Pod Save America - “Honeymoon in Vegas.” (Debate recap special!)

Episode Date: February 20, 2020

Jon, Jon, and Tommy break down the feistiest Democratic debate yet, hosted by NBC in Las Vegas, Nevada. Then Democratic candidate Jessica Cisneros talks to Tommy about her primary challenge to one of Congress's most conservative Democrats in Texas’s 28th district.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. Later in the pod, you'll hear Tommy's conversation with Jessica Cisneros, a progressive candidate in Texas challenging incumbent congressman Henry Cuellar. Before that, we're going to dive deep into last night's Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas, which was certainly the spiciest debate we've seen so far. Tommy, how was Pod Save the World? Let's start there.

Hell of an episode, Jon. Hell of an episode. Timely. One of the big things we talked through was Mike Bloomberg's foreign policy record and platform. I don't think we haven't had a chance to talk about that much on Pod Save the World. I don't think he's gotten that hard of a scrubbing on these foreign policy views to date. Did you give him like an Elizabeth Warren scrubbing? You mean to the bone? Yeah, that involves a baseball bat and brass knuckles.

And we also talked about some of the other 2020 candidates, the situation in Syria, all kinds of good stuff. Excellent, excellent. Also, we crossed the $200,000 mark for our Leave It All on the Field fund. This is almost halfway to our goal of $500,000 to support Organizing Corps 2020, which is recruiting, training, and paying 1,000 organizers on the ground in key battleground states ahead of the general election. To help them

make this happen, and maybe sleep a little easier during the primary, donate at votesaveamerica.com slash field. Finally, we're going on tour. Come see Pod Save America and love it or leave it live in your town or near your town. We're not going

to all the towns. Yeah, we can't go to all the towns we can drive we're in spitting distance of most of you yeah uh you can get tickets and see where we're heading at crooked.com slash events well the democratic candidates finally had a debate last night uh in las vegas it was the first to include former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and he probably left hoping it's the last. The debate also included Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, and Amy Klobuchar, who went after each

other and really went after Bloomberg. Last night, someone changed Bloomberg's Wikipedia page so that it said, Cause of Death, Elizabeth Warren. Oh, man. And here's why. This is a clip of Warren challenging him on whether he'd release former employees from non-disclosure agreements so that they could talk about their

sexual harassment claims mr mayor are you willing to release all of those women from those non-disclosure agreements. How many is that? Let me finish. How many is that? None of them accuse me of doing anything other than maybe they didn't like the joke I told. And let me just put, and let me put, there's agreements between two parties that wanted to keep it quiet,

and that's up to them. They signed those agreements, and we'll live with it. So wait, when you say it is up to, I just want to be clear. Some is how many? And when you say they signed them, and they wanted them, if they wish now to speak out and tell their side of the story about what it is they allege. That's now okay with you?

You're releasing them on television tonight? Senator, no. Is that right? Is that right? Tonight? Senator, the company and somebody else, in this case a man or a woman, or it could be more than that, they decided when they made an agreement that they wanted to keep it quiet for everybody's interest they signed the agreements and that's what we're gonna live with. I'm sorry no the question is are the women bound by being muzzled by you and you could release them from that

immediately because understand this is not just a question of the mayor's character this is also a question about electability. We are not going to beat Donald Trump with a man who has who knows how many nondisclosure agreements and the drip, drip, drip of stories of women saying they have been harassed and discriminated against. So that went well. So I want to talk about the tour de force of a performance that Elizabeth Warren turned in here,

but I just want to start since we've all seen debate preps unfold. Like, was Mike Bloomberg, did they not think that was coming? Did they not prepare for that? I can't imagine. I can't imagine hearing that answer in debate prep and saying, yeah, boss, that'll get us through this one. I mean, that was disastrous. And it's not going away.

The NDA question is going to come up in every interview and every debate. I mean, that's what happens when something like this gets introduced to the American people on a big stage. was Bernie had a good, not great debate, but he had the best night of anyone because he's winning and running away with it maybe. And everyone kicked the shit out of Mike Bloomberg, who's maybe his primary opponent. But I think it was probably a big mistake for Bloomberg to have entered this debate tonight. I mean, at some point he asked the debate, but this was pretty close to Super Tuesday when he needs to rack up a whole bunch of delegates to really get in the game and he got pummeled. And so like you never know if the person getting pummeled or the person doing the pummeling is going to get penalized by voters the most. But

you know, the narrative coming out of this thing was that he's terrible at debating. Yeah. I mean, look, you know, you've seen this over the course of the past couple of weeks as Bloomberg has risen in the polls and used his money to buy name ID and support. There are all these terrible clips of Mayor Bloomberg giving awful interviews. There's just tons of them. And sometimes it's the way he says something. Often it's his sort of like, I'm going to tell you what's really going on here, kids. And then he says something despicable, as if he's the only one willing to tell the truth and the truth is something everyone knows and it's not. But the thing that is important to me about the debate is unlike the rest of these people on this stage, because they don't have the resources he does, he didn't spend a year in Iowa talking to

people, learning how to listen, learning what's on people's minds, learning the ways in which being a septuagenarian billionaire for 40 years has maybe made him out of touch. And so talk to the other two septuagenarians, you know? Yeah, right. That's some advice from them. Yeah, exactly. You get a lucky tie and you're fine. But but so here he is on this stage, you know, his helicopter landing him right next to the stage so he can walk onto the stage for the first time exposed to the actual politics of the Democratic primary. And he's wholly unprepared because he is an untested candidate, because throughout his career in politics, he used his wealth for often incredibly important and noble

causes, but also to inoculate himself from ordinary day to day on the grounds in the dirt with human beings politics. And it showed. And that's why, to me, all these questions about Bloomberg are really important. Whatever you think about Bloomberg, the most important thing in this primary is whoever our nominee is going to be, they need to be put through their fucking paces because we only get one shot to pick the person. And I don't want to learn how bad a candidate Michael Bloomberg is after he's the nominee. So, yeah, I mean, what it tells me about Bloomberg is, look, he hasn't inoculated, I mean, what it tells me about Bloomberg is, look, he hasn't inoculated himself from this kind of stuff through his whole life. He ran for mayor

three times in New York City, so he's been in debates before. But it is a problem that he has that a lot of other candidates, some other candidates who've been in this race who haven't done well, who hadn't been in politics for a while and who hadn't had to compete in politics for a while have had, which is, you know, he probably hasn't done a debate in 10 years. But also like the point is that he almost lost in his reelection in New York, despite having outspent that person 14 to one. And it was a surprise in part because he had used his resources to overcome his liabilities as a candidate. That's all. Yeah, no, he clearly does that. I'm just, I'm just saying from a debate performance standpoint. And you saw this with like, you know, I would say he's a completely different person in a million different ways.

But like Deval Patrick was a very successful two term governor of Massachusetts and then was totally lost in this race. Like people who haven't been in politics for a while tend to have some real trouble. And I will say, you know, Bloomberg has probably the best debate team that money can buy. And, you know, we all know Howard Wolfson. Tommy and I have been on the opposite sides of a campaign from him. You've been on his campaign. Kevin Cheeky is also very good. I do not think this is a problem of the debate team prepping Mike Bloomberg, which is a bigger issue for him.

This is the candidate. This is sometimes you have a candidate and you can prep them all you want. You can spend all the money you want and they don't want to listen. Yeah, but look, you can spend as much time in the gym as you want when you play a game. It's a different thing. And he was not prepared for this game. And also that coincides with like a bacchanalia, like an orgy of opposition research. And this reminds me of like the early days when Sarah Palin was picked as vice president, when like the oppo was hiding in plain sight. Reporters were just Googling. And right now, journalists are just YouTubing Mike Bloomberg clips that were posted

at the time from events that he did and finding like incredibly damaging commentary on fill in the blank, stop and frisk, dozens of other things. So he's going to be in the barrel for a long time. And now I think there's a pretty good chance that you can buy your way or spend your way out of that barrel, or at least most of the way out of it. That's just the reality of the media today. A lot more people are going to see his ads or see his Facebook clips or whatever the fuck it is, than they are going to read some deep investigative report in the Washington Post. But it's going to make for an uncomfortable couple of weeks. What I'm saying is, when you have a candidate who refuses to listen, grow,

who is stubborn, that is maybe one of the more unsolvable problems that you have on a campaign. There's a lot of problems that can be solved by money. There's a lot of problems that can be solved by other staff here and there. But if at the core of the campaign, there is a candidate who cannot learn and change and grow, which I would argue some of the other candidates on the stage have, and in past campaigns winning candidates do, you have a real problem. And to me, that was the biggest problem with Bloomberg last night. It's like this guy is a 78-year-old billionaire who is set in his ways, and no matter what you're going to do, you're not going to change that. And even in like, look, the answer is terrible. His answer on the end is absolutely terrible.

But also his tone is terrible. I mean, well, that's right. It's it's sort of like a why am I why do I have to be here? It's like this like that. It's all perfunctory that that he just needs to say I've apologized for stop and frisk without accounting for the harm it did. Right. Like there is a study that shows that it affected the high school graduation rates of kids affected by the policy. It is a deep and lasting pain

caused by his decisions as mayor of New York. And you don't see in his answer that there's any sense of emotional- Yeah, it's bloodless. It's bloodless, it's bloodless. And the same thing applies to the NDAs and a bunch of his other answers. So we've said for a long time that Warren's strength in these debates, which has been incredible message discipline, has almost become a bit of a weakness now that she's fallen behind.

It certainly seemed last night like she threw out the playbook for this debate. Oh, you think? And it could not have worked better. I mean, it was her best performance of the campaign. I think it was maybe the best debate performance of any debate in the entire primary campaign. What do you guys think it does? Because it's funny, I do agree with Tommy's point that it's hard to say that Elizabeth Warren had the best performance in the debate,

but that at this stage in the primary, Bernie probably won because he left largely unscathed and i think i don't mean to that to be unfair to warren because she fucking crushed it and i think it helped her campaign a lot right or it may help her campaign a lot but i just you know it's a i think it's a matter of time i feel like i think the way i had the same opinion which is i think elizabeth warren the debate. You know, I'm a gay person, but I do think I've discovered a new kink, which is Elizabeth Warren doing to Mike Bloomberg what Netflix did to Blockbuster. And, you know. Anyway.

You get it. Go ahead. You have to explain it, you know. I didn't have to explain it. I didn't have to explain it. I didn't explain anything. It's just out there now. You made Jordan cry. that joke was so bad but uh i guess it's it's a the

reason i say it's a matter of time it's that we are so close to super tuesday you felt that on the stage even bloomberg coming out of the box by saying that bernie can't win and his his campaign saying other candidates need to drop out which is incredible hubris for someone who doesn't have a delegate and you now have warren for the very first time, I think, deciding to go from a unity candidate who is above the fray and delivering her message as someone who's going to decide to own the debate stage by contrasting herself with every single person on that stage and having the incredible intelligence and deft touch and grasp of debating to successfully do that, which is incredible. But you think, well, okay, so she's going to get another look.

But here we are hurtling towards Super Tuesday, a national vote that depends on an incredible amount of ground game organization, advertising and set views about a big chunk of the party. And you just wonder if there's enough time for that to make a difference. Yeah. I don't think Super Tuesday requires organizing any basically anywhere i think it's all momentum and i think that this might be too little too late i mean she raised she raised a bunch of money here and she you know this was a new approach but she went from like wine cave to unity to i'm bringing a baseball bat to my podium and gonna beat the fuck out of mike bloomberg but the problem was her opening anecdote was uh you're a billionaire who calls women fat broads and horse-faced

lesbians, which was about the most brutal attack or opening shot I've ever seen in a debate. But again, everyone is losing to Bernie Sanders. And she was one of the, you know, everyone on stage was turning their fire on Mike Bloomberg. She did come back around during a healthcare discussion when she criticized Amy Klobuchar and Mayor Pete's plan. And in that, she had a hit on Bernie where she said Bernie's campaign relentlessly attacks anyone that asks a question about his healthcare campaign. But, you know, I don't know that that's really going to do any damage. Yeah, she tried. I mean, and we'll get to that in really going to do any damage. very closely. And I think the question is, did the rest of the viewers in the country who saw that debate, were they as satisfied as some of us by watching those hits? But let's, you know, we have a couple other clips to do here. So yeah, so like we were saying, most candidates,

except for those three that I mentioned, sort of shied away from attacking the Democratic front runner, Bernie Sanders. But at one point, Bloomberg tried to make an electability case for himself and attacked Sanders in the process. The moderators then asked Bernie about whether the socialist label will scare voters away in the general election. And Bernie pushed back pretty hard. Let's listen. I don't think there's any chance of the senator beating President Trump. You don't start out by saying I've got 160 million people. I'm going to take away the insurance plan that they love.

That's just not a ways that you go and start building the coalition that the Sanders camp thinks that they can do. I don't think there's any chance whatsoever. And if he goes and is the candidate, we will have Donald Trump for another four years. And we can't stand that. Senator Sanders, our latest NBC News Wall Street Journal poll released yesterday. We will have Donald Trump for another four years and we can't stand that. Senator Sanders, our latest NBC News Wall Street Journal poll released yesterday, two thirds of all voters said they were uncomfortable with a socialist candidate for president. What do you say to those voters, sir?

What was the result of that poll? Who was winning? Questions to you. Well, the question was that I was winning, and I think by a fairly comfortable margin. I might mention that. But here is the point. Let's talk about democratic socialism, not communism, Mr. Bloomberg. That's a cheap shot.

Let's talk about democracy. Let's talk about what goes on in countries like Denmark, where Pete correctly pointed out they have a much higher quality of life in many respects than we do. What are we talking about? We are living in many ways in a socialist society right now. Problem is, as Dr. Martin Luther King reminded us, we have socialism for the very rich, rugged individualism for the poor. Wait a second. Let me finish. When Donald Trump gets $800 million in tax breaks and subsidies to build luxury condominiums, that's socialism for the rich. When Walmart, we have to subsidize Walmart's workers who are on Medicaid and food stamps because the wealthiest family in America pays starvation wages. That's socialism for the rich.

I believe in democratic socialism for working people, not billionaires. Health care for all. Educational opportunity for all. Senator, thank you. Mayor Bloomberg, would you like to admit that the question was about socialism? What a wonderful country we have. The best-known socialist in the country happens to be a millionaire with the world. What a wonderful country we have. The best known socialist in the country happens to be a millionaire with three houses.

What'd I miss here? It was probably one of Bloomberg's best lines, I think. I guess, yeah. I just, it's so- Also, I just have to say about that answer for Bernie. I pray that is not the answer he gives in a general election about fucking democratic socialism. Because-

That sounds too theoretical to me like comparing it to let me tell you about denmark denmark's a great country like he he can easily root this in his theory of the case and his politics and his ideology is far more american than donald trump and that is it is rooted in the america you talk i mean he's talked about this before fdr's new deal linda johnson's Society. He can draw comparisons to Barack Obama, whatever. Like, it's American to make sure that everyone's taken care of. You know, like, just saying democratic socialism over and over again is not going to expand your coalition. And I think he has a really good case to make. I've heard him make it before. But like, getting caught in the

definition of socialism over and over again is just, it worries me. Yeah, I see it a little bit differently. I guess I agree in terms of just the exact word choices. I don't think it's going to Denmark. I do think he's going to have to, there's going to be a debate where basically if Bernie Sanders is the nominee, there's going to be an incredible effort to paint Bernie Sanders as the equivalent of what's happening in Venezuela, or Cuba, or elsewhere. And there's going to be an effort on the part of those who are democratic socialists, or like us, who want, who will be desperately trying to help the democratic socialists win to say, hold on a second, we're talking about the democratic socialism of Scandinavia. We're talking about the democratic socialism of Europe.

I think you have to fit it squarely in the American tradition. No, no, I agree. So what I'm just saying, I'm getting it. I think that the argument he's making is correct. It is the good argument. I think it's about the words he's using. Like, I think there's a way to basically say exactly what he's saying, that currently we have a government that doles things out for the rich and we need to take care of people. Right. Yes, of course. That's much better than what he says. Of course, of course. I guess I think it's just the argument he's making is the argument. I think it's just a matter of how do you frame it in a way that's going to make as many people susceptible to it as possible. Go ahead, Tom. I know. I worry we're all whistling past the graveyard here. And it's real fucking easy to run a nationalist jingoistic campaign where you scare people. And if your defense is correcting people who say you're a socialist and you say democratic socialist, I think you're starting off

on a defensive foot and going down a very confusing theoretical road to explain your theory of the case when you're going to see a smear mongering, like nasty negative campaign that's like, oh, Bernie's a communist, here he is in the Soviet Union, conflating all these things in a totally unfair way. And they need to be ready for that with an answer, not this high-minded conversation we're having, not the high-minded conversation on a democratic debate. They need to be ready for the nastiest shit possible. And there are some people who say, oh, they're going to call everyone a socialist, so it doesn't matter. That's such bullshit. I'm so sick of hearing that. It absolutely matters how you define yourself in an election and suggesting otherwise

is naive to the point of absurdity. Yeah. And I think it's like it's so easy to just say, like, this is not a this is not a campaign about labels or ideology. Like, this is what I believe. And this is what Donald Trump believes. And just move on. Go back and read Bernie's speech about democratic socialism earlier in the campaign is my favorite speech he's given in the campaign, minus all the parts where he uses the phrase democratic socialism because you could have removed them from the speech and it would have been a speech about how bernie is right in line with everything that fdr proposed and is actually like finishing the job that fdr and the democratic party once started it's a great speech except for all the parts about democratic socialism um so there was one other pretty uh odd exchange between

bernie and bloomberg over transparency over transparency that we just have to play. So take a listen. And I think the one area maybe that Mayor Bloomberg and I share, you have two stents as well. 25 years ago. Well, we both have two stents. It's a procedure that it's done about a million times a year. Just a couple of Democratic frontrunners pushing 80, arguing over their stents, huh? It's the most old New York Jew thing that's ever happened in the history of American politics.

Two septuagenarian Jews comparing their heart procedures. It is glorious. The way in which New York culture has taken over American politics is extraordinary. I don't know how to deal with it. I just, the Donald Trump, racist, small business owner from the outer boroughs archetype, the buttoned up business Jew

and the hippie, dippy, Takuna Lum Jew. Like, it is incredible. I feel like I'm watching my childhood on stage and that's all

I have to say about it. Elizabeth Warren should have jumped in and said, did someone say two cents? Let me talk about my wealth tax. That's great. I can't believe you saved that

it wasn't in the group thread just dropping it here she could have she could have just taken it over yeah i i have to hand it to bernie for doing that because basically he's like i'm not gonna hide the fact that i uh had a heart attack a while back and have two cents i'm just gonna drag bloomberg down with yeah well certainly better than his spokesperson just alleging that bloomberg had had two heart attacks on television earlier in the day. It is amazing, though, too, because it's like, hey, here's the situation, folks.

They're all really old and they've all had health problems and if you only care about... Well, they're all. I mean, no. The three of them that are talked as the frontrunners are old.

Elizabeth Warren is 70, but she seems like 40 on that stage compared to the rest of them. Yeah, she's the millennial of the group. I think she's I think she's a couple younger than me. But yeah, they're all old. It is amazing to watch the debate. Like people who only care about the agedness of the candidates they don't like. I find very frustrating on Twitter. It's like, look, their birth certificates are their health records and they have a number on them.

And it is a ticking time bomb. That's all. I just want to say I hope Democrats don't get bogged down in this. Like, you know what? Donald Trump has completely changed what is allowable in terms of what you should disclose about your health record. So as long as you make it to the finish line, I no longer give a shit about what these Democrats release. I also thought it was very funny when Bernie was like, like, like, follow me around the campaign trail. See how you're doing it's very funny he is very good at like attacking the moderator to make you laugh and also just worth remembering that you know yeah donald trump is a couple years younger but his blood is basically horsey sauce so it's like let's just let's keep our eyes on the prize

uh so another candidate who targeted bloomberg was joe biden uh and it's not surprising that his target was bloomberg's newfound admiration for Barack Obama. Let's play the clip. I'm the only one on this stage that's actually got anything done on health care. I'm the guy the president turned to and said, go get the votes for Obamacare. And I noticed what everybody's talking about is the plan that I first introduced. That is to go and add to Obamacare, provide a public option, a Medicare-like option. It cost and increase the subsidies. It costs a lot of money.

It costs $750 billion over 10 years. But I pay for it by making sure that Mike and other people pay at the same tax rate their secretary pays at. That's how we get it paid, number one. Number two, you know, from the moment we pass that signature legislation, Mike called it a disgrace. So what's the truth about Bloomberg's position on the Affordable Care Act there? We were talking about this yesterday that Mike Bloomberg has had a very Morning Joe like relationship to Obamacare.

It was the Sella Corridor position on the Affordable Care Act. He was in favor of it, spoke in favor of it when it was unpopular he decried it and thought it was a huge disaster and now that it's once again popular he's back it's his plan yeah now his plan is a public option which his campaign also said he was originally thought it didn't go far enough and liked the public option back in 2009 which uh then they couldn't really provide any actual evidence of that so let's talk about joe biden what how'd you guys think joe biden did last night generally he goes back to this i'm the only one formulation a lot i'm the only one that's actually gotten healthcare passed i'm the only one that spent time with the president of mexico and the one

before that and the one before that and it's true in some instances it speaks to his experience but it also sounds a little bit like he's shouting at you in a defensive manner. And I can't tell how it plays. Like maybe it may be for some people. He's like, oh, yeah, that is that's true. Joe is the only one with experience on that stage. He's tested. He's ready on day one, et cetera, et cetera. But I just can't tell how that plays at this point. It's got a real like Sunset Boulevard vibe in that it's like I am big. It's the debates that got small. I'm ready. I'm ready, Mr. Todd. Zoom in, Mr. Todd. I have to go bury my monkey.

Hope y'all caught that movie. Joe Biden did. Yeah, Joe Biden did the premiere. Mike Bloomberg and Bernie Sanders did. They were all there. Yeah, this is a debate. This is great for the debate participating audience. But I just think from the very beginning, there's even when the very first clip of Warren dipping Mike Bloomberg's bones in line, there's that there's

an aged grunt coming from the side and it's Biden ready to cut in. And I think that's how it felt throughout the debate. Like it felt like a candidate who is watching the real core of the debate and moving around him and trying to bring it back to him at the center. And he struggles to do it and he struggles to do it. I do think this was his best night. And I saw a lot of people noting that I actually agree. I thought he was stronger in this debate that he has been throughout the entire campaign. That said, at his strongest, I do not believe he is like if this was the first Joe Biden we had seen, I think we'd be criticizing some of his answers as being hard to follow, while some of them I thought were his best

answers he's given to date. So I think all of his liabilities and strengths were on display as had they have been for the past year. And it's led him to the exact position he's in. I thought that we've criticized him before for not having a lot of energy at these debates. And he had plenty of energy. So he absolutely brought the energy. Joe took an Adderall. He was good. I think yeah, right. I think what absolutely brought the energy joe took an adderall he was good i think yeah right i think what he brought an energy he sort of lacked in precision and i don't mean precision in his answers themselves which you're right i think many of them were quite good it's it seemed like of all the candidates he didn't quite have a strategy

like i didn't know what his the story he was trying to tell how he was trying to position himself what kind of candidate he was supposed to be like Out of the gate, it was electability, right? Because his first thing was like, he started shouting at the moderators because he was winning in the NBC poll and they hadn't mentioned that yet. Which was, you know, smart. It's good to put out there. Both Bernie and Biden have the like, yelling at the TV about the polls kind of thing, you know?

I saw, this was a debate, it's funny, it was an incredibly messy debate. It was an incredibly messy debate. It was an incredibly angry debate. And yet I think we all came away with it feeling kind of oddly giddy, in part because it was letting off a lot of steam that we've been wanting to let off. But but despite its messiness, I think everyone kind of collectively realized that the conclusions were relatively obvious. Right. That like Bernie had a good night because he's the front runner and really nobody laid a hand on him. Warren eviscerates Bloomberg and Pete and Klobuchar didn't like each other very much. I will get to it. But what I'm saying is that inside of that grand summary of what happened, there's very little to say about what Biden's role in the debate was. No, I think that's the tough thing. And look, if this was five or six debates ago, you'd say, who cares?

Joe Biden brought a lot of energy. He's the front runner in the polls. Great. Joe Biden brought a lot of energy. He's the front runner in the polls. Great. Now, what he needs for whatever reason, like a sitcom in its later years trying to inject some new life into the stories. They needed a new character like Bloomberg to come on to make it exciting again. And I think that that was a shame. All right. Let's talk about one of our favorite subplots of the night, the blossoming friendship between Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg. Will they or won't they?

It started when Klobuchar was asked a question about her failure to remember the president of Mexico in a recent interview and got even more heated when the two of them talked about her votes to confirm Trump's judicial nominees and for positions at places like customs and border protection. Let's listen to both of those moments. I wouldn't liken this to trivia. I actually didn't know how many members were in the Knesset. But you're staking your candidacy on your Washington experience. You're on the committee that oversees border security. You're on the committee that does trade. You're literally in part of the committee that's overseeing these things. And we're not able to speak to literally the first thing

about the politics of the country to ourselves. Are you trying to say that I'm dumb or are you mocking me here, Pete? I'm saying that you shouldn't trivialize that knowledge. I made an error. People sometimes forget names. You voted to confirm the head of customs and border protection under Trump, who was one of the head of Customs and Border Protection under Trump who was one of the architects of the family separation policy. You voted to make English the national language. Do you know the message that sends in as multilingual a state as Nevada to immigrants? You have been unusual among Democrats, I think the Democrat among all of the senators running for president,

most likely to vote for Donald Trump's judges who we know are especially hostile to dreamers and to the rights of immigrants. Now, in South Bend, it was not always easy to stand up in a conservative place like Indiana on immigration, but we delivered. We created a municipal ID program so that dreamers and others who were undocumented were able to navigate everyday life. We stood up for those rights and stood with members of our community with the message that they were as American as we are. I wish everyone was as perfect as you, Pete, but let me tell you what it's like to be in the arena. Number one, do the math. If my friend Andrew Yang was up here, that's what he'd say. In fact, I have opposed, not supported,

two-thirds of the Trump judges, so get your numbers right. And I am in the top 10 to 15 of opposing them. Number two, when it comes to immigration reform, the things that you are referring to, that official that you are referring to was supported by about half the Democrats, including someone in this room. So I would watch a dark comedy about the two of them being forced to run on a ticket together. What do you mean we inherited the mansion together, the old mansion that needs to be fixed up that we can sell it? The are you saying I'm dumb response sent a chill down my spine because it was so clearly not what he was saying. And it so scared me about what was coming next. I mean, I think Klobuchar, look, Klobuchar had an incredible debate in New Hampshire

and she set a very high bar for herself. But I also think that she had a pretty rough night. She got hammered by Warren on health care. She got hammered by Pete on this immigration exchange. She got asked about her record sending this teenager to life in prison. And I don't think that answered the mail on the broader question. I mean, this was tough. Can't we all be as perfect as you, Pete? That is a line that I am sure a lot of people following the debate online who don't care that much for Pete Buttigieg probably liked very much. I do not think that helped Amy Klobuchar all that much. I mean, I think what happened here is Amy Klobuchar, because she's sort of been under the radar, has not really had to defend her record at all in these debates.

She's been the aggressor. And I think she had the best debate of anyone in New Hampshire in the last debate that was sort of slower. I think in this debate, she was on the defensive and as opposed to either going on the offensive in a productive way or just hitting back got let her anger at Pete sort of get the better of her. Yeah, I do think, you know, Yeah, I do think, you know, I wish we were all as perfect as you, Pete. I do think that Pete's critique on think it's for a less substantive attack. It's good to have that less substantive response. But I think she's facing she's facing for the first time the an actual substantive rebuke of what she's been arguing for as a candidate, which in some ways like normal politics, like consensus building normal politics. Well, hey, hold on a second. If you've been trying to do consensus building normal politics in the age of Trump, and that has meant confirming some of these judges or voting

for some of these Trump appointments that have then become part of an administration that has pursued family separation and other heinous policies, you should be held accountable for that. Because while she can claim that she didn't vote for the majority of Trump judges. She's in the top 10 to 15. That's not great. It's not that great. So I do think it's a substantive attack. She's in the top 10 to 15. That's not great. It's not that great. So I do think it's a substantive attack. She wasn't prepared to answer. That's what I also do. I was thinking about this this morning. I was somewhat sympathetic to Amy Klobuchar in that I do think she got a bit of a raw deal in terms of the questions that came to her. I don't think

she totally handled the questions that would have allowed her to go on offense as well as she could. That first question she got at the very opening of the debate, I don't think she totally nailed. That said, she was like, the questions she got were beyond, I think the very fair question about her record as a prosecutor. She was pushed so hard on this question about Mexico.

And she fucked it up like two days ago. She has to be ready for this. I don't agree that it's in any way unfair to ask that question. I don't think it's unfair. She got ready to parry it. Also, Pete got it right. So she should know that he's going to come after her on this.

But then her substantive response and critique of him was something about designated cartels as a terrorist organization. But she didn't really explain the problem there or what policy issues it would create. It's just you should have been ready for that. No, I totally agree with that. I guess I just mean that she was asked a question about it by the moderator. Then the moderator followed up with a really hard follow up. Then Pete hit her on it. Then Elizabeth Warren damned her with faint praise to protect her from it. So in a debate that was covering every issue under the sun, it was a huge, her biggest moment of the debate was a long conversation about this issue. And I felt like that was that was a lot of stuff. Yeah. Let's talk about Pete, who was the one candidate who really did try to take on both Bloomberg and Bernie. Here's him making an electability case. rising figures on this stage. And most Americans don't see where they fit if they've got to choose between a socialist who thinks that capitalism is the root of all evil and a billionaire who

thinks that money ought to be the root of all power. Let's put forward somebody who actually lives and works in a middle-class neighborhood in an industrial Midwestern city. Let's put forward somebody who's actually a Democrat. Look, we shouldn't have to choose between one candidate who wants to burn this party down and another candidate who wants to buy this party out. I have to say, I think it's maybe the best argument Pete Buttigieg can make for his candidacy that he made at this moment in time in the race. I agree with that. I do agree with that. I do think it would be fun to give Pete kind of like an essay test

where he's given two things and has to find the middle. Like just two opposite things, like apple and cake, find the middle. But honestly, you couldn't give a test that's easier than this no bernie sanders and mike bloomberg i guess he's not placing himself between elizabeth warren and amy klobuchar right right right no totally burn it down is an exaggeration capitalism the root of all evil is an exaggeration it's probably a slightly less of an exaggeration with bloomberg but it's close um but it's like it is if pete is the only one who has someone on his team who knows how to, it is if Pete is the only one who has someone on his team who knows how to count delegates, because he seemingly is the only one who realizes that

Bernie is running away with the nomination. He might be over 30%. And there was a poll the other day that has him over 30% in California, which means he could have an insurmountable delegate lead. So Pete wisely in terms of strategy went after Bernie Sanders. And he makes this false choice about the burn it down or who wants to buy it. But, you know, I thought it was pretty savvy positioning. He also criticized Bernie for his support, his supporters going after the culinary workers, which led to a broader conversation about Bernie's online supporters, some small sect of them being assholes online, which is an uncomfortable couple minutes for Bernie as well. And that was one of the only other times he actually took some flack. I'm not sure i totally get the strategy of just crushing amy

klobuchar four different times but maybe when you know she's gonna go after you you have to be prepared to respond yeah so i had the same thought tommy and then um i was thinking about it last night and i realized like this was all about what happened in new hampshire with amy klobuchar right and so when you because it's a there's a good good argument to make that if Amy Klobuchar didn't have a fantastic debate in New Hampshire and get all that momentum, Pete wins New Hampshire because he was so close to winning anyway. And he really did split so much of the more moderate liberal vote with Klobuchar in New Hampshire. And I think everyone on that stage has a couple different things to take care of, right? All of them. And for Pete, he wants to position himself between Bloomberg and Bernie,

which is also what Warinda wants to do and Klobuchar and Biden. But Pete also has to fend off Klobuchar trying to take all of his sort of moderate liberal vote. And so I think that's what that was about. And he also, I think Pete also knew that he could probably trigger Klobuchar because she does not like him on a visceral level. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I didn't pick that up. Skill unlocked.

But no, I thought, look, it was, I thought it was a very, very strong case from Buttigieg there. So I do want to go back to Elizabeth Warren, who was asked about her identification as a capitalist towards the end of the debate and used the question to contrast her own electability case with nearly everyone else's. Let's listen. Look, Democrats want to beat Donald Trump, but they are worried. They are worried about gambling on a narrow vision that doesn't address the fears of millions of Americans across this country who see real problems and want real change. They are worried about gambling on a revolution that won't bring along a majority of this country. Amy and Joe's hearts are in the right place, but we can't be so eager to be liked by Mitch McConnell

that we forget how to fight the Republicans. Mayor Buttigieg has been taking money from big donors and changing his positions. So it makes it unclear what it is he stands for other than his own. So I heard that and I actually thought that was she probably did more good for herself with that answer than the takedown of Bloomberg at the top. The takedown Bloomberg at the top was for all of us that love that kind of stuff. But I think like we just said Pete did in the answer before that, that was Elizabeth Warren positioning herself in the field for explicitly, probably more explicitly than she has ever done by saying the revolution is not going to bring everyone along. Everyone else's vision is too narrow to address the real problems that people face. I thought it was sort of a masterful answer there. Yeah, I agree. I actually

think I was thinking about this, that this idea that Bernie sort of ultimately won because no one laid a hand on him, I think is probably true. That said, what Warren did with going after Bloomberg and what she's actually done for previous debates is give people a case, a positive case for why they should be behind her. And she did that really well by saying, hey, remember me? I'm a really fucking smart fighter. Like I'm a warrior and you should you should remember that. But the good but she also to do this other piece of it, which is tell people why they shouldn't vote for the rest. And I think coming back to that, I do think was incredibly. I mean, Elizabeth Warren was Tony Montana at the end of Scarface.

She was just fucking mowing down everybody on electability. And it was compelling in the moment. And I think all of us as nerds who love politics were very impressed by the performance. But it can sometimes be hard to be negative about every single candidate. So I just don't know how it's going to cut. The one thing I would say about a lot of the attacks over the course of the night on Bloomberg is that a lot of people brought it back to electability and why stop and frisk comments about women will make it harder for him to win, which was very, very savvy for Warren and everybody else, because we know that's what

Democratic primary voters are obsessed with. I'll just say something else about Warren and Pete, too, as debaters. I think, you know, there's one level of being a good debater, which is you come armed with a bunch of zingers and plan moments. And, you know, they both have that. Other candidates have that, too. There's another sort of like the next level of being a really good debater where you don't always have a planned zinger for a moment, but you can just push and do it in the moment. And apparently I read this morning in the New York Times that Warren's hit on Bloomberg at the beginning,

she was prepared to say something about the NDAs, but that was not scripted. And just her continuing to press him, how many, how many, will you release them tonight? Just doing that in the moment. She's very deft on stage. She's very nimble. And I think, and Pete, while he is much more sort of prepared and has the prepared talking points, he can also be very nimble, too.

And when you think about everyone's like, what's it going to take to have someone take on Donald Trump? Which I think there's plenty of problems with picking a candidate based on who's going to stand on stage with Donald Trump. As Tommy's pointed out, Donald Trump might not come to the debate stage. So who knows? And I think Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in all those debates and still lost. But when you think about who can take on Donald Trump, you do think about who is most nimble in the moment. And I think both Warren and Buttigieg showed that last night. Yeah, I agree. You know, Pete and Warren are two of the smartest human beings in politics.

They're incredibly talented people. And I think you saw that last night. You know, butt up up about gay news. Pete looked looser. He had a little bit of five o'clock shadow. His eyebrows were controlled, but not fully inside of the box, as was his performance. But I do think there was a kind of comfort for both Warren and Pete that came from seeing their possibility of being the nominee dwindling. And there was something in Warren specifically. It said in one of these pieces that she had a cold. She was desperately trying to get over her cold.

There's a quality to Elizabeth Warren that's almost like she's been counted out. She wasn't even polled by NBC on a lot of these questions. And she just came out there. And you never see her flinch. You never see her feel as though she's unsure how she's supposed to handle herself. There's such a inspiring quality in seeing this woman who has kind of fought her way to be on this stage, just sort of leave it all out on the field. And I was like our fund, like our fund, like our fund. Yeah. I mean, look, you know, she got beat up at some of the earlier debates and it was interesting to see her come out and not give a fuck. And I think a lot of people have the I don't give a fuck approach to the

debate tonight, which not surprisingly made them all better, especially in contrast to Mike Bloomberg, who sometimes seemed like he was worried that if he talks too fast, he would fart or something like he seemed so uptight and so unwilling to even move that it was uncomfortable to watch yeah i will say that for bloomberg the spin from his campaign was interesting and probably okay spin because they didn't do like no no everything was fine yeah they basically said yeah he took a while he took a while to get warmed up um which you know he his his the latter half of his debate was better than the first. The first half of the debate, he looked like fucking lost.

Deer in headlights. Didn't want to be there. Speaking too slow. Wasn't making any of the points. Just crazy. A billionaire at a Hampton Inn. Yeah. And then I do.

What do I do? It's like, what do you mean I got to make a waffle? Crazy, crazy bad. I've never made a waffle. And I do think he got better towards the latter half of the debate. And I'm very curious as to towards the latter half of the debate. And I'm very curious as to how he'll do in South Carolina when he does it again. It helps him to have climate change in the middle, an area where he has real expertise and a real record and something to talk about.

That said, though, he somehow got to a place where he was talking about his support for fracking done right, which is not going to help you in a Democratic primary. It might be critical to winning in the general. I don't know. There was an episode of the daily that scared the hell out of me about this topic but it was weird yeah fracking bins don't play too well in pennsylvania so that's going to be an issue and i know like he landed this punch about about bernie having three houses and he's a millionaire which felt very like i clearly a prep line yeah yeah yeah it's just that shit works man that shit works maybe i know as a guy who helped plant a fucking question about uh how many houses john mccain had we ran with that and again bernie's the nominee i'm glad he's being forced to answer this kind of stuff now so now we can see what because of course donald trump's gonna say bernie's a millionaire and what are you gonna do about that and and

bernie's dealing with it now good every whoever our nominee is should deal with all the shit that's going to come at them in general now yeah and see how they do democrats liberals why are you smiling love it i'm just thinking just thinking about bernie at his little cabin you're like i mean i don't know that it's that little i mean it's like he's a guy with a house like good for him who cares a good book like you know why because bernie fundamentally believes in capitalism that's the thing well and it's okay like democrats democrat all Democrats deal with this hypocrisy charge all the time of like, oh, you believe that climate change is real? Why did you take a plane in 2018?

It's just stupid and frustrating crap that we have to deal with from Republicans that Bernie will have to deal with even more so because he calls himself a socialist and it's annoying and it's unfair, but we got to win. Yeah. And like I said, it's, yeah, I made money and I bought some things. Great. I just want to make the society more fair for people. Like that's what, you know, that's the right answer.

All right. Let's end with the last question, which was all process, but very interesting, perhaps alarming. The candidates were asked, should the person who wins the most pledged delegates be the nominee, even if they don't get a majority of the delegates and win the nomination outright? Let's hear what they all had to say. We'll start with you, Mayor Bloomberg. Whatever the rules of the Democratic Party are, they should be followed. And if they have a process, which I believe they do,

I'm trying to do this so everybody else, everybody can. So you want the convention to work its will? Yes. Senator Warren. But a convention working its will means that people have the delegates that are pledged to them and they keep those delegates until the leading person convention. OK. All righty. Vice President Biden. Play by the rules. Yes or no. Leading person with the delegates. Should they be the nominee or not? No. Let the process work

its way out. Mayor Buttigieg. Not necessarily. Not to listen. Senator Klobuchar. Let the process work. Senator Sanders. Well, the process includes 500 superdelegates on the second ballot. So I think that the will of the people should prevail. Yes. Thank you. answer or Bernie's answer, but I was not expecting everyone else to side with Bloomberg there. It tells me that they think that Bernie's going to end up with the lead in pledged delegates at the convention, and they may not. Yeah, I guess I would say even if everyone gave the same answer as Bloomberg, I think they may all mean different things. How do you mean? In this way. I think Bloomberg means I would like to be the nominee. And even if Bernie gets the most pledged delegates, I would like to take them from him. Whatever. He would be part of a broker convention. He doesn't mind that.

He's interested in that. That's part of, I think, that's a possibility in their minds. I think for the other candidates, I think it is a little bit more about just sort of basic power and expectations that if you make that point, you're saying I have some say in a convention in which there is no pledged delegate majority going into the second ballot. Why do you think that though about the other candidates? What evidence is there that they are, they're just trying to be players in the convention and not doing what Bloomberg's doing and thinking, I could win if it's a brokered convention. I guess it's just my gut belief in the way they view the process.

Like, I can't see Elizabeth Warren participating in that kind of a burn-it-down Democratic convention, but I can see a lot of negotiations about role in the party and all that that will go on in a convention in which Bernie has the pledged delegate lead but not a majority going to the second ballot. That's all. Yeah. I mean, God, it just-

I don't know, obviously. Yeah. It just made me start to think about a broker convention and how catastrophic it would be. Look, everyone should just go read about 1968 and what happened there when you had a bunch, the will of the Democratic Party was behind McCarthy or McGovern or RFK until he was assassinated in an anti-war platform. And then they hand the nomination to Hubert Humphrey, who was continuing the war in Vietnam after 13 years. And it was a bloodbath. And it handed the election to Nixon in a lot of ways.

And look, history is not necessarily going to repeat itself, but there were riots in the streets. There was horrible violence. It tore the party apart. I mean, my biggest concern coming out of this primary is going to be democratic unity behind whoever the nominee is. And this kind of talk about potentially handing the nomination to someone who doesn't have the most delegates, which is, I think, the best benchmark of who is winning seems nuts to me.

Yeah, I've thought that too. i'm wondering with just listening to all these candidates say that i was wondering if and matt iglesias made this point this morning on twitter like if bernie walks in there with like a lead of 100 delegates then you know it's like good night it's over give bernie the nomination if bernie's like 30 delegates ahead of two candidates who are tied after you know behind him and it's like really close then what do you do but i don't see a fair way to adjudicate that other than a pledge delegate lead a popular vote lead whatever it may be and i don't know how you get out of that mess in a way that makes people feel good now the interesting thing is what i didn't realize and a lot of people are saying

today is that the person who was making an argument in 2016 that let's have that the superdelegates could possibly overturn the will of the voters was Bernie Sanders, which I did. Apparently, in 2016, he said, I hope that we win the pledge delegates. But at the end of the day, the responsibility that superdelegates have is to decide what is best for this country and what's best for the party. In my view, it's incumbent upon every superdelegate to take a hard and objective look at which candidate stands the better chance of defeating Donald Trump. So again, that makes sense to me because ultimately this is about power and expectations and leaving your options open. I guess my naive view is that I sincerely believe that Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, and Bernie Sanders want what is best for this country at that convention. And I do not believe any one of them would grab that nomination if they believed

it would mean we leave a convention, a broken party, unable to unify and win. I think there are a bunch of politicians who think that they're the best to lead the country and the most likely to win. So they'll do whatever it takes to get to that place. Like Bernie's a politician. He's not pure. He said something that sounds hypocritical in 2016 about superdelegates, which, you know, the difference between 2016 and today is the superdelegates rules have been changed. So they will no longer be allowed to vote on the first ballot. So it's not an issue until the second, third, fourth ballot, like whenever we would move on. But all of these men and women are in it to win. They all want power. They're all fucking politicians.

And I think that they're just going to scrap and scrape until they get what they want. And, you know, there's some people now saying, you know, only two states have voted. Why are we saying this thing's almost wrapped up? And I think they're not quite understanding that Bernie's that Bernie winning California by a good amount could theoretically end the ability of any other candidate to win even a plurality of pledge delegates. Like, I don't think people quite are getting the math right now. But at the same time, it is going to be a long primary. And you can see these candidates thinking to themselves, OK, say Bernie does well on Super Tuesday and has a pretty good delegate lead. Candidates thinking to themselves, OK, say Bernie does well on Super Tuesday and has a pretty good delegate lead. But then, you know, more oppo comes out. And as we keep voting in all these other states, suddenly Bernie's losing by like 60-40, 70-30.

All this is unlikely, I think, but it could happen. And then we're getting to the convention and suddenly he's lost the last like 15 states. They're probably thinking to themselves, then maybe I have a chance. Now, I still think you need a standard. You need for how to how to select a nominee that's not just and then a bunch of people get together and say like well this person should get it instead but this is why i do think part of it is just about expectations my i like look my sincere hope is that we do not have to uh check this conversation against the fucking record at the time that said one of the reasons i do think part of this is just pure expectations is if every candidate

on that stage said, pledge delegate leader is the nominee, it means it would be setting a standard for the media to just see who has the plurality. And once it became clear that it was impossible for anyone to catch Bernie on the plurality, we'd basically be saying it's wrapped up while these candidates are still campaigning in some of the late states.

So a little bit of it is just saying, hey, hold on a second. Don't let plurality leader determine the outcome before we get to some of the last contests to just let the contest play out. But what are they hoping for? They're holding onto their leverage, is what I assume. But I mean, just so people know, I mean, on Super Tuesday- A miracle, maybe. On Super Tuesday, you will have allotted about a third of the pledged delegates. By March 17th, you will have allotted 61 percent of the pledged delegates.

So we are going to figure this out real fast. Yeah. Faster than in 08 when it was more spread out, I think. I think that's just people are not quite understanding this yet. So final thoughts on how well the candidates made their case to voters last night. Any final thoughts on this thing and where we go from here? Well, we go to another debate on Tuesday, John. We have to do this again. Nevada, then a debate. We should say in terms of like, you know, Elizabeth Warren did really well last night. We'll see what, you know, some of the after debate reaction is among voters. But one of

the challenges in Nevada for some of these candidates who did well last night is that we've already now had three, four days of early voting in Nevada. And so a lot of the vote is baked. And lots in California too. And lots in California. Yeah. Watching last night, it's hard for me not to, I judge on performance too much just because this is what I do for a living. I thought Warren was great. Pete was very good. Bernie was good. But like I said earlier, I think he had the best night just strategically. Klobuchar had a bad night. I thought she had a really tough debate. I thought Bloomberg got pummeled. So will any of this change the race? This is the classic pundit bromide. We don't know. But I kind of think it did. I mean, I do think that I was getting texts from people that are tangentially related to politics or just sort of observing, being like,

oh my God, I couldn't believe how bad Bloomberg was. And I think the shine rubbed off in a big way last night. And a lot of people who have liked Warren and liked Warren at the beginning of the race saying like, this is the Elizabeth Warren I loved. And, you know, and I got I got a I did our little Paz de America text phone thing yesterday for a while. And I got a message from someone in Colorado who said, I've loved Elizabeth Warren from the beginning of this race. one in Colorado who said, I've loved Elizabeth Warren from the beginning of this race. And now I'm thinking of tactically voting for Bernie Sanders in the primary in Colorado because I think that like she can't win anymore. And what's your advice? And this is before the debate. And I was just like, you should vote for who you believe in and who wants to, you know, who's going to be the best president and, you know, maybe wait to vote until the Colorado primary. You see who's

still in the race. Like I would do that. But at the time, like, don't don't sit there thinking about, you know, if I vote for Elizabeth Warren is am I going to prevent Bernie from winning and I want a progressive candidate just if you like or vote for. Yeah, it's interesting. You know, all those polls show that the candidate whose supporters say they will unite behind whoever the Democratic is the most tend to be Warren supporters. Right. They're just there's a kind of in fitting with her campaign, a kind of rationality and maturity and goodness to her supporters. They are like, and I see this when I meet them. There's a genuine wholesomeness to this coalition.

And that means that these are people that love their candidate, but also just want to do the right thing and want to make sure that the right person wins. And she last night, I think, sent a message to millions of people who like her saying, like, just stick with me a little longer. This isn't done.

Yeah. OK. When we come back, we'll have Tommy's interview with Democratic congressional candidate Jessica Cisneros. Hey, everyone. Pod Save America and Love It or Leave It are going on tour for 2020. Between the news, this primary, and the general election. That's right. We're going to have a lot to talk about.

So come see us live when we're in your town. Get those tickets at crooked.com slash events and come hang out. That's crooked.com slash events. So we've told you before that one of our many challenges is that the contested primary has given Trump a head start in the general. Democratic candidates are spending money against each other. He's spending money on building an enormous field operation. That's why we're launching a brand new fund to help build our field operation starting right now. It's called Leave It All on the Field, and it will help support groups who are putting organizers in the battleground states to make sure we do what we have to do to win. The first group we're helping is called Organizing Corps 2020,

which is recruiting, training, and paying 1,000 organizers ahead of the general election in eight key battleground states. Current Corps members have already been making voter and volunteer calls, canvassing, and organizing on college campuses. All of this work will directly support our eventual Democratic nominee, and every Democratic campaign supports this effort. So please donate at votesaveamerica.com slash field. I am honored to be joined by Jessica Cisneros. She's an immigration and human rights

lawyer. She's running for Congress in Texas's 28th congressional district. Her primary against Democratic incumbent Henry Qualar is on March 3rd. Jessica, thank you so much for doing the show. against Democratic incumbent Henry Cuellar is on March 3rd. Jessica, thank you so much for doing the show. Thank you so much for inviting me. It is truly our pleasure. So I want to be clear from the jump that we are having this conversation today because we're huge fans of yours. We think people should support your campaign. And full disclosure, I personally donated money to your campaign in my personal capacity. So I don't want to mislead anyone here. But I should also note that you didn't enter this race lightly. I mean, you're running against an incumbent who I believe you interned for at one point. What made you ultimately decide that it was time for new

leadership in your district and that you were going to get in the ring and put yourself up for that job? Yeah. And also for full disclosure, I need to tell you that my team and I are big fans as well. So that's why like we're super excited to be on here. And yes, so I so my district and the reason why I'm running to represent my district, it really has to do with, you know, my story of being born and raised in Laredo, Texas. So it's right. Laredo is right on the Rio Grande River. And for a little context for people that might not be familiar with the district, it starts from Northeast San Antonio down to Laredo, Texas, and then down to the Rio Grande Valley. So it's a pretty big district, very diverse in terms of the geographical locations. 77% Latinx, 65% Spanish speaking.

77% Latinx, 65% Spanish speaking. As you can imagine, being from the border, there is this very beautiful bicultural culture here. It's an area of the country where people go back and forth between Mexico and the United States. There's so many children of immigrants there. Everyone has their own immigration story. And I have my own, and it's through my parents. My parents were able to get a shot at the American dream, you know, more than three decades ago after they were beneficiaries of the 1986 immigration reform because they started off as farm workers here in this country. And our story is so similar to many others in South Texas. And as you can imagine, I became

inspired to be an immigration attorney to fight for that American dream for many other families. But as you can imagine, under the Trump administration, this work has been incredibly difficult and heartbreaking in the past few years. It's even to the point that many people where we live, a lot of folks don't know that we have checkpoints. That's something that was very normalized to us while growing up. We have to go through a checkpoint to get, for example, from Laredo to San Antonio. We carry our passports with us, right? You never know what could happen. many families torn apart, doing a lot of work in the detention centers and seeing human rights violations on the daily. It was outrageous to me that my congressman, someone from a deep blue seat that went to Hillary Clinton by 20 points in the last presidential election, well, this district voted for her by more than 20 points. He was voting with Trump 70% of the time and enabling Trump's agenda. So for me,

that was a moment where I realized I needed to step up. Yeah. So you talked about how you're a human rights attorney by trade. Where do you want to see the Democratic Party go on immigration, particularly in a year where Trump's going to be running in the fall? It seems very likely that we're going to see a 2018 redux where he pretends there's a caravan of like ISIS members with the coronavirus heading to the border and demagogues the issue. Like how do Democrats in your view fight back against that kind of racist scaremongering? Well, this is the thing. This is why it's so important to have true representation and a real voice in Congress. I feel like right now in the political atmosphere, in the national conversation, you hear a lot about the border.

Right. And its inhabitants, people who live there. But you don't really hear from us. And I think that's exactly what we're trying to do with this race is lift up the voices in our community, paint an accurate picture of the hardworking people that we have in our communities that are, like I said, many of us have immigrant stories. So for me, I think this is one of the things that we're trying to accomplish with the campaign. Obviously, there's so many folks that empathize with the immigrant plight, right? And it's inhumane, the way that many of these immigrants are treated. The fact that right next to my childhood park under the International Bridge in Laredo, the sham tent courts are there, right? And for those of, you know, many people who do not understand what a

tent court is, it literally is a portable building, a tent, where people, refugees are coming into the United States and they're being provided this facade of due process. And when in reality, they're basically, well, the Trump administration is undermining the due process that is granted to these folks under laws passed by Congress. Question about your opponent. I mean, so Cuellar, you know, he says he believes in this idea of a big tent, right? And that candidates that run in primaries against incumbents, you know, it seems like he, he thinks that's bad, obviously, in this narrow instance, but in the larger instance, he believes that, you know, you should go start your own party

if you think the Democratic Party doesn't include people like him. Where do you stand on that argument that the Democrats need to be a big tent party? And are there issues that you feel like are litmus tests or dividing lines for who should or should not be called a Democrat? Well, when we're talking about expanding the tent for the Democratic Party, I mean, I really can't take his comments seriously when he's the one who fundraisers and endorses for Tea Party Republicans within the state. Right. I mean, he's done it as recently as in the last cycle. He endorsed John Carter, who, you know, was behind the was supporting the birther conspiracy theory for Obama. Right. It's like, how can you be supporting someone like that over a Democrat that was so close to winning that race? someone like that over a Democrat that was so close to winning that race. So I don't take I don't take those, you know, comments like seriously, because all he's doing is trying to protect, you know, trying to not have to justify why he's been voting the way he's been voting. I mean,

even before becoming a member of Congress, he was Rick Perry's Secretary of State here in Texas, and he endorsed Bush. And I think his brand of bipartisanship is basically putting the Democrat stamp of approval on Republican legislation. That isn't true bipartisanship. And here, you know, for us, what we're trying to do is actually make sure that we do elect more Democrats up and down the ballot. Like what I see my role between March and November is using the national platform that's going to come with taking on a 15 year incumbent and winning and, you know, be a resource, be able to do my part in helping increasing voter turnout in South Texas as well, because it's very low, even though we're very democratic, you know, Democrat can win between 60 to 85% of the vote here. We have very low voter turnout. And I think when we're talking about flipping Texas and making it blue, a lot of folks tend

to think about the red to blue areas, which are obviously important, and we want to support that way too. But we also need to think about South Texas where voter turnout, for example, in the last primary was 11% and we can do way better. So he refuses to debate you, I believe. If you had a chance to debate him, you know, what would you push him on? Like what issues do you think you hear about the most in your constituents and how is he failing them? Yeah, I think the top issues, I mean, the issues we tend to hear about a lot are health care, immigration and jobs. But also besides policy, I think it's just the kind of leadership that he's demonstrating or lack thereof. He's very absent from the

community. I think that's the number one, you know, complaint that we get from people at the doors. And we've been at it since June, right? Even just right now, before this, I was out there talking to voters. And it's astonishing how many folks, especially once you leave Laredo, have no idea who their congressperson is. We've been pushing for a debate since, you know, several months ago, and he refuses to meet me on the debate stage. Today was the closest that we got, which was kind of this weird pre-recording section from his part and a live section on my part on Texas Public Radio. We had an interview. Um, I was only one that was able to receive live questions from folks that were listening. Um, cause again,

he refuses to actually confront me. And it's interesting cause he's been spending tens of thousands of dollars, you know, smear attacks saying that I'm not from the district, which is ridiculous cause I was born and raised in Laredo. But he doesn't have, you know, he doesn't have, he just doesn't want to debate me. But again, this is because he just is afraid of having to be held accountable for the first time in 13 years, because this is the first true primary challenge in that time. Yeah, I'm sure he doesn't love that. this is the first true primary challenge in that time. Yeah, I'm sure he doesn't love that. One policy area where he's criticized you is support for the Green New Deal. He's been arguing that it's going to take away jobs from, I think he said, 17,000 oil and gas field workers.

And you hear similar arguments about Medicare for all and jobs that might be lost in the insurance industry. And I think obviously proponents of Medicare for All or Green New Deal would argue that the good that will come from that legislation far outweighs the bad, right? But maybe that answer doesn't satisfy you if you're working on an oil rig and you lose your job. How do you think we should message that challenge or speak to those workers who are worried about the personal impact of these big policies? Yeah, I think, for example, on a topic like the Green New Deal and our campaign's

approach, this is a perfect place to be able to highlight the broad coalition we've been able to build behind our campaign. We're obviously endorsed and supported by the Sunrise Movement. They're one of our first supporters. And one of our most recent endorsements that we're very proud of is the Texas AFL-CIO. And then we also have other unions supporting us. And then, of course, LCV and Sierra Club as well. People tend to think that they might be on opposite sides, right, when they're talking about this issue, because especially here in Texas, that means that there are oil rig workers that also fall under the Texas AFL-CIO as well. The reason why they felt, you know, that they could trust someone like me in this position was because, well, I'm here out here fighting for workers,

and I'm never going to vote for a version or support a version of the Green New Deal that doesn't take workers' voices in account when you're talking about the transition, right? I tell this to folks all the time. I understand where, you know, the fear of change is coming from because as someone that has, you know, was raised in the 30% poverty rate that Laredo has, I know what it's like seeing your family struggle having to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet. And you're still not sure where you know, how bills are going to get paid. I saw that with my parents. And I don't want any working family having to go through that either. So I get where they're coming from. And I think

this is why it's so important to have voices like ours that are truly reflective of people in the district at the forefront, because like, I think that my part in what the Green New Deal would look like coming from an oil state is going to focus so much on that transition to make sure that, you know, the workers get the training and skills necessary and be placed into a job if they choose to to go that route. training and skills necessary and be placed into a job if they choose to go that route. Yeah. So having someone like you sort of in the policy creation process can actually ease the transition in a way where someone dug in and fighting it maybe could not. Exactly. And I think, I mean, Henrik Goyer is never going to back something like this because just take a look at where he's getting his money to fund his campaign, right? Like he's one of the top congressional recipients from the fossil fuel industry. Whereas for us, this is where we're so proud to be able to have raised, you know, more than a million dollars for this campaign with grassroots contributions and PACs that actually align with our interests. So that allows us the freedom to be able to

advocate for what is actually best for the district. Yeah. So Democrats have been salivating over the prospect of winning Texas for years, but it hasn't quite panned out yet. I mean, Beto O'Rourke ran hard for Senate in 2018. He got close, but unfortunately he lost. How do you think Democrats can can flip Texas blue? Is there a pathway that you see or a strategy that they should take? Definitely. And I think it really goes that strategy runs through South Texas. I think we need to invest in making sure we're increasing the voter turnout because Beto O'Rourke only lost by a few points. Right. And I mentioned how low the voter turnout is in South Texas for the primary was 11 percent for the general tends to be a little bit higher, but not by much. So what would it have looked like had South Texas come out at 10, 20 percent more? Right.

I really do believe that would have been the difference. And again, I think having a true Democrat in the in the seat, I think it gives us the luxury, but also the obligation to focus on what we can provide the Democratic Party to be able to flip Texas. I think initiatives like, for example, voting by mail, making it easier to vote by mail here would be huge because right now only certain people can qualify for a mail-in ballot. You are either a senior or you're going to be absent from the district during the voting period and that's pretty much it. So if we actually made it easier for folks to be able to vote, I think that would be wonders for, you know, so many of us down here. Yeah. Just like zooming out a little bit and thinking nationally, I worry that sometimes Democrats talk about reaching groups of voters like they're monolithic,

right? Like talk about reaching the African-American community without any discussion of different ages or incomes or places or reaching Latino voters without talking about how, you know, their Venezuelans or Cubans might have different views than folks who are, you know, Mexican in origin or Puerto Rican. Like when you look at the democratic efforts to reach out to Latino voters generally, how are they doing? And are there things that people could take from your race that could do a better job of speaking to the specific needs of specific communities? Yeah. I mean, I think there's always room to improve, right? I think the fact that we're talking about even that being a priority, I think is huge, right? Because I don't think that was a conversation even a few years ago.

I think the reason why our message has been resonating so strongly with the people of the district is that my team is mostly composed of people from the district, right? So we're able to talk about these issues in a way that makes sense for many folks here. We're able to pull from our personal experiences and break policy down through anecdotes. For example, you know, Medicare for All is such a new concept for folks here. It's not like Henry Cuellar was talking about it. We forced him to do it. And obviously, he doesn't have nice things to say about it. And again, you can look into his FEC record as to why. But, you know, when we go to doors, we lean heavily into our experiences. The fact that there's so many folks here that have buried loved ones because they haven't been

able to afford care, or they have to go into Mexico across the border to be able to get cheaper medications, prescriptions, any kind of operation. And I mean, I recently had to go over there to go get a dental procedure done because even with my dental insurance, it was just too much out of pocket, right? Like that is so normalized for people over here. And when you are able to relate that way, people can definitely see why these policies or how these policies would have an impact on their day to day. So I think if there's something that, you know, can be taken in terms of a lesson and how to outreach to certain communities, it's by including those communities in the messages and investing in them. So making sure that staff is local, making sure that you're putting those voices at the forefront so that they can

have a genuine connection with the communities you're trying to reach. Yeah. So last question for you. It feels like, you know, your campaign's on a roll, right? It looks like Secretary Castro just endorsed you. You're hitting a lot of doors, judging by your Twitter feed. It sounds like the Pipes and Stripes car show was a good time. Early voting. Early voting has started. Like, how can people listening help you out?

How can they get involved? I know the primary is coming up, but what can people do if they're listening and they're like, I want her in Congress? Yeah, and thank you so much for the retweet on that one. The challenger next to the challenger. I couldn't pass up on that opportunity. But yeah, obviously, you know, if folks can, we are a grassroots campaign. So donations and volunteers are going to be crucial heading into the home stretch. We're on day two of early voting. into the home stretch. We're on day two of early voting. So if y'all want to, if y'all are far away and want to contribute to the work that we're doing, please send some donations over our way, because the same day that we got the endorsement from Secretary Castro was the same day that the Koch News Network also endorsed Henry Cuellar. So he was endorsed by the Libre Network, and they're spending money on him, trying to defend his seat, right? And that was the first

time that they've ever endorsed a Democrat. So you can tell that, you know, where and who, where he stands and who he's fighting for. So for us, like, if y'all can donate, please go to my website. It's Jessica Cisneros for congress.com. My last name is C-I-S-N-E-R-O-S. And then the four is spelled out F-O-R congress.com. We really appreciate the support. And we're also looking for Spanish speaking volunteers. I mentioned that our district is predominantly Spanish speaking. There's voters, for example, like my mother, who has lived in this country for many years and is a citizen and goes out and votes, but Spanish is her predominant language. So making sure we're reaching those voters and bringing them in so we can increase the voter turnout as well, I think is especially

important. Awesome. Jessica Cisneros for congress.com. I just want to say one more time, thank you so much for doing the show. Good luck out there. It's exciting times, and we'll be watching and cheering for you. Amazing. Thank y'all so much. Thanks to Jessica Cisneros for joining us today.

And when will we talk to people next, guys? Oh, we're going to Nevada this weekend. We're going to Vegas tomorrow, the three of us. Watch a caucus, maybe do some other stuff. Listen, if this were the Utah caucuses, I would be there because it's my job. I care about politics. Yeah, I mean, sure. Can we expense two nights in Las Vegas because we're covering it?

Of course we can. But we would have done that in New Hampshire. We didn't. The other thing you know is when we go to a caucus, the caucus goes well. Yeah, we gotta keep our eyes on this thing. Who watches the watchers, people? Us, we do. Because you know what made Iowa the problem with the Iowa caucuses

is what you needed is to take that whole event, put it inside of a casino. That's how you're going to make it work the best. You want pit bosses involved. Literally union bosses in there. Yeah, let's get pit bosses watching people vote. That's the key. Old people, shitty technology, casinos.

What could go wrong? We're going to go to some events tomorrow and Friday. We're going to watch the caucus at a site on Saturday, and then you'll hear the resulting pod on Monday. Yeah. All right, guys. Bye. We hope. We hope.

Pod Save America is a product of Cricket Media. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somenator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos every week..