Pod Save America - “Hillary endorses Bernie.”

Episode Date: January 21, 2020

Trump’s lawyers kick off his impeachment trial by arguing that the President can’t be impeached, Mitch McConnell is forced to make concessions on the rules, Biden and Bernie tangle on Social Security, and the New York Times endorses Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren. Then Chris Lidell-Westefeld talks to Tommy about his oral history of the 2008 Obama campaign.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Levitt. I'm Tommy Vitor. On the pod today, Donald Trump's impeachment trial begins today. And Mitch McConnell wants it to last about 10 minutes. We're also going to talk about a very busy weekend on the 2020 campaign trail, which included the New York Times surprise endorsement of not one, but two presidential candidates. And later in the pod, you'll hear Tommy's interview with Chris Liddell-Westefeld,

a former colleague of ours who's just published an oral history of Obama's 2008 campaign. A couple quick housekeeping notes. Lovett, how was the show this weekend? Action-packed. Action-packed? Love it or leave it. We had presidential candidate Deval Patrick. He was a very good sport during Queen

for a day, though I do think didn't understand where or why he was doing it. Where he was or why he was doing it. Can't blame him. Kara Swisher on Facebook. Mitra Juhari and Damon Young were there. Both really an all-star show. Check it out. That is a good show. Also, episodes 3 and 4 of The Wilderness

are out now. In the Southwest episode we talk about how Sunbelt suburbs are turning blue and I sit down with some Romney Clinton voters. In the Southeast episode we talk about expanding the electorate with Stacey Abrams and I talk to some voters who stayed home or voted third party in 2016. Please subscribe and check

it out at thewildernesspodcast.com Check it out. Finally, Pod Save America and Love It or Leave It are going on tour. See where we're heading at cricket.com slash events. We also just added a new Santa Barbara show on April 17th. Pre- Presale tickets are available starting Wednesday. Again, check it out at crooked.com slash events. We would love to see you on the road. All right, here we go.

The third impeachment trial in our country's history begins today. Over the weekend, the House of Representatives laid out their case against Donald Trump, arguing that his, quote, continued willingness to corrupt free and fair elections, betray our national security and subvert the constitutional separation of powers makes the president, quote, an immediate threat to the nation and the rule of law. Not mincing words, guys. Trump's lawyers have decided not to contest the basic facts of the case, but instead argue that extorting Ukraine until they announced a phony investigation into Joe Biden wasn't impeachable. It was just a foreign policy decision. And being the first president in history to obstruct an entire impeachment inquiry wasn't impeachable. It was just executive privilege. So basically, they've done a full Nixon here. When the president does it, it's not illegal. It seems like we've come a long way from the no quid pro quo days.

Why do you think they landed on this argument? I mean, they're just fighting it out in the court of public opinion and their entire goal, the Trump team's goal, is to prevent any Republican senators from defecting. So they know they have no argument on the facts. We all read the transcript where he tries to extort the Ukrainian government for dirt on Joe Biden in exchange for withholding military aid and other support. They just need to keep a bunch of Republicans scared of a primary. Yeah. What do you think? I think two things. One, I think they feel like they're on safer ground talking about executive power than they are on the facts of the case. That the it's very hard to dispute the record.

And executive privilege is a place where a lot of Republicans will feel comfortable seeking kind of readout from the facts, which are so damning. And then on top of that, I think they're kind of trying to talk to John Bolton a little bit. And otherwise, I think they're just not really sure what to be saying. It's a pretty hard day. Very hard. A sophisticated legal argument on behalf of Donald Trump is an incredibly difficult thing to make. That is why to this day we have never actually heard one. Yeah. If they can get into the weeds on what is executive privilege mean? What is an impeachable offense? Let's get Alan fucking Dershowitz up here talking about the Constitution. Let's bore some people. They're also trying to protect themselves in case we do hear from John Bolton,

we do hear new explosive evidence, because whatever sort of explosive testimony and evidence we may hear in the next couple weeks, they're just going to say, yeah, well, that may be true, but the president still gets to do whatever he wants to do. Their argument is basically that the president can't be impeached for abusing his office. Yeah, it's literally their argument. I mean, they want to exploit the confusion over what an impeachable offense is. They're trying to argue that it has to involve a violation of criminal law. That is not true. That's absurd. While there is minimal language about impeachment in the Constitution itself, there's discussion among the founders as it was being developed

that shows their clear intent to cover abuses of power. And our statutes are based in English law that's also clear about that intent. So no experts are actually confused about whether an abuse of power is an impeachable event. It clearly is. In fact, what's the creep who always Skypes on Fox and defends sex offenders? Alan Dershowitz. Alan Dershowitz himself. Jeffrey Epstein's lawyer?

In the 90s, Jeff's friend. Jeff's friend. Epstein's lawyer in the 90s. Jeff Jeff's friend, Jeff Epstein's buddy in the 90s during the Clinton impeachment took the opposite position that he's taking today on whether abuse of power was impeachable to two quick points. One, it also is just worth noting that one of these talking points has gone away now that the GAO has said that it was illegal for the president to withhold the aid to Ukraine. That's one. And two, I don't believe it is fair that Mitch McConnell is not accounting for the amount of time it takes to clear the line of sludge and slime that Alan Dershowitz leaves behind himself when he moves through a room. And I just think it's really unfair to the Democrats who have to speak after him that they're going to probably have to just kind of wade through that layer of disgusting sleaze that he

puts behind himself their uh their response to the government accountability office which is congress's non-partisan watchdog agency um is truly amazing because basically the response is just too late right nope should have or the gao should have made that determination that it was illegal while the house impeachment hearings were going on. Now that they didn't. It's too late. We got away with it. That's how it works. That's how it works. That's how it works. Let's talk about the rules of the trial. Originally, Mitch McConnell said that the House's lawyers and Trump's lawyers had 24 hours over two days to present their opening arguments beginning Wednesday afternoon.

After that, senators may question the parties for a period of time not to exceed 16 hours. And once the questioning has ended, both sides will each have two hours to make further arguments. Only then will the Senate be allowed to vote on whether to subpoena witnesses, new evidence, or even admit the existing evidence into the public record. These rules are, of course, very different than the rules from the Clinton impeachment trial, which means that Mitch McConnell lied to us, which, you know, never thought I'd see the day. Just fell over. Hold on, I'm getting back up. Then something happened just this morning. So this led to a big public outcry. And lo and behold, an hour ago, Mitch McConnell changed his mind. Prosecution and defense will now get three days each instead of

two. And the House evidence will automatically be entered into trial. So fairly small concessions here. It's not like Mitch McConnell had this generous change of heart. Clearly, he believed he didn't have 51 votes for those rules and was forced to do it because there was such a public outcry, which leads me to my question. Let's start with what the Democrats' job is here and what the Democrats can realistically hope to achieve throughout this trial, knowing that there is almost zero chance that this will end in a conviction. What do you think, Levin? So I think, first of all, it's just worth praising Pelosi for holding up the articles

because I remember the original draft of the rules said that if you don't get your impeachment in 30 minutes is free. But that said, you know, I do see a lot of like there's a lot of people in the weeds of what these rules mean. And, oh, are they going to vote for witnesses or there will be first be a procedural vote to determine whether or not there will be a vote on witnesses and what have you. I think it's just worth remembering that all the procedural hurdles aside, those rules can make life a little bit easier, a little bit harder for the kind of Republicans that would vote for witnesses. You're Susan Collins's, you're Mitt Romney's. We can call them gettable.

The gettables. Since modern, it's not a word we can use for any of them, but we can call them gettable. The gettables. McConnell can basically make their, if he keeps them on his side on the no witnesses, no evidence trial theory, then he can make that a little bit easier for them with some of these procedural motions. But ultimately, what we were talking about is whether or not, you know, four people will decide to vote in favor of having witnesses and evidence at this trial. And I think everything should be focused on that. Yeah. I mean, look, there's some roles that I would have liked to have seen that didn't make it like, you know, no head butts, no eye gouging, no groin stuff. I think that's a big one. But I mean, like the comparison to the Clinton impeachment is like, that's, that's my fucking

bread and butter. The comparison to the Clinton impeachment is so frustratingly stupid because in 1999, in that trial, uh, depositions had been taken for years as part of a grand jury investigation that were videotaped, publicly released, transcripts of which were publicly released, and portions of the interviews were even shown on TV on the Senate floor. So the fact that we're even debating whether to allow fact witnesses like John Bolton to testify shows you how different this actually is. And I do think that has to be a big part of the Democratic case is that this is an obstruction effort. Yeah. I think broadly, realistic goals for the Democrats are

number one, like, let's just get the full truth out. So we all know exactly what happened. Right. And we know most of what happened at this point, but we still need Bolton and some other documents. Right. Number two, remind the American people of the president's crimes and why they matter to them. I think we have to continue to, so that this resonates with people who are watching, why is it bad for you that the president has tried to cheat in another election? And then I think it would be good for the Democrats to force Trump to deliver his state of the union address while he's standing trial for impeachment, as opposed to while he's just been acquitted, which clearly Mitch McConnell is trying to rush this trial so that Trump can give a State of the Union and boast of the fact that he was just acquitted. So we should try to drag it out as long as possible.

And then the final one is a very political goal. And then the final one is a very political goal. Like, we should expose the Republican senators who are up in 2020 as partisan hacks with no mind of their own, who are going to do anything Trump tells them to, even cover up his crimes. And that's it. And that's why you were just saying this, Lovett, about getting those four votes. Like, Susan Collins is now the most unpopular senator in the country. Martha McSally's ratings, approval ratings have gone in the tank. Cory Gardner's probably the first Republican senator to go in 2020. These Republican senators are incredibly vulnerable. And the only way that these Republican senators, including Tom Tillis,

maybe Joni Ernst, McSally, certainly in Arizona, the only way they're going to win their races, what their campaign plan is, is to show that they are independent voices, that they are not tied to Donald Trump, that they have their mind of their own. And this impeachment trial is an opportunity for Democrats to say, and all the outside groups, everyone running ads, everyone else, to say, no, these people don't have a mind of their own. They are not bipartisan. They are not independent. They are covering up anything Donald Trump tells them to cover up. I think that's a huge goal for this trial. Yeah. Well, Cory Gardner is living in a secret chamber at the Denver airport. That was a great New York Times story. Hopefully they can find it. I have to say on this

pressuring these Senate Republicans point, I think that we as a party are utterly failing. There are 11 impeachment ads on TV right now. All of them are paid for by Republicans to support Republicans. There's no outside game putting money on TV to pressure these guys. It's all being done by the media. And as we've seen, some of these Republicans want to jujitsu that by saying to a CNN reporter like Martha McSally did, you're a hack and then creating a website and selling t-shirts where you show that you're tough and, you know, against the media to get MAGA money. So, you know, we got to step up our game. And, you know, I thought it was welcome news this morning that I saw Michael Bloomberg is going to be switching his ads from every other issue that he's talking about right now to impeachment, which is good because he's running more ads than anyone else. But everyone else needs to step up.

And you know what's happening in some of these organizations. They're saying people don't care about impeachment as much as they care about health care so we want to focus all of our firepower on health care i get that i get there's limited resources but like hey we'll all chip in for the next couple weeks just to take a pause and run ads on impeachment to make sure that at the end of this we have a narrative that is you know democrats really forced a lot of these Republican senators into an uncomfortable political position because that narrative is going to help us win in 2020. So it is important to do now. Yeah. I also just the good news is that despite the fact that we're at

this financial disadvantage right now, the polls are getting stronger and stronger. There is now a majority in favor of not just impeachment, but impeachment and removal. The numbers are really heartening. And, you know, I think we all live in this world of like what rules apply to Trump, what rules don't. Is there still political gravity? And I think sometimes we all fall for that a bit. Certainly the media falls for that, different parts of the media anyway. And it's just worth remembering that whether it's taking out Soleimani or it's polls on impeachment, like your common sense is not invalidated by the way regular people are watching this unfold. So that I think is at least just a tiny bit of hope in that. Agreed. Yeah. So in order for Democrats to achieve any of these

goals, it does seem like we'll need a longer trial that allows new witnesses and new evidence. Already since the House impeached Trump, we got new emails that tie Trump to withholding the aid. Giuliani goon Lev Parnas telling Rachel Maddow that Trump is guilty. We got the GAO saying that Trump broke the law and John Bolton saying he'll answer a Senate subpoena. What can Democrats say or do to win the fight to make all of this part of the trial?

Axios reports that Trump officials feel bullish about convincing Republican senators to buy their argument against new witnesses. And that argument is that it could compromise national security. That's an utter horseshit argument. I mean, they're trying to say that John Bolton can't testify first for executive privilege reasons. And there's an argument to be made there, right? There is executive privilege that exists for all presidents. This is an extreme situation, an impeachment trial. But the notion that Bolton couldn't find a way to talk

about the conversations with Ukraine after Trump declassified the transcript of the phone call is ridiculous. And it's just an abuse of the classification system. Again, like when they tried to put it on the code word server to hide the facts from the American people. On the executive privilege thing, too, it's one thing to claim that there are certain aspects of what John Bolton talked directly with Donald Trump about that might fall under executive privilege.

Now, I think lawyers would argue that that doesn't protect the president from committing crimes. But also, that certainly shouldn't mean that regardless of your view on executive privilege, that that's a blanket rule that John Bolton can't testify at all. He's telling his book publisher.

It's ridiculous. How about us? Executive privilege doesn't allow you to commit crimes. Right. The founders didn't say, yeah, no, the House has the right to impeach and we're going to have this impeachment thing and we're going to make sure that the president can be impeached. Oh, but we forgot he can also just use his get out of jail free card,

which is executive privilege. Why didn't we think of that? Like, that's not the meaning of fucking executive privilege you assholes it's crazy that axios just took that spin and was like oh they're very bullish about it they're very excited they're pat uh pat cibolone is proud that he's come up with this argument about national security like yeah what are you talking about also i know that like lev parniss is looks like a a morally flexible giant baby that has shady associations, and maybe we should be cautious about believing everything he says.

But corrupt people tend to hire other corrupt people to do their crimes. So I'd like to hear what he has to say. I think we should push for it. It was pretty explosive Rachel Maddow interviews. Yeah, I'm totally open. Investigate. I'm totally open to the possibility that Lev Parnas may have not told the entire truth to Rachel Maddow. That's certainly something, a possibility I'm willing to entertain.

That said, if everything he said was made up, Lev Parnas is the greatest screenwriter in the history of the world. And actor. And actor. Yeah. He's like, he's fucking Phoebe Waller-Bridge over there. She broke the fourth wall. They already corroborated some of it with documents right i mean schiff has been making this point that everyone's so focused on witnesses and there

hasn't been enough focus on documents but they've been withholding all these documents and i do think in the case of parness like we don't have to believe witnesses or not if there's evidence and there's plenty of evidence that the white house is holding back namely all of it there's a letter from rudy giuliani where he hey, I'm operating on behalf of the president of the United States and all my actions. Yeah, usually. I kind of buy that one. Most often documents don't lie.

They had to take Yovanovitch out of Ukraine because they were worried about her safety. And then Tex would love Parnas showing up being like, I'm following her around. Here's the kind of pizza she likes. Here's her address, Ukrainian. I think also, and Lovett, you just mentioned this about when you're talking about public opinion,

the Democrats are on incredibly strong ground here, talking not just about how the public narrowly approves of impeaching Donald Trump, but overwhelmingly approves of new evidence and witnesses. respondents say that the upcoming trial should feature testimony from new witnesses who did not testify in the house impeachment inquiry if you just ask republicans 48 say they want new witnesses while 44 say they do not democrats should be screaming this from the rooftops every single day of this trial and look i know that you know no one has to like bet on mitt romney or susan collins or anyone being like courageous and keeping their word. But Mitt Romney is on the record now saying like, yeah, I'm going along with these rules now, but I'm going to vote for new witnesses, you know? And so, yeah, he can break his promise. But these people are going out on a limb to put themselves on the record, not saying maybe

I'll think about it like, yeah, yeah, I want new witnesses. So we just got to keep the pressure up. And I think like, you know, the danger and what McConnell is betting on here is that we go through two weeks of this. Everyone's bored to death by all the details. And then when it comes time to vote, whether we should have new witnesses and documents, everyone's like, well, I'm not paying attention. That's it. Forget it. Yeah. And we just have to do everything we can to keep the pressure up until. And it's and, you know, and look, obviously, he's been lying about adopting the Clinton rules. They're not doing the Clinton rules. But even still, the

Clinton rules were not around obstruction of Congress, which denied the House a ton of access to important information and building their record. And it's also worth remembering that by the time the Clinton impeachment trial, this was a situation in which a lot of Republicans wanted to be done with it, too. Sort of a different circumstance. And then just one other thing I'll just throw out there. Phoebe Perfect Collarbridge, Phobe waller bulge what i'm trying to i'm trying to come up with a lev parnus phoebe waller but trying to find a joke in it i think you nailed it yeah no i think i think

perfect collar bridge you know because a perfect call anyway uh send comments call congress please tommy's wearing the call congress sweatshirt right now even now 202-224-3121 that's very helpful to be able to say this when it's not in my notes cd caller congress bridge so again the senators you really want to target susan collins mitt romney lisa murkowski uh lamar alexander has seemed like he might do it too and then some of the other vulnerable 2020 senators, Cory Gardner, Martha McSally, Tom Tillis, Joni Ernst. If you're in one of those states, they're one of your senators. Light up the phones. All right.

We're now less than two weeks from caucus day in Iowa, and no one has any fucking clue what's going to happen. I really don't. The race is probably more unsettled and unpredictable than ever. There was another Iowa poll over the weekend from David Binder. He's an Obama pollster who has certainly done a great job of polling Iowa in the past. That poll shows Joe Biden in the lead with 24%, obviously different than the Des Moines Register poll.

So no one knows. There's still not been enough polling in Iowa. Meanwhile, the race is getting a bit more aggressive. The Biden and Sanders campaigns got into it over the former vice president's record on Social Security and accusations of corruption. And even Hillary Clinton has weighed in because 2016 will live forever. Let's start with the Social Security debate. Bernie told The Washington Post that Biden has been open to making cuts to the program in the past. Why do you guys think Bernie is picking this particular issue to go after Biden on? And do you think it's a fair hit? I think that, you know, what we saw in the last debate is one of the only fiery moments in that debate was Bernie Sanders attacking Joe Biden's record on Iraq.

And I think this is part of that same argument, which is if so much of Biden's candidacy rests on stability and experience and wisdom and judgment based on a lifetime in politics, Bernie is systematically going through that record and saying, what has that wisdom gotten us? If he's open to this kind of, this is where he's been over the course of his career, and maybe he's in a better place now, why should you trust him to not be too moderate, too centrist, too conciliatory with Republicans when that's the tack he's taken throughout his career? Now, there's been this debate about whether you can technically say Joe Biden has been for cuts and how Democrats have over the years described not increasing Social Security as a cut. I actually don't think it's that. Litigating that debate,

I think, is less important than recognizing that there is a vulnerability in the more moderate positions Joe Biden has taken over the course of a long career. But Joe Biden can clearly respond to that and saying, look at where I am now and where I am now does not comport with the version of my positions that Bernie Sanders is trying to paint. Yeah. And also, like I imagine, this is an incredibly salient issue among older Iowa voters who you assume will caucus and desperately want to caucus for you and come to your corner and historically has been a huge driver of voting patterns in this country. Yeah, I was going to say two groups of voters that Joe Biden is doing very well with and Bernie Sanders is not doing as well with. Older voters and African-Americans and particularly older African-Americans, all of whom rely on Social Security, especially.

And so I think Bernie is sort of picking these issues that might start peeling away some of Biden's core constituencies. And as to the fairness of the hit, you're I mean, like, you can look back and you know, there's clips of Joe Biden in the 80s and 90s talking about freezing Social Security or balanced budget amendments and all that kind of stuff, raising the cap, raising the cap, means testing, right? So all this is, I think it's completely fair to look at someone's record there was this whole you know fight over the weekend that honestly was like hard to follow even for me about like doctored videos and not doctored videos and was joe biden being sarcastic in 2018 when he's talking about paul ryan or not like i don't even want to get into it now because

it was all sort of silly i think the main point is joe biden has a record on social security you said, it's fair to go back and look at the record of what he said. Where he is now is for expanding Social Security slightly. So that's where Joe Biden is now. But, you know, it's fair to look at someone's record. Yeah. Also, just it's interesting, too, because this is something that happened to Hillary Clinton as well, which is, you know, Joe Biden is a kind of mainstream consensus Democratic party figure. And a lot of times what he's paying for is having the mainstream consensus view at a time in which Democrats just had a different way of thinking about budget cuts, Social Security, trying to appeal to people with balanced budgets. I mean, you know, politics has changed over the 45 or 75

years Joe Biden has been in politics. Well, and also, look, we should say that in the middle of the budget negotiations, we were trying to avoid, you know, the debt ceiling and economic collapse, thanks to John Boehner and the Republicans in 2011. You know, there was one proposal that had been reported on that to get a big deal, we were going to make some minor changes to Social Security that would have, you know, reduced benefits somewhat. And it never went through because the Republicans obviously never agreed on anything. But Joe Biden's getting shit for that, too, because Obama was there. Yeah. You know, and I think that was bad looking back on it.

Yeah. And we all should should just be honest that the next time a Democrat is sitting in the Oval Office, Republicans are going to suddenly pretend to care about the $23 trillion deficit. And they will act like it is not almost entirely caused by cutting taxes for the richest people on the fucking planet. And we'll try to gut Social Security again. And so I think what the Bernie people are trying to signal is that he will be uncompromising on that issue and hasn't been in the past. And I think that's a fair tack to take. And I hope other Democrats say the same thing who are running too. Like it should not be led down the rabbit hole that we were led down in 2011.

So things did cool off a bit on Monday night when Bernie apologized to Biden for an op-ed that one of his surrogates, Zephyr Teachout, had written accusing Biden of having a corruption problem. Sanders said, quote, it's absolutely not my view that Joe is corrupt in any way. He also said, quote, I appeal to my supporters, please engage in civil

discourse. And I would appeal to everybody have a debate on the issues. We can disagree with each other without being disagreeable, without being hateful. I think this is very notable. Yeah. Bernie said that this is the point of the campaign where it's starting to get nasty, but it's not really nasty yet. And I think often the staffers are a lot more pissed off and eager to take shots at the rivals than the candidates themselves. And so I think, you know, like we certainly should debate Joe Biden's position on social security. I do think the Paul Ryan video was misleadingly edited at best. I think it was an overreach probably to send out an op-ed that called Biden corrupt. I think, you know, I would probably not want to be as full-throated with my attacks before Iowa if I were them. And it seems like Bernie is in the same boat

as me when it comes to strategic choices. Yeah, clearly. I mean, it's good for Bernie. I'm glad he said that. I think there's also, like you said, there's a political benefit to doing that, too, and that Bernie and Biden share a lot of supporters or at least people are trying to make up their mind between the two. The plurality of people who support Biden, their second choice is Bernie right now. I wonder what the conversations are like sort of behind the scenes and say putting out that op-ed, because it is true that there's sort of these two conflicting things. There's three things. One is to Tommy's point about the desire to not seem like you're attacking a Democrat. But then there are these two competing concerns, which is on the one hand, nobody wants to see Democrats in the primary add fuel to the Republican fire around Hunter Biden and sort of attacks against Joe Biden and the unfair way in which he's been maligned by Trump. At the same time, I think when the cameras are off and when the tweets aren't, when the tweets are going into the draft folder, say, I think everybody's like worried, like, you know what? He does have a problem. Now, I think it's wrong to call it a corruption problem.

But what's happening in the impeachment trial is a huge liability for Joe Biden. And I think everybody recognize that. And it's a difficult situation in which you don't want to accede to Republican sleaze around Joe Biden, while also recognizing that, A, there is something corruptish about Hunter Biden's job. And B, it will be a political problem for Joe Biden. That's just a fact. But the op-ed didn't say any of that. And here's the thing. In the op-ed, right, she talks about a bunch of different issues, you know, where Biden has received money here. It's actually an op-ed about policies he's taken, policy positions he's taken, which is fine. It's the use of the word corruption. Corruption. That's the real problem there. I think the test is,

if you're going to say something about one of the Democratic candidates, can you imagine saying that same thing if that candidate is the nominee and still say you support them? Right. So if you so if Joe Biden wins the nomination, Bernie Sanders can say, you know, I did disagree with Joe Biden's record on Social Security in the past, but right now I think he's going to be a great nominee. And that's a fair thing to say. It's harder to say, I do think Joe Biden has a corruption problem, but I'm happy he's the nominee. You just have to imagine the future and what you're going to be saying when that person is the nominee. And that goes for what you say about Bernie as well. I'm not in favor of kid glove primaries by any means, but I think that

a policy position should be vetted. And I think, frankly, if there's opposition research about a candidate that might come out in the general election, it should come out in the primary. That benefits everyone in the long run.

But you're right. Like when you are just sort of asserting someone is corrupt, it's a lot harder to defend and it's likely to turn off people. Yeah. And I do think sometimes people use that as a cudgel.

And you're not saying that, but I think do people do use that? It's just worth, there's a difference between saying don't attack each other, you know, do cake gloves, don't say anything that could possibly be used in an ad, which means not having real hard debates. I'm not for civility politics. I'm for keeping it relatively honest. I'm for smart politics, which is not being an asshole generally. And that's, I think, something that a lot of supporters of various candidates haven't necessarily learned.

But it's an interesting problem, right? Because it's so clear that there is this desire to get some of these questions about Joe Biden into the bloodstream without seeming as though you're making it impossible for him to win in the general. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just going to go with Bernie. Have a debate on the issues. Engage in civil discourse. There you go.

So that happens. And then you're like, oh, great. Everything's cooling down. Biden, Bernie, we're back on the issues great and then uh hillary clinton pops up this morning in a hollywood reporter interview where she wouldn't commit to endorsing bernie if he wins the nomination uh in a new documentary about herself on hulu uh which will be out in early march she says quote nobody likes him uh he got nothing done in the Senate. He was a career politician. What's going on there? What do we think?

I mean, look, I'll just start since I did not tweet about it this morning. But I have a lot of thoughts. If Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton has every right to say whatever she wants to about Bernie if she doesn't like him. She does not have to support him in the primary. She can tell other people not to support him in the primary if she wants. That's just totally within her rights to do that. Absolutely. But every party leader, every person with influence who is a progressive, who is a Democrat in this country has an obligation to say that they will support the Democratic nominee, whoever that person is. That goes for Bernie people. That goes for Biden people, Warren people, everyone.

And you know what? If that's not your view, if your view is that you won't support Bernie Sanders in the general, then you can say that, but you will be attacked for taking an incredibly immoral and wrongheaded position. And I have a feeling that, you know, even as we're recording this on Tuesday morning, I have a feeling this will be clarified at some point soon by Hillary Clinton. If she made a mistake, she made a mistake. And that's fine. Everyone makes mistakes.

But like, let's just admit that it's, it was a mistake to say that. Yeah. And it's also like not that hard to clarify. Like if Bernie's the nominee, I'll support him. That's it. That's it. Easy thing to say.

I do think sometimes that the stakes in this election are so high, it makes it harder to see them. That the sheer cataclysm of reelecting someone like Donald Trump is so hard to imagine that it leads people to not truly accept the stakes in the primary too. And I do see some of that. And that's part of Twitter. And that's part of like these comments and how people respond to these comments. And, you know, this is the last period before people start voting. And right now, we were just saying we don't know who the nominee is going to be. The vast majority of people who vote in the Democratic primary are likely not to vote for the person who's the nominee. And I see it in my mentions of people who say they don't like Bernie. I see it in people who say they can't see themselves canvassing for anyone who's not Bernie or Warren, right? I see both sides of it. And I think there's one thing that we can tell ourselves now before we know who the nominee is, is to say, say to ourselves, what can I imagine doing in the general for

the person I'm going to vote for? And can I pledge before I cast that vote that I will do the exact same amount no matter who wins? Just the question was so clear. If he gets the nomination, will you endorse and campaign for him? And the answer has to be yes. And maybe the most charitable explanation is that maybe she wants to hold back some leverage to extract some sort of promise or something. I think that's selfish.

or something. I think that's selfish. And to the people online, there's some defenders of hers who are online, who are my friends, who are saying, have some faith in her for once, like give her a break. I'm like, I did not develop a four part documentary about Hillary Clinton. She did. And then she did this Hollywood Reporter interview about it. And clearly the timing for the release of all of this was designed to drop in the middle of the primary because it would get a lot of attention. And what it's doing right now is exacerbating all the challenges and rifts from 2016 at a time when I think all of us know that maybe the most important thing we could do as a party is come together to win. And so I understand deeply the value of a united democratic party that tries

to heal these wounds. I don't get who this is helping besides Hillary Clinton. And I think that's shitty. And I'm, I'm not going to pretend otherwise. And I'm so sick of being browbeaten for like expressing what I think is a fairly obvious opinion about the, like politicians don't deserve our benefit of the doubt they deserve us to say what we really think and hopefully get them to do the right thing she is a brilliant human being who is politically shrewd and knows exactly what she was doing in that question let's not pretend it was like you know i mean it's just come on look and but the the reason that i wanted to talk about this is not because i think it's the biggest deal in the world but because of exactly

what you were just saying love it which is there's a moment now before the voting has started where everyone can just say like get in here if you are a bernie supporter just imagine knocking on those doors for joe biden because you you got to do it. If you're a Joe Biden supporter, imagine knocking on those doors for Bernie Sanders. Imagine knocking on those doors for Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren. Well, everyone likes Elizabeth Warren. A lot of people like Elizabeth Warren. But knock on those doors for Elizabeth Warren. Amy Klobuchar, all of them.

But leaders of the party need to start saying today that that's what they're going to do because thousands and thousands, if not millions of people will take their lead from them. And when people would say, oh, I won't support Mayor Pete because he's too moderate or he's McKinsey, that is bullshit. All of us need to step up and do whatever we can to beat Donald Trump. And it's like insane to me that that needs to be restated. Yeah. And look, and there's like you said, the party leaders is the important thing here because, you know, there's all kinds of voters out there who really don't necessarily see the difference between if their candidate doesn't win they'll say oh maybe i will vote for donald trump or maybe i'll stay home there's plenty of people like that

out there and but that's them it's on us people who are in positions of influence to set an example for everyone else and i'd also just say, it's clear from that interview that these feelings are raw and they are personal. And like I said, I get that. And that makes it, but that makes it all the more. I understand that for Hillary.

That makes the kind of opportunity to demonstrate leadership so much more evident. Like how powerful it would be for Hillary Clinton to stand up there and say, Bernie Sanders and I have our differences.

He hasn't been my favorite person. She can make a joke. Yeah. Like she can she could just say like, you know, if you know, I will support and do everything I can for the nominee, even if it's my least favorite senator from Vermont. the Bernie and Hillary side is a feeling among Hillary people that he did not do enough for her early enough to get his supporters to lay off her supporters, bring them together and turn them out. It's like, we can't be hypocritical here. And I'm kind of glad we're doing this now too, because I do think that like- Yeah, once there's a vote winner,

then it's going to be a- Because like, look, you know, we get, it's so funny. We were talking about this, that like we hear it like, I don't like those positive merit guys. They're in the tank for Pete. They're too nice to Bernie.

They're too nice to Warren. Whatever it is. I'm a Tulsi stan. Whatever it is. And it's like, I know that once the nominee is chosen. I'm here for Stank. The people calling for unity are going to be attacked as being for unity because they're candidate one.

But we are sitting here at a moment where I honestly, I genuinely believe that if you told me Bernie Sanders was the nominee, I can totally see that happening just as likely as I can see it being Biden. You can see Warren getting it. You can see Pete getting it. You can see Klobuchar from downtown. It's good doing this now when the race is so unpredictable. We have no idea who's going to win. One more thing before we get into it.

The person with the most delegates should win the nomination. It's a race for delegates. Just before we get into that spin, because that's gonna be a whole bunch of spin oh but i got more here and i won this state and i won these kinds of states we all went through this in 07 and 08 everyone had their spin about like why they were the big winner it's a race for delegates the person with the most delegates at the convention should be the nominee barring something catastrophic yeah good luck with that pitch on uh iowa caucus night when there's like 40 different data sets that's part of why I said it by the way guys so I'm going back to Iowa tomorrow Wednesday yeah and like I've been reaching out to all these campaigns just checking in see who's got events

going on they're all like well we think we might get in Friday night after impeachment but you know there's like four different snowstorms barreling down on the state. I mean, it is so unbelievably unpredictable. I mean, I'm a Des Moines Register and Seltzer poll stan, right? And I feel like that sample is the biggest and she's probably the best pollster in the state. But the fact that these numbers are all over the place, the fact that no one knows who's going to turn out. I mean, even the Register folks think that we're talking a third of the electorate will be new voters this time. That would be. No one has any idea.

I mean, look. Add to that the fact that now Buttigieg and Biden are going to be roaming around Iowa alone. I wonder if they'll go together. I was going to say. Buddy comedy. I am an Ann Seltzer stan as well. What I would do is I wish everyone else could just pull their money together and pay Ann Seltzer and the Des Moines Register to conduct polls every week. Because I do. Yes, we can. we in i believe i believe that's good i believe that um poll but

i don't know what the trend has been you know these things move around so fast that if she pulled again today she could find what uh binder found i don't know and we we just don't know yeah binder is a great poll sir i was surprised that his bernie number has been so low over time yeah that doesn't match the because what one thing well one thing that binder nailed back in 08 was that there would be this larger caucus universe for barack obama that most people had missed except for ann seltzer so her and binder were on the same page then um all right finally over the weekend a puff of white smoke emerged from the new york times building in manhattan letting the world know that the editorial board had made not one but two endorsements in the democratic primary amy

klobuchar and elizabeth warren the endorsement read as follows the radical and the realist models warrant serious consideration if they were angry i know i'm so angry if they were i was screaming in our house watching the special nerd i know i'm such a nerd emily was in the bedroom like what the fuck are you doing um all right so if there was ever a time to be open to new ideas it is now if there were ever a time to seek stability now is it that's why we're endorsing the most effective advocates for each approach there will be those dissatisfied that this page is not throwing its weight behind a single candidate everyone favoring centrists or progressives but it's a fight the party itself

has been itching to have since mrs clinton's defeat in 2016 ms klobuchar and ms warren right now are the democrats best equipped to lead that debate may the best woman win all right let's start with i feel like we should do process and substance exactly i said i was gonna say what do you guys think of their reasoning for picking two candidates and then we can talk about their reasoning for picking these two candidates. So let me start here with something charitable. We have some experience with how hard it is to create a new TV show, especially off of an existing thing, right? We had Pots of America on HBO. It was a challenging, painful process. I give them credit for trying to be innovative and try new things with the weekly show that I have not watched. That said, building up like an editorial endorsement process

in this silly like performative reality TV show way, sure it can make it more transparent, but it also heightens it. And it was just like, it seemed ridiculous online at the time. And that ridiculous sentiment, I think it's overwhelming when you end up choosing two candidates and you puff up this moderate versus radical narrative. I mean, the point of an endorsement is to choose. Yeah, otherwise. Without that core element, you don't have an endorsement.

We're not endorsing here. We're just because it's a tough time choosing for a whole bunch of reasons. We're like, all right, so we're just not going to endorse. If you're going to do it do it yeah so putting aside even landing on two candidates put aside them putting it on television like a reality show which doesn't actually bother me i was really more struck by the tone of the op-ed which had this real authoritative spirit to it like here's the debate we've decided you should have. We've chosen the debate that you should have. No, but the point I was going to make about that is what made me sad

about it is it felt like it was from another era because it felt like what they were doing was announcing something to the world, a quiet world where people would hear it, but they're not. It just felt like they all got together like thought really, really hard about what they wanted to say. And then they went up to their podium and just shouted it at a hurricane. It is it is a debate that reflects a narrative created by people like the New York Times editorial board and people who talk about politics, including us, a very insular group of political media people. That is the debate about the realist versus the radical model. It does not reflect how voters are looking at this primary, which is what really made me annoyed. What were you just saying? You asked Biden's supporters,

who's their second choice? Most of them say it's Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders, his second choices are split between Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden. Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren have been trading supporters back and forth in this primary for the last several months. But so, yeah, I mean, the thing is, though, yes, the fact that voters are ideologically hard to pin down, I think. And not just ideologically, because they do say it's not it's not primarily ideological that there's problem because they're said oh most of their platforms substantively the same it's this sort of view of the world that like do we just need to return to a time before donald trump or do we need fundamental change which again most voters would tell you both well that's but this is the point that i like i can even take them on their terms it's a little bit like you know we've looked at all the candidates and um one candidate has identified the

enormity of the problems however another candidate refuses to do so in the solution yeah it hits it ends up hitting both of them yeah it's it's also a problem it's so like i just want to understand what the takeaway from the other times is it's that uh they agree with the elizabeth warren critique as to them about about the scale of the challenges we face but they view as radical solutions that would meet those challenges. So it's like, so the radical approach is to correctly identify the problems and say what you think you should do

to address those problems. The realist approach is to look at our problems despite their grand scale and not address them fully. That's realist. In one part of the op-ed, when they're talking about Bernie Sanders, they talk about how they do not favor his Medicare for all idea for healthcare because they don't agree with that policy.

Later in the same op-ed, when they talk about Joe Biden, they say that he only tinkers around the edges when it comes to health care. Which was purely, that made me so angry. It made me so angry because it was like, so you didn't, did you Google it? Because like, yeah, I get that that's the slam on Joee biden and you can be for medicare for all ahead of a public option but the idea that like a public option from from joe biden is tinkering from pete budaj it's more from klobuchar it's more from warren it's even more like it's a pure aesthetic judgment um this is petty uh editorials are written in like this sort of definitive authoritative way right and they could be a touch haughty i would say this was no uh this one was no exception for sure my favorite part is they did little paragraphs for all like the also rams who didn't get it for mayor pete they wrote

his showing in the lead up to the primaries predicts a bright political future we look forward to him working his way up i know that is the most condescending fucking bullshit in a condescending process where some journalists ask you like antagonizing questions like it's good that they did it like fine but you don't have to be that annoying i will say we hope yang we hope yang gets involved in new york politics what was that what's happening does he want to do that i do think you ask him since everyone said one nice thing about this whole episode. I thought the candidates themselves in the interview, since I did watch this show, were maybe made the best case for themselves that I've seen,

like better than the debate stage and better than their stump speeches. Like I thought Joe Biden was sharp. I thought Bernie Sanders was like came across like warm. And he also said this thing about like, yeah, I don't say happy birthday to people. I don't do bullshit well. It's fine. Pete Buttigieg showed a flash of anger when he was accused of price fixing. Amy Klobuchar laid out a good case for electability.

Elizabeth Warren was great in how she would deal with Mitch McConnell in the Senate. Cory Booker made me cry with the story he told at the end when they asked him who broke his heart. The candidates were really good. with the story he told at the end of when they asked him who broke his heart. It was so the candidates were really good. I do think talking about now the candidates that they picked, Warren and Klobuchar, you know, Brian Boitler was sort of making the case for why this might have been OK. And he said, look, I think what they decided to do was they know that this could come down to a race between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. In fact, you know, maybe that's most likely if you really squint at the polling right now. And what they wanted to say is if it's going to be a race

between Biden, the more center left guy and Bernie, the lefty guy, we think it should be these two women instead who better represent those philosophies. So I guess and I think Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar do represent those philosophies very well. And I actually do like jokes aside, aside, like, I do appreciate that. I will, like, the second I saw it, I thought, well, in a field this big, choosing one candidate is not a rebuke to any other. But choosing two was. And I actually felt, my first reaction was to think this is about Joe Biden more than it even was about Bernie Sanders. Like, it is not surprising.

Well, they were very dismissive of Bernie Sanders. Yes. That's the thing is it's not surprising that the New York Times editorial board is not favorable to Bernie Sanders. It's just that's not their vibe. That's not their speed. I get I like that. That wasn't surprising to me.

So the fact that they wouldn't endorse Bernie, I think, is an expected result. It was less expected to see them come up with a convoluted way to say, please, please don't vote for Joe Biden. Well, and the irony there is the video that went viral from that show was at the very end when Joe Biden's in this elevator with this, you know, security guard, working class African-American woman who just gushes about how much she loves him. And it has like six times the number of views as any other clip from the entire show i'll be honest look a little of my reaction to this whole process is lingering uh rage from the 2008 primary process when they the times was equally condescending to barack obama they were saying things like but we need more specifics to go with his amorphous promise i was like fuck off but again though it's the same problem like that's not true that's the narrative like i don't remember exactly when the full rollout of all the policies

were but i feel as though by the time the endorsement came we were in the heat of like these were two extremely strong policy shops who did they endorse then i don't i don't remember they always showed you how much this matters and it also just the place of an endorsement in 2020 is like hard to really understand. And like, it's also worth remembering, too, that like these are a group of people who took a task of endorsing someone really, really seriously. And they did. And like as much as we can make fun of the outcome and I want to and I have. It's the end.

But no, but story in three acts. I was honestly, my overall reaction to it was one of just sort of sadness at the fact that so much of our politics now are the serious people getting together and just really, really trying to show you that being serious is still cool and still counts and makes a difference. And then they like you just it just comes apart. But just take the work seriously. Just don't take yourselves quite so seriously. That would be my note. And look, you know, Amy Klobuchar is happier about her Quad City Times endorsement than her New York Times endorsement. No shit, man.

She knows how to tweet. I would rather have like a really hard working like Iowa state senator or rep than the New York Times. That said, in 2008, I nearly cried when the Des Moines Register endorsed Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was like, hey, man, it's OK. We're going to we're going to make it.

We're going to win. Like, no, we do. All right. When we come back, Tommy talks to Chris Liddell Westefeld about his oral history of the 2008 Obama campaign. I am thrilled to introduce our guest, Chris Liddell-Westerfeld, who is my colleague from 2007 in Iowa and the author of a fantastic book, They Said This Day Would Never Come. a fantastic book. They said this day would never come. It's an oral history of the Iowa campaign, the general election stories, like the worst moments, the best moments all rolled into one. Great to have you here. Great to be here. So not a lot of people do oral history projects these days.

I remember thinking at the time, man, I should write down some of these great stories that I'm hearing. And I actually went so far as to force like Mitch Stewart and Paul Tuz and a couple of people to sit with me with an audio recorder and talk about fun moments. And then I lost the tape. How did you like, why'd you decide to do this? What got you to spend so much time collecting this history? Well, so in 2014, I was working in the White House and I left to do this. And part of the reason was when I was in the White House, my job was to make the president's briefing book. And so every piece of paper that would go to him would come through my office in some way. And I saw up close just how much effort goes into documenting a presidency. Every email is archived, every photo is archived. It is wild when you think about it. Everything the president of the United States jots down

on a slip of paper is supposed to get into a record, into the archive. Yeah. And in looking at that, I realized comparatively little had been done to document the campaign that put him in office. And so much about the way the president talked about that campaign was about how it wasn't about him. It was about everyone else who was working on the campaign, whether they were volunteers or staff. It was about people who wanted the country to go in a different direction than it was and saw his campaign as the vehicle to help push it that direction. And so part of the reason I decided to do this was I wanted to talk to people who had been a part of that starting at the time when it

was really unlikely and who saw it go from this long shot thing to him becoming the most successful politician of the last 50 years and what it was like to go through that. And so the reason I wanted to do it as an oral history was what so many people would stress to me when I would talk to them about that campaign, and I think this is true of, you know, any movement, cause, or campaign is the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there was no one person that you could focus on that explained everything else. It was all these disparate voices in different places. And so the hope was by putting them together, you could at least give

some sense of what it was like to live through that. You sat down with President Obama for the book. I did. What was that like besides a reminder of how slow he talks? Well, so one of the things that I had, I was pretty nervous about it beforehand. Isn't it weird? Like you work for the guy for a decade and you're still just like, I will never feel comfortable in front of this man. He's just the president. Right. Yeah.

And then part of the reason too is, I mean, when you start out as a volunteer or a staffer on the campaign, it's stressed to you how the most precious resource is the candidate's time. Yeah, for sure. And so if they're talking to you, then that's time they're not talking to somebody else. Right. I always the most precious resource is the candidate's time. Yeah, for sure. And so if they're talking to you, then that's time they're not talking to somebody else. Right. I always want to just hang in the back. Right. And so, you know, going into it, I was worried that kind of my own anxiety would overwhelm the entire interview. But fortunately, I realized this has been cleared to be on the

schedule by other people, including him. So this must be worth the time. You know, and what's ironic about it is you probably felt like, oh God, I'm wasting his time. This, I feel bad about this. He's probably thinking, this is actually a fun block of a half hour of my day. Everything else is a hard, shitty problem. But you were so gracious and you let me use some of the audio from your conversation with Obama for my Iowa series. And listening to him and reading him talk about Iowa, you can tell that this was just an unbelievably special moment for him. Yeah. And the thing that he talks about is this idea that he was the front man, but the organizers, the volunteers, the precinct captains, they were the band. And so he talked

about how much it meant to him to see people working so hard for him, partly because he had been an organizer himself. And so, you know, what he talked about is the idea that seeing that made him a better candidate. Wanting to be worthy of those efforts was really important to him. And that was something he talked about, but also people who were around him that entire year talked about too. Yeah. I mean, he would literally say over and over again, like, I just can't let these organizers down. He would introduce people who are 30 years younger than him on stage with him at events. And sometimes the organizers would get a louder cheer than he would get. I think he understood what people were putting into this campaign.

Yeah. And I think one of the things that was interesting is talking to people who'd been in Iowa, but then people in other states. So I started out in Iowa and had been an organizer there. But something I hadn't realized until I started interviewing people in other places is for that whole year they're organizing on his behalf, there's no guarantee the campaign's going to make it to their state. So like you're organizing in South Carolina, you know, if he had lost Iowa, then he would have dropped out the next day. And so that talking to people about how they had motivated themselves over that entire year was something that really struck me once I talked to people whose experiences had been different than my own. Yeah, we were very blessed. Another word is spoiled in Iowa.

We got a lot of his time. I want to talk more about Iowa in a minute. But just, you know, as you reported the book, was there a favorite story you learned years later that was from the campaign or from some time in the general election, maybe that you hadn't learned at the time that was like one of your favorite, you know, most moving or funny or, you know, worst moments? Yeah. I think something I tried to focus on in these interviews is this question of, you know, when you started in the campaign, you were asked, why are you here? Not why do you want Obama to be president? Why do you think he'd be a great president? But like, what compels you to do this day in and day out. And so hearing people's answers to that question and how personal this felt to them

was something that really struck me. And so one of the people talked about having been in the military in Iraq, coming back, having not been involved in politics before, but how a huge driver for him was backing a candidate who had been against the war and getting them elected. Another person talked about, they were an organizer in South Carolina, and they had a volunteer who was 86 years old who'd never volunteered before. And they talked about how her grandmother had been an enslaved person and just how emotional

it was to watch her go through this experience and how she also, when they first talked to her, they assumed that, you know, being 86, she wouldn't want to canvas very much. But then she just kept coming back for more packets. And I think, you know, the emotional connections that volunteers and organizers would form over the course of that campaign, there's so many examples of here of how that played out, and it was affected by the community you worked in, the personal history you brought to it. And, you know, what was unique about that moment in time, but also sort of universal about organizing is this sense that people were part of something bigger than themselves. And all the different ways that played out, I think, is what really kept me coming back to

this for so long. Yeah. I mean, you know, you and I worked for the campaign. And so we got a paycheck such as it was. But, you know, there were so many people that just gave and gave and gave of their time and volunteered and just did it because they believed in Barack Obama. And it almost makes you emotional to think about that group of people and how literally he wouldn't have won if not for volunteers and organizers. Yeah, I think that was something I hadn't fully appreciated until sitting down with some of the leaders from the campaign to hear about it, how much they stressed this idea that he would not have been the nominee if not for not only the people who organized him in early states, but people who took it upon themselves to organize in

states that there was no guarantee would matter in the primary. And because they had done that, by the time the campaign rolled around to them, they already had a structure in place. And that was the reason he won the nomination. Right. Okay. So we've mentioned Iowa a bunch of times. And we were colleagues there. Can you just talk about, you're in school, you get this job, where was your turf? What were you doing for Obama back in 2007? So in 2007, I was a student at the University of Iowa, and I had grown up in Iowa City. And, you know, like a lot of people after the 2004 election, I had done some volunteering, but I was pretty despondent after Bush got reelected. And I just kind of read all I could

about elections and realized I was kind of in this perfect position to volunteer for the next one. Iowa being first in the nation and then Iowa City being one of the most liberal parts of Iowa. So I would go to all of these candidate events when candidates would come to Iowa thinking about running for president. But Obama was the only one that I really got excited about. And so- Even when John Kerry turned down that beer bong? That's right. I was at that. Was that at the tailgate?

Yes, that was his tailgate night. Yes. How did that go? Well, it was awkward as the photo shows. A friend of mine shortly after that walked up to him in a homemade Wu-Tang Clan shirt, threw his arm around him and demanded a photo. So I think that whole morning was a little rough for John Kerry. Yeah. I mean, at the time it was a Big Ten tailgate, I think. That's right. Yeah. So, you know, you got to know what you're going into there. That's right. But so when Obama announced, I volunteered at his first event in Iowa,

I helped start the student group at the university, and this is how I was spending all my time. And so when I graduated, a spot had opened up in the office and I got hired as an organizer. But what I hadn't realized until I started doing these interviews was how unique my experience was in that I was organizing a place I already knew. And everybody almost who worked for Obama and I was an organizer had basically come to a place they had never visited to do a job they barely understood for a candidate widely expected to lose for little to no money. And so hearing about how their different experiences played out depending on their turf compared to mine, where I was, you know, I didn't know how to organize, but I knew the community I was in.

Do you think that that is more important than the training you might've gotten as an organizer? Knowing the community I was in? Yeah. I think what was important about it is I had a shorthand with people. Like I knew who to call if something came up. And that was really important. I think that the organizing part of it, you know, I was not a great organizer. I was probably middle of the road. And I think, you know, the way I got better out from caucus day, are you able to put your brain back in the state it was in, uh, at this time in 2007? Like what would you have been doing right now? I think I would have, um, just been feeling constant anxiety all the time, like overwhelming anxiety, uh, hour to hour. Um, and then, uh, sitting in an office with other people who probably also were feeling anxiety, but maybe we're better at hiding it. Um, and then, uh, sitting in an office with other people who probably also were feeling anxiety, but maybe we're better at hiding it. Um, and I think at this time I still had three or four

of my 17 precincts in Iowa didn't have a precinct captain. Oh, wow. And so, uh, I was not alone in that. There were other people that were also recruiting. But I can imagine that would be anxiety inducing. Yeah. I mean, that was the whole thing. Like your entire job for those few months leading up to the caucus day is about finding precinct captains. Because you can't in Iowa be in a caucus yourself. You can't do it yourself. Like you have to find local people who will take this on and do this. And so, you know, so much about those final weeks for me was getting people who were supporters to agree to be precinct captains or finding, you know. Getting people who were supporters to agree to be precinct captains or finding, you know, and I had this one really rural turf where, you know, I've been trying for months to find somebody. And it was right around this time where someone who I'd been trying to get for a long time finally agreed to do it.

And he was an African-American lawyer in his 30s in a precinct that was almost entirely white farmers or people who are connected to agriculture in some way. And what I remember in these final weeks is him explaining to me why he had actually decided to do something. And it was all about how he realized that he hated making phone calls. He hated going door to door. he hated making phone calls. He hated going door to door, but he, he realized that if he wanted Barack Obama to be president, um, then he needed to do something about it in his neighborhood. Um, and so, you know, the last couple of weeks was all about taking conversations like that and making sure they knew what to do on caucus night. Um, and I feel like that campaign, you know, that's, there are thousands of stories like that. People who did not literally intuitively want to don't consider themselves political.

But he appealed to them. And the idea of him as president appealed to them. And so they decided, despite their discomfort, to do something about it. I don't know this man who is your precinct captain, but I love him. It's so funny listening to this and just having, you know, or still being in the process of doing this Iowa series. In some ways, nothing has changed, right? There are still nearly 1700 precincts, which means you need a precinct captain in all those locations because you, the organizer, can't physically be in all the places

that you're in charge of. But also it's funny talking to these campaigns now where, you know, you guys spend a lot of time dialing through the voter files, traditional voters, ultimately Obama's strategy had to be to bring in new people who'd never caucus before because, um, we just wouldn't have won otherwise. But today the, the kids that are dialing through, uh, the voter that are dialing through the voter file are not reaching anyone. They're reaching like six out of 100 people. And so it's all this relational organizing. I mean, are you like upped on how the organizing has changed? Do you ever like talk to these field organizers about what they're doing and compare notes?

Well, it's funny. I did talk to someone last week who is an intern for one of the campaigns in Iowa. And she was talking about, you know, what I said. So do you think you want to go on to another state after this? And she was like, you know, I love this. But what I'd really like to do

is work at Crooked Media. OK. I was like, wow, that did not exist. I'm fascinated. One of the biggest changes, though, is Twitter did not exist. You know, so like when we had our staff trainings, you know, you or someone from the communications office would get up and basically be like, no one can talk to the press at all.

Do not talk to the press or Josh Earnest will kill you. Josh Earnest, the nicest person on the planet will kill you. And you know, the big difference now is you can watch what these organizers do all day just by following them on Twitter. And so you know, the big difference now is you can watch what these organizers do all day just by following them on Twitter. And so you can get a sense in a way that just wasn't possible before of the relationships they're forming, the connections they find with people, you know, by happenstance or through relationships. But, you know, I've only been back for the holidays, so I haven't spent a ton of time talking to people who are there now. But I've only been back for the holidays, so I haven't spent a ton of time talking to people who are there now. But I think you're right. There is sort of a timeless sense with the caucuses.

Ultimately, this is about finding other people in your neighborhood who are willing to stand in your corner. And the basics of that don't change. Yeah, and convincing them. I love this book because there have been so many movies, TV shows, books written about the White House. But like you said, nobody gets the campaign right. And it's not like you're fictionalizing a story. You're just talking to people about these experiences. And it's so much better when you win and so much worse than you could imagine when things are bad. Do you remember the Des Moines office got the cruise ship virus, the Nora virus in our, in our, it swept through our disgusting shithole of an office and everyone was laid up for weeks. Like things like that happened all the time. Yeah. I think so. You

know, when I worked in Iowa, I was in Iowa city, which was, you know, pretty sweet. Yes. It's good turf. Yeah. Uh, very, uh, non-hostile turf. But one of the things I didn't realize until I started doing this was how different that experience was compared to somebody who was in a rural area. And I just walked away with so much respect for people who, no matter the candidate they're doing this for, are the only people doing it in their area when they're not expected to win. And I mean, there was one person I talked to who, I think before you do anything in politics yourself, the best, the representation in pop culture that you have is essentially the West Wing or movies like it. And this one person talked to me about how she had this expectation before she went out to Iowa

that this is going to be me and a bunch of other people about my age working really hard, but sharing an office together, having the shared experience, forming these great bonds. And when she got to Iowa, she was told, you need to go to Charles City, this 8,000 person town. And she was the only staffer in Charles City. So she drives into this place. She doesn't know a soul. It's 45 minutes away from Mason City, which is the big landmark. And for people who aren't from Iowa, Mason City is not that big. But big for the area.

And basically in Minnesota. Yeah. And for many people who came to Iowa, maybe they had grown up in a more metropolitan area. If you're used to shopping at Whole Foods, the Casey's General Store menu is going to be a bit of a culture shock when you get there. Breakfast pizza is a different vibe. And so hearing about how her and others,

you show up, you don't know a soul. And the way they would describe going through the act of building community, it wasn't like, this is how I made this experience fun. It was like, this is how I decided I would survive this experience. Like you have to embed yourself in the community and then build a new one around the campaign. And so this 84 year old man became her best friend and he took her to church and introduced her to people at the church who introduced her to other people. And it's not like all these people are Obama supporters.

They're just people who live there. And so hearing about how people had formed relationships, not just in the more metropolitan areas where you would have peers your age, but in places where you were the only one doing this work and you would have to find a way to motivate yourself. It's lonely. And what passed as an office was often not an office in any real sense of the word too. I mean, people were on an island and what was just so extraordinary to me was the way people, like you said, built friendships, built community and got people to caucus for Barack Obama that probably didn't really care about politics, but really cared about that organizer. That's right. Yeah. That was something again and again. And I interviewed about an equal number of organizers

and volunteers for this. And what, you know, was moving about those interviews is the volunteers would talk about the organizers as if they were, you know, in some cases, their surrogate children, like they had adopted them in this community. And they would talk about, you know, years later going to their weddings

or, you know, introducing them to their grandkids or, you know, these relationships to their grandkids or, you know, these relationships that you form in this really intense moment that have the potential to last far beyond it. Yeah, they're enduring. So there's probably a bunch of field organizers listening to this show who want to be you, right? They want to work in Iowa and then win and then work in the White House someday. But they've been sprinting towards caucus day and living and breathing this moment every day for as long as they've been on this campaign.

And then at some point, someone has said, dial into this conference call, you're going somewhere else after, or your job is over. Do you have any advice for them for how to manage that uncertainty and that anxiety? Yeah, I guess I have two kinds of advice. So there's a whole scene in the book about people getting on that conference call

the day after the caucus and discovering. One person described caucus night as this cliff we went off with no understanding of what was beneath it because you didn't know how it was going to turn out. No one had said to you, people will go on to other states. It literally didn't occur to people, I can keep doing this until this conference call. And so, but they were scattered across about 25 different states afterwards. So I got sent to Alabama. Almost everyone I work with got sent to Nevada. piece of advice is, one is what everyone would stress was that because Iowa was first in the nominating process, the campaign, and this is true of other campaigns too, had put so many resources

into Iowa that other states hadn't been getting. So what they discovered when they went to other states was that whatever they thought they hadn't had enough of in Iowa was about 10 times worse. Yeah. It's like, oh, you had a printer? Oh, that must've been nice. Yeah. And then for me personally, I mean, a mistake that I made after Iowa, which other people didn't make because they had had the experience of going someplace new was to assume their experience in Iowa would be universal. And the mistake that it took me a while to understand is when you go into a new place,

the cultural dynamics, the social dynamics of that place are completely unique. They need to inform how you organize. And so being in listening mode as much as possible, while at the same time understanding we have to do this thing in relatively short amount of time is something I wish I had known before. Respect and power include, man.

How was Alabama? Where did you live? What did you do? Well, in Alabama, I lived in Mobile. Been there. It's nice. Yeah. And when I first, something that I was not great at and still struggle with is breaking away from brand familiarity when choosing places to eat. Okay. So I would eat at the Waffle House about two or three times a day. I mean, that's a pretty good choice. For the entire four weeks I was in Alabama. Some LBs get packed on?

Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, the crippling anxiety that I carried throughout that experience meant that I didn't actually eat that much. Right, that's true. So it really balanced itself out in a way. That's true.

But yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, it was, it was such relief to, to be reunited in later states with people I had worked with in Iowa, because in that period where there were so many states voting at the same time, you know, no one had the resources to stay together. Like you had to go someplace on your own and work it. And so, you know, when we got back to Texas, I saw all these people I'd worked with in Iowa again, and it was like this reunion. And it still feels that way, if we're being honest. I mean, any field organizers in Iowa listening to this, and I know I'm really delivering for a niche audience here, but I can't help myself. It's like Joe Klein wrote this piece

in time after Barack Obama won Iowa. And he basically said that these young field organizers will see themselves in the West Wing someday and just know how much that experience contributed to Barack Obama being president. I mean, I just think that people that give of themselves and give their entire life to a campaign, no matter which campaign it is, no matter what state they work in, no matter what the job is, are heroic people in my book because it takes a lot out of you. Yeah. And I think, you know, one of the, I mean, it turns out after doing this as heroic as that is, you can't really make 11 chapters just about knocking doors and making phone calls. So things people would talk about were just the personal cost of doing this for a year

and a half, like the physical and mental and emotional toll and how it was only later looking back that they realized, you know, they had either put themselves in some dangerous driving situations or like they hadn't been taking care of themselves in any way. But they would always say like the person that made me recognize I need to change something about what I'm doing was always an older volunteer who would care enough to insist that I eat more or go to bed earlier. Were there any stories that really jumped out at you?

Yeah, I think I guess so one thing that jumped out at me almost everyone I talked with had some version of I got into a car accident and it almost always seemed to happen in the final month before a major election day and so those kind of would stick with me when people would talk about those. But I think the place that that comes from is people really care about this stuff. And the way they would describe it was, I felt like any moment I wasn't working was a moment that I was letting down this bigger cause and not just, not Barack Obama, who to many of them became this, you know, like it quickly was not about him is the way people would talk

about it. Like they were interested because of him and obviously they wanted him to win, but it became about the other people you're working with. It became about not letting them down. Yeah, for sure. And so like Paul too's down, I mean, I'll be like Mary Grace, these people, these leaders that we loved. Yeah. And so that was something that people would talk about a lot that I think stuck with me. And I think, too, you know, it's easy to think that this was somehow unique to these people or this moment. But I think that spirit that animated these people is something that I feel like is here again. Like it's the same spirit that animated people in the Women's March or in the 2018 Midterms or I listened to the Wilderness podcast this week

and this woman, Angela, in episode two. Oh, she's incredible. Yeah, she started her own group in Pennsylvania. I mean, the same spirit, this desire for something to be different that animates these people today, I think is what was animating these people then. Yeah, and I have to tell you, from my time in Iowa with the Warren campaign and,

and, uh, Booker's Cory Booker's campaign, like, uh, there's the same vibe with a lot of these groups. I mean, there it's, it's really inspiring. Um, man, you jogged my memory about a car story. I remember being in, uh, I remember being in Des Moines and we were driving with Ted Sorensen, who is a Kennedy speechwriter, you know, famous legendary person. And I was in the van with him with like me and Marvin Nicholson and someone else and someone was driving and there were tornado warnings. So the secret service guys hit the gas and we're doing like 90, you can barely see because it's raining so hard. And like somehow the whole mental orientation of the people in every one of these cars was like, we got to get to this event on time with Obama. And Sorensen finally turned to the driver and he said, son, I'm 90 years old.

I can barely see, but I can see that van in front of us. Could we please slow down? And he's like, OK, you know what? He's got a point. One very important reader of your book was your editor, I believe, who obviously gave you notes, but now is also going out to campus for the last few weeks. Yeah. So Colleen Lowry, the editor for this book, is going out to Iowa for the last 10 days or so, leading up to the caucus to be a part of what these people were a part of. What's her turf? I don't think it's been assigned yet. I'm

not sure. I need to check. We're doing an event in Iowa City about a week before the caucus or reading thing. So I'll see her there. I want Colleen in a tumwa. I want her to gut it out, go somewhere where there's not going to be a lot of Democrats. Yeah. Well, she was a out-, she was a, a out of state volunteer in Pennsylvania in 08. No, that's, that's awesome. So I think when this came across her desk, she recognized peace of herself in these people. And also, I mean, I think that's a good part about the book again, is just volunteering. Like it's not just really cold and it's not just scary. Sometimes the Noctores, it's fun. It's rewarding. You'll meet people, you'll have great experiences. It will be funny and weird at times, but it's like the book I think does a great job of spelling out how meaningful this work is for people. Yeah. And yeah, that was something people would stress

to me again and again. So I hope that comes through. It did. It did. My last question for you, and maybe it's more of a conversation starter than a question, but there's been this big dust up this week about Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in a conversation they had a few years back where Elizabeth Warren felt like Bernie Sanders said a woman could never be president. Bernie Sanders denies that that happened. And I'm not trying to weigh in on either side of that conversation because obviously I wasn't there. But it did remind me of when I sat down with you for this book and I realized how bad my memory is. I mean, like, were you surprised at how much time you had to spend fact checking people or helping people remember things or are just inaccurate memories? people or helping people remember things or are just inaccurate memories? Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, because you're living this stuff, you know, you're really living the days when you're doing this. And so I think part of you thinks, well, I'll never forget. Yes. This is a formative experience in my life. Yeah. But it quickly fades. And so one of the mistakes I made in doing this was no one

interviewed me before I started the project. So all of my memories got replaced by other people's. Isn't it weird that that happened? Yeah. But I managed to hold on to most of my emails from this period. Oh, that's good. And so when I would do these interviews, I would send people these emails ahead of time and anything I could find about their turf to kind of help them remember, you know, this was a precinct captain. This was a volunteer.

You know, tell me about that person. And I think, you know, to that point about Senator Sanders and Senator Warren, I think it's easy for people to forget just how heated the 2008 primary got. Yeah. And so one of the things that I was struck by when I went to do these interviews, I interviewed some people who had worked on the Clinton campaign, who came over to the Obama campaign as part of this. And personally, just the amount of respect that I have for people who made that choice was really something, because they did everything everyone else did. And they worked as hard as everyone else did. And almost immediately, so many of them decided to join the general election campaign because it was about more than one candidate. It was about

the effect this campaign will have on people's lives. And so hearing them talk about that, going back and looking at some of the things that Senator Clinton said shortly after her concession, and I think what an effect that had on the party being unified by the end of that summer, I think was really important. And I think as we think about 2020, one, absolutely nothing that has happened this year comes anywhere close to anything that happened that year. Oh, buckle up, everybody. It's going to get so much worse. Um, but the other thing that I, you know, find reassuring is, um, because people were able to come together in 2008 after such a heated primary that went on so long, um, that, uh, as long as people keep this larger mission in mind that come the end, um, people will be together. Yeah. Listen, I'm so glad you did

this book. There are funny stories. There are heartbreaking stories. There are stories that make you remember why you got involved in politics in the first place, you know, and just like average people who did heroic work to elect this man president. So, I mean, they said this day would never come. It's on bookshelves now.

Chris, you know, thank you for putting hundreds of hours into this thing it really is like a really important uh piece of history thanks so much for having me thanks for coming all right thanks to Chris for joining us today and uh we'll talk to you on Thursday Thanks to the New York Times headboard We're sorry, we like you I feel a little harsh Yeah, look, there's some really awesome people Charlie Wartzel's hilarious, great writer about technology Jesse Wegman, very smart

Yeah, a bunch of really brilliant people in there Mernanau Bedroom, Hillary endorsing Bernie Shake the whole thing up That's so funny. Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The senior producer is Michael Martinez.

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