is one of the most famous and important people in all of media. He's the host of CBS's Morning Show, which is probably, with the exception of 60 Minutes, their most watched news program. And he was fired in less than 24 hours of the allegations coming out. We can't have a different situation for Democratic members of Congress.

Right, or any members of Congress. Right. Or any members of Congress. Right. Exactly. I only say Democratic because... So far, that's what's come to light. Right. Well, I mean, certainly there will be... This is not an issue that's known to party lines.

I just say that because we are Democrats and listeners are Democrats, and we have to apply the same standard across the board, whether it's a member of the media, a member of Hollywood, a Republican, or a Democrat. Yeah. board, whether it's a member of the media, a member of Hollywood, a Republican or a Democrat. Yeah, we can't end this whole episode with, you know, people, men in every single industry, you know, resigning or being fired for sexual harassment, sexual assault, and a bunch of male politicians are somehow protected from this, you know, who are these extremely powerful people that would not be fixing the situation or fixing the culture at all.

who are these extremely powerful people that would not be fixing the situation or fixing the culture at all. So there is legislation from Representative Jackie Speier of California and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. They unveiled companion bills in the House and the Senate to reform the sexual harassment complaint process on the Hill and make it more transparent so that you don't have all these like hidden settlements and secret NDAs and we actually know what's going on, which I think is probably an important step forward. Okay, next question. Rebecca Sherman asked, Last pod you said that the best thing to do for Doug Jones' campaign is to send money.

I was making plans to go to Alabama to canvas the weekend before the election. Why shouldn't we knock on doors? I mean, I don't know, Dan, if like, people shouldn't knock on doors if they've made plans. I think I think the point we were trying to make on the last pod is when, you know, if suddenly the entire National Democratic Party gets involved, and you know, you get a bunch of, you know, Hollywood celebrities and other people descending on Alabama and trying to say, oh, we think we know what's best for you in your local election, in your state election, it may not help get people to the polls or get Doug Jones elected.

But if you've made plans and you're from out of state and you're already going to go down there and knock on doors, I don't know. What do you think about that? I think people should knock doors. I think the cautions you guys made on Monday were exactly right, which is nationalizing this race, much like the Ossoff race in Georgia, is not helpful. Doug Jones is an Alabama candidate with Alabama roots and running on a platform of how he can be the best advocate for Alabama. And if all of a sudden, all these famous Democrats who may not be as popular in Alabama as they may be elsewhere start showing up, that's a negative. I don't think that's going to happen because I think people get it. But if you are living in some

other state and you have the opportunity to go to Alabama and knock doors for Doug Jones, I think you should do that. Yeah, I think that's right. And definitely give money. And make calls if you have an opportunity. Make calls, for sure. You see Trump's comments today. Trump has been, Trump finally broke his silence on Roy Moore to tell people that Doug Jones is soft on crime. This is the person who actually prosecuted the murder of four little girls back in the

Birmingham bombing. They prosecuted people that Trump would refer to as very fine people. Yes, exactly right. Many people on both sides. And meanwhile, speaking of soft on crime, there's Roy Moore, who is, you know, walking free, even though he multiple women have come forward and, you know, accused him of molestation when they were children, which is, you know, I can't imagine a worse crime than that. So for Trump to say that. And then Trump left open the possibility that he would possibly campaign with Roy Moore next week.

Roy Moore, next week. I mean, this is the whole, it's so fascinating because, you know, to the credit, I don't even like to say that, but to the credit of McConnell and the Senate Republicans, they came out very early and said they believe the women and Roy Moore should not be in the Senate. Right. And they were exploring ways, some okay, like getting Luther Strange to run as a write-in, others incredibly anti-democratic, like trying to, like I guess McConnell either yesterday or today was going to send a memo to the White House with options for delaying the election, which is not a thing we do in democratic societies, where if we don't think we're going to win, we just move the election. But they came out against it. Trump's daughter, Ivanka, said there was a special place in hell for people who did what

Roy Moore was accused of. Which Doug Jones used in his television ad, Ivanka's quote, which said that was smart. Excellent. Excellent ad, I thought. Yeah. But Steve Bannon has continued to back Roy Moore. Kellyanne Conway has been reportedly telling Trump that he should not distance himself from Roy Moore because his base loves Roy Moore. Kellyanne Conway did an interview on the morning show.

I think Fox and Friends, which is not really a morning show. Morning propaganda. Yeah, it's just morning propaganda. And said that, basically previewed what Trump's going to say today, was that Roy Moore was better than a Democrat. The other important point is Trump said, he denied it. Basically sort of like, what am I going to do? Because so many people who are guilty of molesting children just come out and admit it while they're running for office.

I mean, it is as gross as it can possibly be. to do for Democrats to demand accountability of Democratic politicians, Democratic men who, you know, are accused of sexual assault and sexual harassment. It is the right thing to do. But we should also recognize that what the Republicans are going to do, at least what Donald Trump's going to do, Donald Trump was accused of sexual assault, sexual harassment by 15 women, just decided to deny it all and keep going. Roy Moore, how many women have come out and accused him? He's just going to deny it and keep going? Like, we could get to a point where basically no Republican politician who is guilty of these things

or who has been accused of these things is held accountable or steps down. And a whole bunch of Democratic politicians do, and men in a whole bunch of other industries. And only one group of people, Republican politicians, are able to just get away with this and not do anything. And in fact, and Brian Boitler pointed this out, that then we wouldn't be surprised if in the next campaign, Republicans start running ads against Democrats and saying that this is the party of a bunch of sexual predators because look at all these Democratic politicians who stepped down when none of them, none of the Republicans have done anything. Trump's America, right? His base, as informed by Breitbart, Fox News, that world has been insulated from larger cultural forces in America.

And whether it's increased tolerance of LGBTQ rights, a greater appreciation for diversity in this country and understanding of the value of immigrants, all of those people's belief in those things has increased since Barack Obama ran for office in 2008. But I mean, maybe insulate is not the right word. Maybe it is a reaction to that. So of course there is going to be reaction to the Me Too movement as well, because so much of what fuels like the proud boys and the angry men are at the heart of Trump's view is this idea that these white men are victimized by, you know, immigrants who take their jobs, or Muslims will kill them, or women are getting won over on them because women are asking for equal rights and equal pay. And, you know, it was interesting in the, the Conyers story,

which was reported by BuzzFeed had this very interesting genesis where Mike Cernovich, who was one of the major pushers of the Pizzagate debunked false horrible conspiracy, was the original recipient of the documents. He got them from some source and then gave them to BuzzFeed. And BuzzFeed reported it out in the way in which – and verified this with all the appropriate people. So I don't have any reason – I trust the story is 100% nailed down. But Cernovich is listed in these stories as a men's rights advocate. I know. I saw that.

Yeah. this in the 30, you know, 36, 38% of the country that thinks Trump is doing a good job, thinks the economy has turned around since Trump's do it, thinks Trump has defeated ISIS and closed the border and protected them from non-white people of all stripes. And so you can see how there is an opposite reaction to the Me Too movement among this group of people who are resisting the forces of progressive social change that have been moving in this country in the last decade. Yeah. And I'm talking about what Brian Boitler said because he's just written a piece on this that will be out by the time you guys listen to this. But, you know, this is what Steve Bannon and Breitbart are talking about when they talk about weaponizing information is the idea that, you know, a Mike Chernovich could get leaks only about Democratic members of Congress and not about the Republican members of Congress who have done the same thing and use those leaks and use that information as a weapon for partisan ends. And we should expect that, you know, that the Trump Republican Party will do that. Now, there are, as you said, there are some Republicans who've done the right thing.

And just today, on Tuesday, Tim Miller, Crooked Media's resident cuck, Tim Miller, tweeted that he donated to Doug Jones. It was the first time he's ever donated to a Democrat in his life. And he decided to donate to Doug Jones. And maybe the most surprising thing is that so many people were surprised by it. Or that it is a surprising thing for a Republican to say, I choose the Democrat, not the pedophile. Yeah. Tribalism. Tribalism. But so good for Tim.

For everyone else, if you know someone in Alabama, voter registration deadline is Monday the 27th. So there is still a little bit time to make sure that you are registered or your friends are registered or your family is registered in Alabama. Donate to Doug Jones. Make calls for Doug Jones. And if you're in the area, knock on some doors. This is an important one. This is an important one. Okay.

Alex asks, what is the best way to fight net neutrality repeal call the fcc call representatives scream into the void endlessly yes all of the above yes option d podcast yeah i mean look we so basically the fcc chairman is this you know trump appointee although he was on the f FCC as a commissioner before Trump was president. Trump moved him to chairman once he took office. He basically announced on Tuesday the rule that, you know, that there would be a rule change and he'd get rid of net neutrality rules that Obama's FCC commissioner had put in place. As we were saying on the last pod, these rules basically, you know, they ensure that Internet service providers can't dictate the type of content you see or get on the Internet or don't charge more for some content versus others.

It keeps the Internet open and free. And now these rules are repealed or are going to be repealed. So the question is what you can do. You know, there's an FCC commissioner who's a Democrat on the FCC, Jessica Rosenworcel, and she has called for public hearings before any official change is made, which is, you know, there's a precedent for that. Former Republican and Democratic commissions have done this. They've held public hearings before a very big rule change. You know, the truth of the matter is we don't have the votes on the FCC commissioners. There's more Republicans than Democrats on the commission to stop this unless, you know, people make a lot

of noise about it, unless you call your members of Congress and you sort of flood the FCC with calls as well. What do you think, Dan? Well, I'd say a couple of things here. One, flood the FCC with calls. There will be a comment period on these rules and people should flood the FCC inbox with it. One of the things that helped push net neutrality over the finish line was a massive, I mean, absolute massive amount of online activism, push over net neutrality. So we need that same energy to push back. Next, if you work at a big tech company, whether it's Google or Facebook or Amazon, and you're in a position of influence there, try to convince them to use their platforms to publicly oppose this repeal of net neutrality. And, you know,

Google, I believe, if I remember this correctly, you know, used the actual Google homepage to push for net neutrality to begin with. And if they could do the same thing, that will drive traffic to the SEC website. The last thing is, we need to win back the house in 2018. Because if we do that, we have the opportunity, we'll have tremendous leverage in ongoing appropriations and budget negotiations. And there may be the opportunity to stop the implementation of the repeal of the rule if we control one or both houses of Congress. So as with all bits of activism that we talk about, it all comes back to- Vote for Democrats.

Turning out to vote for Democrats at every opportunity. Even if you don't think they're perfect, this is what this is. Elections matter. People who the president, whoever the president is, whichever party is, who they appoint to the Federal Communications Commission matters. It is mattering right now. This is why you take elections seriously. This is also why sometimes you vote for people who you don't agree with 100% and don't think are perfect. But because they're with you on most issues, you go and you vote for them. Because things like this happen. The perennial question, Dan.

The perennial question, Dan. Cody asks, how do we talk about politics with our beloved family members without throwing cranberry sauce at each other? Lovett's answer to this, he's not here, but I'll tell you, Lovett's answer to this is, don't fucking talk about politics. You don't have to. Talk about something else, which is not bad. You know, it's not bad. Yeah, I think, look, everyone has to make their own decisions about how their Thanksgiving meal should go, right? If you don't want to talk about politics, because you know, your pro Trump uncle is just going to get angry, you know, maybe

he's a little deep into the wine at that point, and it's gonna it's gonna ruin dinner. Don't talk about it, right? That's not worth it. If it comes up and if it's an argument between partisans, that just ruins Thanksgiving, where it's your uncle or whoever who is – they wore their MAGA hat to dinner and you're wearing your hashtag resist sweatshirt and you're both locked in your views, probably nothing comes of that. If there are people in your family who are family who maybe voted for Trump and have some concerns or sat out the election because they had concerns about Hillary Clinton or they thought the

DNC was rigged or whatever it is, I think the best advice I can give is listen, right? Is to try to understand where they come from. Because presumably you love this person. They are in your family. You probably respect them and try to understand how they got there. And that will create at least a foundation for the conversation of common understanding of how you got there as opposed to just like you're a racist. You hate America. Like that is – if that is entertaining for you and your family, go for it.

But it's probably not constructive. It probably needs indigestion. I mean, I've had to deal with this a lot because I have aunts and uncles on my mother's side that are Republican, on my dad's side, and my best friend from home. His parents are very, very conservative now. I'm sure you've dealt with this since we've been in politics and worked in politics for so long when we're home people will say like they'll yell you know or at least when Obama was president they'd yell at something they'd yell at something at us like why did Obama do that or what do you think about this or and so it was hard to avoid talking about politics

and one thing I try to do is a what you what you just said which was listen b i always try to take the the personalities and politicians and party stuff and fox stuff out of it and try to talk about the issue itself so someone complains about something that obama did on health care you know instead of defending obama or defending the democrats or defending some host on MSNBC over some commentator on Fox, I've talked to my aunts and said, what's your problem with the health care system? What do you think is the worst part of the health care system? What would you change about it? What has bothered you?

What do you think is the right thing to do there? And if you actually start talking about the issue itself and not all the politics around the issue and all the people who are in Washington arguing about the issue, sometimes you can actually find specific areas within that issue where you agree with your relative or with the person that you're talking to. And you may not end up agreeing on the solution entirely, but you may start making some progress. But, you know, you may start making some progress. And at the very least, they know that you're in this and that you're talking about this because you care about a specific issue and not just because you're defending your tribe and your political party. Yeah, that's right. But also, you don't have to talk about politics. Also, you don't have to talk about politics.

Other things to talk about. Misty asks, I'd really like to hear both of your origin stories. How did you get interested in politics and involved? And how did you decide to work for Obama? You first, Dan. Well, I was, my family was not political per se. Like they weren't in, they didn't work in politics. They didn't, you know, we didn't go to political fundraisers or knock doors, but they were interested in the world. And we talked about politics at the dinner table. I never thought I'd work in politics. And then I went to college at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and politics sort of runs through that campus.

And usually that's – not even in really the greatest ways. There are a lot of overly ambitious, want-to-be-future senators who go there, along with a lot of other really good people. But it never occurred to me that – because I'm older than you, as you pointed out, the West Wing had not yet aired when I was in college. And I didn't really understand that people could have a career in politics other than like being in Congress, which didn't seem particularly appealing. And I met a guy who became a very close friend of mine and lived in my house in college for a year, my group house in college for a year, named Chad Griffin, who is now the president

of the Human Rights Campaign. But he had worked, he'd grown up in Arkansas, had taken time off college to go work on the Clinton 92 campaign, and dropped out of school to stay on that campaign and gone to work in the White House for 18 months. And then had decided to finish college at Georgetown instead of his school in Arkansas. And he was the first person I ever met who had had a career in politics. And he sort of got me really interested in it. I interned in the White House, which led to a number of jobs in politics.

And Obama really was – I was pretty burned out on politics in the Democratic Party when Obama came around to run for president. And I was pretty close to leaving politics. I had gone pretty far down the interview process to leave politics to work at a nonprofit. And I had taken the GRE and thought about going to grad school. And he was the politician that there was something so different about him that I just he made me believe right off the bat. And fortunately, that bet paid off in the sense that he was who I had hoped he would be. That's great.

I also went to a Jesuit school, Holy Cross, College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts. I did not, when I got to college, think that I would be in politics for sure. I was raised Catholic, but I wasn't, I wouldn't say I was a committed Catholic, even though I went to College of the Holy Cross. But I realized when I got to that school that, you know, Holy Cross and Georgetown both run by Jesuits. And the Jesuit tradition is heavy on social justice. And so a lot of the courses I was taking both in politics and political science and sociology and other courses were heavy on social justice. And so a lot of the courses I was taking, both in politics and political science and sociology and other courses were heavy on social justice. And Holy Cross is in the middle of Worcester, city of Worcester. And there was a lot to do in the

community to help. So I was organizing in the community and helping with various projects and stuff like that. And at some point I connected politics with sort of the work I was doing in Worcester. And there was an opportunity to go to DC for an internship. And because I was from Massachusetts, I ended up in John Kerry's office, my home state senator. And he was running, he was putting together a presidential campaign. This was in 2002. And after a semester in Kerry's office in the press office, where I worked with his then communications director, David Wade, and he let me write, he let me write some letters to constituents, he gave me

a try at some op eds. All I wanted to do was work on that campaign. And I got a job as press assistant right out of college on the Kerry campaign. And then I had a similar experience to you, Dan, when John Kerry lost to George Bush in 2004. I was like, you know, I was 23 years old and I'm like, I'm done with politics. I'm cynical and Kerry lost. And now we have to deal with another four years of Bush. And I was broke and I moved back in with my parents. And I thought, this is it for me.

I don't want to, I don't want to be in politics anymore. And then Robert Gibbs, who had been my boss on the Kerry campaign and was now Barack Obama's communications director in the Senate, sent me a message out of the blue that said, you know, Obama needs a speechwriter. He's never used one before. He wrote the convention speech in 2004 on his own, but he's going to need to learn to work with a speechwriter. And, you know, I saw that you were promoted from press assistant to deputy speechwriter in the Kerry campaign. So would you consider having breakfast with Obama and seeing if this would work out?

And so I sat down with him his second week on the job in the Senate and we chatted and then at the end of the conversation, Obama said, I don't think I need a speechwriter, but you seem nice enough. And that was how I got the job. But it's like, look, I saw that I was at the convention in 04 because I was working for Kerry and I saw his the famous convention speech. And I was inspired by that speech as well. But I think what did it for me is I read Dreams from My Father over the Christmas break before I actually interviewed with him.

And I thought that book was so honest and he wrote so honestly. I thought like, you know, if a politician is going to try to be that honest on the national stage, I want to stick around and see and see if he can pull it off. And I think I think he did. You know, yeah, the the dreams of my father thing is interesting because I had a very similar experience. You know? Yeah. The dreams of my father thing is interesting because I had a very similar experience. I actually was working on a Senate campaign in South Dakota at the time, and I did not watch Obama's speech when it happened. And I didn't watch it really in the year afterwards.

My only contact with him is I would sometimes see him walking. I worked in the Senate when he was in the Senate, and I'd see him walking around with, you know, all of my many mutual friends, my many friends who works for Obama, like Pete Rouse and Robert Gibbs and others. And, but then I read when he started running for president, I read the book, Dreams of My Father. And I had the same feeling that it was so honest and authentic. And the thing that people forget is that what gripped the Democratic Party back then was fear of Republicans, fear of being parodied on Fox News. You know, fear – everyone saw what happened to John Kerry and being caricatured in the Swift boats for Swift veterans bullshit and windsurfing before the election. It was like we are so afraid of Karl Rovin, the Republican attack machine. And Obama was just so – had the exact opposite approach. He had no fear of that.

And that was so interesting. And that's sort of how I ended up there. It was also how he approached sort of the issue of patriotism where like for a long time a lot of Democrats had said, okay, Republicans own the issue of patriotism. So in order to beat them, we have to wear more American flags than them and show that we're just as patriotic and wrap ourselves in the flag just as much as they do. And in that speech in 2004 at the convention, basically Obama just decided to redefine patriotism as not just about symbols or American identity, but the ideals behind America, the ideals that have driven America forward from the time of the Declaration on. And he also basically said that diversity in a story like his, that was patriotic. That's what America was all

about. And so it was, like you said, it's this, it was this sort of courage, political courage, in the face of what Republicans were doing to Democrats to say that, like, we don't have to be afraid. Like, we can be proud of what we stand for, you know, and what we stand for is more in line with the founding values than what they're what they're doing right now. So I thought that was pretty inspiring. OK, let's do some Thanksgiving questions. We had a whole bunch. All right. David asks, stuffing inside the bird or

on the side on the side man what what's your favorite we do we do chestnut stuffing at my house my mother is uh has a very famous chestnut stuffing recipe that that her grandmother passed down to her delicious so fancy we do a pretty standard stuffing but my mom does it very well it's it's my favorite part of thanksgiving is the stuffing uh someone else asked turkey uh or the sides which is better turkey i don't see i'm like i love i love stuffing but i'm a turkey is i love turkey it may be let me put it this way my favorite part is actually gravy and in terms of so i rank my all my thanksgiving treats around how well they they serve as a vehicle for gravy. So turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes in that order.

Yeah, I would eat like mashed potatoes, stuffing with gravy all over it, and I could just eat that forever. So someone asked, did President Obama write his own turkey pardon dad jokes? No, Cody Keenan did that. I started that tradition way back in 2009, and then Cody crushed it the years he was there. We loved writing dad turkey jokes. I mean, it was basically a contest, and Obama wrote some as well, and so did David Axelrod. I mean, if you want someone who's-

The king of dad jokes. The king of dad jokes and puns, David Axelrod. We would basically compete to see who could write the cheesiest joke in Obama's turkey pardon speech. All the speechwriters and Axe and Obama. And the turkey pardon was fun. It was always a fun event. It's so great. It was so much fun.

It's so stupid, but it's fun. Yeah, I mean, the entire premise is ridiculous since both turkeys get pardons. But it's like everything to the fact that they stay at the hey adams or wherever the turkeys do i mean the whole thing is so absurd yeah given like people have a little fun before thanksgiving right like it's fun for obama it was fun for his daughters it was fun for the white house staff it's fun people even the people watch the trump one today it's like a yeah a spectacle like if we can just have one thing where we're not yelling, one thing that is tangentially political that we're not screaming at each other, I'm all for it. I think that's right.

And we'll end on the final question from Brad. What are you thankful for? I am thankful. I mean, there are many things I am thankful for in my personal life and my family. But to go broader than that, I'm thankful for having reasons to hope in these dark times. And it's the people, like we're going to talk to Amanda Lippman. She is a reason to hope. The thousands of candidates who have reached out to her to run for office are reasons to hope. The people that we meet at the pod shows who are running for office for the first

time, who are getting involved in politics for the first time. Like, I am weirdly incredibly distressed about the immediate present state of our country and our politics, yet as hopeful as I am about the near future as I've been since 2008. Yeah, I totally agree. I was going to say, I'm, you know, I'm obviously thankful for a wonderful, wonderful family and everyone's health. And, um, but when it comes to politics, uh, I'm really thankful for all the people who haven't given up. Um, because I think it is, it is so easy right now to be cynical. And it is so easy to say that, you know, I'm just going to, you know, not pay attention to the news and not worry about politics and not care about politics because all the news is so depressing every day.

And so many people haven't done that. that. And, you know, I think we've seen particularly over the course of the last several months that there's a lot of people who aren't perfect out there, but there's a lot of people who are still trying every day. And they might not always get it right, but they're trying to get involved. They're trying to fight. They're trying to, like you said, run for office. And, you know, it hit home for me when we were in virginia um because you know it's easy we we read the news all day we're on twitter all day and then we get in our studio and do our podcast but you know we got to spend some time with both uh some of the folks who were running for house of delegates um when we were in virginia and just the energy enrichment of these people

some of them who'd never run for office before, who've been involved in who just got involved in politics for the first time after Trump became president. And they weren't down. They weren't, you know, upset with the news. They weren't depressed. They were excited and hopeful. And they're working their asses off to try to improve the country. And they know that it's going to take a long time. And they're not, you know, they're not looking for instant gratification here. They know it's going to be long road, but they're trying and they're working really hard. And that gives me a lot of hope that, you know, even in these dark times, there are people of good faith who are trying their best to get us out of this mess that we're in. So that made me feel pretty good.

Yeah. It's not all dark. I mean, the president may have basically endorsed a pedophile today for his Senate seat because that pedophile will vote to cut corporate taxes. But if you put that aside for a second, the people are proving to be much better than the fucked up political system we're currently existing in. Yeah. And look, you don't have to believe whether that's true or not.

There's probably a lot of people who will be like, come on, how are you hopeful? Look at the news. Look at how bad this is. Yeah, we get it. We know how bad the fucking news is. We read it every day. It's awful. But what are you going to do?

You have two choices. One choice is to give up and not change it. And the other choice is to try. And maybe you succeed and maybe you don't. But trying seems to me better than giving up and staying home. when we were in the Obama campaign. We were in Chicago, and we were losing to Hillary Clinton by like 10 to 20 points in some of these national polls. And all the news that we read in Chicago that was coming out of D.C. seemed awful. And every time we did calls with everyone who was in Iowa, they were telling us like, no, there's energy on the ground here,

and things are great, and you guys are too down and depressed. And we were like, Oh God, these Iowa people are, they've drank the Kool-Aid and they're like heads in the cloud. I don't know what the hell they're talking about. Like things are miserable, you know,

like, and then you go out to Iowa and when you're actually on the ground and seeing all these organizers and seeing these people who've been involved in politics for the first time and all these young people there, suddenly you were like, Oh, maybe they're right. Maybe things are pretty good in Iowa, even though the national climate doesn't seem that way.

And sure enough, we won Iowa. I, in those dark days, I once went from doing a trip with Obama through Iowa and felt like everything was great, great crowds. The questions were, Obama was getting, it's just like, you felt great about Barack questions were obama was getting was just like you felt great about barack obama's chances you felt great about democracy people getting involved all these people who were like i'm a republican but i want to caucus for obama so i'm going to do it i'm an independent and i went directly from des moines to dc to go to attend a birthday party and people treated me because of what the polls were at the time like i had a terminal disease they were like you know you guys are you guys are really working hard out there it's like it's just impressive what you're doing you hanging in

there you doing okay i was just like what the fuck is going on and like no no things are good things are good and the and the answer is no they had not been to iowa which is why they were so surprised by the results yeah so you know take some time away from the news over the next couple days and thanksgiving and uh make a plan for yourself to knock on doors or help run for something or you know help doug jones or any of or any of the things that you can actually do to make things better as opposed to just reading about how bad things are. And I guarantee you won't just make a difference,

but you'll make yourself feel a little bit better in the process, which is important right now because we have a long way to go. This is a marathon. Before we go, John, can I just take care of some business here? Sure. So on last week's pod, I attempted to make a joke.

I didn't even finish the joke. I don't remember what the joke was. But it's being taken as a full frontal attack on people getting graduate degrees in the humanities. And I have a couple things to say about that. Dan, why do you hate the humanities? It was a joke. I don degrees in the humanities. And I have a couple things to say about that. Dan, why do you hate the humanities? It was a joke. I don't hate the humanities. Anyone who went to school with me

knows I actually prefer the humanities over math and science. I swerved out of my lane at Georgetown to take as few science classes as possible. My brother has a doctorate in poetry. I love the humanities. It was a bad joke. And I want to just apologize to people

because I don't know how many PhDs in humanities there are, but however many there are, it feels like all of them listen to Pod Save America and they were very upset about this. You know, when we go, we were out on the road, everywhere we go, we run into baby boomers. And they- This is your baby boomer.

I don't want that. Like we see the baby boomers and they, this is your baby. I don't want that. Like we, we see the baby boomers and they yell at, love it. And he, and they continue their feud. I don't want, I don't want that. I am putting the arm, I am putting the weapons down. I am putting up the white flag. You have won probably you PhDs probably because you have so good at deductive reasoning and logic from your advanced humanities degrees. And it a joke i give up let's be friends again and by the way don't loop us into it people on twitter i'm i'm getting all these men all my mentions are filled with people yelling at me about this i wasn't even on the fucking pod last week and i was like well it's your fault if you had been on the pod maybe this wouldn't happen i could have corralled this whole situation

no except for john lovett who's the only who's a math major at williams college i know see mook does actually looking at me like what except for except for john lovett tommy was a philosophy major i was political science and sociology you were political like we're humanities all around here we love the humanities i wouldn't be able to pass a math course if you paid me. Yeah. So people, it's over. You have won. I have lost. Let's all move on and be friends again.

Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you for doing that. Happy Thanksgiving. When we come back, we will be the co-founder of Run for Something and the author of a new book also called Run for Something, Amanda Lippman. Amanda, welcome to the pod. Hi, so excited to do this. Thanks for joining us.

I know that you are somewhere around the world going to a well-earned vacation, so we appreciate you calling in before Thanksgiving. No, I'm glad to do it. It's been an insane year, two years, three years, five years. So glad to take a couple minutes out of the trip to talk about what we're up to. So for those of our listeners who aren't familiar with Run for Something, tell us what the organization is and why you decided to start it. Yeah.

So I worked for Hillary for two years. And before that, Obama and for Florida's race for governor. After the election, I started hearing from friends from high school and college who were like, hey, you know, politics, I want to run for something because I'm pissed. What do I do? Who can I ask for help? And there wasn't a clear answer there. There wasn't an organization that existed if you were young and new to politics and maybe didn't have a lot of money or knowledge, but wanted to lead. And the more that I thought about it, there was a problem that had led to a whole bunch of problems in the progressive movement, a lack of focus on local politics, like a lack of a diverse pipeline of talent, and like a lack of focus on young people, not just as voters, but as leaders. So I found a co-founder and an amazing campaign operative named Ross Morales-Riquetto,

and we launched on Inauguration Day with an idea that we would recruit young people to run for local office for the first time. We thought maybe we'd get 100 people in the first year, that we'd have to hustle really hard because candidate recruitment historically has been impossible. Instead, we've recruited more than 15,000 young people since we launched in January who say they want to run. Wow, 15,000. And it's a big movement. 15,000 and have built up an entire program to recruit and support them and make sure that they're able to run good campaigns and not lose a lead in their communities. Amanda, tell us how it works if you're someone who wants to run for office and they reach out to run for something. Where does it go from there? So the first thing that happens is you sign up on our website,

runforsomething.net. You join a conference call run by our organizing directors, Sarah Horvitz. Then we talk through the basic parts of our program, how we can help you with resources and partnerships and all kinds of things. From there, you have a one-on-one with one of our program, how we can help you with resources and partnerships and all kinds of things. From there, you have a one-on-one with one of our volunteers. So we have talked to more than 2,000 people, one-on-one, half-hour conversations, looking for four key things. Is this person progressive, whatever that means for wherever they are? Is this person authentically rooted in their community? Is this person willing to work hard and knock the door that they need to win? And is this person interesting and compelling to talk to? If a volunteer enjoys the conversation, then a voter probably will too. If you meet those criteria, you get access to a whole bunch of things. We work with more than 60

other organizations to make sure that candidates have all the resources they need. We provide mentorship and coaching for more than 300 operatives. We do one-on-one support. We've written guides on how to file a ticket on every state. We connect candidates to each other so that they know they're not alone and we're building community. And we do endorsements. And endorsements is where we get into sort of deep engagement with candidates and campaigns. That's where you get our number of 72 candidates who were on the ballot a couple weeks ago. So first of all, what kind of resources do you offer these candidates? What are some of the things you help them with? And then what goes into you guys deciding that you will,

in fact, endorse a particular candidate? So let's say you're a first-time candidate who wants to run in Ohio. You probably don't know how to finally get on the ballot there. You know, there's all kinds of mechanics. In some places, it's petition signatures. In some places, it's a fee. In some places, it's weird filings. And in order to start taking money, you have to get a tax ID number. But to get a tax ID number, you need to get on the ballot. To get on the ballot, you need to raise money.

These kinds of things that if you've worked in politics for a while, just feels like second nature. For first-time candidates, it's gibberish and sort of bureaucratic bullshit that gets in the way of you even getting in the door in the first place. So all we're able to do is work with candidates one-on-one to make that system easy to navigate. Then once you stand up your campaign, we coach you through the process of writing a campaign plan, how to get the voter file, where the union printer is in your area so you can get your lit made. We practice your stump speech with you. We have mentors who will coach you on making videos and digital ads and all the different mechanics of a campaign that, while they're not

that hard in theory, are pretty hard in practice if you've never done it before. Once you've done all of that, you present us with an endorsement application. What we look for is not whether or not you're going to win. It's not where you are, it's how good is your campaign? Are you knocking doors and talking to people? Are you rooted in your community? Do you understand the problems voters face? That's how I think we get such great candidates, candidates who have a higher win rate, because they're doing voter contact. Because you have so many first-time candidates you've been working with, what have you heard from those people about the experience of running for office? Oh, they're saying it's hard as hell, which, I mean, we know this having worked on campaigns. They are miserable beings.

They'll beat you down and destroy you. Candidates are always surprised that there's no shortcut. There's no app that can do the work for them. There's no magic list of donors. There's no party machine that will come in and tell you exactly what to do and how to go about it. Candidates are really surprised by that. But what I think is actually really exciting is that means it's entirely in their control. Their win or loss is determined entirely by how much they're willing to work and how many doors they're willing to knock. That's cool. So you said that in 2017, you ended up endorsing, was it 72 candidates?

Yeah, we had a few more that went through elections earlier in the year, but we had 72 on the ballot in the first November 2017 election, including 10 House of Delegates races and one school board candidate in Virginia. And how many of those won? So we expected maybe eight or ten of them to win. You know, first-time candidates tend to lose because it's hard to go up against an incumbent or to go up against someone who's done this before. Instead, nearly half of them came out ahead. We have 32 clear wins and two more that are in recounts in Virginia,

which is insane. It's insane. Congrats. That's pretty good. I mean, it's election night, man. Winning feels awesome. Winning does feel great. I forgot how good that felt. Winning is better than losing, for sure.

As it turns out, it's a nice surprise. And you guys, I think some of the folks we've become familiar with who won in Virginia were Run for Something candidates, right? I think you guys helped Danica Rome and Jennifer Carol Foy as well, right? We did. Danica Rome and Jennifer Carol Foy as well, right? We did. We worked with some amazing candidates in Virginia like Chris Hurst, Danica, Jennifer Carol Foy, Skylar Van Valkenburg, Kelly Fowler down in Virginia Beach,

as well as some candidates who lost but ran incredible campaigns. And I should say one of my favorites, who I think is an example of the kind of person we need to field more, is this guy Kellen Squire, who was running outside Charlottesville in the district where Trump's winery is. It was a long shot race. He was probably never going to win the district that Trump won by like 18 points. However, a Democrat had not been on the ballot for House of Delegates in at least a decade, which is insane. He went, he knocked doors, he and his campaign talked to nearly 50,000 doors in the district. He said he would meet voters who told him they had never met a Democrat asking for their vote before. Wow. That's incredible to me.

And that kind of organizing we know makes a difference in up-ballot turnout. There's still some studies to go through and lots of data to come in because voter file takes a while to update. But we know that fielding candidates in down-ballot races, especially where we haven't fielded people before, increased turnout across the board. So we ran up the score everywhere, helping Ralph Northam win by nine points. That's awesome. Let's say you're hypothetically or someone who doesn't want to run for office, but wants to help run for something. What can our listeners do to help your organization? Good question and great opportunity to make a pitch. Donate. We are almost entirely funded by grassroots donors, which is really important to

me as someone who's done online fundraising for a long time. So chipping in whatever you can goes a long way. Volunteering. If you want to talk to candidates and help do candidate screening, if you care about politics, if you're listening to this, you're probably qualified to do that. It's really optimistic. It's fun. You get to talk to people who are doing something about these problems instead of just tweeting about them or posting on Facebook about them. It feels really good.

If you sign up to volunteer, we'll also connect you to ways to knock doors, make calls, do text messages. Maybe you're a graphic designer or a video maker, and we'll connect you to candidates who need your a graphic designer or a video maker, and we'll connect you to candidates who need your help. And last question, Amanda, and we'll let you go. Say there's someone out there listening who's thinking they might be on the fence. They're thinking about possibly running for office. They're not sure. They're maybe a little scared. What would you tell that person about why it's worth it? You can do it. Trump is president.

You're smarter than Trump. You're kinder than Trump. You're more empathetic than Trump. You are willing to work harder. Your attention span is longer. You can do this and nobody is going to ask you. So I want you to know that I'm asking you. My organization is asking you. Sign up with us. We'll talk you through it. Buy my book. I talk you through it there too. It's not as hard as people make it out to be, and it's an incredible way to make a difference, regardless of what happens on election day. And we will say that Pod Save America is asking you as well, as is the entire Crooked Media family.

So, Amanda, thank you so much for joining us. Enjoy your Thanksgiving, and we'll talk to you again soon. We appreciate it. Thanks, guys, and thanks for all you're doing. All right. Take care, soon. We appreciate it. Thanks guys and thanks for all you're doing. Alright, take care Amanda. Bye bye. Thanks again to Amanda Lipman for joining us today and I hope everyone has

a very happy Thanksgiving and we'll talk to you next week. Have a great Thanksgiving everyone. Thank you.