Pod Save America - “Life, liberty and the pursuit of pod.” (Mailbag episode!)

Episode Date: July 5, 2018

Democrats debate strategy after one of the worst months in Trump’s presidency. Then we answer some of your questions, and play an excerpt from Jon F.’s new podcast, The Wilderness.

Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. And I'm Jon Lovett. Wow! Wild! Today on the pod, we have our 4th of July mailbag episode, where we're going to answer some of your most burning questions about all the topics of the day. And later in the show, stick around, we will have an exclusive clip

from my brand new podcast about the Democratic Party, which is coming out in a couple weeks. We'll talk about that too. But first, we're going to talk about the news a little bit with our friend John Lovett, because you'll also be hearing this on Love It or Leave It. This is a very special Love It or Leave It Pod Save America news topper crossover event. So thinking about what to talk about today, the news has pretty much been the same for two weeks. But there were a few big picture scene setting stories this week about the Democratic Party that I thought we could dig into a little bit. So both of them ran over the weekend. The New York Times headline is, as Trump consolidates power, Democrats confront a rebellion in their ranks. Sounds scary. And the Washington Post headline is,

a bad week for Democrats gives rise to a big problem. Outrage could become an obstacle in midterms. So the lead of the Washington Post one is, and the Washington Post was Michael Scherer, and the New York Times was Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns. So the lead of the Washington Post story is, growing liberal agitation over a pivotal Supreme Court retirement and a simmering crisis about immigrant child separation have left Democratic leaders scrambling to keep the political outrage they'd counted on to fuel midterm election wins from becoming a liability for the party. Now, there's a few things conflated in these stories. There's questions about ideology. There's questions about strategy and tactics. And there's questions about tone and message.

Let's start with ideology. Are either of you concerned that the Democratic Party is moving too far to the left on any issues? Dan, we'll start with you. No, I'm not. Love it? No. My answer to you is no. Okay, Dan, you elaborate, and then Lovett, you can elaborate. The premise of these stories, they're a genre of stories that have existed for as long as Democrats have either been in power or out of power, and they are called Dems in Disarray stories, which means we are panicking, things are all screwed up. And in a sense, they are, because we control nothing. So I don't know what they're worried about us blowing, but we control nothing. Ideology-wise, I think two things. One, we have good candidates running races specific to their districts and states. And it's different whether it is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or someone running

here in California 10 or Beto O'Rourke in more, the line that runs through the best campaigns and the best candidates has not been ideology. It has been authenticity. People are running authentic and passionate races that the people can feel. It doesn't feel like politics as usual. Second, I think that both of these stories, and I think this will be true in all the different categories you raise, particularly ideology, are using an outdated way of thinking about politics. Donald Trump ran an entirely anti-ideological campaign to win. He was both conservative and liberal. He was a populist. He was a corporatist, all the things. And to try to treat this like it is the 1992 healthcare battle doesn't understand politics in this day and age.

I think you're right on the ideology thing. Like, this idea that is so ingrained in, and it's not just punditry and reporting. I think there are people within the Democratic Party, strategists, pollsters, ex-politicians, current politicians who also have the same concerns sometimes. They think about this, like, imaginary Midwestern voter. And this Midwestern voter, when he or she hears the term Medicare for all, or federal jobs guarantee, or debt-free college, or something like that, suddenly they think, oh, that is way too far to the left on the spectrum for me. And I'm not that far left on the spectrum. And I don't think that comports with any reality that we've seen

in the last couple of elections, especially like you said, Dan, Donald Trump is president. These are ideas that poll well, right? These are ideas that have broad-based appeal. Medicare for All has broad-based appeal. Universal College, universal pre-K, the so-called radical liberal ideas that are pulling the party too far to the left. These are simple, elegant, political solutions that people can understand and rally behind. And the idea that there's somebody who would vote Democrat, but then thinks, oh, that's too much pre-K. That's too many kids getting pre-K for me. One of the silver linings from Donald Trump winning is that it should liberate us from worrying about both electability and how each policy position is going to play in various districts.

If you don't like Medicare for all because you think as a policy it may not work well. If you think a certain policy costs too much money and you'd rather spend that money on something else, all these things, that's fine. On a substantive level, if you're a candidate running and you don't agree with one policy or the other, totally get that. Do not let yourself get stuck in the trap of worrying about whether a policy is going to poll specifically one place or the other, partly because you can message these policies almost any way you want. Voters make choices based on values, based on big goals, based on outcomes, and the ins and outs of the specific policy, like we can worry about that once we're actually in power governing.

We've talked a lot about the fact that, oh, you know, people were, you know, parsing data, but then losing the big picture and being too specific. The same happens on policy. There's the same kind of polling and parsing on what policy appeals to who and whether or not you should talk about something in this district versus that district. And the idea, if you're looking at politics in 2018 and thinking, oh, this is a surgical operation, this is going to be about very specific tweaks. Like we don't, sledgehammers, not scalpels, right? You need you need to break through and you need to not worry about what the attack is going to be from Donald Trump or what the attack is going to be from your opponent.

Because the idea that there's a system for analyzing and breaking down your policy views in a sophisticated way and then presenting that analysis to voters is just not real. It's not real. There is no that policy conversation. Maybe it used to happen in D.C. It barely happens there anymore. You need to have something you can say that is big, that you can stand behind, that can make sense to people. And it needs to be able to weather the incredible assault of nonsense to make it in front of somebody's Facebook feed. And parsing whether or not you're for a public option versus Medicare for all, I think is just a waste of time. I think that's right. I'll say one more thing on this, which is the worst elements of bad

democratic consultant and political thinking is always when you try to build your message and policy in anticipation of what the Republican attack is going to be. And that is exactly what it's like with Medicare for all, because here you have, essentially you have Medicare, one of the most popular government programs in history, being expanded to everyone, which is popular. But we don't want to talk about it because we fear how it can be demagogued by the Republicans, and that that's when we'll lose. And there are two problems with that.

One, that's just a terrible way of And there are two problems with that. One, that's just a terrible way of thinking, that we're going to censor what we say because we think Republicans, Donald Trump may tweet about it. But it's also deeply naive about how they will message things in the Donald Trump era, because no matter what the Democrats' position is on abolish ICE or immigration reform, Donald Trump will say that you have sided with the animals of MS-13. You have some freedom to be for what you want to be for. And like, we should be liberated in this era to say what we believe in, which will be better off then. Because it doesn't matter what we do, Donald Trump will accuse us of the worst thing humanly possible.

The demagoguing is here. It's been happening for a while. They've gone demagoguing crazy. The idea that like, if like Kamala Harris or Kirsten Gillibrand didn't come out for abolishing ICE at some point because that's where the base is pushing them, that Donald Trump would be like, I was going to unleash a series of completely dishonest attacks on these people for siding with ISIS. But now that they've moderated slightly on this position, I'm standing down. Donald Trump is standing down. It isn't just Donald Trump. The whole Republican Party has been like that, and they've been like that before Trump. They went crazy during the Obama era. Probably a little bit before. We spent weeks hearing from Republicans on the Hill saying things like, well, I agree that children shouldn't be hostages. I never wanted children to be hostages or pawns in this game of politics.

But then they were immediately quite comfortable saying, seems to me like Democrats are all for open borders and we're for border security. So they want the demagoguery. They just want to do it in the more sophisticated D.C. fashion. Right. And I think the other thing to keep in mind is the reason that this moment requires bolder policy solutions. It's not just Trump and the Republicans are in charge now and they've gone crazy and so we can say whatever we want. We're also dealing with rising inequality, stagnant wages. Now more people are losing their health care since Trump became president. Like there's an economic transformation that has been happening in this country over the last couple of decades that, you know, in the eight years of the Obama administration, Obama pulled us out of crisis, pulled us out of a near depression, brought us back to where we were before.

But as he acknowledged too, where we were before the Great Recession wasn't good enough and it has only gotten worse since then. And at some point, we have to think to ourselves, what are the policy solutions that will meet the magnitude of the economic challenge that most people in this country are facing every single day. Barack Obama came in in a period of incredible turmoil, and he was part of a Democratic primary that actually moved the party to the left, but landed at a place of the Affordable Care Act as a compromised market-based solution with expansion of Medicaid, etc., etc., and sort of digging out from this incredible crisis. And even in that moment, even when he was seen by some on the left as being too pragmatic, what are the Republicans do? They didn't they didn't come and help Democrats being pragmatic and seeking out compromise. We did

it on taxes. We did it on the debt ceiling. We did it on health care, spent six months dancing with Chuck Grassley. What happened was we passed a bunch of incredibly important legislation that tried to solve some pretty big problems and do so in a way that required compromise and hard politics. Hard choices, is that what you're going to say? I was not going to say hard choices. I was going to say decision points, actually. I was going to refer to them as decision points. But what do the Republicans do? They turn those things into socialism and have spent the last two and a half years trying to undo every single one of them. So if we're going to try to actually solve problems, we need to go big and push this country towards bigger answers to these hard questions, because no matter

what we do, there is a right wing that will undo anything, no matter how moderated, no matter how practical. Once you start screaming about death panels, about a plan that was modeled after Mitt Romney's health care plan in Massachusetts, you've sort of gone over the ledge there. Yeah, we stole it from the Heritage Foundation. So let's talk about, the second thing is let's talk about the grassroots leadership divide. We saw Joe Crowley defeated, okay? This is someone who, obviously, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is further to the left than Crowley, but Crowley, one of the more progressive members of Congress, one of the first members of Congress to embrace Medicare for all, he's defeated. We've heard Democrats criticize Pelosi and Schumer for not fighting hard enough.

There's now an expectation among some in the grassroots that we can block Trump's Supreme Court pick when we have 49 votes. So it is something slightly different than ideology here that is driving sort of a grassroots versus why can't these Democrats in Washington fight hard enough? Dan, what do you think's going on there? Like everything else in these, not just these two articles, but the general conversation with this, we've conflated a thousand things together, right? There are differences between the approach of Democrats in Washington and sort of in the grassroots groups, whether it's swing left, indivisible, mom's demand, and everyone else who's out there. And that is usually more in the Senate than the House. And that is usually around Chuck Schumer trying to manage the politics of a bunch of members running in states that Trump won.

And I think that that is a very tough challenge for Chuck Schumer. And because he doesn't actually control what Joe Manchin does. Like he could tell Joe Manchin, don't vote against whoever Trump puts up for the Supreme Court. And Joe Manchin could say, I'm going to, I'm just going to vote for him. I mean, let's not forget Joe Manchin shot Barack Obama's climate change bill with a gun and a television ad. So he's not going to be our friend on all things.

That is different than Joe Crowley's defeat. Those are just two different things. They are probably tangentially related, but they are different. I've seen this before. I saw this in 2004 after – or in the early years of the Bush era when MoveOn and all these other anti-Iraq war groups sprung up. And I do think that to the credit of some in the Democratic establishment, they are being much more welcoming of swing left and indivisible in these groups than has previously happened. Like there seems to be less of a territorialism and a condescension from Washington.

And maybe some of it's co-opting and it's more malicious than it appears, but everyone seems to want to share the state. My basic view is we should get out of the way and let these grassroots groups lead. Because I don't know of anyone in Washington, or ourselves included, who have a sterling record in the 2016 election that suggests that we have all the right answers for this. And so we should be aligning ourselves with the groups who are mostly most closely tied to the grassroots enthusiasm that's fueling our the electoral victories we've had over the last two years. Dan, I heard a couple people, I saw a couple people on Twitter say, if only Obama had fought harder for Merrick Garland back when he nominated Merrick Garland. We might not be in this mess right now. Can we just go back? Like, was there anything else that Barack Obama or the Senate

Democrats could have done to put Merrick Garland on the bench back in 15, 16, whatever it was? From my perspective, no. Mitch McConnell controlled the power. If there was nothing Barack Obama, Harry Reid, who was the leader at the time, could do to. Mitch McConnell controlled the power. There was nothing Barack Obama, Harry Reid, who was the leader at the time, could do to make Mitch McConnell put the nomination of Merrick Garland on the floor. That is a power that solely he had. And as long as the Republicans stuck together, nothing could have done it. No number of speeches could have forced him to do it. Barack Obama couldn't have gone to his house and made a compelling case and got Mitch McConnell to do it because Mitch McConnell operates entirely on cold

calculating political incentives. And he had a very strong political incentive to not do this. And I think the critique that I think can be given to the entire party is maybe we did not do a good enough job of telling people what was at stake. So Garland's not going to get the position while Barack Obama's president. So now there's a Supreme Court seat at stake in the election. And I think, as has been true for a long time with Democrats in questions around judges and Supreme Court, we haven't convinced people why this is so goddamn important. And now we are paying for that in the most painful ways possible, because it did work for Republicans. I did a panel before the election with S.E. Cupp, the CNN commentator who's a never-Trumper.

And we had done a bunch of panels together. Usually it was mostly people who didn't love Trump. And we basically got shouted out of the room because no matter how much you didn't like Trump, these Republicans wanted the Supreme Court seat. That became the permission structure to support him against everything else, his inexperience, his racism, his misogyny, everything else was we get the Supreme Court seat. And frankly, abortion was

at stake. And there's nothing to say that we could not have made that argument better on our side. It wouldn't have gotten Merrick Garland in the seat in that time period, but it would have maybe helped explain to people why the seat is so important. You know, we don't know what it would look like if Mitch McConnell was holding up a Supreme Court seat and Hillary Clinton's opponent was Marco Rubio and he was up in the polls by four points, right? We don't know how we would be feeling during that time if the idea of Trump winning wasn't seen as being more remote than it actually was. I don't believe barring basically turning his presidency into a campaign for that Supreme Court justice seat, right? Having like basically turned it into the biggest and most important issue he was facing to put pressure on other Republicans. And I don't even know if that would have worked.

Who knows? bringing it up is because I think we all look back on that period of time and Garland's not getting seated or the idea of Trump making the appointment that Mitch McConnell stole went from being a kind of hypothetical we couldn't deal with emotionally to an irreversible reality that night on election day. Because we thought Hillary Clinton was going to win, what Mitch McConnell was doing was despicable. But we weren't honest with ourselves about the risks because we weren't honest with ourselves about the risk of Donald Trump becoming president. And that carries over into a whole bunch of different issues. Right. But I do think like sometimes people equate Democrats not having power with Democrats not fighting hard enough.

We just have to remember that as we go forward in the Supreme Court fight. I mean, look, this is what happened during the whole shutdown over the Dreamers. You know, and we did this on this podcast. We pushed all the Democrats to say that they will not, you know, they're not going to fund deportations of Dreamers. And we're going to, you know, they're looking for a compromise here. And they all did it. And then they folded after 24, 48 hours.

But even what a day of courage it was. But even if they had held day of courage it was. But even if they had held tight for a week, two weeks, I think they should have. But I also couldn't say for sure whether Republicans and Donald Trump ever would have backed down from that and said, okay, sure, we'll do what you want to do. I think we got our answer

when he started separating children from parents. Exactly. He turned down $25 billion for the wall, refused to help the Dreamers, and then decided to separate families at the border. I think we knew what Donald Trump was going to do all along. I think part of this is expectations management. This is on Schumer and Pelosi, right? Which is, they let people believe, and we let people believe, frankly, that we could win that fight when that was highly unlikely. And just everyone listening to this knows this, but many of your friends may not, which is if every Democrat votes against this Supreme Court nominee and every Republican votes for it, they will get the seat.

And so there's two things. One, there's letting people know that the fight is going to be really hard and we may lose. But then there was also, and to demonstrate to the people who are – who marched in the Women's March, who marched for our lives, who stormed airports. They have to show to those people that they, our party and these leaders, are a worthy vessel for that enthusiasm. And that is going to require having tough fights, even if we lose them. And so doing this calculation of we're probably going to lose or we're going to save our powder for another day is, I think, is a huge strategic error. The powder is unlimited. Yeah, and also, but Dan, I actually think it's more than that.

I don't think these fights are just about signaling to the base, signaling to the activists that we're willing to fight. I think you have the fight because the fight and the argument leaves a mark and it leaves a mark on the issues we care about. If we make the Supreme Court battle one that is covered as if there is an actual chance, maybe a small chance, but a chance that we can maybe stop one nominee or maybe stop a more heinous nominee or cause it to be controversial, cause it to be a negative for Republicans, that'll be valuable in the fall. That'll remind people that we just had this big argument over criminalizing abortion, over preexisting conditions. So I think it has value even to the people that are not hardcore Democrats, but are going to start tuning in in the fall anyway.

So let's talk about tone and message. I think all three of us would very much agree that the entire civility debate is obscene. But how about this whole, like, you much outrage too much anger yeah i pundits need to decide how hot they want democratic voters to be all right it's like the goldilocks thing like oh they're getting a little too angry that's gonna alienate a group of people in the midwest i've never met oh they're not angry enough they're not going to alienate a group of people in the Midwest I've never met. Oh, they're not angry enough. They're not going to get the votes they need in the parts of New York I've never been to. Like, what do you want? You want a passionate, but not too passionate, angry, but not too angry, ready to vote, but not crazy. Like, what do you want? What do you want? What do you want a Democratic base voter to be like? How loud? This loud? A little bit quieter.

The thing is, fucking outrageous things are happening all across this country. We should be outraged. And this idea that some p liberties are being trampled and we're a country that says that we believe in civil rights and civil liberties like that's what people are outraged about but i also think that there's a there this is another conflation here too they're conflating how activists and people on the ground people these marches feel with what politicians how politicians should comport themselves and i think if you are an activist if you're an, if you're someone who's just paying attention to the politics for the very first time, and you're angry and you're upset, then fucking go be angry and upset because you deserve to be because of what's happened here. But like, please vote. Channel that anger in a productive way, which is registering people to vote, voting, going to marches, knocking on doors, making phone calls, do that. Don't just be angry and scream into the Twitter sphere. But as far as politicians go, as far as candidates

who are running, I haven't really seen an angry, fire-breathing Democratic candidate who makes their whole campaign, his or her whole campaign, about being angry. Like, we've talked about this before. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, she definitely had a lot of passion, and she was angry on behalf of the people that she will go on to represent. But she didn't, and she said this herself, she didn't spend most of her campaign talking about Trump. It's such a funny, like, it goes actually to the same thing about like, oh, this Red Hen restaurant is playing right into Trump's hands they're not in politics they're just a group of people with a restaurant it's like these articles like democratic voters may be presenting a problem with democratic voters in the fall like

what are you talking about well these are just these are people they're just people in the world some guy showed up to a fucking immigration uh protest with a gun pulled a gun on the protesters um yelled womp womp because he decided to parrot Corey fucking Lewandowski. And our country can't, like, how stupid does it have to get? Now that's a slogan of white nationalism. Womp womp. You didn't hear a bunch of pundits saying,

oh, Republicans have to watch themselves because that guy who pulled a gun on the protesters represents the Republican Party and why would he, why would that guy give the Democrats such a gift by pulling a – no, you didn't hear anything about that. Nothing. Why do you guys think that is? So what is the underlying assumptions that lead –

Because these pundits in D.C. are on the side of the Democrats, but they can't say that because they must be unbiased at all times and they must be analytic at all times. And so what they spend most of their time doing is saying, be better, Democrats. Act like, act civilly, act how I think you should act because I am a pundit in Washington. And here's how I want you to be because you're my son. And it's very serious things and I believe

in very serious ways of acting and being and stuff like that. These articles are like, they close the door and now it's just family. And let's talk amongst ourselves. Look at those crazy people across the street. You want to be like them? We're not like them, right? We're better than that.

Let's keep it. Let's keep it close. But of course, it's on the internet. It's also just we need a new narrative, right? For like weeks, it was the country, you know, everything's falling apart for Trump because for the first time ever, he's facing political accountability for his child separation policy. We stuck to the same story for two weeks. So what's the new story?

Democrats in disarray. And like these stories also swerve out of their lane to make this point. Like I read this Washington Post article that we mentioned here, and the main person quoted in it, is it Chuck Schumer? Is it Nancy Pelosi? Is it an upstart Democrat like Beto O'Rourke or Stacey Abrams? No, it's Michael fucking Moore. I know, man. From an appearance on the Bill Maher show, there is nothing more disconnected than what is actually going to matter to voters active as politicians than what Michael Moore said to Bill Maher. actually going to matter to voters, activists, politicians, than what Michael Moore said to Bill Maher. We're looking. It is a narrative in search of a story. It is foolish. We spent 10

minutes talking about it. Everyone out there should not read these stories if you haven't read them already. Ignore them and get back to fucking work because it doesn't matter what a pundit says about whether your attitude or your outrage or your policy is going to affect the election, their predictions are pointless. They're meaningless and they're usually wrong. We actually control what happens here by turning out to vote because there are more of us than them. So, like, it's actually pretty simple. And the rest of this is just filling space until the votes actually start getting cast. That is what they do well.

I mean, look, the New York Times story I thought was better because the New York Times story basically concluded like, and this might actually help Democrats win. The Washington Post story was completely absurd. The Michael Moore thing, I was just like, but this is, of course, the whole problem. This is what happens is a small incident, an isolated incident happens, like the red hen thing or Michael Moore saying that.

And people pick it up and that becomes the narrative in DC. Also, what's the outrageous thing they called for? Peaceful protest. He called for peaceful protest. What a fucking radical. Anyway, so I think we're fine. Everyone feel good? No.

I'm outraged i just it's just like so let's just like the sequence of events just so people understand is uh a person who won for your votes became president appointed a stolen supreme court seat they used that supreme court seat to steal a bunch more power for their constituencies of corporations uh the rich. Then the president started separating children from families to send a cruel message to people seeking a better life against terrible, terrible odds. Democrats have responded by being outraged, passionate, and protesting. And the question is, will this hurt us? Seems like a good week for Donald Trump.

One of Trump's best weeks. I saw an AP headline that said that. Another royal flush from President Trump. Can I ask you guys one more question about this? Do you think any piece of this kind of story about, oh, the Democrats are too outraged, oh, the Democrats are being pulled too far in a

radical direction, do you think there's some part of it that stems from a belief on the part of some reporters, a quiet belief that there is still this silent majority, that there is still this group of people who will be alienated by this kind of thing? I mean, that could be possible with the reporters. I don't tend to think of a silent majority as this silent majority that secretly loves Donald Trump and is going to come out to vote for him. I am always mindful of the fact that most of the country

does not pay attention to politics as closely as all of us, and most of the people who listen to this podcast. But a good chunk of that country still votes, and they are people who don't pay as close attention to the news. They don't consume politics like we do. And I always think to myself, when they turn on the news, when they finally pay attention closer to the election, what are they going to see from Democratic candidates versus Republican candidates? And I do think that impression that we have on people who aren't as aware as we are of all the crazy shit that's going on, they know that bad things are happening. They know that Trump is president. They probably don't like Donald Trump.

But they're thinking to themselves, OK, I don't like Donald Trump. He's pretty fucking crazy. He's got the tweets. Everything's good. The country seems like it's going to hell in's pretty fucking crazy. He's got the tweets. Everything's good. The country seems like it's going to hell in a handbasket. There's like a lot of shit going on. But I don't know. What are the Democrats up to?

What are they going to do? And I hope that what they see is- It's Chuck Schumer in front of a gas station. No, I hope what they see are candidates who are offering big, bold solutions to the problems that they face in their lives and they're telling them, I am going to fight like hell for you and try to make this country a little bit better. Like that's what I hope they see. And I hope they don't see all of these little controversies. So I think to the extent that we have to discipline ourselves to make sure that that message gets out, which I think Ocasio-Cortez did successfully,

which I think Conor Lamb did successfully. People across the spectrum have done that successfully so far, which is why I'm hopeful about November. Yeah, just one more. Like it's also actually that's something that's really important too because even if you are a Democrat who thinks that A, abolishing ICE is a bad idea because you're a centrist and you think it's bad politically because you're a centrist and you think it's bad politically because you're a centrist, it is still a better idea to just say what you think than it is to spend your days trying to police the words of other Democrats. Yes, that is true. If you have an opportunity

to go on background or go on record with a reporter who's asking you about Dems and disarray stories, just don't. Or just at least talk about the issues that you believe in. Talk about your policy positions. Talk about what you think. Don't start being a pundit. Leave that to the pros like us. Dan, do you think the background brigades are going to hear and heed John's message?

Do you think that we will finally crush the spirits of the unnamed strategists roiling democratic politics wanted to speak anonymously so he could speak freely about the inter-party divisions because they're still trying to make money i think they're going to be reporters walking around washington dc all summer with so much time on their hands because there's been no one calling them to talk about why the democratic party is fucked up we'll quote on background for food that's what their signs will say. All right. I think the last thing I'll say on this before I let you go is,

or let you segue us into the next section, is what all of this boils down to is a common belief among reporters, pundits, politicians, consultants, that caution is a better path than courage in campaigns. And there is basically zero history of that being true. Okay, when we come back, Dan and I will take your questions.

And we're back. Thank you to everyone who sent in questions on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, questions all over the place. So I grabbed a few and then, Dan, we can we can go through as many as we have time for here. Let's do it. I didn't read any of the documents that Michael sent me, so I'm flying totally blind here. So you're just getting straight hot takes. No prep. This is exciting. This is from Corey. What can Democrats and everyone who is pro-choice start doing at the state level to change abortion laws or continue to protect reproductive rights just in case those battles are lost in the Supreme Court with a new justice?

That is a great fucking question, Corey. Step one, if you have a Republican governor, Republican legislature, elect Democrats. Step two, if you have a Democratic governor and Democratic legislature, and they have not passed laws that enshrine women's reproductive freedom, pressure them to do so ASAP. But this ultimately comes down to winning as many seats at the state level in governor's mansions as humanly possible. I don't think there's ever been a time when electing Democrats on a state level, on a local level, especially state legislatures and governorships, has been more important than it is right now. And look, we all learned this lesson the hard way in 2010 when Democrats got wiped out, not just in Congress, but we lost a lot of statehouse seats. And what happened then was, of course, you know, redistricting and the census happened in 2011.

And because Republicans had huge majorities in Congress, they got to redraw all the lines. And, you know, now we have way too many Republican governorships. So now we're going to have another redistricting year, another census year in 2021. We have a Supreme Court that could have a conservative majority that could undermine rights and turn back laws and progress in all kinds of states. So to have a Democratic bulwark in the states against what's happening at the federal level, I mean, I saw a couple of Republicans being like, oh, it's interesting that Democrats have suddenly found a new love for federalism. Yeah, that's fair. I do. We have to, and we haven't for a long time, we have to pay attention

to not just Congress, not just flipping Congress, but to every single seat that is up, especially seats in states right now. And there's a lot of, I mean, we've talked about how the Senate map is pretty hard for us. But the map for the governor's races is actually pretty ripe for Democrats to pick up a lot of governorships, right? Yeah, it's great. I mean, there are a lot of seats up, there are a lot of seats in states that were either very close in the 2016 election or states that Democrats won. So the opportunities are there. We just have to actually devote resources, energy, and focus to it. This is from Nikki on Facebook. This is a tough one, Dan. How do you feel about Democrats running on the message of increasing the court size if they regain power in 2020? People like Ian Samuel think pack the courts should be on the same level as abolish ICE. I think if I was being devious, I would say don't run on packing the courts, run on something else, win, and then pack the courts. That seems like a better plan.

That's what the Republicans would do. Look, I think we need to take some pretty drastic steps as Democrats to try to find better balance between the majority. We have a majority of voters. Our positions have majority appeal, yet the structures of power massively disadvantage us, whether it's the makeup of the Senate, whether it is redistricting and everything else. And so we need to take some drastic steps. I have said this before. I was, I will say it again. If I, if the Democrats stumble into control of the House, Senate, and presidency in my, in the, in the near term, or even in my lifetime, the first thing I would do is I would give statehood to DC. And the second thing I would do would be if the people of Puerto

Rico so desired to become a state, which there have been different... That should be their call, not ours. But if they were to so choose that, I would give Puerto Rico statehood because I can promise you one fucking thing. So let's just take D.C. for a second. If Washington, D.C. was a – voted for Donald Trump like 90 to 10 or whatever the numbers were in D.C. but is one of the most democratic places in their country, if it was that Republican, it would – Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump, and Paul Ryan would have made a state last week. They would have taken those two Senate seats. So I think that is one thing we can do that would help restore balance. I don't know. I think that it may be a race to the bottom of we're just going to end up with 1,000 Supreme Court justices because every time someone gets control of government, they'll just add more until they get the majority.

I don't know that that's the best thing in the long run for governance in this country. Yeah, I'm not worried about it because I'm worried about like protecting norms and institutions, though I do think institutions and norms are important. But I'm worried, like we should think about, we should think hard about steps where if Republicans are in power again and they do the same thing, it could hurt us in a big way. Like tomorrow, what would we do if Donald Trump said, oh, I have a Republican House and Republican Senate and I'm going to pass a bill right now to give me the power to add two or three more Supreme Court justices and I'm going to nominate a bunch of people who are in their 40s. That'd be pretty fucking scary. I think we absolutely need revenge for Merrick Garland's seat.

They stole a Supreme Court seat. The Republicans stole a Supreme Court seat. And we should not rest until we get it back. What do you think that revenge should be? I mean, I think, first of all, if Democrats retake the Senate and, like, you know, Donald Trump may or may not get this nominee through. Like, you know, Donald Trump may or may not get this nominee through. If Democrats retake the Senate, Ruth Bader Ginsburg's 85, Stephen Breyer's 80, 81, and then Clarence Thomas is the next oldest at 71, 72. I think that he gets no more Supreme Court justices, no matter if all three of them retire. Or, as Elizabeth Warren told us when we asked her this question,

at least then force him to actually put up a moderate Supreme Court justice. But otherwise, if he puts up another Gorsuch, if he puts up three more Gorsuch's, then the Democrats should absolutely say, no, we're keeping the seat open. We are keeping the seat open until the presidential election in 2020. And I think they'd be totally justified in doing that. I might go one step further.

I might also say no appeals court judges. Oh, yeah. I think that's probably fair too. I mean Mitch McConnell has been so devious from Merrick Garland on. Then, yeah, I think that's totally fair. But I do think – That's basically what they did to Obama's last two years. Right. That's right. But I do think you're right. Like packing the court sort of, it does start this arms race where

suddenly the judiciary stops becoming a check on the legislative branch and the executive branch. And now the judiciary is just whoever's in power adds more justices so they can get their way. And it just goes back and forth between Democrats and Republicans. And by the way, I don't know that I necessarily feel this about getting rid of the filibuster if Democrats take back the Senate and take the presidency. Because that's a situation where the makeup of the Senate, the fact that the Senate gives two senators to the state of Wyoming and two senators to the state of California, and the way that the demographic coalitions in this country have shaken out and geographical distribution of voters in this country has shaken out, Democrats are much more, have a much bigger advantage of a 51-vote majority than Republicans will have of a 51 vote majority.

You know what I'm saying? Like Republicans are always going to have an advantage in the U.S. Senate because of the way the population is distributed in this country right now. They always will. So for Democrats, the only way to even the field, even the playing field in the Senate is going to be ultimately to get rid of the filibuster so there's no 60-vote margin. I do think the Democrats should think about doing that. I agree. I also think, just podcast listeners, there are, what, 2 million of you out there, theoretically? And if 10% of you moved to Wyoming, we'd have two more senators. 5% moved, you would probably have two more senators. 5% moves you, we'd probably have two more senators.

Housing prices are expensive on the coast. Given the state of the planet these days with Scott Prude in charge, the coast may be getting smaller. If you're so into it, move to a low-population Republican state, register as a Democrat, run for office if you want, and we'll get more Senate seats. Just a thought.

But you know what's easier than moving a whole bunch of people to Wyoming? The next Democratic Senate leader just saying, Bye, filibuster. Let's do both. Yeah, no, both is great, too. Yeah, no, okay, I'll take the both option. All right. From Kaylee on Twitter, this is sort of a good segue.

If there's a Democratic trifecta come 2021, what is the new thing you'd like to see them try to do? Election reform, codifying norms into laws, paid family leave, weed. Those are all Kaylee's different options. What do you think, Dan? What's first on the agenda? Statehood for D.C. Two Senate seats. And it's the fucking right thing to do because people of DC deserve to have representation

because the government has been fucking with them for a long time. So that's one. Two, I think, I mean, the list is so long. We should do all the things. Basically, is this the question of you could do one

thing with that power, what would it be? Yeah, let's go there. That's a fun exercise. I don't even know if that was your one thing with that power, what would it be? Yeah, let's go there. That's a fun exercise. I don't even know if that was your question, but that's a cool one to do. Yeah. I mean, I would do Medicare for All. That's what I would do.

Yeah. I know. Maybe we're just, you know, we're gluttons for punishment. We went through Obamacare once before. But I just – I agree with you. I care a lot about health care and I think it is – I mean there is a good argument to be made that it is one of the biggest costs that families face, that it is one of the biggest costs that this entire country faces. as much as Obamacare did to ensure 20 million people who didn't have health insurance before, partly because of Republican sabotage, it did not do enough to bring down the cost of health care.

A public option would have helped do that. And I think if we do not figure out how to bring down the cost of health care in this country, we are not just going to have health care problems, we're going to have major, major economic problems. And so I do think that's a good one. I also think like any kind of shoring up, and I know that states have a lot of power in this area too, but anything we can do on the federal level to shore up voting rights. Because that's the kind of thing, that's the kind of measure that next time Democrats aren't in power, if we can sort of codify a lot of voting rights legislation and voting rights protections into law, then we're going to be in better shape than we're in right now, where we see Republicans sort of turning back voting rights, you know, in a ton of different states. You know what? I rescind mine. I mean, we should also do Medicare for All, but we should do national vote by mail, 30 days.

Yeah. We should do it like we do in California or like we do in Oregon. What about Election Day as a holiday? I do that too. Although many people – I've made that point on Twitter and people – and actually a fairly reasoned nice way, which made this a unique Twitter experience, made the point to me that that is true. That will really help you if you're like a salaried worker, but service workers still have to work on holidays.

And so the people you're trying to help, you're not – like the world doesn't shut down, right? Like restaurants are open. Hospitals are open. And so for a large segment of the population, people that may be the hardest to vote for, you're not helping them. So you should do – I think you should make it a holiday, but then you should also do a month of vote by mail so that people have as many opportunities as possible. Like the idea – it shouldn't be election day in this country. It should be election month.

Yeah. I think that – I'm with you on that. I'm with you on that. I should say that our producer, Michael Martinez, former D.C. resident here, was pumping his fist in the air when you talked about D.C. statehood. So Michael is very much on board with that one. Amy on Twitter asks us, how the hell do I cope with all this? How do you cope?

Is no one coping and we're all just falling apart inside? Should I have said love it? It's a very existential question. If none of us are coping, do we even know it? Do we think we're coping and we're not actually coping? I don't know. i guess i'd say a couple things about this one doing something is better it feels better than sitting at home and lamenting the state of the country and sadness and so but if that is canvassing if that is going to a march if that's registering voters if that is you know something my sister-in-law does which is sends postcards to voters uh which is a really neat program for people who may not be able to – who may – because of jobs or childcare or whatever else may not be able to get out and go canvassing all the time. So I think that's one thing.

And then Lovett makes this point a lot, but it's you don't have to live in the shit 24-7. Right. Turn something else on. Watch the World Cup. Watch a television show. Binge Netflix. Like take a break. Like we are in a marathon here like

in 2018 is not the end of the marathon it is like not even the halfway point we have a long way to go to dig ourselves out of this and so take a break every once in a while don't you don't like you are not being a bad person if you decide you just want to fire fire up the tv and turn on gilmore girls and watch it for for a few hours. You're not shirking your duty as an American citizen disturbed by the state of the country if you take a break for a second. But after you've recharged your batteries, get back out there and start trying to take our country back. Yeah. I mean, look, I suffer from an addiction to Twitter. That's my problem. to Twitter. That's my problem. I also, you know, my job is to pay attention to the news. This is yours. But if I didn't have that addiction to the news, and sometimes I try myself, it is good to

shut off Twitter, to shut off the news. I mean, love it would kill us if we're saying this, because it's like telling people not to tune into our content here. But I think once in a while, it's good to take a break from all this shit and to talk to your family and talk to your friends and go enjoy something. And because things are really bad right now. And Donald Trump has done some horrible things. The Republican Party has done some horrible things. And some horrible things have been with us before Donald Trump and before the Republican Party. They were with us during the Obama administration.

They've been with us for decades. And it's also true that this country has been through worse than what it is going through right now. There was a civil war in this country through World War II. Civil rights was an incredibly difficult period. Look at the late 1960s. So there were worse times in this country before. And I think, like, you're absolutely right that it is a marathon. And I was – going to the march on Saturday was such a – it's always such a refreshing thing because, A, because there's so many people, your phone doesn't work as well.

And so you can't actually read the news as well. And you're just there with people and you're talking to people. And you feel this really positive energy and no matter what you think before the march whether you're like i gotta wake up early i'm gonna go to this march or no crowd it's gonna be when you get there it's just it's completely different it changes you and you feel better and that feeling usually lasts the whole weekend uh until monday comes and you open up Twitter and Donald Trump's doing something fucking crazy. But it is important to give yourself those breaks. Dan, this is from Spencer on Instagram.

This is for you. Could you talk about the lack of parody in the NBA? We have had lack of parody in the NBA for as long as i've watched the nba we've had a small handful of franchise whose franchises who always win and some franchises who never win i think well i'm a sixers fan i am sad that lebron has decided to take his talents to your town of la i know everyone says all the cool kids are moving to LA. I'm a big Lakers fan now. Look at that. I don't know what this is going to mean for you Celtics fans

who now have to watch the Lakers with LeBron. No, not going to happen. But I think that we will revert to the norms. Again, people are very upset because the Golden State Warriors, who are my second team, and for anyone to yell at me about having a second team, here's what I'd say to you.

If your coach would appear on Pod Save America and then wear his merch to multiple press conferences, including during the NBA playoffs, then I would consider supporting your other team as well. But they haven't done that, so I'm not with the Sixers. I'm with Steve Kerr and the Warriors, and I'm totally fine with that. Open invitation. They're signing Greg Popovich,

Brett Brown, Luke Walton, all of you are invited to a Pots of America Crooked Conversation experience and I will bring a fucking duffel bag of merch that you can wear all the time. But it's going to still,

NBA season was amazing last season. It's going to be amazing next season. And our friend, Chase Serrano, pointed out on Twitter that if the only thing you care about in the NBA is who wins at the end of the season, then you're missing

all the amazing things that are happening. So, it'll be another great year, even if the Warriors will probably win again. Yeah, I will, since it's the Lakers, I'm not having a second team here. But, you know, good for LA. Good for LeBron, good for LA. Okay.

Speaking of existential questions, Katie on Twitter asks, why does John Lovett go to so many escape rooms? I don't know, Katie. I don't know. Can you answer that question for him? Again, it's an existential question. I think it's about more than just escape rooms. All right.

And our last question from Hannah on Instagram, when is John's podcast on the Democratic Party coming out? Great question. On Monday, July 9th, we are dropping the teaser, and you can subscribe to my new podcast called The Wilderness. I decided to announce the name today because why not? Oh, that's exciting. Yeah, you knew it was The Wilderness for a while. Monday, July 9th, so not? Oh, that's exciting. Yeah. You knew it was a wilderness for a while. Monday, July 9th.

So like just a few days from now. Yes. It is a – Are you at all concerned that we're recording this podcast on July 3rd? It will come out on July 5th. And according to Alex Jones, the Democrats are starting the Civil War on July 4th. I took that into account. I have a couple interviews about the Democrats starting the Civil War. So 4th. I took that into account. I have a couple interviews about the Democrats

starting the Civil War, so no worries about that. Okay, cool. Excellent. So it is a 15-chapter story. It's a documentary-style podcast about a party that is finding its way out of the wilderness. So we are all in the wilderness right now, but while we're here, there's a lot of new ideas, there's a lot of new energy, there's a lot of new planning, a lot of new candidates, and it is about sort of tracking our way out of the wilderness. So the teaser drops on July 9th. On that day, we will also have the chapter titles, the descriptions of each chapter, what we're covering in each chapter. And I will also release the list of

guests who I interviewed for this podcast, which you are one, Dan. Dan talked to me for the media episode. And then on Monday, July 16th, we are releasing the first four episodes at once, the first four chapters of The Wilderness. So they will be out on Monday, July 16th, and then we will release one every Monday after that. I'm very excited. I'm very excited this is finally happening now. I'm very excited for this. It's going to be, it's a really amazing project, and I'm very much looking forward to it. Yeah. And I'll say for, you know, as tough as these last couple of weeks have been, every time I go back to work on The Wilderness and to do all the editing and post-production, all

that kind of stuff, I'm always very hopeful because I would say what I learned from talking to people from all kinds of different backgrounds and views and beliefs is like, yeah, we're in some shit. But there's a lot more unity in the Democratic Party than you might think from looking on Twitter and cable. And there's a lot of people who were on various sides of debates that we've had in the party over in recent years. And they're sort of all coalescing around a certain set of policies, a certain agenda, a certain message, a certain idea for tone. And that is very hopeful. So check it out. Monday, July 9th is the teaser.

And on July 16th, we will have the first couple episodes of The Wilderness. And today, we are going to, after we say goodbye, we're going to have an excerpt from one of the episodes. This is the episode, this is episode three, chapter three. It's about the 2016 election. And I had a conversation with Rebecca Traister about sort of why the fight is worth it, even though 2016 went horribly. We talked about sort of the night before the election and basically talked about the future of the party and what's possible.

So you can hear that. That'll play right after we're done chatting. And other than that, everyone, I hope you had a great 4th and hope you have a great weekend. And, you know, we'll all be back next week. Yeah, talk to everyone next week. Happy 4th.

I remember when we were sitting down to work on the second inaugural, you know, Obama, as usual, came up with the whole idea. He was like, you know, we should start with the first line of the declaration, because my belief is that you could write the entire history of the United States and the entire story of America is us, is each generation trying to make that first line of the declaration real. Because it wasn't when it was written, but the promise was always in the founding. And the idea is that each generation tries to do it.

You know, those were back in the hopeful days before Trump. But still, you know. But it's because and this is the thing. This is the bigger story is that he was right to have that hope. I mean, I do sometimes think that he believed we were closer to it than we were, obviously. Right, right. But he was right to have that hope because it is possible. It is possible.

But the fact that it's possible is precisely what has provoked the punishing pushback that we're living through right now. It's within our grasp to make another huge set of steps toward inclusion and equality and toward the promises, the unfulfilled promises of our founding. It's because we're on the brink of getting to that next place that we are being hit so hard. That's exactly what we're in the midst of right now. And it's not because it's impossible to get to that next step. It's because it's really possible. Thank you.