Pod Save America - Is Trump Losing a Step?

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

Donald Trump's dominance in the early states finally has his Republican rivals and the press pointing out that he's no spring chicken. Meanwhile, MAGA Mike Johnson is embracing his nickname during his first week as Speaker. Plus, George Santos lives to lie another day and RFK Jr. is taking more support from Trump in two new polls. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, George Santos lives to lie another day. Donald Trump is lapping the field in the early states. His Republican rivals in the press are finally starting to point out that the old man has lost a step. And RFK Jr. is taking more support from Trump in two new polls. But first, Maga Mike Johnson is living up to the nickname in his first week on the job, Dan. Even though there is a bipartisan majority in Congress to fund the government,

he has decided to start with a bill that would fund $14 billion in aid to Israel by making it easier for the richest Americans to cheat on their taxes, which doesn't really fund the aid at all. Americans to cheat on their taxes, which doesn't really fund the aid at all. Cutting the IRS budget will add another $12.5 billion to the deficit. Johnson then reportedly told Senate Republicans that he's open to a separate bill that would provide some support for Ukraine, though not as much as President Biden wants, and only if it's paired with beefed up border security. He also wants to blow up the bipartisan budget deal that Biden agreed to with Kevin McCarthy by demanding deeper cuts,

which Democrats will never go for, which means there may be a government shutdown in our future. Fun. So Dan, it seems like we're right back to where we were when McCarthy had the job, only with a speaker who cares even less about passing anything

and even more about keeping the MAGA base happy. Sure enough, House Republicans had their best week of online fundraising of the cycle since Johnson was elected last week. Was it last week? I can't even remember. What's your read on all this, Dan? I think we knew that whomever the Republicans picked was going to be an unserious, cynical, MAGA ass. That's a job requirement. And the only question was, which unserious, cynical, MAGA ass were they going to agree on? And they picked Mike Johnson. And I do think it's worth understanding exactly what he's doing on Israel aid to realize just how cynical and unserious he is. Obviously, we should stipulate he was never going to pass Biden's $106 billion appropriations request as written, right? He's Republican. That's not what happens in divided government. He has a right to change it.

We can also stipulate that his own politics, both in the country and in the Republican caucus, he could not pass Israel aid and Ukraine aid together. And so he was always going to separate that out. So we had a few options at that point. One would be to just pass the $14 billion with no cuts, no riders, just pass it as is. He supports what's in it. And that would be consistent with how these things are usually handled, how these emergency aid requests are handled. That's how Mike Johnson certainly voted for them when Donald Trump was president. It's how the COVID packages were handled. It's how the Trump tax cut was handled, which is how we know that Mike Johnson doesn't really care about cuts. So once you add cuts, your choice could be like you've decided on principle, which we know he doesn't really believe, but his principle we are going we feel like the deficit is too high. We should pay for this. And Democrats held that position when it came to Bush's constant requests of funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

And if that is your actual position, what you could say is, I'm going to find $14 billion in largely inoffensive bipartisan cuts, raising custom fees, finding unused money here, fraud, waste, and abuse, all the sort of budget money that's out there. Gimmicks. Gimmicks, really. But that's a way to do it that allows you to have cuts and also have a bill that can pass the House and the Senate. Did he do that? No. He picked $14 billion in funding for President Biden's signature legislative agenda, and to do so in a way that it would try and very specifically splinter the Democrats and make this a very, very tough vote for him, which he knows will do two things. It's dead on arrival in the Senate. The president won't sign it. And it means now that it's going to take longer to get the aid to Israel. So he picked the absolute most cynical strategy possible.

And it's even dumb because the cuts he picked actually don't reduce the deficit. And still now, even because we know that collecting more taxes from rich people raises money, doesn't lose money. He failed on all of his tests. It's just an utterly ridiculous approach to this. Well, so now Democrats have a choice. They are going to have to either vote for a bill that adds to the deficit by making life easier for rich tax cheats or vote against a bill that helps Israel. If I were advising a Democrat in a competitive district, I would tell them to vote against the bill. And then I would run an ad saying that Republicans try to exploit the crisis in the Middle East as a way to help their rich friends cheat on their

taxes. But what would you do? I think that is the exact right message that Democrats should be using about this. I think the approach that Hakeem Jeffries will take here is to keep the number of Democratic votes down as much as possible, but give some room to these members of Congress in very tough districts who are going to be under some pressure to vote. Ultimately, I think the significance of voting for this or not voting for this are going to matter close to zero by November. It's like there are a thousand votes now. We also know that facts, if you will, are not a huge part of the Republican message. So whether you vote, if you vote for it, it's not

like all of a sudden they're going to say, well, that takes that attack off the table. We'll do something else. But if, you know, I could see the perspective where a small handful of people in very tough districts get a pass to vote for it, and it doesn't really affect the overall outcome because we're just, this is all just a dumb dance. It's wasting time in the end because this bill is not becoming law. You think that the Democrats in tough districts would be scared of an ad that said you voted against a bill for Israel, even though they could also run an ad saying that this was just a way to get help rich people. My general experience is that Democrats in tough districts are scared of their shadow.

help rich people. My general experience is that Democrats in tough districts are scared of their shadow. Yeah. So are they right to be scared of it? Probably not. But I imagine they're also under some pressure. The politics are very tricky and very intense right now. And so I just understand, I have no doubt there's a handful of Democrats who are coming to Akeem Jefferson saying, can we please get a pass to vote for this? Because I'm taking on so much water in so many ways, because I'm in a Trump district, or it's an incredibly purple district, and politics don't feel great for a Democrat right now. I don't want one more brick on the load. And I imagine that there are some people who will give that pass too. There's been growing opposition to more support for Ukraine among Republicans in Congress and the public. And now Johnson's basically saying

it'll only go through if Congress also agrees on border security. That seems highly unlikely to me. What do you think? Can you see a resolution here? No, I can't. This is really, really hard. And there has been a coalition in the Senate led in part by Mitch McConnell to ensure that he can work in a bipartisan way with President Biden and the Senate Democrats to force the House to pass Ukraine aid. That's why he has to date supported keeping Ukraine and Israel aid together. But he is under, from all the reporting I've read, tremendous pressure within his own caucus to back down from that.

And it's just we are really in a situation where there's pretty irreconcilable differences between what Republicans would want and what Democrats can agree to. And combined with their, I think, very correct substantive belief that if we do not get more aid to Ukraine, it's going to be a huge win for Putin and put their Ukraine sovereignty at risk. I mean, I could see Democrats probably going for a little less Ukraine aid than Biden asked for and some extra money for border security. But it doesn't seem like that's what Republicans want. It seems like some Republicans want no aid for Ukraine, some want a lot less. And then on the border, it doesn't seem like they're just going to be happy with more funding for border security. They want policy changes that are going to restrict immigration, which I don't think Democrats will go for. There's already $11

billion for beefed up border security funding in the bill Biden asked for. They've already said no to that because Democrats are open to it because we actually need more funding to manage what's happening down there. Based on what we know of one week of MAGA Mike, they're going to specifically demand policies they know splinter Democrats, not because they're a good policy, not because they actually support him. It is about trying to drive a wedge in the Democratic coalition. It's a lot of shit sandwiches coming down the pike. Yeah, it's a real shit sandwich buffet,

if you will. It's all of these votes. Yes. Okay, well, the House did accomplish something this week. They voted against a motion by several New York Republicans to expel George Santos

by a count of 213 to 179, with 24 Republicans voting to expel and 31 Democrats voting not to expel. The House also voted against Marjorie Taylor Greene's motion to censure Rashida Tlaib for speaking at a pro-Palestinian rally at the Capitol. All the Democrats plus 23 Republicans voted against the motion to censure. Marge was not happy. She said the Republicans who voted against censure were rhinos who have joined the Hamas caucus. She's just lovely. One colleague, one Republican colleague called her a very charming lady. It was a lot of sarcasm there in case you couldn't tell.

I love it when you call her Marge. Marge, yeah, large Marge. Marge. Large Marge. Two questions. Why do you think those Democrats voted against expelling Santos? And why do you think those 23 Republicans decided to save Tlaib from that stupid censure? Do you remember how our old boss, Barack Obama, used to say that Democrats are born with a responsibility gene? That even in moments of maximum political opportunity, we feel the need to do the right

thing. Most of these Democrats, and I specifically went and looked for Katie Porter, who voted, who's in this primary with two other Democrats, Schiff and Barbara Lee, who voted to expel and she voted against. And her argument was that he is deserving of due process. There's an ethics committee investigation, and that should conclude before you take up expulsion, which is a very serious, well-thought-out position that will, frankly, probably get lost in this media environment. You know, I read, I did not see Katie's statement. I saw Jamie Raskin's statement, and he said, he also voted against expelling. He said, I'm a Constitution guy. The House has expelled five people, three for joining the Confederacy as traitors to the Union and two after they were convicted of criminal offenses. Santos has not yet been convicted, nor has he been found guilty of ethics offenses in the House.

Bad precedent. He said, I can also think of like four or five House Democrats that Republicans would like to expel without a conviction. And I just don't want to go down that road. I have to say, like reading that statement, I'm somewhat persuaded. Like I do think it is, it is a dangerous thing to start expelling people from Congress with forget it, even about obviously no conviction, but also like no internal process from the house ethics committee that found

anything. It's like, we can all wait for this. And even if you want to go pure politics, it does seem like no one's too scared about running against George Santos in 2024. And it seems like some of these New York House Republicans put forward the motion to expel him because they're nervous about the politics. And the longer George Santos is in Congress embarrassing them, the worse it is for them and the worse the politics are. So I'm not even convinced that it's like the best politics to get him out of Congress right now. Yeah, I think that's right.

The point of this resolution put forward by the Republicans was so that they know that this is going to be a huge issue in New York in 2024. Most of them are in districts that Joe Biden won in 2020. And they are deathly afraid of having George Santos be a huge political problem for him. So it's not particularly serious. I agree with you. I am broadly persuaded by the idea that on all these things, censure, expelling people from their committees, expelling people from Congress, we've reached a level of ridiculousness and an unseriousness that does not fit with the historical precedence that you want. And we're sort of in a tit for tat. Now, can Democrats unilaterally disarm in this process? No. But on the merits, I think what Raskin and Porter and others said was correct.

And look, you can say, I'm sure some people are thinking, well, you know, they would do that to us. Do you really think that Republicans uh vote not to expel when a situation like that like yeah maybe who knows what they would do i do know that 23 republicans found it within themselves not to censure rashida talib uh when they could have easily done that um and so there's some that have a responsibility gene somewhere left in their bodies but i also think that like if we're gonna be the party about democracy and rule of law, then we should like wait till someone's convicted to expel them or at the very least is found guilty within a house ethics process. Because like I think George Santos is a fucking joke. I think it's very likely he's going to be found guilty.

There's a lot of charges, a lot of evidence. But again, like we can't we can't adjudicate these things through the press and social media and just our feelings about it. Like you actually do need a process before you start kicking people out of Congress. The podcast where we all came to argue that George Santos should stay in Congress. If there's one thing you get from this podcast today, it's that George Santos should stay in Congress. Make that the YouTube title, Elijah. We're going to see that clip online. Okay, we'll be right back with more news.

But before we go to break, a few quick housekeeping notes. Some pretty cool news. This weekend, we're headed to Chicago to interview our old boss, Barack Obama, on the 15-year anniversary of his 2008 election. Feel old, Dan. You do. That was 15 years ago. I know. I'm staying across the street from the old campaign HQ, and I'm walking slower down

those streets these days. I'm heading there after this. We'll be chatting with the former president about what's at stake in 2024, how to strengthen our democracy, and which of us he still thinks about the most. I did not read that until just now. Follow Pod Save America on Instagram, TikTok, and the platform formerly known as Twitter for live updates from our interview

and catch the full conversation on next Tuesday's pod. Also, Pod Save America tickets for our November 10th show in New Orleans are still on sale. You can come out and see us live. Many people are calling us the Mardi Gras of political podcast recordings. Where does this come from? Here's the good news. We'll be joined by Tim Miller, our pal Tim Miller, guest Devante Lewis, and more.

Who knows? Maybe Dan will throw some beads is what it says here. Tickets are going fast. Sure, I'll throw beads. All right, Dan's going to throw beads. Head to cricket.com slash events to get yours today. Tickets, not beads. Pod Save America is brought to you by Karayuma.

Karayumas have been our go-to sneakers for a while now because they're really comfortable, go with everything, and they're made with consciously sourced materials. I wear Karayumas all the time. You do? I just got a new pair of white ones and a pair of gray ones. Really crazy with the colors, huh? Last year, we collaborated with Karaya to create No Steps Back sneakers, and we can't believe they have now designed a second limited edition collaboration with us. That's right. The Love It or Leave It sneaker. These shoes have a colorful design with lots of Easter eggs. I mean, not Taylor Swift level Easter eggs. Yeah, that's right.

We're not insane. Just fun stuff like pundit on a surfboard. I don't know. I think you should have gone a little deeper with some of the Easter eggs. Yeah, it's like fun stuff like pundit on a surfboard. I don't know. I think you should have gone a little deeper with some of the Easter eggs. Yeah, it's like, is that pundit with Karlie Kloss? Plus, a portion of the proceeds from every pair sold is donated to VSA's Every Last Vote Fund. Our first Kariuma collab sold out super fast. So if you want a pair for yourself or the love it fan in your life, God help that person, make sure to snag one now. They're awesome. Check them out. Just head to cricket.com slash store. That's cricket.com slash store. All right, let's talk about 2024.

In the Republican primary, two new early state polls show an incredibly tight race for second place. With just 74 days to go until the Iowa caucuses, the Des Moines Register poll, which is the very best in the business, maybe the most accurate poll in the entire country, shows Trump at 43 percent, DeSantis at 16 percent, 43 percent. DeSantis at 16 percent. Haley also at 16 percent. Tim Scott at 7 percent. And Christie and Vivek at 4 percent. And a CNN poll of South Carolina shows Trump at 53 percent. Haley is at 22 percent. DeSantis is at 11 percent. And Lov guy tim scott with only six percent in his home state he is the senator from south carolina and he is pulling six percent after a lot of money spent high name id especially in his state six percent for tim scott not dropping out tells us that he guarantees he's going to get one or two in Iowa,

which is fucking hilarious. So the race for second could get pretty heated at the debate next week. And Nikki Haley just gave us a preview of what that might look like when she did an interview with Charlemagne on The Daily Show this week. Let's listen to the clip. Are you wearing higher heels than Ron DeSantis next week at the debate so you can look taller than him on the stage? I don't know. We'll have to we'll have to figure that out. I can tell you I've always talked about my high heels. I've never, you know, hid that from anybody.

I've always said don't wear them if you can't run in them. So we'll see if he can run in them. if he can't run in them. So we'll see if he can run in them. This is a whole thing now, Dan, that DeSantis is wearing lifts in his shoes. There's like articles about this now. Don Jr. is having some fun with it. He's been having some fun with it for a while.

This is what Ronnie D is dealing with. And you know what? I'm enjoying it. I also think that Nikki Haley not to just give her some advice, but should have just said, I don't need to. I'm taller than him in bare feet. That's a good line. Nikki Haley, we know she's a listener, a big fan. If you're listening before the debate next week, Dan just gave you the line. So. All right. So during our last show, we played a little fantasy politics and I sketched out a scenario where everyone but Nikki Haley drops out so she can run against Trump in a one on one race. Based on these polls, how do you think that would go?

Well, not great is what I would say. A couple of things. Let's start with the Iowa poll. So in the Iowa poll, 61 percent of Trump's voters say they've made up their mind and are not changing it. That is an unprecedentedly large number. Steve Kornacki pointed out that the last candidate to have a lot of significant lead and nowhere near as big a lead as Trump in a Republican primary was George W. Bush in 2000. And he generally had 20 to 30 percent of his vote was fully committed. So Trump has a locked in electorate. They asked about enthusiasm, too. Eighty seven percent of his voters are either extremely enthusiastic. Forty seven percent or very enthusiastic. Forty percent. That is wild.

He's quite popular among the mega base. They call the base named after his campaign message. Yeah, they probably like him. That's true. That's true. And the other thing that is notable in there is of Ron DeSantis is whopping 16% of voters, 41% of them have Trump as their second choice. So if Ron DeSantis were to drop out,

those votes don't accrue to Haley. A portion of them accrue to Trump, which actually put him over 50 in that state. To me, that sort of tells the story of the entire Republican primary in 2024 say anti-Trump, but people who are willing to look beyond Trump. Right. People who either aren't favorable towards Trump or who are like looking around for another alternative. Like that's Haley's that's whose Haley's consolidating. But that part of the Republican Party is not nearly enough to win. The only candidate who can draw from both the MAGA

base and the group of people that Haley's drawing from, the anti-Trumpers, is Ron DeSantis. And sure enough, DeSantis in this Des Moines Register poll is viewed more favorably than any other candidate, including Trump. So this is the other thing. For all that we make fun of Ron DeSantis for, and as bad as the campaign he's run, Republican voters in Iowa actually like him. They just like Donald Trump more. They just want Donald Trump. And it's weird that it's nothing necessarily against Ron DeSantis. They love them some Donald Trump. And that's the fucking story of this primary. I think the analysis of the primary that all of us have brought to bear has sort of two initial and fundamental mistakes in how we understood it that have sort of been fruit

from a poison tree to everything else. One is this idea that this is a battle between the MAGA wing and the non-MAGA wing. That's not a thing. It is almost entirely a MAGA base, and then it's a battle for who can consolidate parts of that MAGA base. So that's one. There is not a significant- I would say it's like 25% of the Republican electorate is probably not MAGA. Yeah. Well, that means if three of every four Republican voters believes in the Trump view of the world, then because there's always that in every primary. But it's sort of we came into this idea was a little closer to 50-50, which meant that someone had a real chance. And the second mistake was, is we treated Donald Trump like a new presidential candidate like he was in 2016, as opposed to who is essentially the incumbent president for these people. So much of an incumbent president that many of them think he should be president right now because he didn't lose, which is again, the fundamental problem. And some still think he is. And then the other challenge here is that people like us have been pushing and pushing

and pushing this idea that why don't these guys run on an electability message? Like, why don't they say Trump can win? That went to shit when Joe Biden's poll numbers went to shit. So that's problem one, right? Is the Republican voters believe that Donald Trump is the most likely to win? But in the CNN polls, there's a very interesting question, which they ask, what is the most important quality you want in your presidential nominee? And the number one choice by 41% of voters was someone who fights for conservative values even when they're unpopular. Way down the list at 16% is someone who can reach voters outside of the Republican Party.

Yeah. universe, if Biden was really strong in the polls and you were just seeing poll after poll where Biden was beating Trump by like five points, six points, but Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley was tied with Biden, I think those electability numbers would go up. Like more Republicans would care about electability because they would be so worried to lose to Joe Biden, but they haven't had to make that choice. Yeah. And would they actually see that information? Right. That's the other question is that they were shocked that Joe Biden won because they weren't consuming all of the polls that we were that showed that they were incorrect. And so maybe these people were correct and we were wrong, but throughout the entire general election 2020,

even dating back to the primary, all every single poll, the entire time, every single high quality poll showed Joe Biden winning by a lot in many cases. And that just never penetrated into the Republican media ecosystem. That's true. That's true. The other thing, I just want to say, this is a low likelihood scenario, very low likelihood scenario. It seems impossible that someone other than maybe Tim Scott, who has declared it so, is going to win Iowa other than Donald Trump. The question would be, could Haley win in New Hampshire? New Hampshire is a very bizarre electorate. It is an open primary where independents can vote. There is no real Democratic primary happening on the same day.

And so in a scenario where that, if that were to happen, I'm talking like a 1% or less likelihood here, then you head to South Carolina, which is her home state. And could that, just the thing we don't know, because we've never really seen, is Donald Trump taking a loss, a significant loss in a Republican primary and how that would affect things. And so that would be the only possible shot ever. And it would require a lot of things, Donald Trump, Joe Biden to strengthen, Donald Trump to weaken, probably require Ron DeSantis to strengthen among MAGA voters to take some people from Trump but not Haley. And then have Haley have some sort of massive, incredibly lucky, highly unlikely surge with independent voters. Oh, you think it would require DeSantis to stay in after coming in second or third? It would have to be a thing where Haley is gaining either DeSantis's

numbers go up because he's taking some from Trump or his numbers stay the same, but the composition of his 15% changes where it's more of those of those people who are Trump for Trump voters who DeSantis is their second choice changing to Deantis, and then Haley taking some of the college-educated, more independent-leaning, more moderate voters that are a little, that are more overrepresented in New Hampshire than in the other primary states. And I guess then if you're Haley or DeSantis, you really run on electability because the inevitability of Trump is punctured by losing New Hampshire. And then you head to South Carolina and you say, you know, he just lost in New Hampshire and look at all these legal troubles and blah, blah, blah. And we all love Donald Trump, but

he's just, uh, he's, it's too much of a risk and look how strong Nikki Haley is in New Hampshire. And then she puts out some polls saying she could beat Joe Biden. And then she's off to the races. Although I still think at that point, that's that carolina poll trump at 53 and haley at 22 now we know from experience that numbers in south carolina can move quite a bit after what happens in iowa new hampshire can like a lot that happened to barack obama uh hillary clinton was leading by a lot in south carolina up until we won i, and then she wasn't. So that could change, but that is a big gap. Yeah.

I mean, look, I'm not saying this is likely, probable, possible, maybe slightly, maybe in some strange world possible, but that's the scenario that it would take. And there are a million variables that have to go right for that to happen. But I think it's New Hampshire is the key. And if Donald Trump wins Iowa, New Hampshire, it's over. So some of these goobers have lamely and so far unsuccessfully tried to criticize Trump. But the latest line of attack is at least enjoyable for us. They're suggesting that he's old and losing it. And a few media outlets are finally starting to pay attention. Here's the New York Times quote.

Big story in the Times this week. Mr. Trump has had a string of unforced gaffes, garble and general disjointedness that go beyond his usual discursive nature. And that his Republican rivals are pointing to as signs of his declining performance. Story also includes a quote from Ron DeSantis, quote, This is a different Donald Trump. Lost the zip on his fastball. In 2016, he was freewheeling. He's out there barnstorming the country. Now it's just a different guy, and it's sad to see. What could Ron possibly be talking about, you ask?

Well, here's some greatest hits from just the last month. Have weaponized law enforcement to arrest their leading political opponent, leading by a lot, including Obama. I'll tell you what, you take a look at Obama and take a look at some of the things that he's done. And we did with Obama, we won an election that everyone said couldn't be won. The windmills are, they're driving the whales, I think, a little batty. Voters, you don't have to vote. Don't worry about voting. The voting, we got plenty of votes. You got to watch. Victor Orban. Did anyone ever hear of him? He's the leader of Turkey. You know how you spell us, right?

You spell us, U.S. We're going to turn Christmas around. Remember, the department stores weren't, they refused to use the word Christmas. Big hello to a place where we've done very well, Sioux Falls. Thank you very much, Sioux Falls. So, Sioux City, let me ask you. Terrorism and pro-terrorism. What you're doing, the terrorism. Hezbollah and Thomasomas and just in conclusion we have a man who is totally corrupt and the worst president in the history of our country who is cognitively impaired in no condition

to lead we would be in world War II very quickly. Wow, that's good stuff. Hummus. Any indication that Republican primary voters will suddenly think that Donald Trump is losing it and run into the arms of Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis? Can you lose a step if you never had one? Yeah, it's like, what was his fastball like? Yeah, it's like, what was his fastball like?

The fastball that like never got him again above like 47% in the national popular vote. Like, what are you talking about? I think this stuff is all feature, not bug for most voters. And then once again, for these people to actually see this, someone's going to have to show it to them. And we know Fox News is not doing super cuts of Donald Trump's worst moments for them to see. It's not showing up on radio. I mean, theoretically, DeSantis or someone else could run ads showing this stuff. I can't imagine they will actually do that. Most people who do not record podcasts for a living do not watch watch Trump's rallies from beginning to end on one point seven five speed on YouTube.

They're not seeing it. So you don't have to. And when he and I promise you this is one of the real problems with in the ways in which the press is not figure how to cover Trump is that local news tends to sanitize Trump. They pick is more coherent moments because they're trying to tell a story about what he actually said. And you can't do that with like him calling Hamas hummus and the Biden stuff. They those, you know, Donald Trump came to town today and he called for X, Y and Z, and then they'll play clips that support X, Y and Z as opposed to the worst stuff. Republicans have a media apparatus that will take the worst moments of Joe Biden and show it to all of their voters and then pump that content through social media in front of people who aren't just their voters. Democrats don't have that apparatus, at least particularly does not have that apparatus in a way that would reach Republican voters who would otherwise consider DeSantis or Haley.

Except, of course, all the Republican voters who listen to Pod Save America who just heard that wonderful compilation. Yes, that's true. That's true. In fact, we should put that online so that our friends can share with their republican yeah uncles and cousins great well and speaking of that the biden campaign has been doing this they've been having some fun uh tweeting out all these clips there's a biden hires hq twitter account that is it's also on threads john it's also on threads they're very active on threads maybe they toot maybe they skeet i don't know but it's possible anyway they've been tweeting these out. Trump obviously presents a lot of

targets. We've talked about this scary demagogue, criminal defendant, congenital liar. What do you think of the crazy old guy strategy? I think this is more tactic than strategy. I don't think this is necessarily how Biden is going to run against Trump, but I think they are trying to solve a specific problem, which is the media coverage of Biden is centered around this narrative that his biggest political weakness is his age. And so every time Joe Biden, who has been dealing with a lifelong stutter, says something the wrong way, or trips on a sandbag or anything like that, that is then used as a massive political gaffe that could cause him to lose the election. And so it's all framed through

that. While over here, Donald Trump, who, don't get me wrong, has his own series of problems, separate and apart from the crazy things he says, says crazy stuff all the time, but it's never put in that same framework. And there is this, you see what I know, this tremendous frustration among Biden aides that Biden and Trump are basically the same age, but it's all about Joe Biden being the oldest president, not the fact that if Donald Trump wins, he will also be the oldest president in American history, right? He will be the second oldest president in American history. So they're just trying to change the matrix by which the press is covering the race to focus a little more on Donald Trump stuff, which I think is probably the right thing to do. And plus, if you've been working on Joe Biden's

campaign for the last seven months or so since he announced, you deserve some fun. This has not been an easy seven months. So if this is fun, let's get you through the day. I fully support it. So I think there's some nuance to the Trump is a crazy old guy argument, which is like, to the Trump is a crazy old guy argument, which is like, I don't think, and I agree with you that you don't necessarily win a battle between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, where you say like, I'm not old, he's old, or he's just as old as me,

or you think I've lost a step? No, no, no, he's lost a step. Like, I don't know that that's the field they want to be playing on. And I don't think, like you said, it's a tactic. I do think that reminding everyone what a fucking clown Donald Trump is, is actually effective. I think that authoritarian leaders, fascists throughout history, they do not like to be made fun of.

They do not like to be mocked. Donald Trump does not like to be mocked. And I think we need to get back to, like, he is an extremely scary demagogue, right? That we've said a million times you gotta take him seriously and literally we've all seen it in action for four years did you just do seriously and literally seriously and literally yeah we all talked about that he's uh you know he he tried to overturn the election and cited an instruction all of that for sure second term would be fucking terrifying but he's a clown and i think for a lot of americans they don't want to be embarrassed by their president. They don't want to elect a clown as a president. I don't like his behavior. I wish he would. You know, and so that is Donald Trump's weakness. And I think getting that out there more,

reminding people of that more is going to be important. I think that's slightly different than saying he's lost a step, but it is it does require us to, like, make sure that people are consuming content where Trump is acting as crazy as he always has been. I think that's right there. What I'm specifically referring to is a series of tactics that campaigns often do to try to affect the way the media tells the narrative of the race. And that's what that's what they're doing. That's why this is framed through the cognitive decline, right, which is how the headline of that time story that was surprisingly great was about how this was going. Donald Trump has a lot of misstatements and gaffes that make it harder for him to run against Joe Biden as someone too old or going through cognitive decline or whatever the Republican message is. I think the way to

think about the crazy Trump moments is to make him seem weak. Because too much of the... Donald Trump is running on a classic strongman strategy. And too much of our messaging reinforces that element of him. He's an authoritarian. He's going to overturn the election. That all makes him seem powerful. In fact, in some ways, the indictments have made him seem more powerful. Not so much if he has marched out of a courtroom in an orange jumpsuit.

That will not make him seem powerful. But the fact that, you know, the narrative that all of these government agencies, the deep state, everyone is coming after him, is something he has turned into an evidence of his strength. Our messaging needs to be about evidence of his weakness. And that's what I think some of these, the moments that are currently being put through this cognitive decline framework can be used for, right? Is that this guy, he is a clown. He is not serious. You can't be strong if you're a joke.

Yeah. I think is the important thing here. And like, just calling it, I mean, like we have to show his weakness, you know, and not tell people he's weak because people aren't going to be primed to think he's weak. But if he's a joke, if he's mockable, if everyone's laughing at him, no one's really afraid of him. That's not scary. That's not strong. He wants us to be afraid of him. He wants to seem like powerful and strong. And I do think mocking him is going to help fix that a little bit. Do you remember the ad the Biden campaign ran in early 2020 with

the footage of all the world leaders laughing about Trump from some sort of G20 or something like that. And people, I think you, a lot of us said that this was a great ad. And a lot of people were like, no one cares about foreign policy. People hate other countries. It's like, no, the point here is he's a joke. And a joke cannot be a strong man who can protect you from chaos in the world. That is right. That is right. All right. I also got to ask you about a few new

general election polls. Oh, fun. That tested some third party candidates, particularly RFK Jr. So the new Quinnipiac poll has the race Biden 47, Trump 46. But when they add in RFK Jr., the race is Biden 39, Trump 36, RFK Jr. 22%. When they add in Cornel West, it's Biden 36, Trump 35, RFK Jr. 19, Cornel West 6. And there's also a new Susquehanna poll that shows RFK Jr. hurting Trump in the three-way race, which Biden does win. So similar to the Quinnipiac poll. What do you make of those polls? Are you more convinced that RFK Jr. will hurt Trump more than Biden? Or is it still way too early to tell? I have a lot of thoughts on this, John.

Yeah, there we go. Sort of surprised you with this. It wasn't in the outline, but I was just. But I do read it when you sent the script back. So I was prepared. Thank you. Appreciate it. I'm not your co-host who's surprised by the questions.

So it's like... So I... Spoiler, it's not Tommy. I... It is still too early to tell for a couple of reasons. One, it's going to depend a little bit on how RFK Jr. runs his campaign. Is he going to spend his time and money attacking Biden and trying to appeal to disenchanted

Democrats? Or is he going to go after both of them or go after Trump and try to get some sort of disaffected Republicans, some of the Trumpy independents who do not vote for Republicans other than Trump, try to get them. And so just because there's a dynamic of two on one in advertising. And I think it's particularly problematic for Biden as a former Democrat named Kennedy going after Biden. So that's one. Two, the numbers in these polls are kind of absurd. The idea that one in five Americans know enough about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to pick him as their presidential choice is ridiculous. He's essentially representing the mystery box phenomenon right here, where if you don't love option A and B, you're going to go see what's behind door C.

And so he's sort of, I think, representing generic other in that sense. And then the most important thing of all, more than any of these polls, whatever they say now, whatever they say a year from now, well, I guess a year from now would be pretty consequential, but whatever they say six months from now is where he gets on the ballot. I was just going to say, okay. Yeah. Right. If he is, he does not, he does not have guaranteed ballot access anywhere. He's not running on the libertarian party ticket or the green party ticket where their nominee automatically gets on the ballot in some states. He's got to, there's Cornell West now also, we should say. And so if he gets on the ballot in Alaska, Kansas, and California, it's not going to matter. If he gets on the ballot in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, one of those states, or even just one of those states, it could be very consequential, whichever group he takes from.

And we should say it's not an easy thing for an independent candidate with no party, libertarian, green, whatever, to just get on ballots in these states. That is a very difficult ballot access where the signatures have to be from all of the counties or some portion of the counties. Then they have to be verified. It's very, very expensive. And one of the problems for RFK Jr. is his money to date throughout the Democratic primary, it was MAGA donors who thought he was hurting Biden funding him. And if they now think he's hurting Trump, which the Trump campaign reportedly does, so this is consistent with their polling, I assume. I don't know where he's going to find the money to do that. That's why he turns to the all-in pod. I was waiting for you to say that.

They like him. No, I know. You know, he does have some money, so I worry about that. And look, I think I agree with you that 22 percent is sort of absurd. It does give me some concern that so many voters want that third option, knowing that it Biden, Trump or someone else or not voting? All speak to our biggest concern, which is Joe Biden is currently not popular enough to guarantee a victory. Right. And we need more enthusiasm on the Democratic side. I mean, more of the anti MAGA majority in this country to come back to vote for Joe Biden again. And we have zero margin of error. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, so before we go, I just want to take a second to

remember our friend, Adi Barkin, who died this week from complications of ALS at just 39 years old. So a lot of you probably heard Adi on the show, trying to get people involved in the fight to make healthcare human right. First time we talked to him was right after he was arrested for protesting Trump's tax cut in 2017. On his way home from that event, he confronted former Senator Jeff Flake on a plane to beg him to vote against Medicare cuts. The video went viral and then we booked Adi on the show. So he starts off the interview by saying, hey guys, I'm pretty excited right now. And I said, oh, well, thanks. That's nice to say. We're excited to have you on. And he says, no, man, I'm not excited about being on your podcast.

I'm excited about rejuvenating our democracy with thousands of my closest friends. So he then lets us ask like two questions before he completely takes over the interview and starts interrogating us about republican politics economic policy barack obama's shortcomings and at one point he says uh okay last question for you guys and lovett says well now you're just fully hosting the show and adi says two bad guys, dying man gets to do what he wants. And that's who Adi was. He was every bit as brave and determined and inspiring

as he seemed, but he was also witty and self-deprecating and darkly funny. He was wonky and shrewd and tough. He would call you on your bullshit when you weren't doing enough or fighting as hard as you could. Adi did not become an activist because of his ALS.

He was an activist his entire life who understood that his ALS would allow him to reach more people, organize more people, persuade more people, pressure more politicians to do the right thing. But he did all of that with just the most big hearted, generous spirit. And what he taught me is that in the face of pain and suffering and even death, it's important to find joy in the struggle for equality and justice. And the reason it's important is because that struggle is with other people and it's for other people, people you love and people you may never know. And that's, I think, why Adi embraced that struggle right up until the day that he died. He did it for his brilliant, incredible wife, Rachel, his two beautiful children, Carl and Willow, and for all of us.

He was the best organizer, best human, and I loved him very much. And because he wouldn't want it any other way, I will go ahead and we will give Adi the last word today. I have come to understand the difference this way. I can do nothing to change the fact of my terminal illness. There is no cure for ALS right now, and there is nothing I can do to stop my rapid neurological decay. To flail against it helplessly would only cause me additional grief and suffering, so the only thing I can do is accept it. That isn't true about the healthcare crisis in this country, or systemic racism, or the climate emergency barreling towards our

shorelines every day. Resisting those challenges, whether by marching, or voting, or petitioning, that's the only way to solve the most pressing problems facing our society. And that is why I'm doing everything I can, even as paralysis grips more of my body every day. Struggling for justice is a fruitful endeavor. All right, everyone. Thank you. And we will talk to you next week. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are Olivia Martinez and David Toledo. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Writing support from Hallie Kiefer. Reid Cherlin is our executive producer.

The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman,

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