Pod Save America - “Is hating the troops good for Trump?”

Episode Date: September 8, 2020

Joe Biden maintains a steady lead as the campaign enters the homestretch, Trump spends five days defending himself against disgraceful comments about U.S. service members, and the August jobs report shows slowing job growth and more permanent job loss. Then Fair Fight CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo talks to Jon Favreau about winning Georgia and fighting voter suppression.

This is a life-changing election. This will determine what America is going to look like for a long, long time. This is the most important election in the history of our country. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's pod, I talked to Fair Fight CEO Lauren Groargo about winning Georgia and fighting voter suppression. Before that, we'll talk about the state of the race as we begin the final homestretch, new reporting about Donald Trump's disdain for the U.S. military, and how the economy might play a pivotal role in the last few months of this campaign. Lovett, how was the show this week?

Great, love it or leave it. Travis tried to break up Ronan and me again. Didn't work so far. And Akilah joined for the monologue. And I talked to Imani Barbarin about access to voting for people with disabilities and the language we use when we talk about Trump and Biden. Outstanding. It was fascinating. There's also a brand new Missing America out today about sectarianism with a focus on how India's prime minister used Hindu nationalism to wage an assault against the country's Muslim population. It is excellent. Go check it out. Subscribe to Missing America if you haven't already,

wherever you get your podcasts. All right, guys, let's get to the news. We are 56 days away from the election and voting has already begun. North Carolina started sending out ballots on Friday. By September 24th, in just a few weeks, more than two dozen states will have also sent out ballots, and eight states will have started early in-person voting. According to FiveThirtyEight,

Joe Biden has a 7.6% lead over Donald Trump, and more importantly, is polling close to 50% in the six battlegrounds most likely to decide the race. Biden's at 50.8 in Wisconsin, 49.6 in Michigan, 49.2 in Pennsylvania, 48.9 in Arizona, 48.2 in Florida, 48.6 in North Carolina. Biden, Kamala Harris and Mike Pence were all visiting battleground states on Monday for the unofficial Labor Day kickoff to the fall campaign. While Trump called the last minute White House kickoff to the fall campaign, while Trump called a last-minute White House press conference to deliver this message. President Obama and Biden, Sleepy Joe,

he knew everything that was happening. They were spying on my campaign and they got caught. Now let's see what happens. But if this were the opposite way, people would have been jailed. They would have been in jail already for a period of at least, it would have started two years ago

and it would have been for 50 years for treason you think they had that mark down on the message calendar uh labor day kickoff to the campaign president goes out accuses opponent and past president of spying and treason um all right so we have been through both conventions, dueling trips to Kenosha last week. Tommy, what have we learned about the state of the race, Biden's challenges in the next 56 days and Trump's challenges? We have learned that the race is very stable, that that national polling average has been quite steady. I am not thrilled about some of the tightening we're seeing in state polls like Florida and Pennsylvania, but we'll get to that freak out another day. There was a Democratic Super PAC, Priorities USA. They did a big round of polling, like 5,000 interviews with battleground state voters

who have not made up their mind. And they found that by and large, for a lot of them, they're not only decided, but there's no chance they would vote for the other guy. That survey found there's basically 13% of the electorate that is persuadable. And within that group, about 5% of them would consider voting for Trump. So the question becomes for both the campaigns, how do you find those folks? How do you reach them? How do you persuade them? And the biggest challenge for Biden, I think, will continue to be finding ways to make news and just talk about issues that

actually matter on his own terms because Trump so thoroughly dominates the news cycle every day. I mean, in that press conference, we just played a clip from, he attacked John McCain again. He supported an investigation into his own postmaster general's corruption charges, which was sort of just like, I'll brush that aside, right? So he's obviously dominated the news cycle. Trump has this advantage on the economy. Biden wants to chip away at that. It's hard to get coverage of your plan to like strengthen collective bargaining rights or bring back manufacturing jobs in this climate. So they've got to work on that. The flip side of that, though, is that we're on day five, I think, of a conversation about whether or not Trump hates dead Marines or thinks they're

losers. I mean, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that was also probably not on like the post Labor Day message calendar. So you know, the hurdles for Trump are no discipline. He isn't capable of driving a consistent message. And then I think like much bigger picture is the handling of the Coronavirus. It continues to be a disaster. We're averaging 40,000 new cases a day, even if they do this sort of like October surprise vaccine gambit, which everyone now seems to anticipate. Most voters don't believe what he has to say on the issue. So those are some big hurdles for the Trump side to overcome. Love it.

What do you think? Steady. It is now the steadiest race, the steadiest lead in modern history. Yeah. I think we're at the point now where Trump is going to be Trump. He's going to step on his own message, right? And he's going to be lifted up by Fox News. He's going to be lifted up by going to be lifted up by Fox News. He's going to be lifted up by, you know, massive influxes of outside money. I feel like the question now is less about like the kind of movement in the polls that we see day to day and more, well, the fundamental advantages Trump has had, right, in the electoral college, in the media, in some of these swing states, in the kind of cynicism that a lot of voters have, will that be enough to overcome the fact that he is unable to carry

a message, the pandemic failures, and will his continued strength on the economy, will the fact that people still believe he is better than Biden on the economy, despite everything we've seen, be enough to carry him to an electoral college victory, even as he loses the popular vote. I mean, like that's the it's less about what Trump does. Trump is Trump. Right. You know, there's you know, he can't get enough Adderall in his nose to get through these things while staying on message. So and and it's and beyond that, like, what are we that's where we're at, you know? Well, I mean, look, the the fundamental steadiness of the race and Joe Biden's lead, it sort of plays both ways. Right. Like on one hand, it is it can be somewhat depressing that after a pandemic where the president United States has botched the response so badly, almost 200,000 people dead compared to many other countries around the world. A historic recession, a racial reckoning.

President is not trusted on any of those issues, has botched all of those issues. And his approval rating is basically the same as where it was before the pandemic. Yeah. Right. And so that's so so that part's surprising. On the flip side of that, it also means that some of the fundamentals that you're talking about,

people are like, is the economy going to improve and help Trump? Are we going to have COVID cases declining and that's going to help Trump? Is there going to be a gaffe that helps Trump? A lot of these other things, a lot of things either way aren't changing the fundamental dynamics of the race. And so what you have is this popular vote, electoral vote

split that becomes one of Joe Biden's biggest challenges, where a seven and a half point lead nationwide still could mean a very tight race in Florida, a tighter race in Pennsylvania, tighter race in some of these battleground states, because remember, Democrats won the House by eight points nationally in 2018, and still lost two statewide races in Florida, eked out a governor's win, a governor's race win in Wisconsin. So this thing could be closed just because of the fundamentals of the race. It's a funny thing, because, you know, Tommy pointed to what that Priorities USA race. It's a funny thing because Tommy pointed to what that Priorities USA survey and research found. And it kind of, I don't know, for me, it pointed to the kind of strange reality of campaigning and trying to win against someone like Trump. Right now, it's this mix of extraordinarily

unique circumstances against a pandemic, an authoritarian, there's mail falling off of the back of DeJoy's trucks. And then at the same time, you look at that Priorities USA research and what is the message they found that's the most important message to reach swing voters, not the third party voters, but the swing voters, potentially reachable voters. And it's, he's coming for your healthcare, he's coming for your social security. It's the normal kind of politics that we're sort of used to that helped us win in 2018. And so it's this crazy mix of we got Bernie Sanders basically giving speeches about how we all need to be prepared to take to the streets if he tries to steal the election. And then we have research

that's like, you know, he's going to cut Medicare. That's the core message. That's how we win this thing. It's this it's this strange combination. Yeah, I do think it's important to know who those voters are. There was, you know, the priorities looked at, Tommy, as you said, 13% of voters said that they are willing to consider voting for a candidate other than who they currently support. Then they looked at the 5% of voters who don't currently support Trump, but say they may consider voting for him. It's important to know who these voters are because we hear something happen and everyone's like, Trump's base will never leave him. We're not talking about Trump's base, right? These 5% of voters who don't support him now, but may,

they don't like him. They think the country's going in the wrong direction. They don't think he's good on healthcare, the pandemic, race relations, but they think he's good on the economy. And that's where they are. So these aren't like MAGA people, right? These aren't like Trump fans, but they're people who may cast a ballot for him. And I think like as Lovett, as you pointed out, you know, his plans to cut Social Security and Medicare to pay for more tax cuts, his plans to cut health care like that moves those voters. Tommy, I guess the question is like, how do you break through with those messages in this environment? Yeah, I know that's the hardest part, I think. I mean, look, a third of these

five percent who are Trump curious, it's like white women in, you know, I think 66, 70 percent of them are in cities or suburbs. So yeah, it's not the base at all. It's very much swing voters. The good news is, as you said, I mean, they're predisposed to dislike Trump. They are especially upset about his coronavirus performance. So I mean, that's the hardest task in this election for the Biden camp is like getting the message they want to get to all these voters. And I think with people who are, you know, not decided yet, it's probably gonna have to be through paid media, because it means you are probably not paying that close attention to the race, or at least not in the way we are. It's like the last it's the last of the voters who

are still susceptible to love me or hate me, you have to vote for me. It's like that, that all the shit that's happened to change it, like there's that group of people that are like, I think he's good on the economy and you have to convince them, right. That like, actually he's bad for you on healthcare. He's bad for you on taxes. He's not as good as he seems. Don't forget, don't forget that maybe your job has been okay because of where you happen to be in the country. Maybe you haven't felt the pandemic as personally in terms of the financial way it's hit people. But don't forget, he's coming for you in the second term. I do think the other thing we're seeing today with some of these polls is, and we've seen this for some time now, Biden is underperforming Clinton in a lot of these polls among Latino

voters. And I think that is another case, as you said, Tommy, of paid media sort of taking care of that. A lot of these, when you do polls of Latino voters, it's not necessarily that they don't like Biden or they just love Trump. They don't know much about Biden. They don't know what his agenda is. They don't know what he stands for. And so I think some of that you can take care of with paid media. But that's another challenge that I think he has. One more challenge for Trump that we should probably mention before we move on. There's a big New York Times story yesterday. Of the $1.1 billion that Trump's campaign and the party raised from the beginning of 2019 through

July, more than $800 million has already been spent. And now Trump is reportedly considering spending $100 million of his own money on the race. I did not expect them to be in a cash crunch with this many days to go. No. Brad Parscale bought a couple too many Ferraris, I think, because that's pretty abysmal management. Brad Parscale and the Beagley boys making off with a bunch of cash.

Swimming in money. So that's all the challenges for the Biden and Trump campaign. But as we say all the time here, the outcome of the race is ultimately in our hands. So at Crooked Media, we're calling today Get Your Shit Together Day. It's a great holiday. Get Your Shit Together Day. It involves each of you figuring out exactly when you're getting your ballot, when you're returning it, and how you're returning it. it and how you're returning it. All of that information and all of those deadlines from all 50 states is now available on votesaveamerica.com slash states. Thanks to our phenomenal

team, especially Juliette Bextrand and EJ Baker. All 50 states, they got information for. If you might be wondering what happens if you requested a mail-in ballot, but it still hasn't come? What if you decide you want to vote in person? Can you register and vote at the same time on election day? We've got answers to all those questions and more. So check out Vote Save America. It's a great site. Very informative. Fantastic. All right. So during Trump's press conference that we just talked about, as Tommy just mentioned, the president spent his fifth day in a row making news about a peace in the Atlantic by Jeff Goldberg, where multiple sources detailed numerous instances of Trump disparaging members of the U.S. armed forces. The president reportedly said of a visit to a

military cemetery in Paris, why should I go to that cemetery? It's filled with losers. He referred to Marines who lost their lives in a World War I battle as suckers. When John McCain died and White House staff wanted to lower the flag to half-mast, Trump asked, what the fuck are we doing that for? Guy was a fucking loser. While standing in front of the grave where John Kelly's son is buried, Trump turned to Kelly and said, quote, I don't get it. What was in it for them? And maybe the worst of all, Trump once told his staff to exclude wounded veterans from his military parade because, quote, nobody wants to see that. So, Tommy, Trump's been denying the story left and right. A number of his own staff publicly denied it to make the boss happy. All the MAGA

media stars are, of course, just taking Trump and his staff's word for it and using their denials as saying that it's debunked. Why is all of that bullshit? Let me count the way. So, I mean, look, he's a liar, right? Obviously, his staff is full of liars. And they supported him and backed him up when he was drawing fake hurricane path maps on weather maps that he had printed out, like from Alta Vista or something. They back him up when he claims that millions of people voted illegally in 2016 or that Obama spied on him. So they have no credibility. I'm not particularly convinced by Sarah Sanders when she trots out another lie. You also know that other news outlets were very quickly able to confirm the original Atlantic story or at least pieces of it, including Fox

News. So that was a pretty inconvenient data point for the Trump team. The anecdote about Trump being upset about the flags being lowered to honor John McCain when he passed away tracked pretty identically with public comments Trump has made about McCain. And the former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff said on the record that Trump's staff called him to complain about the flags being lowered. So it seems like that's pretty well confirmed. And it also just it feels like the sourcing on these stories is an open secret. People are heavily suggesting that it is coming from John Kelly's peers, like four star generals like General Mattis or Joe Dunford or others. And I'm not arguing that we should believe everything that those guys say far from it. well-positioned to know what actually happened, not just some little shithead Trump staffer who overheard something in a staff meeting. And then broadly, it just tracks with what we know about Trump as a person. I mean, we know he said that VD or avoiding VD was his personal Vietnam. He doesn't understand public service. He doesn't understand the concept of sacrificing something

for a bigger goal or vision. It's about money and fame and personal success. So it all makes sense. It speaks to his character. I mean, yeah, like it's it tracks the typical Trump denials around this stuff, right, which first it's all fake and it's a hoax. And then you get a bunch of people on the record and then you get a you know, then you get some anonymous sources, then you get more people on the record. And then finally, Trump just basically admits the thing that he denied in some other way. On the press conference, he said he wasn't a fan of McCain. He accused the country's top generals of being war profiteers. Yeah, that was cool. That was something that happened Sunday. Lovett, what did you think of this story? Yeah, I mean, look, Jeffrey Goldberg is not going to publish a conversation between John Kelly and Donald

Trump and where Donald Trump basically insults the memory of John Kelly's dead son. If John Kelly is going to go out and deny it, that's not going to happen. Right. That's like inconceivable. So, I mean, look, crazier things have happened. I should say that. And John Kelly hasn't. And John Kelly's been quiet. And he hasn't. And he hasn't. And he hasn't. Yeah, of course, it fits with what Trump has said. And then on background, right? Yes. Yeah. What always happens, right? Trump, Trump has his people go out on a limb and then he cuts the limb off this time. You know, now on background, you see some some of his Trump's Trump aides being like, he doesn't mean

it. He's just a huge fucking asshole. Right. Like that's sort of their belated the place they end up at. And yeah, I mean, of course, it's true. Like some of the things he denied, he said on camera, right? Like, I never called John McCain a loser. That part was on camera. I think he doesn't remember it because the loser is sort of it's it's inside of a of a sentence. It's not like he doesn't say John McCain's a loser, but he does call John McCain a loser. So I think he just doesn't remember that insult because, you know, look, he's been a touring comic for a very long time. He doesn't remember every every line. So, yeah, you know, obviously it's true.

I just do love that excuse that they basically use, which is like, yes, yes, he was an asshole to the troops. Yes, he was an asshole to dead troops, to wounded soldiers. But he's an asshole to everyone. It's like when they would defend Don Rickles for Asian jokes. Like it'd be like he's an equal opportunity offender. You know, the other thing they trotted out was like, oh, he just hates war so much. That's why he's lashing out.

This is just sort of the misconstrued. What? What are you talking about? Well, the thing that's so frustrating about that. He's so passionately against war. Right, right. He's a peacenik. Well, it's also like he goes around the country

saying like, we were out of bullets. There were no bullets left in any of the guns and I bought all the bullets. I've given, I've raised defense spending. I'm the guy that raised defense spending. Then he turns around and says, oh, these generals, they hate me because I want to cut defense spending or I don't want to spend money on a defense contract. Where does he think this bigger budget goes?

It's not, it's just a false attack. Yeah, his Secretary of Defense was a defense lobbyist before he got this current job. Yeah, for Raytheon, Raytheon, right? Yeah, he was making drones. So the Biden campaign and a bunch of other groups have already cut ads about Trump's comments, and the former vice president responded pretty forcefully over the weekend. Here's a clip. If these statements are true, the president should humbly apologize to every gold star mother and father and every blue star family that he's denigrated and sold it who the heck does he think he is he was pissed love it the question now is how much should biden and other democrats focus on this there were predictably a

lot of media and political types over the weekend saying that this won't really matter, won't change any minds. Even in the Atlantic piece itself, as Pfeiffer pointed out in his message box over the weekend, you know, in the Atlantic piece, it says Trump did no damage to his 2016 candidacy by attacking McCain or the Khans, the Gold Star family he attacked during the Democratic Convention in 2016. What do you think of that argument? I find that that's very silly, right? Like when a campaign wins, everything they did didn't work and every attack against them didn't fail. Right. That's just not how the world works. For all we know, Trump would have had a smaller popular vote lead had he not insulted veterans and insulted John McCain and insulted the memory of people who lost their lives serving the country. You know, I was I was thinking about this and I do think sometimes when these things happen,

it's a bit like Aliens, the movie Aliens, in that, you know, bad shit is going on. You know, we know, you know, there's the kind of like, there's like the Paul Reiser, McConnell types playing all the angles. We know who the aliens are, but then Twitter is like the part where Bill Paxton is like, game over, man, game over. Nothing matters. It doesn't matter at all. And it's just, there's the moment, right, where, okay, everyone, you know, the guy from the Abyss and Terminator turns to Bill Paxton and says, shut up. Things can matter. This isn't a horror movie. This is an action movie. We can actually win.

And to me, like the game over man people, the nothing matters man people, like I find it very frustrating because I obviously understand why it would be comforting and kind of easier to think nothing matters, but actually things do matter. That's what makes this period so awful. We actually can make a difference. We actually do have agency and we can decide to make these things matter. That's what Dan said in his column, which I think is exactly right, that these things can leave a mark on Trump. He's already underperforming in terms of polls of active duty military than he was in 2016. And in the same way, Trump is trying to go through our key demographics and pick off just enough to help him at the margins. That's something we can do too. And this can matter.

I do not think Trump is going to be helped in his problem of underperforming amongst active duty members of the military, according to the polls. Been a week of stories of him calling people who died for this country suckers and losers. I don't think that was good for him. Tommy, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, look, this shit drives me crazy. I just think like everyone needs to declare a moratorium on declaring something won't or will matter just because one, we cannot predict the future. That seems obvious, but you have to repeat it. Second, like whether or not it matters is up to the campaigns and it's up to the covered. So when you see a bunch of political reporters saying, and this won't matter, it can be a self-fulfilling

prophecy. And finally, we're not talking about the bottom dropping out, right? No one is expecting his approval to dip to 5%. Trump won Michigan and Wisconsin by 33,000 votes. So a small change in that support can make a huge difference. It could be the difference between winning and losing. And so again, what drove me crazy about this particular controversy is there was an analogous situation in 2016 in that fight with the Khan family, the parents of the army captain who was killed in Iraq. That exchange was one of the moments that really, really hurt Trump politically.

Fifty nine percent of Republicans disapproved of how he handled that incident, and it underscored broader concerns about his temperament. It made him look divisive. It's like all the things you don't like about him. So I'm not saying the Atlantic piece is going to engender that response, but I do think it's foolish to assert it won't. And if I'm Biden or if I'm a super PAC, I take the Fox News version of the Atlantic piece or what they were able to confirm of it. And I would boost it to every likely voter on Facebook. That's a veteran. That's part of a military family. That's active duty. Like that targeting is not hard. And I think groups are doing that as we speak. Maybe it'll

work. Maybe it won't, but like, you don't need to see an immediate drop in his poll numbers to decide something matters. It can be a long process of telling a story about someone's fitness and temperament for office. And I think like everyone needs to be a little more patient when things like this arrive before we decide whether it worked or not. Tommy, it's like the real sentence should be, if I went on the street and shot someone on Fifth Avenue, it would hurt me a little bit with some swing voters.

Yeah, hurt me in the margins. That's why I won't do it. It'll hurt me in the margins. I mean, it's a close race. There could be 150 million people voting. We have no idea what works on all of those people because different things work on different people. It's an incredibly diverse country and diverse electorate. And the mistake that we make is substituting

what we think should work or what might work on us or it might work on people we know with what might work on other people. Yeah. Right. Like I went into some of those focus groups for the wilderness thinking, you know, because of Twitter conversations and things I've read. What really works is issues. And it's not about character attacks on Trump. Right. That was my prior because that's what the research showed. And then I sat down with a bunch of people in Arizona who had voted for Mitt Romney and then voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, former Republicans. And they're like, I don't really care about issues. I just think Trump's a horrible person. That's why I'm voting against him. Right. And I'm like that. I did not think that going in. But like you talk to people and you you're surprised. So when you're a campaign, you play on as many different fronts as possible.

Also, there's 56 days to the election. We've now said it a couple of times. Trump has spent five days on this, five days defending himself from this, that he has lost in trying to define Joe Biden, which he needs to do because he's behind. Any day we take off the clock now where Trump is defending himself is another day closer to him losing and Joe Biden winning. Right. You know, at the very least. Allow yourself to be surprised. Like everyone was just asserting that protests or violence in Kenosha was going to hurt Joe Biden. And all the polling we've seen since suggests that people view Trump as racially divisive. They think he is likely to inflame those tensions rather than help them. So actually, maybe all of their messaging about law and order is cutting against Trump. So like, people are complicated. Yeah, we don't know. And like, do I think that the Biden campaign should like exclusively run ads on Trump's disparaging

comments? No, of course not. Like, get the policy ads out there, get those health care ads out there, get it, like, do it all target. But when you target. But when an opportunity comes up like this, you jump on it. You don't say like, oh, no, I'm going to talk about jobs instead. Speaking of which, let's talk about the economy. We had Friday's jobs report show the unemployment rate falling to 8.4%, but the rest of the news wasn't so great. Job growth is slowing. Job loss is becoming more permanent as opposed to a pandemic-related furlough. And the unemployment rate among black, Latino and Asian Americans is well over 10 percent, with black unemployment

hitting 13 percent. Altogether, less than half of the 22 million jobs lost in the pandemic have been recovered. And this report covers the period before Trump and the Republicans blocked a third round of covid relief spending that had been keeping the economy afloat in many ways. So Trump, who most polls show leading or at least tied with Joe Biden on the question of who can better handle the economy, reacted to the news by saying, quote, great jobs numbers. Wow. Unemployment rate much better than expected. Broke the 10 percent level faster and deeper than thought possible. Love it. What's the what's the argument about the economy that Trump's going to make in the homestretch? It's first of all, economy that Trump's going to make in the home stretch?

It's first of all, just it always is stunning to me because if you know you remember like how many how much speech writing and thought went into making sure that whenever you talk about improvements in the economy, you take a moment to recognize how hard it is, how much people are suffering, how pain, how much pain there is out there so that you understand what people are going through and how that that's completely out the window. I mean, look, Trump is going to point to the stock market. He's going to say that everything is coming back, that it was a pandemic and it wasn't him. It wasn't his fault. It was China. And if you give the reins to Joe Biden, socialism will come, the debt will go up. And all the problems you're seeing were actually kind of examples of the things he will do 10 times more. And he is banking on the fact that while people say he mismanaged the pandemic, he still has this residual approval on the economy. And while they blame him for doing a terrible job on the pandemic, it does not seem that enough people have taken that to imply that his economic leadership is suspect. There is that kind of residue of his

businessman acumen bullshit that continues to protect him to this day. And they're going to try to scare people about a Joe Biden presidency. I mean, they had, you know, Mnookin going out there saying that if, you know, we were actually doing a great job on the deficit and the debt until the pandemic, that's a lie. That's, of course, a lie because there was a trillion dollar corporate tax cut. And they claim that with Joe Biden becomes president, they will explode the deficit and ruin the economy. That's what they're going to say. Tommy, what do you think? What argument should Joe Biden make about the economy? I love it. Mentioned this earlier in that Priorities USA survey of like the small subset of voters were considering Trump, that 5% Trump curious,

they called them, which, okay. The strongest attack on his economic record was that Donald Trump plans to cut social security and cut Medicare to pay for taxes for the rich, and that he's gutting the healthcare system in the middle of a pandemic. Those are the two contrasts that I would focus on because they jumped out of this survey about these potential swing voters. They are core arguments we've seen do well in almost every single survey we've done in states and nationally with change research here on our Polar Coaster series at Crooked Media. So those would be the contrast. And then you just have to figure out what pieces of his jobs agenda he can lay out in the simplest, clearest possible way. And I do think that

starting that argument about what Joe Biden would do in his administration with getting the coronavirus under control, getting that response right as the key to fixing the rest of the economy is smart. So those are the things that I would focus on in the homestretch. Very obvious stuff. I'm sure in three weeks, we'll be talking about something completely insane and different that happened, but that's where I would try to go. Yeah. And I would, I would, I agree with all that. And I would also, you know, to what Lovett said, if I were Joe Biden, I would be, you know, I would say that Donald Trump judges the health of the economy based on the stock market. He's celebrating 8% unemployment is the best we can do.

He doesn't want to do anything to help people who aren't employed, doesn't want to help people who are struggling to pay the bills. He just wants more tax cuts and fewer rules for companies and his rich friends. He might be able to manage the economy into recovery, but who's going to benefit? Look around the country right now. Who's benefiting as we slowly come out of the recession? A lot of people who were wealthy and well off before the pandemic are doing just great. A whole bunch of people that were struggling beforehand are doing even worse. If I was the Biden campaign, and I'm sure they're doing this in debate prep, like I would be, you know, that first debate, September 29th, if Joe Biden can, you know, eat into Donald Trump's lead on the economy, at least even sort of break even with him on that and pursue an argument that shows Donald Trump as favoring the wealthy and, you know, his rich friends and his cabinet buddies and and everyone else over most working people in this country, then I think that's the ballgame. Donald Trump can't come back. That's his only advantage.

I would also say, too, that what Biden has been doing again and again is saying, you cannot have a recovery until you address the pandemic and make sure you're connecting those things. Because one thing that's also going on is we're about to lose over, I think, 200,000 census jobs that are part of these numbers. Fauci, others are all extremely worried about resurgence of the pandemic. We don't know what these numbers are going to look like absent stimulus. I mean, like, you know, forget recovery, like we could have another, we're in the middle of it, right? Like, yeah, so some of the jobs may have come back. Some people have maybe stopped looking, whatever the machinations led to lowering of the unemployment rate, we're still in massive, massive unemployment territory.

And there's no signs that this is going to get better for a while. So and he's got no plan. He's got no he he is he is unveiled. Nope. Trump has no plan to deal with this in the second term. Yeah, he's it's like his secret plan to fix the economy, which is. Yeah. I mean, also, just speaking of that debate and the in the in the nothing term. It's like his secret plan to fix the economy. Yeah. I mean, also just speaking of that debate and the nothing matters crowd, I mean, Joe Biden's son both served in Iraq and tragically died from cancer. You could see a moment where Biden turns to Trump and says, my son was not a loser. His service was not in vain. And the press corps is always looking for big emotional moments that spin out of debates. And suddenly you go from maybe very few people know about that story we were talking about earlier

in The Atlantic to literally every single person in the country watching this exchange who is planning to vote. And that's a big deal. And it's another reason why it's so dumb to predict. Yeah. And also, you know, last thing on the economy, and this is an opportunity for both Democrats and the Biden campaign, I think, you know, Senate Republicans today introduced a COVID relief bill that basically cuts unemployment benefits by $300 per week, offers some funding to the Paycheck Protection Program, but not much. And then the other big thing that they care about prevents workers from suing their employers if they get COVID on the job. So it's a bill that won't pass the House. It may not even get 51 votes in the Senate. But to me, like, so why did McConnell introduce it? Because he is smart enough to be worried that, you know, a bunch of people have lost their unemployment benefits. All of this

money that was being pumped into the economy by the government for the last several months that's kept the economy afloat is gone now. And McConnell knows that Donald Trump and the party in charge, his party in the Senate, are going to get blamed for that if they're caught not trying to do anything. So he tries to do this like small, tiny COVID relief bill because they've been blocking the Democratic bill. And to me, that's a huge opportunity for Democrats in the Biden campaign to just fucking hammer that for the next couple of weeks. Yeah, this is a this is a jobs program for Martha McSally, Susan Collins, Tom Tillis, Cory Gardner. That's what this is.

That's exactly right. Purely. We passed a bill. That's what they want to say. They want to be going around saying the Senate passed a bill. But, you know, Nancy Pelosi, it's a tirely political, tirely fake. And Trump knows it, too, because Trump's out there talking about how he wants to help. I want to spend some money and give people direct checks and all the bullshit, all the

stuff that he does on health care when he pretends that he's covering pre-existing condition and he wants to give people great health care. He's doing now on COVID relief because he knows he's supposed to say that because it could be a political weakness. But it's only going to be a political weakness if we make it one. And so I do think a huge part of the messaging from Biden and the Democrats need to be around this. Yeah, I mean, look on that on on that Labor Day, during that Labor Day

press conference in between his attacks on, it went attack McCain, talk about random monuments. Then he started saying, I know my customers when he was talking about Democrats in Congress and blaming them for wanting to spend a trillion dollars on relief and just, you know, not mustering any semblance of empathy for all the people who are desperate and out of work right now. And then he moved on to locking up political opponents. You forgot about Pelosi's trip to the salon. Did that come up? Nancy Pelosi got a haircut. I sketched out all the things that went on in that press conference. Then he yelled about vote by mail. Then he supported an investigation into DeJoy's fundraising.

Then there was the whole vaccine float. So it was a real fun one. Look, he's laser focused. He's laser focused on the economy and what matters to the American people. Right, right, right. Can't lose to this guy. We can't lose to this guy. I don't like the stakes being raised for DeJoy stealing the election. I don't like that. I don't

like that now. Now DeJoy needs the pardon too. I don't like it. Yeah, that's a good point. Although I got to say, DeJoy is going to get a call from someone in law enforcement. You can't have your former head of HR detail on the record in the Washington Post the most clear cut campaign finance violation possible. The only one that people actually go to jail for is these straw donations where you have your employees or your friends make donations to a candidate and you reimburse them. This HR director is on the record admitting to it. And then it's all backed by data like that guy is in some extremely provable. Yes. Extremely provable.

The reason that he's so screwed too is this is not some MAGA guy from the get-go. This is just your typical rich Republican donor asshole. Trump loves to cut those people loose. This is called Sondlanding. This is called Sondlanding. You're an old, bald, rich, white asshole who just wants the word ambassador on wedding invitations. And the next thing you know, you're testifying before Adam Schiff.

Yeah. And when Trump was asked about whether he's for an investigation, he was like, oh, yeah, absolutely. And if he did, they were like, what if he did something wrong? He's like, yeah, yeah, that'd be a problem. You know, there was no no effort to defend him. He's not helping him. All right. When we come back, I will talk to Lauren Groargo, the CEO of Fair Fight Action, about winning Georgia. On the pod today, Lauren Grohargo was Stacey Abrams' campaign manager. She is currently the CEO of Fair Fight Action. Lauren, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me, John.

of Fair Fight Action. Lauren, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me, John. Let's talk about Georgia, a state that no Democrat has carried in a presidential since 1992. Hillary Clinton got 45.3% of the vote in 2016. Stacey Abrams, your boss, got 48.8% of the vote in 2018. 538 average has Biden sitting at 45.6% right now, just about a point and a half behind Trump. How does Joe Biden get to 50 in Georgia? Well, right now, all polling shows Georgia's right in the margin of error. There was just polling that we released last week that had Biden up one, Morning Consult had him up, I think, two. And so let's just set polls aside because the race is tied. I mean, it's pretty clear if you look at all the credible polling. So what's unique about Georgia, in contrast to a lot of other battleground states, is first, we are the most African-American

electorate in the country. You come into this election, Joe Biden is going to at least probably have 33% of the vote will be Black Georgians. And what the second piece overall is that we have one of the most diverse electorates in the country with rapidly growing Asian American populations, Latinx populations, and whites tend to be getting younger and more progressive in the state just in terms of the overall demography. And so today in Georgia, there's already a progressive majority in the state, just in terms of the overall demography. And so today in Georgia, there's already a progressive majority in the state. The question is, can we mobilize that majority to turn out and have their votes counted? And what this looks like brass tacks, as you pointed out, Stacey lost the state by just under 55,000 votes, very, very narrow loss. In Georgia today, there are about 750,000 newly registered folks that weren't even on the rolls

in 2018. Half, about 49% of those new voters are voters of color. So the new voters are disproportionately voters of color. They're disproportionately young. They're disproportionately progressive. And they're not factored in to the 538 model, right? The 538 model and others are looking at likely voters. So we have a huge infusion into the electorate that skews towards our side. And secondly, when you add those new voters in, looking at voters that typically only vote in presidentials or maybe unreliable presidential voters, the Biden campaign and our Senate campaigns, because we have two of them, have almost two million Democratic leaning new or infrequent voters to turn out to close that vote gap. So it's a big number. We have a big opportunity.

So, you know, you're a campaign manager. You've had to deal with tough budget decisions. If you're on the Biden campaign, you know, you're seeing that maybe you're in a better position in states like Wisconsin, Arizona, Florida. Maybe they're more likely to be tipping point better position in states like Wisconsin, Arizona, Florida, maybe they're more likely to be tipping point, Pennsylvania, states like that. What's your argument to the campaign that they should spend more money competing in Georgia to sort of get that 270th vote? So I think we need to look at it in two ways. One, we need to not take any state for granted. I look at a state like Nevada. Nevada had more rejected absentee ballots by mail in their June primary than Hillary Clinton's margin of victory. So election administration issues, voter suppression issues, the challenges of COVID mean that the Biden campaign in all efforts need to take a very big look at their map. We want to make sure that we're not taking states like Nevada and Minnesota for granted.

At the same time, we need to make sure that we're playing big and giving multiple paths to the White House, as well as giving Biden the Senate majority he's going to need to govern and sort of turn the ship around. And so Georgia, we have two things. We have an extremely competitive state, as competitive as the Northern battlegrounds, just by the numbers, everything's sort of in the margin, essentially. And secondly, we have two US Senate seats here, which is incredibly unusual. And so that's where, you know, what I advocate for with everybody is we need to play in Georgia and you get to build on top of the infrastructure that the Abrams campaign put together. Look, I had a lot of conversations with the Clinton campaign and others in 2016 about contesting in Georgia.

The big difference now is we and our allies have laid a ton of volunteer data and other infrastructure in the state. In fact, the Abrams campaign all told, we spent $42 million building volunteers, staff, data, know-how. And so you're no longer coming into Georgia without having all of that institutional and infrastructure overall. And so we're really building that. And the argument here is now just to leverage that investment. And I'm thrilled to see the Biden campaign has invested in a full suite of staff on the ground. And so now really the question is going to be, are we going to really compete in all the ways to turn out voters and the paid media operation?

And I'm optimistic because when you look at states that are going to be incredibly difficult, sort of our traditional battleground states in the North, we need to make sure, as Stacey likes to say, she likes to say, we need belts, we need suspenders, we need multiple pathways here. And with the financial environment that the Biden campaign and a lot of liberal groups are having really tremendous fundraising, even in this downturn, that's financially giving people options to run multiple strategies at the same time. So in your 2018 race, you guys

won over a lot of people who don't always vote by, you know, Stacey always talks about this, showing up in their communities, meeting people face to face, organizing on the ground. The Trump campaign doesn't really care about the pandemic, so they're still knocking on doors. Democrats are basically running a virtual campaign. Do you see that as an additional challenge to overcome, especially when it comes to reaching low propensity voters? It's such a different landscape this year in a state like Georgia, where we've had the failed Trump-Kemp response, and we've had two hospitals close during the pandemic, John. I mean, this is very clear to Georgia voters, the failure of leadership.

We still don't have a mask mandate in the state of Georgia. Our neighbor in Alabama, the Alabama governor put a mask mandate in place. But in Georgia, you know, it's really all the burden that's fallen to local, mainly Democratic elected officials to clean up this mess. But when you look at the murders of Ahmaud Arbery and Rayshard Brooks and others in the state of Georgia that's so connected to this national conversation about racial justice, folks are motivated to vote in Georgia. Folks understand what is at stake and that they're demanding change. what might be seen as impediments in terms of the lack of ability to do the in-person work. The flip side of it is it couldn't be more clear to Georgians who is responsible for this outrageous proliferation of the virus, as well as the lack of ability for folks to have their voices heard. And so the time has come. We're going to do a couple things this year in Georgia, John. We picked up 14 new state ledge seats in 2018 when Stacey was on the top of the ticket. We have an opportunity to flip the Georgia State

House. And maybe your listeners don't care about that in Georgia, but here's what they do care about. They care about reapportionment. They care about who's going to get how many congressional seats in the next coming out of the census and redistricting. Georgia is a growing state. We should have more Democratic congressional districts. The state should be more 50-50 than it is. And so we need to make sure there's that balance in the legislature. We need to have a shot to win at least one of these Senate races. We have two tremendous candidates in Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff. And we have the opportunity to bring it home for the presidential. And all things are pushing together, right? Not

many states do have not one, but two really compelling Senate races that are raising and spending real money. And they're really motivating voters. So that also helps push up and support the top of the ticket. And we have a bunch of listeners in Georgia who should care about a Democratic state legislature in Georgia. 100%. We need to get Medicaid expansion, right? We need to stop these rural hospital closures and really shore up our entire healthcare system here. This is just, you know, Stacey ran on Medicaid expansion and a whole set of these economic issues

and justice issues. And we're seeing that failure of our government here, aided and abetted and led by the Trump administration and his two patsies in the Senate down here. And so it's time. It's time to make a big change. And Georgians are there and the dots are so clearly connected. You see it in the polling and you see it in talking to people. You see it in the sort of incredible engagement the campaigns are receiving. So all signs indicate that Democrats are very enthusiastic. They're very motivated. They're motivated to fight voter suppression. This is not a new fight. Welcome to the fight, many states around the country. This is a fight we have been

up against here. Voters are very clear. They're educated. We had more Democrats turn out in our June primary than Republicans, not just a small amount, about a quarter million. That is huge. That shows Democratic enthusiasm. And even with the lines and challenges with voting, Democrats outperformed Republicans. Democrats are motivated. And it's not just me and others saying nice words. You can really see it in the data.

And so we're hopeful that we'll see the level of investment we really need this fall to bring it home. In terms of message and policy, is there anything you would like to hear more about from Biden and these Democratic candidates that you think would resonate with voters in Georgia? You've talked a lot already about health care. You've talked about racial justice. Is there anything that they're not saying or should be saying more of? Look, I think the overall piece in Georgia, which is a state that hasn't been contested at the federal level as much as other states, voters want to know what the plan is to make change and have change be felt. Georgia is not a monolithic state. It's a big state,

just like a lot of other battleground states. And so there's no one type of Georgia voter. There's no one type of Georgia African-American voter. African-American Georgians are incredibly diverse. Our Latino community is very diverse. And so that's why I'm really energized by the Warnock and Ossoff campaigns. They're really building campaigns that can speak to all Georgians.

And I think the Biden-Harris messaging is good. And I do think it resonates and connects. I think the biggest challenge that we're going to have, and I do think it resonates and connects. I think the biggest challenge that we're going to have is making sure voters hear it down here, right? That's where we need the investment. And I'm thrilled. We know that the Biden team has already reserved several million in media for the fall down here. We'll see how that expands, combined with what the Ossoff and Warnock campaigns are doing. So, you know, we just need the level of investment that we've had, that we haven't had in

the past, and more in line with what we saw with the Abrams team. And one of the reasons we know we're competitive, John, is because the Trump team is spending. They're spending like crazy. The Republican Senate efforts are spending like crazy. They know the state is very competitive. And so we just have to bring everything we possibly can to this fight. And I do think that we'll be able to get Biden over the finish line here. And I do think we're going to have a surprise in our Senate. I think we're going to get at least one of these two Senate races over the finish line, hopefully both.

And I think it's going to really change the narrative about what's possible in the sort of deep traditional South in terms of the presidential. But we're going to continue to push folks to make the biggest investments they possibly can down here. I like to hear that. Of all the battles that Fair Fight is involved in right now, what's making you the most anxious as we get closer to the election and people start voting? I think the thing folks need to remember is that Trump is a coward.

He's a loser. He's corrupt. And he and his ilk and his campaign and his allies in the states have built this architecture to erect barriers around the vote every which way because they can't win a fair fight. And so voters just have to be informed. Right. They need to go to sites like vote.org. Check your registration. It's still not too late to re-register or update your address in pretty much any state. Right. or update your address in pretty much any state, right? Voters just need to be informed and make sure that they make a plan now. Don't wait until October to decide how you're gonna vote.

Here in September, now that Labor Day is behind us, request your vote by mail ballot now. You can also do that at vote.org. Request that ballot now. And when you get it, return it right away or educate yourself on your state's early voting. Most battleground states, most states have at least a couple weeks of early voting in person. Make your plan now. Put it on your calendar now. Figure out what your child care situation is going

to be now. Figure out what your work schedule is going to be now. Don't wait to make your plan to vote, and don't let all the noise around distractions and crises take you off of that, and then tell all of your friends the same thing. They're trying to make it harder and dissuade people from voting by mail to the tune of messing with the post office. They're gonna have a whole intimidation and all sorts of craziness around early voting person.

Know your rights, make your plan, cast your vote early, make your plan to vote early, and then make sure you know advocates who can help you. Call 866-OUR-VOTE if you need help along the way. 866-OUR-VOTE is a nonpartisan hotline. They have experts that know how to vote in every single state in this country. You can call them and ask for help. And then again, tell your friends and your family and get involved with Fair Fight. You can go to fairfight2020.org. If you've got more time besides just registering and voting and want to get more involved in protecting the vote this fall.

So I think that's really our message, John, is that the whole suppression, depression apparatus of the Republican Party under Trump is so severe on every method of voting they're coming after it. And so voters just need to make their plan and get themselves educated and try and stay focused on getting their vote cast early. Last question, you know, you mentioned voter, not just voter suppression, but voter depression. One of the more pernicious effects of voter suppression is the sense of cynicism. I know Stacey talks about this a lot as well, you know, and it can lead a lot of people, especially people who don't usually vote to decide that maybe their vote won't count, maybe they shouldn't bother. How do you think about overcoming that kind of cynicism in low propensity voters? And, you know, I've talked to pollsters and people who do focus groups that say

that it was it was increased after 2018, particularly because of what happened to Stacey in Georgia, what happened to Andrew Gillum in Florida? I mean, how do you sort of overcome the sense of cynicism? The top way that we see is when folks that people relate to in their own community explain that they were able to vote successfully by mail and sort of connect the dots. And so there are great trusted messengers like Stacey, like Barack Obama, like Michelle Obama. There are a couple figures in the Democratic Party who are very trusted by voters. We've seen this in our research and others' research, that they can really help. But it's really that, and this goes back to, we have to do it digitally now, but that is actually really where community organizing matters a lot.

And there are so many fantastic community organizers around the country. Black Lives Matter movement is working on this. There are so many local groups really figuring out how do we have the conversation locally about making sure people know how to vote and where to vote. And right now, the fight for racial justice is a huge motivating factor across race and ethnicity of progressive and democratic-leaning groups. Folks are inspired and really want to take action and are connecting the dots on how that is one of the big reasons that people do want to vote and navigate all of this disinformation and suppression and the rest. And so for me, that

gives a lot of cause for hope that we can, folks like Stacey and community organizers who are nameless in the community have a lot of tools in toolbox to work with to support folks in their quest to cast a ballot and to get it counted, to see it all the way through. Lauren Groworgo, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for all the fantastic work that you guys are doing with Fair Fight Action and good luck in the home stretch.

Thank you so much, John. We're so grateful for you and your audience. Take care. touchdown. We're so grateful for you and your audience. Take care. Thanks to Lauren for joining us today. And everyone go to votesaveamerica.com slash states. Make a plan today. Get your shit together. Figure out when you're going to vote, when you're going to get your ballot. And then also adopt a state and make some calls. That's the best way to deal with the anxiety. Make some calls. Just two notes. One, Bill Paxton, may his memory be a blessing to we don't

know if that was Adderall falling out of Trump's nose. That's just something on the Internet. We don't know that. We don't know it. And I just want to be clear that I'm not one of those people that's just like I saw something on the Internet. So I know it's true. That's one of those videos dot com slash states. That's one of those videos that I have not clicked on and I will not. I do not need to see something flying out of his nose. Now or ever. Oh, this is the first

I've heard of this. I watched it like the Zapruder film. I watched it like the Zapruder film. I was like, what's the angle? Is it possible? Is that from the mouth? What are we dealing with here? I'm very much obsessed with this.

It's in the canon of the Ted Cruz. What is that white thing stuck on his face? You know? Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Real gross. All right, guys. There's music. Anyway, I think we'll see you guys. Bye guys. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer.

Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Pava-Dimitrio, 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.