Pod Save America - "He’s Running (From Prison)."

Episode Date: April 13, 2023

Donald Trump is running for President, even if it’s from prison, and South Carolina Republican Tim Scott is crazy enough to think he can beat this criminal defendant. Joe Biden kind of, sort of makes news about his own presidential ambitions. Lovett and other Democrats pressure Dianne Feinstein to resign. Some Republicans want to ban entire libraries. And later, Governor Gretchen Whitmer joins to talk about what national Democrats can learn from Michigan. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Pfeiffer. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, Donald Trump is running for president, even if it's from prison. And South Carolina Senator Tim Scott is crazy enough to think he can beat this criminal defendant. Joe Biden sort of kind of makes news about his own presidential ambitions. Lovett and other Democrats pressure Dianne Feinstein to resign. And some Republicans now want to ban entire libraries. Then Governor Gretchen Whitmer joins to talk about what national Democrats can learn from Michigan. But first, check out the latest episode of Stuck with Damon Young, featuring writer and director A.V. Rockwell,

who talks about her Sundance award-winning film, 1001, and Ted Lasso's Cola Bocchini, who talks about the challenges of becoming a stepparent. Listen to Damon Young for free only on Spotify. Also, check out this week's Pod Save the World, where Tommy and Ben break down everything you need to know about the massive leak of classified documents that has rocked the world and especially the U.S. government. I think they're closing in on the leaker now, Dan.

Yeah, a lot's happened in the last couple hours here. A lot has happened. A lot has happened a lot has happened but that's why you listen to pod save the world to know to know what happened because we don't know uh anyway check it out it's a great episode all right let's get to the news for all you trump hating libs who think a criminal conviction might stop cheeto jesus from running for president think again in trump's first big interview since his arraignment on 34 felony counts, he told Tucker Carlson, who has called Trump a demonic force who he hates passionately, that nothing short of death will stop him from seeking the White House in 2024.

He also shared some typically sharp insights on a range of topics. Let's listen. Nobody talks about nuclear. The problem, the problem, the problem we have, the biggest problem we have in the whole world. It's not global warming. It's nuclear warming. You don't mention, I call it the N-word. You have two N-words. You don't mention either one of them. The nuclear word you don't mention. How smart is Kim Jong-un? Top of the line. Started rough, remember, with, you know, Rocket Man, Little Rocket Man.

And he said, I have a button on my desk, a red button. I said, I have a red button on my desk, too. Mine's bigger and mine works. Yours doesn't. President Xi is a brilliant man. If you went all over Hollywood to look for somebody to play the role of President Xi, you couldn't find him. There's nobody like that. The look, somebody to play the role of President Xi. You couldn't find it. There's nobody like that. The look, the brain, the whole thing.

He had an incredible, I'm not allowed to say it because it's very impolite and very politically incorrect, a beautiful female interpreter. She was very beautiful. Is there anything they could throw at you legally that would convince you to drop out of the race? If you get convicted in this case in New York? No, I'd never drop out. No, I'd never drop out. It's not my thing.

I wouldn't do it. So in one sense, it was beautiful because they get it. In another sense, you know, it's nasty. I went to the Wharton School of Finance. They didn't teach me about that. That wasn't like in the courts. They didn't know about the arraignment part? That wasn't.

That wasn't. We didn't have a class on arraignment. When I went to the courthouse, which is also a prison in a sense, they signed me in and I'll tell you, people were crying, people that work there. I don't know where to start with that, but I do like the courthouse.ouse is sort of a prison in a sense not really not in any sense well i know i think there are people in prison there they're in it's a jail the whole courthouse the whole course they didn't have a class on arraignment i also just the the the fucking love for dictators top of the line top kim jong-un top of the line president shi love him just a you can't you couldn't get someone in Hollywood to play President Xi.

Loves China now. Works really well with China. They get along so well. The Hollywood thing is so weird. Why can't you get someone to play him in Hollywood? Yeah, what? We got someone to play Lincoln. You can find people to play people.

First question, how do you think these two patch things up so quickly after what Tucker said about Trump? Well, John, true love, or at least mutual interest, conquers all. The fact of the matter is they need each other. They absolutely need each other. Tucker cannot be at the top of the MAGA media without Trump fans, and Trump can't be at the top of the Republican Party without the MAGA media. So they are in bed together for the foreseeable future. Just wild hearing Tucker just sit there and giggle and not get a word in at all, just let Trump go on and on. The guy takes on the Chinese Communist Party every night on his show, and then he sits there as Trump's like,

I love Xi, he's the best. Yeah, he basically penned an erotic thriller about she he's got the look i love his look i love his brain the cut of his jib like very weird um do you have any polling on how persuadable voters uh would feel about casting their ballot for a convicted criminal is that something that that the folks in the diners are looking for or what? We'll have to check today's New York Times to see if they visited those diners. But look, after 2016, we should bring a lot of humility to political predictions, analysis, but I'm going to go out on a limb, just on a limb here, and suggest that perhaps it's not going to be a strength, right? I don't know.

It's not going to be a real selling point with a lot of voters, is that he will be maybe waiting his sentencing hearing while people are casting early votes. It doesn't seem great. I don't think people are going to say, you know what, innocence is for cucks. I'm looking for a guilty candidate. No, I fully expect that Trump will accept the Republican nomination from Rikers, and it will be a huge success.

Huge success for him. Yes. Trump's been trying to fight off his many other legal troubles in the week since his arrest. He just asked a judge to delay the trial of a lawsuit brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, who's accused him of raping her in the 1990s. trial of a lawsuit brought by writer e gene carroll who's accused him of raping her in the 1990s he's in court trying to prevent mike pence and his other senior white house aides from testifying about january 6th he's suing michael cohen for 500 million dollars for violating attorney-client privilege i do think he has a strong case on that one it seems like it seems like he might yes uh it's only been a, but do you think that any of these legal developments have affected Donald Trump's chances of becoming president again?

I think that on the margins, and very much on the margins, they have somewhat possibly increased his chances of being the Republican nominee, which I think were quite good before this. Republican nominee, which I think were quite good before this. I do not think they have in any way, shape or form helped him become, make it more likely to become president of the United States again. He is dominating. Though just by virtue of becoming the Republican nominee, he is closer to becoming, he is maybe 40,000 votes away from becoming president again. Yes. As long as he can, if he were to become the Republican nominee, he is a near coin flip away from being the next president of the United States. We should always have to remember that no matter anything else that happens, conviction, two convictions, three convictions, no convictions, that is the issue. But he has, the Republican party has in some ways consolidated around him because of his arrest, which is an amazing thing to say about today's Republican

party. I mean, he's also, and we've talked about this before. He's just he's winning the race for attention in the Republican primary. Like when's the last time something about Ron DeSantis has really broken through the media coverage now that it's all Trump and Trump crimes all the time. And just to look at some of the polling averages and the polls, the primary polls, now the polling average at 538, Trump's at 49.3, DeSantis is at 26.2. That's the widest margin yet in the race. So Trump is significantly ahead in the primary right now, though national polls are national polls. There was an ABC Ipsos poll from last week. The percentage of Americans, the general electorate, who think Trump should have been charged is up from 45% to 50%. The percentage who think he should suspend

his campaign is up from 43% to 48%. And his overall favorability rating among all voters is down to 25%. I don't think that's good. 25% doesn't seem good when you're trying to run for president. That's down 10 points since the 2020 election. And that's just one poll. But overall, 538's average has his favorability at 39%, which is the lowest since just after he lost the midterms for Republicans. And it was around 36% there. So not doing great. It's very notable that his two most recent dips in polling are getting arrested on 34 counts of criminal violations and costing the Republicans the Senate. Those are equal. And that was worse.

That one was worse. Yeah, yeah. He's less popular after he lost the Senate for Republicans. But Republican politicians aren't still just supporting Trump. They are using all their power to protect him from any kind of accountability. House Republicans want to pass a bill that would move all prosecutions against former presidents from state court to federal court. I love that bill. It's like all prosecutions. So far, there's just been one. There may be others for the same guy, but so far, just one guy who's had prosecutions.

They're also trying to investigate the Manhattan DA's office, though Alvin Bragg this week just filed a lawsuit against Jim Jordan to stop that investigation. Why do you think Bragg did that? The very specific tactical reason that Bragg filed that suit was Jim Jordan's quote-unquote weaponization committee had issued a subpoena to Mark Pomerantz, who was the former prosecutor in Bragg's office who resigned after the original case against Donald Trump was not brought forward. He did a very big New York Times op-ed. He did a lot of interviews. I think he wrote a book. And so it is to prevent that subpoena from moving forward. And just the general idea

that Bragg understands that Jim Jordan has committed everything in their power to throw up roadblocks. And so he's going to try to use the courts to stop that from happening. Yeah. I mean, it just seems like, I mean, good for, I think also Bragg wants them to know that like, he's not going to be afraid of them. And, and also wants to probably highlight how ridiculous it is that the federal government is somehow getting involved in a local prosecution because it's a bunch of Republicans are upset that their front runner is the guy who committed the crimes. So, yeah, good. Good for Bragg. But we will. I heard that he pulled a Trump judge in the lawsuit, which isn't which isn't great.

But we'll see where that goes. Turns out there are a lot of those Trump judges out there. Trump's legal troubles don't seem to be preventing other Republicans from running against him. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina launched an exploratory committee this week. He told Fox & Friends that after talking to Republican voters in the early states, he found people, quote, starving for an optimistic, positive message. I think we have some audio from some of those conversations. Putting up our schools, churches, and concerts. And if the cops wasn't here, I would fight every fucking one of you right now.

Every fucking one of you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Sounds like Republican voters are hungry for an optimistic message, huh? There's one thing Republicans want. It's optimism. All you have to do is turn on Fox News and see that. It's morning in America.

Every day. It's optimism. All you have to do is turn on Fox News and see that. It's morning in America every day. What effect, if any, do you think that Tim Scott will have on the Republican primary? The most likely impact that Tim Scott will have is that he could take a significant chunk of Nikki Haley's 4% of the vote. I mean, I think he might make it marginally more likely that donald trump will become the nominee at this point i i because like so there was a south carolina poll last week trump 41 desantis 20 haley 18 tim scott 7 mike pence 5 and, you got to imagine that Pence, I mean, you imagine that, well, Pence, Scott and Haley are all pulling from, you know, probably some Trump, but mostly DeSantis. And, you know, South Carolina has been fairly predictive of how the rest of the Republican

nomination is going to go in the past. And like, if DeSantis is already having trouble catching Trump, he's already down to Trump. Now you split a whole bunch of other vote that could go to him among three people, Pence, Haley and Scott, who aren't going to win the nomination. And you start seeing how Trump's just going to run away with it. Yeah, I think it's fair to say that every additional candidate that makes it to the Iowa caucus makes it more likely that Trump will be the nominee. I am skeptical that many of these yahoos will make it to the Iowa caucus. Tim Scott, most notable on that, although he does have a lot of money. I think he has $22 million in his Senate account that he could transfer over to a presidential campaign.

So he can hang around for a while. And Nikki Haley had a pretty good fundraising first quarter. I think she raised like nine or 10 million bucks. But will they actually get there when votes are cast? That's the real question. And the other problem is just none of these people have the talent to do it. They don't have the talent to do it. And there's just like a larger structural problem, which is that they're running in a primary that took place like eight years ago with a Republican party that doesn't exist anymore. Again, we've talked about this with Nikki Haley, but if Tim Scott was running in 2015, or maybe I would argue 2012, I'd be like, oh yeah, that's a guy to watch. I could see that happening. But this Republican party these days,

are you kidding me? In even 2012, let's not forget, Newt Gingrich almost became the nominee. Rick Santorum almost became the nominee. Michelle Bachman led for a while. It is. Right. Yeah. Maybe you have to go back to 2008. Like 1984 is what you need.

And Tim Scott was asked this morning about whether he supports a national abortion ban. Now, this is a guy who already signed on to, he co-sponsored Lindsey Graham's national abortion ban at 15 weeks. But instead of just giving that answer, he gave this like just garbled answer that ended with something about Janet Yellen. At a banking committee hearing. At a banking committee hearing. It started on abortion. It ended there. And he didn't really answer the question.

I was like, oh, man, not ready for prime time. I mean, I just do not understand it. We worked in politics for a long time. Before you speak to the media, particularly on the day in which you announce your presidential exploratory campaign committee, you theoretically in the old days would sit down with your communications people. They would say, here are the questions you're mostly going to get asked. You want to try out some answers? Let's see what we think. That does not happen in the Republican party anymore. This is like Nikki Haley when she got asked the Trump question and just also vomited up word salad. That was word salad from Tim Scott. It's mind boggling. After the Wisconsin

race, you know that is the question that is going to get asked. He's getting in the race on almost the day that Ron DeSantis is going to sign a six-week abortion ban in Florida. You know it's in the news. Come up with an answer. It doesn't have to be a good answer. It doesn't have to be the right answer. Frankly, for Republicans, it doesn't even have to be an honest answer. Just say some coherent words in a row so you actually seem like a competent human being that is beyond the pale for these people. Well, and I think it's a consequence of them being firmly ensconced in the safe space right wing media bubble for many years now where they're only have to answer questions like, you know, Tucker Carlson asked Trump, like, sir, tell me how wonderful you are, how great you are. Just go ahead. And then, like, let, tell me how wonderful you are, how great you are. Just go ahead. And then, like, lets him go on for three or four minutes.

Like, I just, I don't, they're not practiced at answering real questions from real reporters. And that wasn't even a tough question. First of all, it's not like it was an issue that's not in the news that they, it was like, got your question. It's abortion. It's everywhere right now. And to not have an answer on that, it wasn't even like, hey, what do you think? National abortion ban? What do you think? Pretty simple question. Couldn't do it.

Same thing. And DeSantis only talks to Florida right-wing press. Nikki Haley, she's been out of practice. I mean, it's just, you know, none of these people can really face hard questions anymore. Speaking of campaign announcements, on Monday, Joe Biden made some unintentional news, his favorite kind, when he said this to Al Roker. I plan on running Al, but we're not prepared to announce it yet. A few thoughts on this. I feel like Joe Biden has given almost that exact answer before. He's used the word intend instead of planning on running, right? So it's close. So I'm not quite sure why it got so much attention,

maybe just the media's bored. So they wanted to make some news. But stepping back from that, like what is going on here with Biden not just filing papers at this point? It seems like everyone around him, including him, has made up his mind. I know it doesn't seem like there's any doubt left that he's going to run for president again. So why not just file the papers? It's a great question. I think the reason the Al Roker answer got some attention is there has been a number of stories in a number of outlets in recent weeks raising questions about why President Biden hasn't announced yet, because his team had previously indicated that they were eyeballing the similar timeline that President Obama used to announce his reelection, which is basically this week of 2011. So we have

crossed that line and they're- They've been staring at that calendar for a long time now. And they were never like, we're definitely doing it by this day or it's not happening. That was just sort of the common understanding. I think there are a couple of things going on here. One is, I don't think President Biden is in any hurry to become a candidate again. That said, he's not running. He's clearly running. But I think he recognizes the Republicans are all sort of light themselves on fire in support of Donald Trump right now. Some of Trump's opponents are sort of melting down before our eyes like Ron DeSantis. So just stay out of it and just be president, which is your comparative advantage right now with these people. You're kind of above the fray. Can I just ask about that? What is the real difference of Joe Biden? He does a two-minute video. I'm running for president again. It's a big day of coverage, maybe a day and a half, generously. And then he goes back to showing that he's president, which is still that advantage. He's going, he's doing events. He's talking about the infrastructure bill. He's talking about the

IRA, whatever else he's going to Europe, doing whatever else he wants to do. Like, I just don't know what the real difference is once he sort of crosses the Rubicon into candidate. There is no difference. The press is already treating him like he's running for president. Right. That's sort of, that's, yeah – So this is, I think, the other reason here is, yes, you could theoretically just file papers tomorrow and say, I'm going to do a formal announcement tour this summer or even this fall, you could say, if you want to kick it off. And that is essentially what Obama did. He filed papers in April and then a few weeks later did a couple rallies in the battleground states of Ohio, Virginia. Ohio was a battleground state back then, which is a nice old thing to remember. And row when you do that, because this would be a big online fundraising day for you on the day you announce. It'll be the first time you've hit your list to raise money for yourself in two and a half years. And so you want to have all of your infrastructure up. You want to be able to have some messaging done and a whole bunch of other stuff to be able to do that. And I think they're just still working on that. As far as I know, both from the public reporting we've read

and just sort of the people we talked to is he has not yet picked a campaign manager for this campaign. Although my understanding is there's a leading contender that's been written about. But you sort of want your campaign manager, you want some staffing, you want to be all ready to be able to have some infrastructure to take in the money and the enthusiasm. People are going to say they want to volunteer, they're going to want to apply for jobs and all those things. You just kind of got to get that stuff ready. I don't think it matters whether he does it now or he does it next month or the month after that. next month or the month after that. But there is a point at which you are giving up some of the advantages of incumbency by waiting too long and not using all of the head start you will have over your eventual opponent. And you will continue to get annoying stories in the lead up to that,

which is like, is he really going to run? Is he having second thoughts? Which are not all that damaging, but probably annoying for the president. Yeah. I mean, the way he answers that question is to try to have it both ways, but just make it clear he's running and then kick off or forestall the official filing of paper slash announcement to a slightly later date. He's already starting to act like the party's nominee. He announced this week that he has chosen Chicago as the site of the 2024 Democratic Convention. Atlanta was the runner up. Georgia is a swing state. Illinois is very much not. Why do you think he went with Chicago over Atlanta? And how much does this really matter at all?

Okay. First question, John. Do you remember where the 2016 Democratic Convention was? Yeah, I was there. It was in Philadelphia. You were not there yeah it was did you come to philadelphia yeah we i remember oh that was cleveland where we did the podcast where i sat i did the podcast walking around with you yeah no i was in philadelphia because i remember uh walking from the convention center back to the hotel which was a long walk and it was like a hundred degrees out and it was at night. I was sweating the whole day. Yeah. But okay, put that aside. We don't have to revisit. We were all in that

suite together. I do remember this now. I helped out with Obama's convention speech. How did we do in Pennsylvania in 2016? Famously not well. Where was the Democratic convention in 2012? North Carolina. Didn't win that one either. There is not a great history of connection between how a candidate does in the state where their convention is located. So I wouldn't read too much into it. The reason why it's in Chicago is pretty simple. One, Chicago is a much logistically easier place to have a convention.

It has lots of hotels downtown. They are nearby the arena where the speeches will be. There are a lot of union hotels, which is very important for Democrats. There is a Democratic governor in J.B. Pritzker who is an experienced fundraiser who has pledged to help raise the money for the convention. Because one of the last things you want is to be in a situation where President Biden is forced to spend time raising money for the convention, as opposed to raising it from the business community and everywhere else. So this is purely a logistics decision, more anything else. And ultimately, that's probably what you want, because Republicans are going to attack wherever you do the convention,

no matter what. And so you might as well just have a better convention that runs better, is easier, and a better experience for the attendees than trying to make some sort of political statement that will last basically barely through the press release when you announce the city. Yeah, and some of the attendees that you want to have a good experience are reporters. And so you want them to have an easy time getting hotels, having plenty of studio, all that kind of stuff, right? So you want people to get good coverage out of it. President Biden and Senate Democrats are currently having trouble confirming judges because of 89-year-old California Senator Dianne Feinstein's extended absence due to a bad case of shingles,

which is preventing a lot of these nominees from even being voted out of the closely divided Judiciary Committee. She's on the Judiciary Committee. Noted Democratic Kingmaker John Lovett made some news on Tuesday's pod when he called on her to resign. Lovett was quickly followed by a California Democrat with real power, Representative Ro Khanna. Feinstein then released a statement saying she wouldn't resign, but would ask Chuck Schumer to temporarily replace her on the Judiciary Committee, though it doesn't seem like he can do that on his own. What happens now? Why do you think she's not just resigning? And what happens if she does? Well, I think she does not. She clearly does not want to resign. She's been under pressure to do that for a very long time, even dating back to whether she should run for reelection in 2018.

So that's clearly something that she and people around her do not want to do. The problem with her proposed solution of a temporary replacement of the Judiciary Committee is it's almost impossible to execute. It's not a decision that Chuck Schumer or Dick Durbin, the chair of the judiciary committee, can make on their own. It has to be voted on by the Senate. And that requires either unanimous consent, which would require all 100 senators to agree, or if someone were to object, someone like a Ted Cruz or Josh Hawley or Tommy Tuberville or any other MAGA Republican, then you would need 60 votes to do it. Now, do we really think there are 10 Republican senators who want to make it easier for Joe Biden to confirm nominees? No, I think not. I mean, if we were on the other side of this, would we be wanting our Democratic

senators to join in and let the Republicans confirm some judges? I sure wouldn't. No, we'd be using this platform right now to try to convince Democrats to not let that happen. I will just say, too, there's like a bunch of real irresponsible commentary online the last couple of weeks. It was like, Chuck Schumer, what's wrong with you? Replace her now. Blah, blah, blah. And it's like, hey, everyone, fucking Google. Just Google the rules, you know, before you start going off about Chuck Schumer.

Yeah, no, it's going to be really tough. So if Republicans block it and then then it's sort of like the ball goes back into Feinstein's court because then it's like, all right, you tried to do a temporary replacement. You didn't get it. You're not back to Washington. And we have basically until one more year to confirm a lot of judges, which is extremely important if you've been following the news over the last several years. So then I wonder, you know, maybe the pressure on her to resign amps up again and she finally does. I don't know. And if she were to resign, then Gavin Newsom could replace her immediately, essentially, and someone gets sworn to get to it. Just to explain why this matters on judicial confirmation, it says,

from 2019 to 2021, in the divided Senate, there was an even number of members on committees, but Democrats held the putative chairmanship of those committees. But if there was a tie, a party line vote within the committee, you would have to go to the floor to eat up floor time to get a judicial confirmation through. When we picked up that extra Senate seat, thanks to John Fetterman and Raphael Warnock, et cetera, in 2022, then now Democrats had an advantage. So party-line vote heads right to the floor. Without Dianne Feinstein present, we're right back to where we were before we got to 51 Senate votes. So you have to address, you have to replace Dianne Feinstein too, or she has to return to the Senate to be And Gavin Newsom has promised that if Fein who is in the middle of a competitive Senate race. So like the idea that Newsom would appoint either Barbara Lee or Katie Porter or Adam Schiff to a seat that they're all running to fill seems like it would be giving an advantage to one of the candidates in a race that the California voters are going to decide anyway. I don't know. What do you think? It just seems to me like,

why wouldn't you select a caretaker for the seat who's not going to run to fill the whole thing, just to stay out of the race, like a caretaker like John Lovett? Yes. The most obvious choice would be John Lovett. The most obvious choice. Yeah, right. John Lovett. Yes. The most obvious choice would be John Lovett. The most obvious choice. Yeah, right. That is the standard way in which these things are often done. If there was already either an ongoing race or a likely race between two high-profile contenders, when Robert Byrd passed away, Joe Manchin appointed one of his own staffers who had pledged not to run again. appointed one of his own staffers to just who had pledged not to run again. Same thing happened after Ted Kennedy passed away. There is a there's sort of a standard way in which this would happen.

Joe Biden, the same thing happened in Delaware when Joe Biden became vice president. So that would be the most likely scenario. I think Ro Khanna is very incredibly smart. I think he's smart about the politics of this, the substance and the politics, is that he has a good sense to do what John Lovett says. But I do not think this is some sort of grand sinister plan to get his candidate put in the Senate. He knows what Gavin Newsom, it was highly unlikely to do that. aren't just trying to ban books anymore. They're trying to ban entire libraries. The House of Representatives passed a budget that eliminates all funding for the state's public libraries, $4.5 million. Republicans in the Senate seem less enthused

about defunding the state's libraries, but we shall see. Llano County, Texas is also deciding whether to shut down its public library system after a federal judge ruled that the county violated the Constitution by banning a dozen children's books. So if we can't ban our books, no one can read. So my question is, when do you think we'll start seeing book burnings at Trump rallies? When's this going to become like a major part

of the Republican party platform? You don't have to burn the books if you ban them. That's the brilliant part here. You know, it's banned books. It's really a sort of environmentally friendly kind of thing. Yeah, look, Republicans do not want all the carbon emissions from burning books to affect the environment. We should thank them. We'll ban books. If we can't ban books, we'll ban libraries. If we can't ban libraries, we'll ban ink and paper. If we can't ban that, we'll just ban words, period. Just ban the alphabet. Solve all the problems. Just ban the alphabet. Solve all the problems. I mean, you had a great message box this week on, even before I saw this news about Missouri,

on why Republicans are now losing the culture wars and what Democrats should do about it. Want to tell us more about that? Yeah, I would say the reaction to that piece was quite interesting. Lots of people were like, ha, I've been saying this forever. Other people were like, you're giving Democrats terrible advice or this is insane. It's a real Rorschach test of confirmation bias for a lot of people out there. My main point in writing it is that political strategists, pundits have kind of divided the issue environment into two types. Kitchen table economic issues, like Social Security, Medicare, taxes, jobs, and cultural issues, which is sort of everything else. Abortion, LGBTQ rights,

immigration, crime, anything that's not a – because no one has ever talked about abortion or civil rights at a kitchen table. So that's how you separate them. I think that is a false binary, a weird way of thinking about the politics, but that is how we sort of thought about it. And the conventional wisdom is kitchen table issues are good for Democrats, cultural issues are good for Republicans, right? Cultural issues incite the Republican base, divide our base. And I think that for some period of time in life,

that was kind of sort of true, but it's not true anymore. And it's largely not true because Dobbs changed the world. It changed how people think. As we talked about this last week, I believe, but Celinda Lake, the Democratic pollster, has made the point that the country

has become 10 to 15 points more pro-choice since Dobbs. Dobbs has shown the real-world dangers of Republican extremism, and that if it can happen to abortion, it can happen to marriage equality, it can happen to civil rights, book bans, all these other things. And the Democrats should not be afraid of these issues. We should not dodge the questions, spend all this time trying to defuse talking about issues. We should not dodge the questions, spend all this time trying to diffuse talking about it. We should feel comfortable to take them on. But, and this is the important but, is we have to recognize that we are winning these issues

because we hold the majority position. So we need to talk about them in broadly appealing ways that people understand. And that begins with focusing on the Republican position, the dangers of their extremism. And we also have to recognize that not all of these quote-unquote cultural issues are the same. Abortion – I think we have a very, very strong hand, certainly on abortion, on just the entire suite of reproductive freedom issues like banning contraception, all these other insane things Republicans want to do. The polling shows we are actually much stronger in pushing back on the Republican anti-trans laws and rhetoric than most Democrats think. We actually hold majority positions on a lot of them if we take them on and frame them on factually correct terms and on our terms. But we have a lot of work to do on some other issues. So this is not winning

culture war. It's not permission to say whatever you want about whatever issue you want. And it's certainly not an argument for ignoring the economy because you have to do both because the necessity of our political coalition is to reach out to voters concerned about Republican extremism,

voters deeply concerned about life or death issues like abortion bans, and voters who are, who's the central issue in their life is economic insecurity, who are very concerned about whether they're going to keep their job or they're going to be able to send their kids to college. And we're going to have to do both. Republicans can win in a lot of states by doing one. We have to do both. And we are strongest when we do them both

aggressively and proudly and not sort of with one hand tied behind our back like we have done on abortion in this country for decades. Yeah. I mean, I think that your point about the reason it looks like we're winning the culture wars right now is because we are on the side of the majority position in the country. And part of this is Republicans have taken such extreme positions on so many different issues across the board. We we sort of had, you know, we were on the side for a long time, I think on economic issues, you know, Republicans were against any kind of higher taxes on rich people against any kind of regulations to protect people, protect workers. And so that was, you know, that was an unpopular position for them.

And then on the so-called cultural issues, it was a little more divided, partly because of the position that the Republican Party had taken and partly because the country wasn't necessarily there yet. Now, the country has moved on a lot of these social and cultural issues, but also just the extreme, extreme positions Republicans have taken. And in the case of Dobbs, now the court has taken away rights that people have had for a long time. And so that's affecting the whole the political environment as well. So I do think you're right. Like you can't you can't lump all of these issues together.

We do because it's just like it's shorthand on the culture issues. But like each issue is very different. shorthand on the culture issues, but like each issue is very different. And each issue depends on both the position that the Republican Party has taken in some of the more extreme positions and where Democrats are and of course, where the country is. And I do think that like part of the challenge for Democrats is making sure that we highlight the most extreme positions that Republicans have taken places, right? Like, you know, Republicans in Congress aren't banning entire libraries yet, but they should be made to answer for the Republicans in Missouri who are. Every Republican should be made to answer for some of these extreme

positions on abortion that Republicans are taking in state houses across the country and judges are deciding, cases that judges are deciding across the country. And so we have to continually bring up the most extreme examples of what Republicans are doing, not just to paint the whole party like that because it's good politics, but because history has shown that this is where Republicans end up anyway. Some Yahoo in a statehouse takes an extreme position in South Carolina saying that there should be the death penalty for women who get abortions. And it seems like, oh, that's only two extreme Republicans in South Carolina that are doing that right now. And, you know, a couple of years from now, suddenly it becomes the majority position of the party. Right. So I think it's very important for Democrats to continue to highlight this extremism. And I think this whole culture war thing is really about Republicans going off the deep end as a party more than it is just about where the Democratic Party

is. Yeah. And your point about taking the positions of some Republicans in some parts of the country and making the entire party answer for them is very important because for two, there are politics to it, but also if we put political pressure on them and they walk away from those, that's a win for the world too. Take the law in Kansas past to allow the inspection of genitals before kids can participate in youth sports. Look, I haven't seen a poll on that, but I'm going to take a guess. People are not for that. And every Republican should have to answer for it. It's not popular. Yeah. Okay. When we come back, I will talk to Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, about what national Democrats can learn from Michigan.

Joining us now is the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer. Governor, welcome to Pod Save America. I'm glad to be with you. America. I'm glad to be with you. So this morning you signed a major gun reform package of 11 bills that includes universal background checks, red flag laws, and safe storage requirements. I know the short answer to how you got it done is the newly democratic legislature, but I'm curious about how you've seen the politics of gun safety change over the course of your career, especially in a state like Michigan where there are a lot of gun owners. Alyssa Slotkin is putting gun safety change over the course of your career, especially in a state like Michigan, where there are a lot of gun owners? Alyssa Slotkin is putting gun safety at the center

of her Senate campaign. Is this an issue Democrats should no longer be afraid to run on? 100%. You know, Jen, when I started a couple decades ago, I sound so old when I say it, but guns were for a long time the third rail, right? You didn't want to touch it. It was too dangerous, too complicated. And yet we've seen, like abortion, right, the conversation evolve where people expect us to be conversant and have a plan to make them safer or protect their rights when it comes to abortion. And I think we have to be bold. When I first got into politics, if you'd have told me I'd run for governor, I would have thought you were nuts. But if you'd told me on top of it that I would be running on some common sense gun safety policies, as well as protecting abortion rights, I wouldn't have believed it. And yet that's exactly what we did. And we won overwhelmingly and flipped both chambers

of our legislature. And now it's time for us to do exactly what we told people we were going to do. You and the Democratic legislature have accomplished so much so fast in the first hundred days of your second term. Republicans in Michigan are predictably predicting a backlash in the next election. Why are they wrong? Well, because, you know, they don't have an alternative vision, right? We've restored workers' rights. We've expanded civil rights for the LGBTQ community. We have codified and repealed a zombie law that would threaten women's reproductive rights. I mean, these are the things that we're doing. We ran on these.

The public told us they wanted us to take action. What you hear out of the other side is just criticism of it, not an alternative view, not ideas of how we can address some of the issues like keeping kids safe in schools or parishioners safe in church or shoppers safe in a grocery store. They just want to keep doing the same old thing. And I think that's a lousy vision for electoral success. And that's why I think they're wrong. What's on the agenda for the next 100 days?

Oh, we got a lot to do. So, you know, we got to get the budget done. I've introduced a budget a couple months ago. The legislature has it. They're holding hearings. But delivering on that, I mean, they're long overdue investments, whether it's fixing the damn roads or it is making sure that we get the educational outcomes for our kids that we need by greater investment and individualized tutoring and universal four-year-old preschool. This is front and

center for the next line. But we've got a lot of work I think we can do around climate and eliminating our carbon footprint. I built a plan last term, and now I've got a legislature that will actually help me codify it. So that's front and center as well. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis came to Michigan last week and was introduced by a Republican state rep who described Michigan as the anti-Florida. Would you agree with that characterization? I thought it was funny. I'm like, okay. I mean, in Florida, they're taking women's rights away. They're taking books out of schools. They're targeting the LGBTQ community. They're taking women's rights away. They're taking books out of schools. They're targeting the LGBTQ community. They're taking, you know, accurate teaching of history out of schools. I mean, if being not that is supposed to be an insult, I mean, I'll take that every single day. In Michigan, we're going another direction. We're expanding rights. We're codifying rights. We're ensuring that every person, no matter who you are or how you identify, is respected and protected under the law. So I think that there are a whole lot more freedoms in Michigan. And also, we got two peninsulas. They only got one. That's good. That's good. So the

Republican Party has become extreme everywhere, particularly in Michigan. What lessons have you learned over the last four years about how to deal with this extremism? And what advice would you give to Democrats in states where MAGA Republicans still hold power about how to win? It's really stunning and saddening and scary, frankly, when you think about one of the kind of core platforms of the Republican Party right now, at least in Michigan, is to stoke violent rhetoric and to undermine our confidence in our democratic institutions, to continue to deny the outcome of a free and fair election from three years ago. That is still happening. The new chair of the Republican Party here is so far out there, she says Beyonce and yoga are satanic. I mean, that's who's the top Republican in Michigan right now. And I think it also is why

we're seeing so much crossover, right, from people who are more traditional Republicans or more middle of the road, maybe economically more conservative, but more liberal minded socially coming over. And I think that's a part of why we've had such great overwhelming success beyond the usual Democratic lines here in Michigan. But I don't think we should make any assumptions that it's going to fix itself or it's going to get better. I think we've got to keep speaking truth to power. Every state's different, so I'm always reticent to subscribe how another governor might conduct themselves because they've got different tools at their disposal. But here in Michigan, I can tell you, being blunt, being clear, listening, it's a unique thing in politics.

But listening, I think, is the strongest, most important thing any elected official or aspiring elected official can do. important thing any elected official or aspiring elected official can do. There's been this debate among some Democrats about how the party should respond to these right-wing culture wars. Do you engage or do you focus on economic issues? You've done both. You focused on jobs, infrastructure, affordable housing, but also, as we talked about, protecting abortion access and expanding LGBTQ rights. What do pundits get wrong about this debate? But you know, toward the end of the campaign, I'd frequently get the question, you know, are you talking too much about abortion? Shouldn't you be talking more about the economy? And it, you know, I'm, I'm a pretty disciplined communicator, John.

And I've got a long fuse, like, I don't get frustrated easily, I got thick skin. But I kind of got tired of that question. And I said, listen, if you don't think abortion is about the economy, you probably don't have a uterus or know someone who does. Because the most important economic decision a woman will make in the course of her lifetime is when and whether to have a child. And so if you're talking about jobs or affordable housing or clean drinking water, talking about fundamental rights to make your own decision about your body and whether or not to start a family or having protections in your workplace or in your home these are economic issues and so i always reject that tendency to bifurcate social issues versus economic issues they are intertwined we

are human beings and all these facets impact us at the dinner table and in our lives every day. And that's why we shouldn't shy and we shouldn't pick. We got to talk about both and we got to be bold. Speaking of abortion access, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals just ruled that mifepristone can remain on the market, but they heavily restricted the drug, including blocking its use beyond seven weeks of pregnancy and blocking retail pharmacies from dispensing the drug. The Supreme Court use beyond seven weeks of pregnancy and blocking retail pharmacies from dispensing the drug. The Supreme Court will obviously get involved here. But in the meantime, what steps are you considering to help protect access to abortion medication in Michigan?

Well, we've done a number of things, you know, going back to before the Dobbs draft even came out. I'd filed a lawsuit because I knew with the death of Justice Ginsburg that this was a very real threat. We were successful in amending our constitution. There was a lot of things that went into that, but I'm grateful to say here in Michigan, we overwhelmingly embraced abortion rights and expect them to be codified. But Michigan was a party to the Washington lawsuit. We're obviously in the morass of these two dueling outcomes. And so one of the things we did early on was talk to all of our insurers and make sure that there was not going to be any disruption in coverage for birth control and Miffy-Pristone. I think that a number of states

are stockpiling. That's something that we are looking at, as well as a number of other possibilities. I think part of it is that we've got to use every single tool that we can, and every state's different. And while they promised this was going to be left to the states, very clearly, that's not their intent at all. It is to eliminate this right. And that's why every person in a position of authority needs to use every tool at their disposal to continue to provide this access. You've answered plenty of questions about your own future around 2024, so I will not ask you one of those again. Oh, thank you. Because I know what your answer is going to be. But what do you think Joe Biden's biggest challenge will be in 2024?

You know, I think a challenge in politics, and it's not unique to the president, but a challenge in politics is, you know, telling people the story of what you've actually gotten accomplished. Cannot assume that it's going to get covered. The outcomes of the IRA, you know, the infrastructure bill. I mean, they've got an extraordinary amount of work done that'll make people's lives better, that will shore up the American economy, will make sure that we don't have to worry on supply chains and other nations because we start doing this cutting-edge manufacturing again in this country, rebuilding this country. I mean, he's gotten a lot done. I think it's going to be telling the story and cutting through a lot of the noise because there's just so much noise and so much misinformation. So I think that communicating that message is going to be the biggest challenge. Last question. It's the first 100 days of your

final term as governor. Have you thought about what you want your legacy to be? Well, you know, I'm really, really pleased that we've done a lot of historic things, just even in this 100 days. I was able to appoint the first Black woman to the Michigan Supreme Court. We have codified women's rights. We've expanded civil rights for the LGBTQ community and expanded workers' rights. The most important thing to the Michigan economy is continuing to invest in our workforce from our children to upskilling our adult population and making sure that Michigan continues to be the center of the future of mobility and innovation. That's something that I spend a lot of my energy and time on because at the end of the day, whether or not people can get a good paying job and take care of their families and live a high quality life is the most important thing any governor can focus on.

Governor Whitmer, an impressive hundred days in your second term. And it's nice to have Michigan as a real bright spot for Democrats across the country. So thank you and thank you for joining the Pod Save America. I look forward to seeing you and I know we'll be hosting the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Can't wait. In the Midwest. We're thrilled. So yes, I was working with JB and my Democratic governor colleagues here in the Midwest. And we are, we're thrilled because all roads to the White House go through this part of the country. Yeah, I'm excited to be in Chicago for that. Okay, well, we will. We'll talk to you soon. Take care. All right. Bye, John. We'll talk to you soon.

Take care. All right. Bye, John. Thanks to Governor Whitmer for joining us today. Everyone have a great weekend. We'll talk to you next week. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.

The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producers are Hayley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer,

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