Pod Save America - “New Hampshire feels the Bern.”

Episode Date: February 12, 2020

Bernie Sanders wins a narrow but crucial victory in New Hampshire, the rest of the candidates compete to be the Bernie alternative, and Donald Trump’s Tuesday massacre reminds us of the stakes in November.Then chip in to help build the much-needed ground game in battleground states: votesaveamerica.com/field

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's pod, we have actual results from a primary contest the day after voting. Wow. So we're going to talk about what happened in New Hampshire and what it means for the race moving forward. We're also going to talk a little bit about the Tuesday massacre at the Department of Justice

and what it should tell us about the stakes of this year's election. Spoiler alert there. They're high. They're as high as we've been saying. Before that, we have an announcement. We've told you before that one of our many challenges is that the contested primary has given Trump a head start in the general. Democratic candidates are spending money against each other, and he's spending money on, among other things, building an enormous field operation. That's why we're launching a brand new fund to help build our own field operation starting now.

It's called Leave It All on the Field, and it will support groups who are putting organizers on the ground in the states that we need to win. The first group we're going to help out, you guys have heard us talk about before, it's Organizing Corps 2020, which is recruiting, training, and paying 1,000 organizers ahead of the general election in eight key battleground states, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona, Minnesota, Georgia, and Florida. Current Corps members on the ground have already been making voter and volunteer calls, canvassing, organizing, especially on college campuses. All this work will eventually support our nominee directly. And every Democratic campaign supports this effort.

Yeah, they've all been briefed on this. Some of them put out statements in support. It's just the point is when you go from the primary to the general election, you go from like 500, 600 staff to 5,000 staff in 2020, maybe 4,000. You're ramping up massively and very quickly. And this will get you trained people in the states that matter from the communities that matter on day one. Yeah. And part of the problem in 2016 was Hillary Clinton, because it was such a long, primary was not able to staff up fast enough for the general election. She had a bunch of openings

while there was a ground game on the other side. And so, you know, staffing up now is crucial, which is why we ask you to donate to votesaveamerica.com slash field. That's the fund. We've got to help. All right. Our billionaires run for president. Their billionaires put iPads in the head of every goober knocking on doors. We've got to get into this thing. All right. All right. Two other quick things and we will get into it. Tommy, you got a new pod, Save the World. And Dan, you got a book that will save democracy. Oh, congrats, Dan.

Tommy, you want to go first? We sit in here and talk once a week and Dan writes another fucking book making us all look bad. Yeah, Ben and I, we had a blast this week. We started with just some New Hampshire primary from 2008 war stories, which are very fun. It's always fun to talk about. There was nothing fun about the 2008. When you get your ass kicked. But then we talked about this speech out of a crazy CIA effort along with the

Germans to just break all global encryption over the past several decades and a bunch of other interesting foreign policy stuff that's happening. So check it out. Cool. I love the pod. Save the world pitches. They're the best. I can do the full one, Dan. I love the full one. World pitches. They're the best. I could do the full one, Dan.

I love the full one. Good news out of Sudan, Dan. Omar Bush, you're the ICC. You want more? I don't think we can laugh about that. Okay, good. No, it's good. Fuck that guy.

It's good news. Yes. Hard to follow that. We are at the end of the incessant pre-order pitches. The book comes out on Tuesday. Wow. Tuesday, February 8th. Yes, we Dan.

Yes, we Dan. That was the alternative title. I had a couple of drinks and I sent around yes, we Dan merch ideas to the whole group and no one wrote back. You did? Yeah. That hurts.

I don't remember that. Did you hit send? I don't know that it went through. I said I had a few drinks. Did you dream it? Anywho. Yes, the book comes out February 18th. And I have been pushing this pre-order campaign in the most incessant, plaintive, and annoying fashion possible.

But I've been doing it for three reasons. One is because I am donating a portion of the proceeds from all the pre-orders to Fair Fight Action. I'm donating a portion of the proceeds from all the pre-orders to Fair Fight Action. So I want to be able to do as much as good as we can for Stacey Abrams as possible out of the book part of this. Second is I have this bet with my publisher about whether I can exceed the pre-sales of the last book. We are not there yet. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We have a lot of work due to get there. And I'm going to spend all of next week with my publisher. And if I'm on the losing end of the bet, that's going to be quite annoying. Got it. And then the third reason is sort of just something maybe I should have explained the beginning, but pre-orders are very important to the success of a book,

because the more pre-orders you have, the more bookstores are willing to put it in a prominent location, the more willing to discount it, the more likely media is to cover it. And so it's a very important part of it. And it's a necessary part of success. And I feel very passionately about this book. And I wrote it because I do think our democracy is in a much more dangerous place than people actually believe. And that it is up to Democrats to be the ones who save it. And that starts in the 2020 election. And it continues after we win and all the things we have to do to defeat not just Donald Trump, but Trumpism. And so I've also provided a, if you would like to preview the book, one of the chapters of the book, the chapter where I wrote a memo to the nominee that we will have in three weeks, three months, the third day of the convention, I don't know, about what I think it'll take to win in 2020. That chapter,

the audiobook version of that chapter is up on the Crooked Middies podcast feed, so you can listen to it. And if you like it, pre-order the book. And if you pre-order the book, I would ask one more favor of you to share the fact that you did so on social media. That makes me feel much better about myself. I forward those to my publisher, but most importantly, it reminds other people that the book is out there and so that they may purchase it. And then next week, the book is out. I pre-ordered it, Dan. Thank you, Tommy. Are there two versions of your memo? One is long and drawn out and thoughtful, and one just says, write yourself a $10 billion check?

The first part of the memo does begin with, it has many detailed ideas about how you win the economic debate, how you take on Trump. but the first one is two-factor authentication. Oof. Oof. Tough. All right, let's get into it. Last night, Senator Bernie Sanders won a narrow but critical victory in the New Hampshire primary

with 95% of precincts reporting. Bernie has 25.7% of the vote. Pete Buttigieg is in second with 24.4%. Amy Klobuchar is a surprise third with 19.8%. Elizabeth Warren is in second with 24.4%. Amy Klobuchar is a surprise third with 19.8%. Elizabeth Warren is in fourth with 9.2%. And Joe Biden is in a dismal fifth place with 8.4%. Now, because you need at least 15% of the vote to get any delegates at all, only the top three candidates won any.

And because it was so close, Bernie and Pete will both get nine delegates and Amy will get six. Pete now leads the overall race for the nomination by a single delegate. Let's talk about how each of the candidates did here. And let's start with the winner, Bernie Sanders, who delivered a message about beating Trump and unifying the party in his victory speech. Let's play the clip. And the reason I believe we are going to win is that we have an unprecedented grassroots movement from coast to coast of millions of people. The reason that we are going to win is that we are putting together an unprecedented multi-generational, multi-racial political movement.

And this is a movement from coast to coast which is demanding that we finally have an economy and a government that works for all of us, not wealthy campaign contributors. All right, guys, how big of a win was this for Bernie Sanders? I did like a positive case and negative case. Great. Let's do that. Let's do that. So, I mean, I think the positive case for Bernie would be a win is a win is a win.

Yeah. You have to win these things. If you won the popular vote in two states, moving up in the national polls. He can raise huge sums of money. I think they raised $25 million in January, and they said they got 600,000 contributions in February. So that's great. And then going forward, Bernie's team thinks he does well with Latino voters, and they're one third of the Nevada population, right? So he's well suited going forward. They also won a big bunch of subsamples. I think that the negative case would be, you know, 63% of voters over age 45 split between Klobuchar and Buttigieg. The majority of voters went to other candidates. It was a narrower win than polls might've projected. The pledge delegate picture

is still split. And he got a smaller percentage of the vote than in 2016. But obviously, that was because 16 was a two-person race. But it does say that some support was anti-Hillary. The other thing that jumped out at me was 60% of voters in New Hampshire support Medicare for all. And that level of support would be a bit worrying for me in a general election. Dan? I think Bernie Sanders cemented himself as the absolute and potentially overwhelming front runner for the Democratic nomination right now. He had to win and he did win. The margin, I think, is more narrow than the poll suggested, I think, than his campaign expected. But while that may not seem particularly gratifying at this exact moment to his campaign, it is probably the best thing for him because the way this keeps playing out is every time a quote unquote moderate alternative fades, another one emerges.

comes and he continues to be in a place where he is getting 25 to 28% in these polls, and that is enough to win in some cases easily. And in terms of delegate allocation, he's in a very, very strong position. I do agree with Tommy that there are, I think, some potential warning signs for his general election case here, which is he, like in that clip we just heard, he talks about his massive organization, his great campaign. All of that I think is true relative to the rest of the field, but neither in Iowa nor New Hampshire did that organization seem to deliver additional support beyond what the polls showed. In fact, basically, it almost felt like he was holding on for dear life to some portion of his support. Yeah. I mean, I totally agree with this. And this, you know, I talked to Faz Shakir, who's the campaign manager about this.

It seems like from a general election perspective, which, you know, is a good idea to judge each of these candidates on as we talk about how they all did. You know, Bernie has two challenges, I think. One is he continues to lose to Buttigieg, Klobuchar, other candidates, even Warren, other people, the suburbs, where I think the biggest turnout surge tends to be and moderate voters and stuff like that. It's not really a surprise, but the Bernie campaign promises, what we might lose there, we make up for in increased turnout, young people, etc. So turnout overall in New Hampshire is on track to beat the 2008 record of 287,000 people. So that's good news that turnout is bigger. But when you look at where that extra turnout came

from, so you look at first-time voters in the New Hampshire primary, people who voted for the first time, that was 13% of the electorate. So great. How did they split? Pete won them, 29%. Bernie got 25%. Amy got 15%. You look at youth turnout, 18 to 29.

It was 14% of the electorate was 18 to 29 in New Hampshire. That is down from 19% in 2016. Now, of course, Bernie won 18 to 29, 51%. Pete only got 20%. So he crushed with that. But youth turnout is down. And it doesn't seem like the additional turnout that we got last night in New Hampshire went disproportionately to Bernie in any way because he lost it.

So a few things in Bernie's defense there. One, I think looking at subgroups in the Democratic primary and then projecting that forward to a general election is problematic, right? Well, because they could end up, even if they support Pete or Amy in New Hampshire last night, they could easily go to Bernie and the general. I think because, and that works both ways for Bernie. Bernie's campaign last night pointed out that he did the best with non-college educated white voters among all the candidates there. That does not necessarily mean that he will do well with those voters who do not vote in Democratic primaries. And just because he did poorly with suburban voters who vote in Democratic primary does not necessarily suggest he'll do poorly with them going forward. Second point is,

and this is, I think, a little true for Bernie in Iowa too, is he has organized the crap out of these states in 2016. So some of the low-hanging fruit on people he brought into the process, he reaped the benefits from in 2016. Other thing is, I believe that they changed the laws in New Hampshire around college student voter residency to make it harder for out-of-state college students who go to school in New Hampshire to vote. And I think that has had an impact on youth turnout. Lovett, what do you think? school in New Hampshire to vote. And I think that has had an impact on youth turnout.

Love it. What do you think? You know, I saw that, you know, a lot of people deciding late broke to Pete, they broke to Klobuchar. And given how close Pete was to overtaking Bernie, you wonder what this conversation would be like if Klobuchar had surged just a little bit less. Yeah. So it seems pretty clear that Pete would have won. Right. And at the same time, you know, I see people saying, you know, doing just basic math and saying, oh, look, the moderate vote adds up to more than the left vote, while ignoring the fact that a lot of people are voting in a non ideological way and that a lot of people currently with Biden,, especially like people like Pete and Warren have overlapping support, even though they're different, you know, ideological lanes. I think if you just do Pete and Amy versus Bernie, just that simple calculation, Pete and Amy are a lot bigger than Bernie. And they were way disproportionately moderate and conservative over Bernie's liberal vote. Right. All that's a way of saying, I think the win is is it's, you know, Bernie Sanders is winning.

He's winning the popular vote in Iowa. He's winning in New Hampshire. He is in a very, very good position. Joe Biden coming in a distant fifth is very, very bad. I see a lot of people saying, oh, the big story is who came in third and the second biggest story is Bernie Sanders won the primary. At the same time, you know, narratives form around who got two percentage points higher than somebody else, when in reality, what this is, is a long fight about math. And when we go to South Carolina, we really still don't know what the implications are for Biden that he did so poorly in New

Hampshire for Bernie, as he's trying to build this momentum as the front runner. I will say that the I think one of the biggest points in favor of Bernie's strength in the general election is, so 15% of New Hampshire voters said that they will not support the Democratic nominee no matter who it is. It depends on who it is. But about 9 in 10 Pete voters said they'll support the nominee no matter who it is. And only 75% of Bernie voters said that, which is actually a strength for Bernie. Yeah.

Because it shows that if he's the nominee, he's getting most of these Pete people. And I think the same is true for Amy supporters as well. But on the reverse, if Bernie's not the nominee, you will see now, at least in New Hampshire, 25% of Bernie's voters not vote for the Democratic nominee. The fucking Democratic Party is just walking around early primary states with a bunch of people

with guns to their heads. Yeah, no, I mean, that's... Saying, don't make me do this. Like everyone, enough of this bullshit. We're all voting as Donald Trump. It's sorry, no, try to tell some of the some of those so frustrating. Well, it's interesting, though, because Bernie is the only candidate who had every single major speech is making this plea to everyone to come together. And a I really, I really genuinely appreciate it. I do think it's good for him to do because he thinks he's winning. And it's always nice to say, if I lose, I'll support you when you think you're winning. But also, it's big. It's a big, righteous thing to do in the middle of a contentious primary. Yeah, again, I think that the big test for Bernie is you go into

a lot of these suburbs, the suburbs that we won back in 2018. And if you talk to voters there and you know, they don't want Bernie Sanders as the nominee, but not wanting Bernie Sanders as the nominee is different than saying, and if he is the nominee, I won't vote for him. And I don't think we know for sure right now what those voters will do. Maybe they, maybe they just, they don't, he's not their preference for the nominee, but if he's the nominee, they're going to go ahead and pull the lever. You can turn that around too on young voters. Yes. Right. Which is you got a whole bunch of young voters who, and it's not their preference for the nominee, but if he's the nominee, they're going to go ahead and pull the lever. You can turn that around, too, on young voters. Yes. Right, which is you get a whole bunch of young voters who, and it's not just their vote, which is obviously critical, but it's also are they going to knock doors, make phone calls, give time to the campaign?

And Bernie has inspired that in a lot of young people who have stuck with him for five years straight now. And there is a question about whether the other Democrats have the ability to do the same thing. They have not proven that at all yet. Clearly. I also just would add to that. Forget not knowing what those people will do. It's not knowable because it's incumbent upon us to persuade them. Right. I mean, if we're talking about people that aren't sure about Bernie Sanders because they're more moderate and they've heard all these negative things about who he is,

it's going to be incumbent on everybody to come together and fight for those people. And if Bernie is not the nominee and Twitter explodes in a St. Helens-like volcanic eruption that sweeps ash across most of the country, it'll be incumbent upon us after it goes dormant again

to pick up the pieces and try to get people on board with whoever we nominated. Is that the royal us? I hope so, because it's a lot of work for just us. Yes, I meant the royal us of everybody who wants to remove Donald Trump from office, for the record.

All right, let's talk about Pete Buttigieg, who came in a close second. Oh, that clip's going to ruin me. Include this part, you bastard. It's at John Lovett, at John Lov john love it all right let's talk about pete budaj who came in a close second and outperformed his polling average by a few points here's a clip of pete's speech and we must be equally clear about the choice at hand my competitors and i share the same fundamental goals bringing balance to our economy guaranteeing health care to every American, combating a climate crisis and

a rising tide of gun violence. But we do differ in what we believe it will take to make that happen. In this election season, we have been told by some that you must either be for revolution or you are for the status quo. But where does that leave the rest of us? Most Americans don't see where they fit in that polarized vision. And we can't defeat the most divisive president in modern American history by tearing down anybody who doesn't agree with us 100% of the time. All right. Who wants to do Pete's strengths and challenges going forward based on the results of what we saw last night in new hampshire sure i mean tell me look first of all this is an astonishing uh performance for mayor

pete right i mean he is a small town mayor young gay i mean it's remarkable the campaign they put together to get to here so we should give him a do there he's now leading in delegates he's leading delegates he has outperformed his polling consistently. It seems like he will be able to raise a considerable amount of money, probably online without having to go to a bunch of cumbersome fundraisers, which his opponents may have to do. And he's raised money previously that's allowed him to build up infrastructure in Nevada. So for example, they announced today that their Nevada staffing will go up to a hundred staffers, which is the big ass team in Nevada. So for example, they announced today that their Nevada staffing will go up to 100 staffers, which is the big ass team in Nevada. And they're running ads in states now. And they're probably

already competing in Super Tuesday states, which, by the way, you need to be doing right now, not after South Carolina. I think Pete's negative case is that he has this glaring problem reaching African American voters and maybe minority voters generally. And those challenges in terms of the states he needs to now do well in are mostly ahead of him. We got through some of the whitest states in the country in the first two. Yeah. So I mean, I think it's clear that he built the broadest coalition of voters in these first two states. And with the gigantic exception of the fact that these first two states are overwhelmingly white, like you just said, Tommy, but if you look at like, apparently, you know, Klobuchar did best with older, more moderate voters and was extremely

weak with younger voters and liberal voters. Bernie did extremely well with liberal voters and younger voters and did very poorly with conservative, older voters and moderate voters. Bernie did extremely well with liberal voters and younger voters and did very poorly with conservative older voters and moderate voters. Pete actually did pretty well with both ends of the spectrum. He did well in the suburbs, in the cities, in rural areas. You know, about seven in 10 voters called Buttigieg's views and positions on the issues just right, which is more than 20 percentage points higher than that middle ground than anyone else. So he's building a broad coalition. I think the main challenge for Pete, aside from appealing to voters of color, which is the whole part of the Democratic nomination that you need, is just as Bernie has not yet made the sale in broadening his coalition beyond what he already has, there's this moderate vote,

center left, I don't want to call it moderate, center left vote in the party that is probably larger than Bernie's vote that Pete just has not consolidated. He has not closed the deal on this. And there's too many people out there who are picking Amy Klobuchar instead of him. And too many people that are still selecting Joe Biden or other candidates or Elizabeth Warren. And he has... Or Bloomberg, by the way, now as we head into the rest. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And he just hasn't closed the deal and he has to figure out a way to do that. It is interesting that where Pete has been able to spend time, he has been able to build these coalitions. Now, it's hard to say whether it's causation or correlation that the two states he's

been in are entirely white and his coalition is entirely white. But this is where the challenge comes, which is he is going to have a brief period of time, 10 days or so in Nevada and then 10 days in South Carolina. And then it is rapid fire, you know, huge chunks of delegates every Tuesday where he's not going to be able to do that. I think where he has strength is he has by far the savviest understanding of the modern media environment of any certainly any of the uh quote-unquote center-left candidates like he did his iowa he had his success in iowa's delegate success in iowa he flooded the zone he did every morning show he did the full ginsburg of all the sunday shows and he was part of the conversation and

i think there is some limits to that strategy in a general election, but in a primary where you're reaching Democrats who mainline political news. The fact that he is doing that and doing it pretty flawlessly and none of the other candidates are doing it is something to his benefit. Like when he was on Positive America right after Iowa, we had him for 15 minutes because he was very busy. For a normal politician, that is three questions because they're verbose. Like Pete is like spitting out 60 second perfect on message answers. And like there's real talent there that I think as people get to see.

That's why he I, he did very well with the electability voters last night. And the question is, can he have the same impact in these upcoming states? Can I just say, I do think there is a danger in that as well. He and Elizabeth Warren are similar in that, and Bernie, I guess, too. They're all incredibly on message. And they're all very message disciplined, all three of them. As I was listening to Pete's speech last night, and I was thinking about his debate performance, first thing I thought was, I wish he was almost a little less polished. Like, if he goes into the Nevada debate, into Nevada and South Carolina, into everything that

comes, giving the exact same message, the exact same soundbites. And this is going to go for Amy Klobuchar, too, when we talk about her and just saying the exact same thing over and over again. I worry that it comes off as inauthentic because sometimes Pete's speeches can sound a little overly cliche. And this is admitting that almost every single political speech contains a whole bunch of cliches. And that's just the way political speeches are. But I just remember when Pete started this race, he said very interesting different things about political reform, a lot of the stuff you're

writing in your book, Dan, electoral reform. He sort of, because he was such a long shot, he wasn't really afraid to say what was ever on his mind. And now I think he feels a little bit sanded down. And if he wants to broaden this coalition and really speak to the moment that we're in, I think he has to, I think he needs more moments like he had in the stage in New Hampshire when he stood up for Joe Biden and Hunter Biden. And it seemed like it just came from the heart and he was really emotive about it. Yeah. I mean, I felt the same way watching him give that speech. There's something very canned about it. I think a lot of the rhetoric felt pretty worked over, like a lot of consultants had been through it. And he talks about having this new perspective, different from what's in Washington, but it sounds like a lot of Washington speeches. And, you know, if he is going to be the generational candidate, he can't just seem like a baby boomer with really good skin. You know, he has to actually tell us

what his new perspective is and why it makes it different than what Amy Klobuchar is offering, what Joe Biden's offering, what Michael Bennett was offering and what have you. And I think he has to speak to Bernie Sanders has clearly connected with a movement of people in this country who are angry with the status quo, not just because there's arguing and infighting in Washington, but because there is undue influence of, you know, billionaires, corporate interests, money, all the rest of it. And I sort of think he has to speak to that anxiety and anger that's out there, as well as just the exhaustion that's out there with Donald Trump and the bickering in

Washington, which is also a real thing. But I think he needs to sort of cross over there. Yeah, there's definitely an element of humanity and humor missing from his pitch, for sure. And I agree with your assessment of his speech. I do think he is doing 17 interviews in one day, not so that people see him 17 times, so that voters who are very busy have 17 opportunities to see him once. Yep. And so that is one thing I just think we have to remember is that we can do this at this different level. There's definitely a lot of work to do there, but he's getting where he is for a reason. Yeah. Yeah. But like, that's the, no,

that's, that is the big challenge between rhetoric and press strategy. Right. But we've always known that like, you've got to say the same thing a million times, even when it bores you to death and bores the supporters who have heard you a million times to death to get to the people who are not paying attention. At the same time,

you do that too much and you sound sanded down. Look, that is the problem. I think sometimes with his interviews for people like us and yes, like there is a, you do that too much and you sound sanded down. Look, that is the problem, I think, sometimes with his interviews for people like us. And yes, like there is a, you know, he's been running for president in the shower for 32 years. So like he's been practiced. But no. But when I was watching that speech last night, I was really trying to see it as a, OK, this is his big message.

And yeah, some of it's stuff I've heard before from him, but I was watching it as a rhetorical case. And it is a really, it is a, it is, there's not a lot of meat on the bone. When he talks about turning the page, it goes right to pretty standard rhetoric with a kind of laundry list of popular mainstream democratic policies. And maybe that's the right thing. Yeah, of course they do. Of course they like them. But in terms of like undergirding the core of his argument about generational change, it doesn't seem like generational change. Half the electorate in New Hampshire decided very recently, right, in the last few weeks. So most of them probably haven't heard Pete's message. I think there's no problem with repeating it or sounding redundant

to people like us. There are definitely times when I think all of us watch him speak and think like it's sort of an impression of an Obama speech. And look, I mean, we all work for Obama and are, you know, quite clearly think he's one of the more talented politicians in the generation. So it can feel like a little less shiny in comparison to Obama's New Hampshire election night, for example. But I don't think that's the bar. I think that bar is, do people turn on their TV and see him as a person they want to vote for, that they believe in, that is electable? I think he's doing a pretty damn good case selling that right now. Yeah. And I'm just saying, I have heard him before, and you talk about the case for general relational change that's more than just the line. He has made that case early on in this race, talking about why our democracy needs to be fundamentally transformed if we are to succeed in this century. Whether it's filibuster reform, whether it's the court, all this kind of

stuff. And I know that can sound dry when we talk about it, but there is a way to make that case that I think is a little bit deeper than he is right now. Let's talk about the big surprise of the night, Amy Klobuchar's third place finish, where she outperformed her polling average by a big margin and did very well among voters who made up their minds in the last few days, along with Pete. Here's a clip from Klobuchar's speech. up their minds in the last few days, along with Pete. Here's a clip from Klobuchar's speech. Tonight is about grit. And my story, like so many of yours, is one of resilience. I announced my candidacy in the middle of a Minnesota blizzard. And there were a lot of people that predicted I wouldn't even get through that speech. But not the people of my state, and not the people of New Hampshire.

Except then they predicted that we wouldn't make it through the summer. We did. Then they predicted we wouldn't make it to the debates. And man, were we at the debate in New Hampshire. What we've done is steady. We've been strong and we've never quit. I think that sounds pretty good for a president. So, you know, by all accounts, an outstanding result for Amy Klobuchar. The question now is, can she become the center left alternative to Bernie Sanders? And what are her challenges in doing so?

I think her fundamental challenge is, does she have the organizational capacity to take advantage of this moment? One of the reasons, and I think this is in some ways a credit to her campaign, is that she's been able to stay in this race so long is that she had a much leaner campaign organization than some of the other national candidates like Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Beto when he first got in the race. And therefore, she was able to survive lower fundraising quarters than they were because she didn't have this giant overhead. So that gets you here now. The question is now, do you have the staff to very quickly organize caucus goers in Nevada?

Do you have the ability to identify voters and turn them out in South Carolina and pivot to basically half the country a few days after that? That is the question. There has been a history of candidates who have done very well, strong second place or third place finishes in these caucuses who did not have the capacity to take advantage of it. And so that's a test for her campaign. She's got clomentum. Global warming is real. It's a cloma charge. That was

Gideon Resnick's joke. Global warming. I like that. All Gideon, listen to Whataday. Everyone listen to Whataday. Look, I think everyone not named Bernie Sanders ultimately has the same problem right now, which is competition for the non-Bernie vote, right? Like we don't know their second choice preferences, but we can, I think, assume that Pete and Amy are going after similar people. The benefit for her is she's introducing herself to the country at a time of maximum attention, but before the press has really dug into a record, they're starting to, but her opponents haven't taken shots at her. So it's a great way to introduce yourself to a whole bunch of voters who didn't care about anything happening in this race until very recently. She's got a big fundraising boost. They said they raised two and a half million after polls

closed in New Hampshire and two million after the debate. That said, she probably needs, what, like 20 million to be really competing in Super Tuesday states right now. But they did announce a seven-figure buy in Nevada. So, I mean, I think her other big problem, though, is she has not shown an ability to win support among African-American voters in the same way Pete has struggled. And there are some parts of her record as a prosecutor that I think will now be surfaced. You know, someone was quoted in a Politico story about her that said, let the oppo begin. So, you know, Amy Klobuchar's record is about to be scrubbed. I mean, the last Quinnipiac poll

found that she had 0% black support nationally, even behind Buttigieg. So I do think you're right. Who's that plus four up from zero? Up from zero, yeah. And I do think that you, you know, she does have some advantages over Pete, which is, you know,

I think she has a better electability case than him based on her record and her record in Minnesota. And I think you could argue that she has outperformed him in a lot of these debates. But he so far, even with his relatively narrow coalition has shown that he has a broader coalition than she does. She has a huge problem, which is she has to prove that she can appeal to the base of the Democratic Party. And thus far, she has not done that. I think she has a better argument for saying, I'm being introduced to people for the first time. Give me a chance to prove it. Pete said that, too. And it didn't happen. It just hasn't happened for him. But I do think it's fair to say, well, this is a this is a great showing. There are a lot of people that might give her a look for the very first time. I'll also just say, yes, a lot of what she said in her speech in New Hampshire was part of a stump

that we've heard before, jokes we've all heard before. But I was watching it, and especially the beginning where she talked about where she comes from and her family, stories we've heard. I really appreciate how she did it. And she did it with a lot of heart. And the one thing that she has done, look, Mayor Pete had this generational change, this government reform message. He pivoted to more of a center left public option criticism of the revolution argument because he saw that as a path. And I think sincerely believes that's the kind of president he'd want to be. Amy Klobuchar in that debate made a compelling, authentic case for her brand of consensus building, center left pragmatism. And she does it with heart and genuineness and a record. And I think that makes her a very good... candidate for people looking for an alternative to Bernie. But the question, you know, I was thinking about 2008 and how, you know, when Hillary Clinton would go to states where she was primed to do well because of the demographics of that state, everyone said, oh, she's back.

And then we go to a state that was better for Obama and it'll be like Obama's back. And so a narrative, a serialized story is told over what is actually a parallel process of a bunch of different states behaving as those states probably would have anyway. And I think about that as we go to Nevada, as we go to South Carolina, where we will start to see how narratives form around a lot of issues that are really about demographics and the makeups of these places. Well, I mean, I said this last pod, but I think there's two things that determine the results in these states. One is momentum and the second is demographics. And I think we are in a stage because the race is so unsettled so far that right now demographics are mattering less than momentum. By the time that

Obama and Hillary got going, you could look at the states on the map, you could look at the calendar and know exactly who was going to, almost exactly who was going to win which state. I think we are not at a point yet where you can do that with this field because it's so crowded and so-and-so. And things are shifting. Well, I think it's going to start now because they, these candidates spend a ton of time in Iowa. They spent a lot of time in New Hampshire. They spent a lot of money in both of those.

They have spent very limited time in the next two states and no time in the super Tuesday states. So then. Or little time. Very little time. Bernie's been out here. Bernie, Bernie is the exception.

Basically everyone else has been here to raise money and done no TV or anything like that. And so that's when things will start reverting to the demographic mean, essentially. All right, let's talk about Elizabeth Warren, who came in fourth place below the 15% delegate threshold, though she said in her speech last night that the primary process is long and she's in it for the long haul. Here's a clip. The fight between factions in our party has taken a sharp turn in recent weeks with ads mocking other candidates and with supporters of some candidates shouting curses at other Democratic candidates. These harsh tactics might work if you are willing to burn down the rest of the party in order to be the last man standing. They might work if you don't worry about leaving our party and our politics worse off than how you found it. And they might work if you think only you have all the answers and only you are the

solution to all our problems. But if we're going to beat Donald Trump in November, we're going to need huge turnout within our party. And to get that turnout, we will need a nominee that the broadest coalition of our party feels like they can get behind. I, because they didn't televise her whole speech last night, I missed that. And I think that is her, that was one of the sharpest arguments she has made for being the unity candidate. I sort of wish she had made it on stage of the debate. Forget one of that is the most explicit by far she has ever been about bringing the party together under her as the person that can appeal to both the Bernie left and the center left that's

currently divided between Pete and Klobuchar and Bloomberg and Biden and a Michael Bennett person who hasn't found out he dropped out. So the question is, though, at this point with that finish, does she have a path? And if so, what is the path? And what does Elizabeth Warren do from here? I guess I'll say something about that message first. Yeah. I like that is definitely the sharpest distillation of that message. And I was struck by two things by it. One,

I listened to her message, which CNN did air. I saw it. Um, we were watching the MSNBC and the tank for whoever they've been erasing. They're just doing like Bloomberg speeches from Oklahoma right now. Yeah. It was,

they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they,

they, we'd, we'd go to Warren, but Chris Matthews is burning Bernie Sanders and effigy. Yeah. It's better TV. Unbelievable. Chris, Chris Matthews cannot hide his hatred for Bernie Sanders. It is overwhelming. Yeah, that network is wild. Anyway.

But you watch Warren and Pete back to back, right? And I think Warren delivers her case, her argument for why she should be president better than almost anyone else. But her unity argument is party unity and Pete's is national unity. And the national unity one, whether you argument for why she should be president better than almost anyone else. But her unity argument is party unity and Pete's is national unity. And the national unity one, whether you think it's bullshit or naive, and I think a lot of people do, and I'm sometimes one of those people, feels bigger than you're going to heal the wounds of the 2016 primary. The second, I think, challenge for that argument is it is a message built on Twitter. Because if you're like we saw

this in iowa we were at the bernie events we were at the warren events we as long as michael moore and rashida talib were not speaking at the event you had no idea the party was divided right people the bernie the people at the bernie event were so nice yeah everyone was bernie is making the argument for unity better than anyone else in ankeny at at our caucus precinct, when we watched all the different factions and all the different campaigns and they were trying to persuade each other, they were all kind to each other. No one was in a fight.

This is something that exists on fucking Twitter. So I think it may not resonate with people. Now, as has happened in the past, post-New Hampshire, when people start going after each other, then there's maybe an opportunity for Warren to slide in there. But right now it feels a little discordant with the moment everyone else is living in. Tommy, what do you think is next for her campaign? I don't know.

I mean, look, I think she has a very challenging path forward. And it pains me to say because I like Elizabeth Warren a lot. And I like the people who are running her campaign. And I think she's done a good job. But, you know, I think, one, New Hampshire, I think, was always going to be a tough state for her because half the state of new hampshire gets boston media and they've been hammering her for years i know people think that's a benefit for her no it's a boston media is fucking awful

boston media is brutal it's brutal and like you know what you know it's not just like the boston globe it's this prick howie carr who's this right-wing lunatic radio host who hangs out at Mar-a-Lago. Jay Severin, all of them. Right-wing radio there is brutal. They've just been going after her for years and years. Now, I also think that she has been harmed by sexism, and it's absolutely crystal clear in all of the data, especially out of Iowa. That said, I think strategically, it was probably a mistake of the Warren campaign not to run bio spots about her earlier that talked about the scope of who she is as a person because when you hear her talk about being in college at 19 and dropping out and going to commuter college and becoming a teacher it is

incredibly compelling it is absolutely nothing like the caricature of the harvard professor that republicans make her out to be but But for a long time, what we learned about Elizabeth Warren is that she had a plan for everything you've ever worried about. And I admit that at the time I was like, oh, this is brilliant branding, very impressively done. But in hindsight, it might have distracted from voters getting to know who she is and understanding her in a more values-based, visceral way that explained who she was. There's also, like, if you look at some of these entrance and exit polls, they show that voters are split on whether they want change or unity.

But very, very few single digits were looking for a fighter, which is sort of Warren's brand lately. So, you know, I think structurally, she was just not set up for success. Here's the path to the extent there is one, which is she has to win or come in second in Nevada and then win or come in second in South Carolina. That's the ballgame. And then she's back in the game.

That's the ballgame. And now she benefits from lowered expectations. So if she can come in second to Bernie or win in Nevada, which is, it is a super low turnout caucus. Talk about places where we don't know what the fuck's going to happen. But I do think they've already announced You can come in second to Bernie or win in Nevada, which is it is a low, super low turnout caucus. Talk about places where we don't know what the fuck's going to happen. But I do think they've already announced that they are pulling radio and TV buys from Nevada and South Carolina, which to me speaks to an internal knowledge that they feel like they're unlikely to reach a 15% threshold. So they're going to instead go to Arkansas or some Super Tuesday state and put up spots there, which seems challenging. It's a tough path forward.

That seems very challenging. All right. Let's talk about the fifth place finisher, who was the fourth place finisher in Iowa and the guy who was the polling front runner for most of the race, Joe Biden. He left New Hampshire before the results started coming in. And here's a clip from the speech he gave in South Carolina last night. It is important that Iowa and Nevada have spoken. But look, we need to hear from Nevada and South Carolina and Super Tuesday states and beyond. Look, we're moving in an especially important phase because up till now,

we haven't heard from the most committed constituents of the Democratic Party, the African-American community. And the fast and the fastest growing segment of society, the Latino community. I want you all to think of a number. 99.9%. That's the percentage of African-American voters who have not yet had a chance to vote in America. One more number.

99.8%. That's the percent of Latino voters who voters having had a chance to vote at first when he said i want y'all to think of a number i thought he was going to guess people's number all right um how did the former vice president who led in polling for most of the race end up with fourth and fifth place finishes in these first two states. Anyone want to take a gander? He was never well suited demographically, I think, to Iowa and New Hampshire. But that's a tough argument to make if you're the former vice president of the United States to a very popular president with universal name ID. That said, I mean, now that the Biden campaign wants to de-emphasize those who have already voted and instead talk about reaching Latino and African-American voters, it makes me wonder why, if you knew your strength was with voters

of color and you were always planning to change the emphasis, why not focus more on Nevada and South Carolina earlier and de-emphasize Iowa and New Hampshire earlier as part of the strategy. I mean, Dan, this is something you've been talking about forever, which is that Biden should have pulled out of Iowa in October. Never publicly, but we can do that now. Yeah. Well, I mean, just so you guys know how big of a fucking coward Dan is, he wrote an entire op-ed. It's even worse than that. I said it in a podcast with no context and I asked Michael to cut it out because I would come back to it later, and then I never did. So it's on me.

Debate me, coward. Why did you think that that was the better path? and you have to make your own luck. And so if he was a candidate who could raise unlimited amounts of money online like Bernie, then you can sustain a fourth place and a fifth place because Bernie Sanders, and I think Elizabeth Warren to a lesser extent, good news helps them raise money and bad news helps them raise money. This is the thing we learned with Obama. When Obama won in Iowa, he raised a ton of money.

When he came in second at New Hampshire in a surprising loss, he raised a ton of money because he had committed supporters. Biden does not have that online fundraising base. So he was playing with a limited stack of chips. And he bet a whole bunch of chips in two states he was almost certainly going to lose from the very beginning. As did the Super PAC. As did the Super PAC. And that, to me, says two things about the state of his campaign. One is an unwillingness. And I think this is very tough psychologically because he's surrounded by a lot of really smart people who love Joe Biden, an unwillingness to come to terms with what his actual place in the race was,

right, to actually look at the data. Second, it says that they did not have good information about what was happening in those states. And we've talked about before, his campaign manager told David Plouffe on his podcast the week before Iowa, they're going to be viable in 95% districts. I don't think Greg Schultz would say that if he didn't believe that to be the case, which means there was very poor organization, poor data. So they were making, I think, decisions based on hubris backed up by bad information. And so if he had said four months ago, look, the Democratic Party is much more diverse than Iowa and New Hampshire. I am going to focus my energy on these other states. Or even if he had just pulled out of Iowa and gone to New Hampshire and camped out there for

10 days in a repeat of what John McCain did in 2008, he couldn't compete in Iowa. So he went to New Hampshire and competed. He might've had a better chance. And then you back all that up with it. This is where I think the strategic problems come from is his entire case from the very beginning was I am the most selectable. And then when you start losing elections, it's very easy for that to collapse underneath you. And so if you know you're likely to lose the first two, because Bernie is incredibly strong in those states, and you hang your hat on you're the one who wins elections, it's like it doesn't take a lot to predict where this was going to go. It's also, look, just talking about demographics again, like if this was Bernie versus Biden and Bernie just, you know, walloped Biden in these first two states by 20 points, he would even be in a better position than he is now.

Like Clinton was. Like Clinton was because you could at least say, all right, I have better demographics in these other states. We haven't seen them yet. him yet. It like Biden did so poorly across every single demographic in both of these states, even though they're mostly white states, it wasn't like he just lost college educated white voters by a lot because you could win the nomination with non-college white voters, black voters, and Latino voters, and we just lose college educated white voters. He lost non-college educated white voters to multiple candidates. He lost moderate voters to multiple candidates. He lost conservative voters to multiple candidates. He lost everywhere.

Like the idea that in New Hampshire, you know, he's like, well, Bernie was supposed to win because he was the next door neighbor. Well, then why did the guy from Indiana and a woman from Minnesota come in second and third? He didn't break 10%. No, I saw some people on Twitter saying, well, it looks like impeachment really hurt Joe Biden. No. And I just think that's a bad argument like the post did a great story about sort of like a tick talk about what happened with the biden campaign and they interviewed this voter in south carolina who is deciding between steyer whose ads this voter has seen everywhere all over south carolina and and sanders and um

the voter said he liked biden but had not seen a commercial from him or heard anything from his campaign and he thought Biden lacked the vigor that some of the other candidates had and the voter said quote if I thought he really wanted it he'd be my first choice and this is someone in South Carolina where they are now staking the entire campaign on winning that doesn't tell me you had any impeachment problems I also you know I watched Biden speak in South Carolina and I, you know, he said this argument about the 99% of people of black voters, of Latino voters who hadn't yet had a chance to speak. And I think that's an entirely reasonable point about what's broken about our process. However, that is not an argument for why anyone should support him and for anyone should get

behind his candidacy. It is an argument for pundits to not write him off. And if he is supposed to be the electable candidate, whose now main message to the media is, please don't say I'm going to lose. That is devastating. Or just saying you should vote for me because I can win black voters and Latino voters based on polls when you just told us that you could win the whole election based on polls that turned out not to be true. I also think we are learning for the 10,000th time that most people in the country, including primary voters, don't pay much attention until the last minute and decide. So you can obviously imagine a scenario where you get polled, you're kind of paying attention, you're asked to use support currently, and you're like, oh yeah, that VP guy, right? I

mean, sure, it's an easy place to park your views for a while until you really have to make up your mind. I think one thing that's really benefiting Biden right now is there hasn't been a South Carolina poll in a long time. And there were some national polls that made it look like his support among African Americans had dropped like 22 points, like the bottom's just dropping out. And if I were them, I would be very, very worried about a South Carolina poll that shows recent and major weakness because then no dollars are coming in and it's, you know, it could be over. I also just, this is a hard point to make.

I just, I'm going to make it, which is if you're tuning in now, like I do think we now grade Joe Biden on a curve. We grade him on a curve in the debates. We grade him on a curve in how he speaks and his message. And seeing what he said in South Carolina, if you're just tuning in, it was sometimes hard to follow. It was sometimes jumping around. And if your case is you're the tough electable guy to take on Donald Trump, it was just hard to see that as a strong candidate who is just now finally going to the states where he'll do the best. It just seemed like somebody who wasn't able to successfully make the argument for his own candidacy. I'd say a couple more things on this one.

As Tommy pointed out, he was saddened by Warren's place in the New Hampshire primary. And I agree. Like, I have so much affection for Elizabeth Warren. I think she's such an important thought leader in our party. I feel very much the same way for Joe Biden, who we've known for a very long time. And you say, who I believe is in this for all the right reasons. He believes that he is the person who is best suited to beat Trump and to heal the nation. He would not do this any other reason. He does not, this is not a vanity play for him. This is not just like. No, I think all things considered, he probably wouldn't have done it if he thought like at the beginning of this race that he wasn't the best person to beat donald

trump and donald trump was not president right if this was to take on mark president marco rubio or jeb bush i don't think he would have done yeah i agree and so i'm i'm saddened for for him to be in that situation and that he's going through that it's but i also think his path is incredibly narrow still but it but it still exists. He could still – it is very possible he could still win South Carolina and beat expectations. And what about Nevada? What do you think? I think that I am skeptical.

Too hard to predict Nevada. Too hard to predict. And what I saw from his campaign organization in Iowa does not bode well. And it was actually a harder state to organize, um, given particularly the dearth of resources campaign has and I, and lack of spending there. Uh, like I saw somewhere, I think Bernie has a couple hundred staffers in Nevada, which is, well, I can't even imagine what Biden is, but yeah, probably not that we should mention that in, in Nevada, the culinary union, uh, has gone hard negative against Bernie Sanders and his Medicare for All position.

And Elizabeth Warren. Yeah, yeah. But I'm curious, Dan, how influential you think that is in 2020 when you're texting directly 60,000 people who will be influential. It is potentially influential. But we, Barack Obama, famously had the endorsement of a culinary workers union and lost the culinary workers themselves. Obama famously had the endorsement of a culinary workers union and lost the culinary workers themselves. Where Bill Clinton was walking through the casinos, just like shaking hands with people. Hand out chips.

Yeah. I mean, just kidding. There was like Obama really struggled with Latino voters early in that primary. There was a reservoir of support for the Clintons, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton together. And the workers defied the union and caucus for Clinton. So it's very possible that could happen again. This is a very more specific argument where the labor leaders are saying that if Sanders or Warren enact their plan, your healthcare will be cut, which is different than we like Hillary Clinton more than Barack

Obama. So I don't, it's very hard to say. But we'll talk about this more in pods to come before Nevada. But if you guys thought Iowa wasowa was a shit show yeah it sounds like nevada is all just nevada in the past the caucus there has always been a shit show it's like oh like okay so the iowa caucus was a mess but what if we put it in a casino or multiple multiple casinos on the strip and i mean i don't hate it so two months anyway we'll be there two months to develop an app disaster how about five days

to create a tool right yeah that's where they're that's the current plan did you on CNN after the polls closed during chyrons of like things

to know about New Hampshire it's like polls close at seven second state use paper ballots don't use an app to count results so funny

and by the way thank you New Hampshire for successfully counting the votes that's right okay I interrupted you use paper ballots. Don't use an app to count results. So funny. Um, and by the way, you know, thank you, New Hampshire for successfully counting the votes. That's right. Um, okay. I interrupted you, Dan, though you were saying the path for Biden. So let's say he does. It is okay in Nevada or we don't know what, then what he has to win South Carolina overwhelmingly. Cause then he, then super Tuesdays, a couple of days after South Carolina, Joe Biden gets a big win in South Carolina. Suddenly now he has momentum going into the most important contest of maybe the whole calendar. Yeah. And the hope would be, and it's hope, is that a Biden is back narrative that dominates the political discussion for

several days will propel him back to where he was, where he is either winning or at well above the viability threshold in all of these states. You would also have to hope at that point that Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar's candidacies have fizzled. He's got to knock them out. He has to knock them out. Too dangerous for that. One is the biggest chunk of delegates and the one that I think potentially decides the primary is California, which has early voting, which is happening now.

You probably got your ballots in the mail already. No, I don't know why I didn't get my fucking ballot. Anyway, go ahead. I'd go to votesafewamerica.com. Second is Mike Bloomberg. Yeah. Right. Biden is being squeezed,

in fact, by two billionaires. He's being squeezed by Tom Steyer, who has spent an untold amount of money, both in Nevada and South Carolina, and has gotten basically a huge number of leaders in the African-American community to endorse his campaign,

including Edith Childs, the woman who coined the fired up, ready to go story that was a staple of Obama's stump speech, and Bloomberg, who is taking up to 15, maybe more percent in some of these big states. And so that's coming out of Biden's hide, makes it harder for him to win. I saw Steyer spent up to $14 million in South Carolina alone. Now that we're here on Bloomberg, let's talk about this. And, you know, as we head into these other states where, again, Bloomberg's not on the ballot in Nevada or in South Carolina, what does the race potentially look like going into Super Tuesday? And I think we would all argue that when it comes to being in a position to win the nomination

by getting a plurality of delegates, by getting the most delegates, Bernie is absolutely in the driver's seat heading into Super Tuesday, even with Bloomberg-Lume. Would you agree with that? Yes. I think Bernie Sanders- And why is that? Because he is well above the 15% viability threshold all across the country. He's the only one. And California is the biggest state. There are 416 delegates, I believe, in California. If Bernie wins the state by eight to 10 points and everyone else where you look at the polls are like at 15, 14, 16, you got three candidates right at that

level. Bernie's going to net 80 to 100 delegates over them in this state. And therefore, it's going to be almost impossible for any of these candidates to catch him. And we should tell people why amassing an 80 to 100 delegate lead makes it nearly impossible for anyone to beat that lead and it is because we do not have winner take all primaries in these states they're proportional all the way through the rest of the calendar so if bernie leaves california on march 3rd with like an 80 to 100 delegate lead to then overcome overcome that lead, you have to start winning states further in the calendar by like 50, 60%, 70% to make up for those delegates. Because even placing, Bernie will play second or third or fourth in those states and still get a bunch of delegates.

Delegates are awarded a couple different ways, and it differs by state. But there are statewide delegates, which are awarded by how you do in the state proportionally, but then there are delegates awarded by congressional district. And a lot of them have even numbered delegates. And so it doesn't, you have to win at like 70, 30 to not split the delegates. And so in a two-way race, you just split, split, split, split, split, and you never make any gains. I mean, Hillary Clinton won California by, I think, double digits against Obama. And she netted 30 delegates, I think. Cool system. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a terrible system that is just designed to make everyone angry and ensure that we're a divided party.

The system we have, and it is one that Bernie Sanders, despite everything we said about how narrow his victory has been in these first couple of states. Yeah. Like he cannot ask for a better situation than Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren fading, and then Buttigieg and Klobuchar splitting the moderate vote with Mike Bloomberg looming, just picking off 5%, 10%, 15%, wherever he is.

I think we've all talked about this. If we head into super Tuesday and it's Bernie Sanders and the following candidates are still in the race, Mike Bloomberg, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren,

Elizabeth Warren. Um, it is almost certain that Bernie Sanders wins the nomination. Yeah. I think he would be almost certain he'd be a nominee by April one, probably. And if Elizabeth Warren drops out before super Tuesday, then it's even more certain that he wins the nomination.

That's it. That's an open question, but because we're like, the thing that I think is notable about the results is Warren dropped support and Bernie didn't gain it. Bernie didn't gain her support, which is interesting.

Now, it may be that the last bit of Warren's support is the part that would go to Bernie, but I'm not sure. That's the point I want to make about Warren and Sanders too because Sanders heads into South Carolina, Nevada

to super choose an incredibly strong position. And I think there's a lot of people saying, well, what happened to Elizabeth Warren? Why did she fade the way she did? Was it the mistakes about health care? Were there other problems in the campaign? But part of me wonders is maybe the reason Bernie Sanders is in such a strong position is because no one has really hit him that hard and made an argument for why they shouldn't

be with the most left-wing candidate in the party. And Elizabeth Warren now making that unity message, I think, is a response to that. But there's been nobody kind of telling the people that are sort of whose hearts are with Bernie why they should be anywhere else. But again, I want to get back to the, it's a really important point that for the center-left candidates, this is the central conundrum of the rest of the race. That if it's Bernie and one other candidate, or even two other candidates heading into Super Tuesday, there's a real chance that Bernie could lose the nomination. Still the favorite, for sure. But there's a real chance that he could lose that. Especially if he continues to perform poorly with

African-American voters. Because of the way we did this by congressional districts, congressional districts are often gerrymandered racially. And so if you are getting 70, 80% of the way we do this by congressional districts, congressional districts are often gerrymandered racially. And so if you are getting 80, 70, 80 percent of the African-American vote, you're getting three and four delegates out of these five delegate districts, which is exactly how Hillary beat Bernie in 16 and Obama beat Hillary in 08. But putting aside what Warren chooses to do or not do, if Pete, Amy, Bloomberg and Biden all decide to compete in Super Tuesday, it is over. Bernie Sanders is going to win the nomination. And so like, you're right that these, if there is a desire on behalf of these candidates or on behalf of their supporters to not have Bernie Sanders win the nomination, something has to happen between now and Super Tuesday and someone has to at least challenge Bernie Sanders in one of these debates. I don't know. Or the alternative to sort of take down the other center left candidates and be the center

left candidate standing to face Bernie Sanders. That's a lot to do in a couple of weeks. That's right. That's why he's in such a good position. I think one caveat here that we need to say is when we say Bernie Sanders will be the nominee, what we mean is he will have an unassailable plurality lead in delegates. Yes. He might not get the majority. Unlikely to get the majority in a multi-candidate race. And it has been our belief, I think,

I speak for all of us, that almost certainly the party should give the nomination to whoever the leader in delegates is, whether they have the majority or not. That was our argument for Barack Obama in 2008. That was Hillary Clinton's argument for herself in 2016, if she didn't get the majority. And I think it would be political suicide that would take us a hundred years to recover from if a bunch of people in Milwaukee decided to say, you know what, we're not really into Bernie. We're going to give it to Bloomberg or someone else. But- Counterpoint. I've always wondered what it was like at the 68 convention. So we could- What if they had Twitter there? What if they had Twitter at the 68 convention so we could what if they had twitter there what if they had twitter at the 68 convention lately i've never fucked with uh one of mayor daly's cops it could be kind of you know a good story i mean content wise it would be interesting yeah getting clubbed

is good audio no no no no no um but yeah so these are all the and look and and and bloomberg who's just sitting out there has a lot of challenges of his own um you know yeah to say the least uh he was put on the defense of this week when a 2015 video surfaced of him defending stop and frisk policing where he said quote 95 of your murders murderers and murder victims fit one mo you can just take the description xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male, minorities, 16 to 25. That's true in New York. That's true in virtually every city. Bloomberg had already apologized for stop and frisk late last year.

He apologized again on Tuesday. One person who, of course, joined the pylon was Donald Trump, who tweeted, wow, Bloomberg is a total racist, a tweet that he later took down for reasons I can't understand. People thought it was a compliment. People started writing him into the Republican primary. I'm positive Donald Trump had supported stop and frisk. No, that's true. That's true.

Well, and you know he doesn't like to be accused of hypocrisy. Yeah, right. I mean, like, look, he deleted that tweet. He deleted all the other QAnon nonsense he's been saying. Look, and I do think that's a repugnant video. And it goes to show that Bloomberg is not necessarily this white knight out there that's just going to save the day. Yeah, I would agree. I would agree that he's not necessarily a white knight. He's very white.

To put it strongly. Well, but there are arguments for why he would be a bigger factor than Pete, Amy, Biden as we move forward as someone to take on Bernie. I think all of them have- And they all have dollar signs. They all have flawed electability cases, for sure. Dave Wasserman, I think it was Dave Wasserman from 530 Uncooked Report said, it's not obvious that Bloomberg's electability case is any stronger than Bernie's. I think that's an important point to recognize.

For everyone to remember. Yeah. And vice versa. Again, I don't like the people who say, like, don't think about electability. It's garbage. You can't figure out whatever. Because you can look at data at least and see what kind of factor it is. But it is almost impossible to determine conclusively what electability is here.

But it's something to keep in mind. Like I was saying earlier, I would love to see some more like nate cone new york times general election matchup polls now we haven't seen them in a while in the battleground states not just national matchup polls because those are sort of garbage they are garbage but like in the swing states bernie versus trump biden versus trump bloomberg versus trump amy versus trump warrant like let's get them all let's impede let's put them all in matchups and start seeing some polls here it's's so funny. We've gone from smoke-filled rooms filled with party bosses to Nate Cohn's phone banks. Yeah, I know. Well, they're pretty accurate polls.

That's the thing. All right. Let's finish up with Donald Trump, who reminded us yesterday just how much damage he can do if given another four years. On Monday, federal prosecutors recommended that Trump buddy and longtime Republican goon Roger Stone serve seven to nine years for crimes that included lying to Congress and tampering with witnesses. Trump then tweeted that this was a horrible and unfair situation. And sure enough, Trump appointees at the Justice Department filed a second memo on Tuesday that asked for a much lighter sentence. The four prosecutors on the Stone case then all withdrew from the proceeding, seemingly out of protest protest with one resigning from the department of justice altogether trump then this morning congratulated attorney general bill barr for quote taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and never should have

been brought guys how big of a deal is this and and what can be done about it that seems fine it's a very big deal and we have to do everything we can to win the senate and and the presidency well obviously the president yeah it goes without saying goes without saying but uh one of the greatest tricks donald trump pulled was convincing republicans that he doesn't respond to incentives when everything about donald trump is about how he responds to incentives he doesn't have values he's pretty godless. He has no core beliefs about really anything. So he does respond to pressure and incentives. It is, you know, Mueller is a dud on television, according to Donald Trump. And the next day he starts putting the screws to Ukraine. Senate Republicans let him off the hook are even more pathetic than even Trump could have imagined when he considered

running for president. And what does he do now that he's been given carte blanche to do what he wants? He starts retaliating against his enemies and trying to reward his criminal friends. And so, you know, we head into a general election in which we have somebody who has made it very clear that without the guardrails of the Senate and without the guardrails of needing to win a reelection, that all bets are off in what he will do when he is a second term president. And it was a reminder of just how important it is that we get rid of the Republicans in vulnerable states who decided to side with Trump in the impeachment, despite knowing full well that what he did was wrong.

Yeah, I agree with that. And I think the House Democrats should use the power that they have to continue oversight, to subpoena the relevant witnesses here, to keep putting the pressure on Trump? Absolutely. But, you know, we should be very clear that that is going to have a very limited effect because the Republicans have decided in a very prominent impeachment trial that they're going to cover up for this guy no matter what. And the other thing that should scare the hell out of everyone, what happened yesterday is Trump also called on the military to discipline Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman in retaliation for his testimony in the impeachment hearing.

And that should tell us something that, like, in a second term, imagine a world where the Justice Department doesn't prosecute Republicans for crimes that they have committed and does prosecute Democrats and never Trumpers and journalists and public officials for crimes that they have committed and does prosecute Democrats and never Trumpers and journalists and public officials for crimes that they never committed. I just don't get what you're bitching about. I think Mr. Trump is doing a fantastic job. I think the most- It's very scary. The most depressing part about this story

is how little emphasis and attention it's getting. And I personally feel so worn down by impeachment and the crimes and the criminality that it's like hard to muster a rage tweet at this point. And so when you think back to 1973 and the Saturday Night Massacre, which is when Nixon fired, you know, three of the top leaders of the Justice Department because they wouldn't shut down the Watergate investigation. That was roadblock news, right? I mean, that was the story. Everyone was aware of it.

Republicans were freaking out. Now this is going to get swept into 400 other Trump scandals of the day. It's getting swept underneath the New Hampshire primary results. Like I think that we Democrats in this country need to get back to a place where there is mass movement. There are protests where people are taking to the streets. Otherwise, uh, he is clearly emboldened. He's going to keep doing this shit. And Republicans are unwilling and unable to stop him. They just don't care.

Susan Collins doesn't give a shit. I'm sure she's disappointed. Yeah, I mean, just two points in this one. I was thinking about, Rachel Maddow did this podcast, Bagman, about the prosecution of Spiro Agnew, Richard Nixon's corrupt vice president. And in it, these prosecutors weep thinking about the integrity of the attorney general under Richard Nixon, Elliot Richardson, who, despite the incredible pressure he was under, made the decision to pursue the case against a sitting vice president and to do the best that he could

to shield his prosecutors. And the Department of Justice is just not protected enough against an authoritarian-minded president. And that means it requires integrity on the part of the attorney general. And William Barr has none. And that makes him incredibly dangerous. The second point about this, to Tommy's point about it making it wall-to-wall coverage, Elizabeth Warren talked about it in her speech. Yes, she was the only one. And she was the only one. And we talked about Pete's message about turning the page, Bernie's appeal to unity, Elizabeth Warren's challenges, and her decision, I think, to bring this up, I think was really admirable. But we also talked about, you know, what Pete can do, right, to talk about the kind of generational shift he's offering. But all of these candidates, I think, you know, went to the podium on a day in which we saw Donald Trump at his absolute most

dangerous and worst. And we saw, this is a week in which we saw Donald Trump put out a budget, despite lying to his people that he's going to protect Medicare, Social Security and entitlements, putting out a budget that once again would strip them for parts. And we saw him make these basically fascistic decisions about running his Department of Justice and doing it quite publicly and on Twitter. to find a way, despite all we know about how people care about health care and care about being imitated to those issues, to put into the context the danger Donald Trump poses and the stakes of this election, both for people's personal pocketbook issues and also just the health of our democracy. But I think it's not that hard. I think you can make it personal for people because I do think the more we talk about norms and institutions and authoritarianism and democracy, it's like very esoteric shit that a lot of people it doesn't feel real to them it is

real and it should feel real to people and it should feel real to the fucking reporters who cover this too that in a second term when he is unleashed and he does not have to face voters that he will weaponize his justice department to go after people that he does not like and that includes members of the media. That includes Democrats. That includes Obama administration officials. That includes everyone. And like it is it is not out of the question that we have a world where the Justice Department lets Republicans off for whatever crimes they commit and goes after Democrats just because they oppose Donald Trump. That is a very real threat. And I think it's a threat that most people in this country can

actually understand. Yeah, it was actually Bernie in the debate, I think, did the best job, both on foreign policy and on some of these issues, putting it into terms that I thought people could understand about the dangers of a belt-coast foreign policy. Yeah, he was great when he was like, I'm the president, I can do whatever I want. Yes, yes. And the dangers of Donald Trump thinking that he's above the law. And I do think that that's so central to this moment. I think there's a predicate problem with that whole argument, which is I think most Democrats, including most Democrats running for president, believe that Trump broke our democracy. They don't understand that we have Trump because we have a broken democracy. All the other shit that we are talking about, whether we're passing Medicare for all, Medicare for some, Medicare for one more fucking person in America, all depends on Democrats both fixing the structural disadvantages we have to majority rule in this country and closing the loopholes Republicans have been exploiting for years.

That, I think, is the single most important thing. Yep. It is why I wrote that book, which I'm not pitching again. But it is like – It's very smart that you brought it back to the book. But I think- Not the only person with messages of learning speed. That's why I applaud that in Pete. But I think that that is so important.

I think all the candidates need to address that more forthright, particularly in the general election, because we are only going to succeed if we raise the stakes in this election. And the stakes have to be- We talked about turnout issues. That's turnout. And unity unity and unity right like for all we're talking about about the however many bernie voters who won't support anyone in bernie and then all the people who were like i'll support anyone but bernie or i hate mayo pete or whatever like fuck that like

this what we saw with trump the justice department is a tiny preview of what will happen like he did that 10 months before fucking election right imagine. Imagine post-election. Imagine the month before the election. Yeah, you're right. None of the candidates have really nailed this yet. And I think if they're going to be the nominee of the party, they're going to beat Donald Trump. They have to. I think this can be part of a unity message, but I strongly feel like most voters won't care about this at all. And I think the impeachment proceedings we just went through show that we took out our bazooka to tell a story about Donald Trump's criminality and corruption and abuse of power. And most voters didn't really care enough to move the needle.

And so I think that it's a huge mistake to make this the focus to like persuadable moderate voters. I do think it could be a tool to bring together the party when we need to, and really like raise the stakes. As you said, I just think like people don't care. People are not going to learn about this. And I just don't think they're going to care. Well, I would just say, I'll just point out that, you know, 54% of people thought Donald Trump should be removed and 54% of people do not believe his acquittal means he was absolved of what he did. That doesn't take away from your argument about it not having,

I think, shifted enough people to make it a cause that could get Republicans to remove him. That said, I don't think it's even a choice, right? I think one of the reasons I think we're in still to this moment, a contentious and unsettled primary is that no single person in this field has been able to tell a story, not only the economic story that I think people care about more or naturally more disposed to being receptive to, but to be able to take that economic story and put it to a larger story about- The threats to democracy. The threats to our democracy. And what Dan was saying about the impediments to majority rule in this country. And the brokenness in our society. Actually, it's Andrew Yang,

who we should say, I think withdrew, but made an incredible argument for what'sness in our society. Actually, it's Andrew Yang who we should say, you know, I think withdrew but made an incredible argument for what's broken in our culture. Not just economically, but in the ways our communities are currently working. And I think that doesn't mean we're not going to win. That doesn't mean none of these candidates are making incredibly strong cases. But it does tell you, I think, that there is this missing part of the story that hasn't been really put out there. And that's all I'm saying, because I agree. Like I, I do not want people to go out there and start talking about only Bill Barr and, and this case about the prosecutors and the two messengers. I think that is a losing message

to just talk about that. But there's something bigger, like what Dan was saying about sort of the, you know, why we have Trump in the first place and what you were just saying that I think needs to be part of the message. And I don't think has really made it in yet. I think the best distillation of that message that I've heard is from the Midwest episode of The Wilderness. It's the race class narrative that was being used in Minnesota. I think there is a way to take that to where it's not just about economic power, but also about democratic power. Small d. Which, you know, someone who talks about that very eloquently is Latasha Brown, who we had on our

HBO show from Black Voters Matter. And, like, that is the, like, you tie those things together and you can make it matter to a lot of people, and, which can, I think, heal divides in the party and deal with turnout, but it takes a lot of work and none of the candidates are there yet. Yeah. Okay. That's all we have for today, and

I guess we will talk to you guys next week. We're gonna see, you and I are doing Tuesday. Oh, we are doing Tuesday. Yes. Alright, Dan we will talk to you guys next week. We're going to see. You and I are doing Tuesday. Oh, we are doing Tuesday. Yes. All right. Dan and I are going to do Tuesday next week, which must be after a debate, I guess. President's Day.

Oh, President's Day. I'm losing track of the days. All right. Donald Trump's going to add himself to President's Day. It's my birthday now. All right. We will talk to you then. Bye, guys.

Bye. Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The senior producer is Michael Martinez. to you then. Bye guys. Bye.