Pod Save America - “Not my default.”

Episode Date: October 7, 2021

Mitch McConnell decides that he won’t plunge the nation into a catastrophic recession for at least two more months, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Sean Patrick Maloney joins to talk about the party’s midterm strategy, and Dan and Jon rate bad takes on a scale of 1-to-4 Politicos in a new game called The Take Appreciators.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, please visit crooked.com/podsaveamerica. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's pod, Mitch McConnell decides that he won't plunge the nation into a catastrophic recession for at least two more months. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Sean Patrick Maloney joins to talk about the party's midterm strategy. And we bring you a brand new segment where Dan and I rate bad takes on a scale of one to four politicos in a game we're calling the take appreciators brought to you by our own elijah cone who's very excited to moderate this game with us in a bit but first keep it is celebrating its 200th episode this week. 200 episodes without ever inviting me on. You can listen to the latest episode with Ira Lewis and guest host Leslie Grossman.

New episodes of Keep It drop every Wednesday. Also, be sure to check out the latest episode of 544 Days, Crooked's newest series about what it took to free Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian from an Iranian prison hosted by Jason himself. The latest episode is about all the people who joined the Free Jason movement from Muhammad Ali to Anthony Bourdain. Listen and follow for free only on Spotify. Can I say something about the keep it thing for one sec?

Yeah, sure. I feel like Ira missed a huge opportunity to not celebrate the two on this episode by having Emily on. I mean, I think... just rub it in your face. Honestly, I think they tried that for the hundredth episode. They get really creative in figuring out ways to piss me off and also keep me off the show, which is, you know, I tip my hat to them for that. But I said something on Twitter and then I realized Ira couldn't respond because he is. I think this is the second time he's been banned.

What did he get banned for this time? I don't know. I don't know what happened. We don't actually, you know, we shouldn't even discuss it here. Yeah, let's not even bring it up. All right, let's get to the news. I can't think of any dumber fights with bigger consequences in Congress than a fight over the debt ceiling. Again, lifting the debt ceiling doesn't cost any money. It doesn't add any debt. It merely allows the government to pay the bills that congress has already racked up but if congress doesn't lift the debt ceiling the united states government would default on its debt causing a global

economic meltdown um for weeks senate republicans have been filibustering democrats attempt to lift the debt ceiling but with just two weeks to go until default, Mitch McConnell made an offer on Wednesday to drop the filibuster and let Democrats raise the debt ceiling. But only until December 3rd, which also happens to be the day the government runs out of money again. And of course, Schumer accepted the deal today. They announced that this this deal is going to go through. Democrats are saying that McConnell blinked and are calling this a victory. What do you think, Dan?

I think we learned a very important piece of information this week, which is that Mitch McConnell has eyelids. Just otherwise, just sort of. Just like an undead soul staring and a Grim Reaper just sort of staring into your eyes kind of thing. My favorite relatively unfunny joke is when people say on Twitter, how does Mitch McConnell sleep at night? And I always say he sleeps during the day hanging upside down. But that's not funny.

Yeah, he 100 percent blinked. Right. And to the credit of Senate Democrats, I think we can talk about why. It's temporary relief, but everyone said, every Capitol Hill reporter who loves to just write Mitch McConnell's talking points in the form of articles, mostly held in Politico, but not just Politico, said he would never blink. And he 100% blinked. I'll argue the other side just because why not? Because love mitch team mitch i love cocaine mitch it's clearly look it is clear i'll give you the benefits of the blink right so uh we get two more months in those two more months that we get until uh the government potentially defaults. Democrats get to hopefully finish negotiations over Build Back Better, pass that, pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill,

pass everything without the threat of default or an actual default, even worse, hanging over them. So in that sense, Democrats are quite happy that they get to do this for two more months. Democrats are quite happy that they get to do this for two more months. But aren't we just in the same exact place in another two months? And like, doesn't McConnell, I mean, is he going to blink then? What would make him blink then in two more months? The first blink's the hardest, John. I mean, yes, like this is crisis deferred, not crisis averted 100%. Yeah.

Right. Which is basically we've gone from a huge fear that the global economy will collapse before Halloween to huge fear that the economy will collapse before Christmas. Right. That like that's what that is all we've achieved here. But I think that buried in this is a real admission of weakness from McConnell. And in 2026, or he's going to be deposed by Josh Hawley or Ted Cruz. He benefits from the fact that the senators on his far right flank have never had a single friend in their life, so they're not likely to persuade a majority of their colleagues to ditch him. But he is weak because the most influential member of his party

hates him, hates him, wants to depose him, attacks him in statements that we only see when certain reporters tweet them out. The senators who hope to run for president know that they strengthen their hand by doing so, by bucking McConnell. And McConnell is incredibly unpopular. And not unpopular in the way most congressional leaders are, where it's like they're liked by their party, but disliked by independents and the other party. Mitch McConnell's approval rating in the most recent Politico morning consult poll is seven points underwater with Trump 2020 voters.

He has no juice in this situation. And that is why he pushed Democrats to budget reconciliation, because every path that doesn't include budget reconciliation of Democrats doing it without him ends up with him looking really weak and further inflaming a base that is trying to defeat his candidates in 2022. Do you understand this reconciliation thing? Because it's one thing I didn't mention in the intro because it is quite complicated. But like, why don't Democrats want to lift the debt ceiling on their own through reconciliation? And why do Republicans want them to so badly? Well, there is the, I'm not saying these are good reasons on the other side, to be very clear. But the main reason is that if you deal with the debt ceiling through regular order, you can suspend it to a date.

You can say we're going to suspend dealing with this until January 1st, 2023, or January 3rd, 2087, right? If you do it through budget reconciliation, because the very stupid rules of budget reconciliation, you can only lift it by a certain dollar amount. Democrats fear that by lifting it to a certain dollar amount, it is opening them up to additional attack ads. Mitch McConnell is telling reporters, or his aides are winking and nodding at reporters, that that is the brilliance of his plan, is he is going to make Democrats take this vote so they can run ads against Mark Kelly, Raphael Warnock, Maggie Hassan, whoever else. That is what is happening.

The reason I think Mitch McConnell really wants it, because that's a stupid fucking reason. It's so stupid. I just have to, it is this, it's the stupidest thing. It's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. And we've had a lot of stupid things on this show that we've had to talk about for the last several years. But the idea that, okay, Republicans already are going to run ads against Democrats

that they all voted for and proposed trillions of dollars of spending that are going to add to the debt, even though that's a lie. They're not going to, cause it's all paid for, but they're going to say that, right? Then even if we lifted the debt ceiling without a dollar amount and just lifted it, they'll say Democrats allowed themselves to spend more money. Again, a lie, but they're going to run the ad anyway. What the fuck is the difference if they can put a dollar amount on it when they already have trillions of dollars of spending that they're going to run ads on? I wouldn't be afraid of it. I wouldn't be excited about it if I was Republicans.

I wouldn't be afraid of it if I was Democrats. I think both sides thinking about the number that you lift the debt ceiling to is the stupidest fucking. I just what is going on? There is an old saying, and when I say it's an old saying, I'm saying it is something that I started saying 10 years ago and no one has picked up since then. But the only people who believe Republican talking points are Democratic members of Congress. So that, I mean, that is what is going on here. And it is like, it makes no sense, but just because it doesn't make sense doesn't mean the Democrats don't believe it. But the

reason McConnell wants to do it, which is very, I want to explain how this can work. So if you, if the Democrats refuse to do it through budget reconciliation, we have three options. Default, that seems not good for anyone. Correct. Right? Like probably worse for Democrats, but not necessarily good for Republicans either. Correct. Option two is the Republicans agree to Schumer's request, which is Schumer saying, I don't want any of your votes. Not one of you has to vote for this. Just waive the filibuster and let us, all 50 Democrats vote for it. They've already told me they're going to do it.

You guys can all vote no. You can run your ad saying you voted no, whatever. The problem for McConnell is any single senator can block that unanimous consent request. And he does not have the juice to keep Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul in line to a seat to that. So the other option is for 10 Republican senators to cross party lines, theoretically, buck McConnell and make him look weak, further inflame Trump and the MAGA base and make them angry at the Senate Republicans. So he doesn't want to do one. He can't do two. And three makes him look bad. So his only option is to tell Democrats, you go do it all on your own. All my people can vote for it.

None of my people can stop you. Go do it. Here's where it's challenging for Democrats. When McConnell and the Republicans said Democrats should do it alone through reconciliation, Democrats not only said, no, we're not going to do that

because we're afraid of your very scary attack ad about this. They also said, look, we don't have time. It's two weeks. We're going to default. Reconciliation is a very long process. It's drawn out. There's these fucking voter ramas. You know, we have to take all these votes. We don't know that we're going to have the time to do this. Now McConnell saying, I'm giving you two months. You can no longer use the excuse that you don't have time to lift the debt ceiling through reconciliation on your own. You can absolutely do that in two months. And by the way,

that's what Joe Manchin wants you to do. You need his vote. And he doesn't want to get rid of the filibuster, he told me, to let you just vote to lift the debt ceiling on your own. So now reporters are going to say, why won't Democrats do it through reconciliation? They have two have two months well there's even one more giant complication there as well which is theoretically in those two months democrats are going to pass a budget reconciliation deal which they could put a debt ceiling increase in yes this is where i go back to like i don't know why this was a big win for anyone i know that it bought us time to negotiate BBB. Oh, I can't believe I just said that. Negotiate Bill Beck better. I think we have to say Jobs and

Families Plan. The Jobs and Families Plan? Yeah, I know that that goes against our wall. We're looking at the time right here. We've been trying to do this, but if the New York Times is calling it the social welfare bill in its headlines, it's turned out they're not going to adopt the

slogan on the bumper sticker to use in their stories i said that it should have been called the fucking economic plan all along which is something that reporters would actually print an economic plan instead of some fancy title this is anyway but i digress um but yeah no look i i get that we get the extra time to negotiate the bill without default that's good we've saved off default mcconnell did clearly blink in this scenario. I just one of the good arguments that we had is that we don't have time to do it. Now we have the time. And so I'm a little concerned about how that plays out.

So, you know, as we said, Manchin told reporters on Wednesday he was still against changing the filibuster at all, even to avoid default, even after Joe Biden, who's always been against reforming the filibuster and maybe the entire rest of the Democratic caucus, except for possibly Sinema, said, yeah, we're ready to get rid of the filibuster to avoid default. You know, Manchin's still saying he wouldn't even reform the filibuster even to avoid default. Like, doesn't really bode well for filibuster even to avoid default, like doesn't really bode well for filibuster reform on voting rights or anything else, does it? No, no, John, it doesn't. It does not bode well for that. I mean, it's Manchin will only,

it may be that Manchin will never get rid of the filibuster. It could be that if Republicans were filibustering, allowing firefighters into a burning Capitol, Joe Manchin would be okay with that. It may be, but it's certainly not going to. That's certainly what it seems like. Yeah. But because like, this is, you know, you have had this theory that maybe this is what, I don't know, maybe I'm revealing your private text threat theory here that maybe one of your arguments. No, we talked about it. We talked about it right on this podcast. Just no one gave me credit for my theory.

But yeah, go ahead. Okay. Well, I mean, John, do you have a name for your theory? The filibuster theory? The theory that will never come to pass. Go ahead. Yes, the theory that will never come to pass. And there is some reporting that today. We should say that the theory is that Schumer's plan all along was to bring this right to the brink so that Manchin and Sinema finally felt pressure to either reform the filibuster or let the country default, knowing that the two of them wouldn't let the country default, even though Republicans probably would.

would. And then once they reform the filibuster for this, it becomes easier to reform the filibuster for everything else. That was my very overly optimistic theory, though it does seem like that might be what Schumer was thinking. And there is reporting that that is one of the reasons why McConnell blinked. He's actually, I take reporting, he said it on the floor of the Senate, right? Was that this was, that his concern was that Democrats would wreck the Senate, an institution to which he has lit multiple fires over the course of time. But it's still – it's not – it seems like that's not where we're going to end up here in part because there is this off-ramp of budget reconciliation, which has been the off-ramp that allows the filibuster to exist under all scenarios. We should be, I think, realistic. Some people have said, well, once the filibuster to exist under all scenarios. And we should be, I think, realistic. Some people have

said, well, once the filibuster is gone for this, it's gone for everything. That is theoretically true in a world where votes 49 and 50 are not Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin. And so just because it were to go away in a very narrow avoid default scenario doesn't mean that all of a sudden they're going to pass voting rights or $15 minimum wage or $11 minimum wage or the Women's Health Act or any of those things. But it would be a positive step towards making the Senate a wee bit more democratic and any bit of progress would be positive. We should quickly talk about the latest update on the budget negotiations. Bernie Sanders, who chairs the Budget Committee, held a press conference on Wednesday where he called on Joe

Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to be specific about what they're willing to support in a final budget agreement, saying two people do not have a right to sabotage what the other 48 senators, plus the president of the United States, plus most of the American people actually want. In response, Manchin said, respectfully, Senator Sanders and I share very different policy and political beliefs as he and I have discussed. Wow, they talk. Who knew? Senator Sanders believes America should be moving towards an entitlement society while I believe we should have a compassionate and rewarding society. What an asshole. So what do you think that says about the status of the negotiation that Bernie's out there Wednesday giving a press conference yelling at Manchin and Sinema. You know how we often say

that Democrats need to stop communicating with each other through op-eds or through anonymous leaks to Capitol Hill reporters? Do you know what's one step worse than that? Calling a press conference to yell at someone that you have lunch with every week.

He yelled at him on Wednesday. They had lunch together on Tuesday. Like, it seems bad. I would say it seems very, very bad. Is that, is that similar to when you attack Ben Rhodes for having soup with Bob Woodward on this podcast,

instead of just texting him on our text chain? Similar, but I have not seen Ben Rhodes in person in a year and a half so if we had to have lunch on tuesday i would have mentioned it um yeah no i it gets me a little worried because i kind of thought that we were there's a lot of other reports that uh say the democrats are actually narrowing their differences right now which i do think overall that's where it's headed but i i am guessing that if you're Bernie Sanders and you thought that $3.5 trillion was the compromise, which it was, and now Manchin

is still saying $1.5, $1.5, $1.5, and he won't even go above that a little bit, yeah, I'd probably be pretty pissed at that point too. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure Bernie has every right to be pissed. If you look at the long arc of Bernie's career, he has never played this role on a core policy priority, right? He did not say, oh, you want the Affordable Care Act? I am. Yeah. And no one else will vote for it? Well, I demand Medicare for all, right? He did not do that, right? And he pointed this out at the press conference on Wednesday. He said, I could have gone to Joe Biden and said, you're not going to include Medicare for all in this budget reconciliation. Then I'm going to vote it down.

He could have done that. He didn't do it. He's been playing really well. Very practical. Very pragmatic. Bernie Sanders this whole time. So have all the progressives. So look, it really sucks, but it goes back to the point we've made a bunch, which is the reason that I think some of these centrists have more leverage is that they have made it clear that they're fine walking away with nothing.

Some of them seem like they would rather let that die than go with a bigger proposal that has more policies that would help more people, which is really fucking unfortunate, but exactly where we are. Yeah, it's depressing in that sense. Politico reported yesterday that the White House is leaning towards keeping most proposals in the bill, but spending less money on each for a shorter period of time. What do you think of that strategy? I think it's probably a mistake. I understand why you're doing that because you guys made this point on Monday, which is you can lose no votes. And so if you cut this thing out, all of a sudden these members say, you know, elder care is incredibly important to us. It's our signature priority. It's the last chance to do this. And it's not in the bill. Well, you don't have my vote. So I understand from a purely legislative

wrangling perspective, that probably makes passage easier. From a substantive impact, political impact in 2022 and beyond, I think that that is a mistake. And it's always, as a general rule of life, no choice is never the right choice, right? So like if you spend it, you know, sort of just spreading the minimum amount of money around in such, so broadly that it's going to have very limited impact on people is going to make these policies mean less to more people. And we're already seeing how hard it is in some of the polling on the child tax credit and other things to get people to view this as a policy that should continue, that is incredibly impactful, that is an argument for electing Democrats.

And the thing that I think drives all of this is what does it do to the climate spending? Because that to me is more important than anything else because there is not – the reasons that it may be the last chance for a while at least for child care or child tax credit or all these other things has to do with the political environment. Climate change has to do with the planet. Right. And there may not be like time is ticking there. I think the climate is the exception in that.

And, you know, Congresswoman Jayapal has said this before, that they still want 10 year funding on climate change because it doesn't work to do this for a couple of years. It's got to be permanent. So I think that's the major exception. Though, again, that's going to be determined by whether Joe Manchin wants like a real clean energy standard that actually punishes polluters or makes polluters pay and not just one that rewards companies that are transitioning to clean energy, which wouldn't have the same punch. I think on everything else, look, if you, as Joe Manchin wants to do, start means testing a lot of these proposals so that a lot of people who are working class, middle class don't get the benefits, then I agree with you that it's a huge problem. But if you're saying on a lot of these proposals, let's do more proposals for two years or three years or four years as opposed to 10 years, but make sure we get all the proposals in there or as many as we can. Then I think you're actually delivering benefits to more people across more policy proposals and more programs over a shorter period of time.

And that actually will have more of an impact on people ahead of the 2022 midterm. So let's say you do paid family leave and helping people attend community college and a child tax credit, and you're expanding Medicare benefits to cover dental and hearing. And all of these things aren't going to last now 10 years, but they're going to be funded for three years or four years. That's a lot more people, different groups of people who are going to feel the benefits of this legislation than if you say just child tax credit, which only goes to people with children. You see what I'm saying? So I actually think that that's why I actually just from a pure, I don't think, I don't necessarily know that that's good policy to have all these cliffs

on programs that are, that are going to run out in four years. But politically, if you're the White House and the Democratic Party and you want more people to feel the benefits of the legislation you're passing soon before the midterms, that might be one way to do it. I guess the nuance to my position would be I do not mind the cliffs from a political perspective. If you could nearly fully fund all these things for two years or three years or four years, I would pick probably, maybe these things expired in 2025. Let's deal with that. Or maybe 2023 is better just from a political imperative to get it done. But either way, the cliff doesn't bother me. There's always going to be a cliff. That is unfortunately the only way our Congress can operate now. It's more about whether by funding everything, do you have to only do the length of the program or do you also have to

cut down on the number of people who receive it and how much they receive, right? Does the subsidy go down to the point where it is not significant enough or the number of people who get it or the number of people who are angry about not getting it so high that it outweighs it. Like this is people much smarter and more substantive than us will figure that out. But that's the issue. I completely agree with you on that. All right. When we come back, we will talk to the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Sean Patrick Maloney. thanks to republican gerrymandering new voter suppression laws and a three vote margin in the house democrats have quite a challenge when it comes to holding the majority in 2022 leading them into battle is the chairman of the democratic congressional campaign committee

representative sean patrick maloney of new y. Congressman, thanks for joining us. My pleasure. Last time a president's party didn't lose seats in a midterm was 20 years ago. Why did you want this job? Are you crazy? Are you a glutton for punishment? What's going on? I get that question a lot. Look, you guys know, I mean, what's at stake? This is the most important election I've ever lived through. I don't think the stakes could be higher. We got to win because there's some dangerous, reckless people on the other side. And we're doing historic work that will create a whole new generation of prosperity that for the first time in our history is truly inclusive. So I describe it as building a bridge to the future. And it's not easy doing that and give the president credit for leading

on that. And I'm proud to be a part of that effort of maintaining the political capacity to get it done. It seems like we're going to need a much bigger infrastructure package to build that bridge. It's just something that I'm thinking of here. Well, great joke. It's hilarious, isn't it? But I have a lot of, I have plenty of Biff jokes if you want those too. I just am. That's what I've been reduced to here. But it is a bridge to somewhere, right? It is a bridge to the future. And kidding aside, look, we're the party of John Lewis, right?

And sometimes when you march across the bridge to the future, there's people trying to stop you. And we shouldn't be surprised that it's hard. But I do think we're getting there. And if you look at what's going on, I know there's been some twisted metal and broken glass, and it's been great for cable news business models. But the truth is, is that we are moving methodically toward two historic pieces of legislation that are going to make a big difference. You reportedly told House Democrats in August that if the midterm election were held, then they'd lose the majority. Do you still think that if the election were held today? Well, that was August. So the good news is September was awesome. I was going to say things have only gotten more amazing since then. There's only one more

August between now and the election. So really, no, look, I know that that's been reported widely. I think what I was relaying, first of all, was that we weren't going to sugarcoat stuff, that we were going to give people the accurate information of our best understanding of where we were succeeding and failing and communicating with people what we're doing. We know that what we're doing is popular. We know that it'll make a difference. It's another thing entirely whether people have heard about it, whether they see it and feel it in their own lives. And what's going on in our country right now is you've got a massive, well-funded machine telling them things are terrible, number one. Number two, you've got some really difficult problems that we are tackling, and it's not going to happen overnight.

And while we've done a lot, we're still in the process of putting those solutions in place. But, man, there's tens of millions of families who are benefiting from the child tax cut right now. Ask them what it means in their family budget. So the point is, is that when we put all these pieces in place, we are going to be able to run on a record of results because the best message is impact, right? The best message is when people feel it and they know it's happening. And then we got to remind them that the other side fought us every step of the way. And if they want to keep this progress going, they got to support us. Congressman, in 2020, Democrats took the White House, took the Senate, but the House was a surprising disappointment. Most people expected us to gain seats. We lost seats. You've gone back

and looked at those races. What lessons did you learn about what went wrong with our strategy then? And what are you doing in 2022 to adjust for that? I think the biggest thing people miss about the 2020 election is they think it was some big message contest. And the messages are important, don't get me wrong. But fundamentally, what Trump succeeded in doing was bringing out a large number of low propensity voters. And they beat us in pretty much every category of voter in terms of their likelihood to to vote. And what that means is when you when you're flooding the polls with your voters, you know, your message looks a lot better. Right. I mean, right. I mean, you know, Warren Buffett jokes that you find out who's skinny dipping when the tide goes out.

Right. Well, everybody looks brilliant in their political messaging when their voters come in. looks brilliant in their political messaging when their voters come in. And so I think it was a 10 foot wall and Trump's turnout gave him a seven foot ladder is my argument to you. And I think the data supports it. Doesn't mean the message doesn't matter. It does. But if you look nationally, we actually beat him by 4.7 million votes in House races and lost seats. Right. So that tells you what kind of districts were running in, number one, right? But it also tells you that they are not persuading a majority of the American people with their messaging. So I think what we've got to do is we've got to project into what I believe will be a low turnout cycle, the kind of massive investments in field and community engagement that we have not done successfully in the past. We're doing that right now. And we need to make absolutely

sure that we confront their distortions and lies and win that message war, but that we also have a substantive record of results to run on. But I really believe that the most important investments we're making right now and earlier than ever are on mobilization, community engagement, voter registration, getting on the ground. And I've told my people, if we have to be in moon suits, we are going to be knocking on doors. We're going to do it safely and responsibly, but we are going to own the ground. I mean, I 100% agree with your assessment about the impact that Trump's turnout had, but his turnout was also tied to his message, right? He had a message that was, you know, I think utter bullshit, but fear-inducing about who

Democrats are, right? He called your, you know, your colleagues, you know, police defunding, socialists, Antifa, et cetera. And that message, you know, at least by some measures, broke through in some ways. That process is already beginning this time. How, you know, what advice are you giving to your frontline members or your top challengers on how to navigate the well-funded machine that you talked about that is pushing these messages out at a very alarming rate? Right. I'm not quibbling with what you're saying, but I think there is an important, I think there's an important gloss on that,

which is that you've got to ask yourself whether the Trump message works without the messenger, whether you can get those voters out without the messenger. In other words, was it defunding the police or socialism, those lies they told about us that motivated their voters, or was it Trump? I mean, you guys worked for a president who had the same effect on our low propensity voters. You had a bunch of people who came out for Barack Obama. And, you know, there was a lot of good messaging there. And there was a lot of good things we were pushing and saying. But really, he was this enormous, right, accelerant to our turnout machine. And so I do think if the Republicans are trying to do toxic Trump messaging and branding in suburban swing districts, they better ask

themselves whether that message turns out voters or whether it was Trump. But, but so what I'm telling my people is, is you gotta, you gotta tell them what we're doing because it's popular. We got to get it done to do that. We got to stick together, right? And you got to remind them the other side is for insurrection when we're trying to do infrastructure and therefore therefore fighting when we're trying to fix problems. And and we're still the hope guys and they're the hate guys. And and if you look at what they've done on the vaccine and what you've done when on the insurrection, I think the Republicans have real vulnerability on how dangerous and reckless they've been, particularly in swing districts where I don't think that's good politics. I mean, Trump is definitely not on the ballot this time, but Joe Biden isn't either. How are we going to turn our voters out? Because to succeed in this midterm, we're going to have

to reduce the number of the typical drop-off voters between presidentials and midterms. Totally right. And that's why I think you've got to resource it and everything else is kind of hoping for the best. And so what we're doing at the DCCC is I've got dozens of people already working in the field at a senior level, community organizers, organizing directors, people who are on the ground a year earlier than they normally would be layering in with those campaigns, working with cultural competence, and this is important in communities of color and in different communities and not seeing all Latino communities as a monolith or not seeing all types of subgroups within the Democratic coalition is the same, but doing it with some nuance and some savvy and doing it early. And so that we don't just show up before the election. And so you got to put a bunch of money behind that. And you've got to, I think, shatter the conventional thinking that we need to pinch pennies all

the way up to the last couple of months and then burn bags of money on TV. I don't think that works that well. I think that the ROI on early investments in field and in organizing, voter registration, community engagement have been undervalued. And I think that we also have some work to do on getting our media mix right, on doing better digital and doing better social, not just TV. But on the off here, there's two big things you're doing. You're achieving substantive results with the opportunity you've been given. I think we're doing that. I give the president a lot of credit for going big, and we're getting it done. And you organize. You get out there, and you own the ground,

and you do it early. Your counterpart at the Democratic Governors Association, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, said that the midterms will be a referendum on the pandemic. Do you agree with that? In some ways, you bet. I think that you've got to grow this economy and end the pandemic. That's on us. It's not fair. It's not easy. But the president has tackled a bunch of hard things from ending a 20-year war to tackling a global pandemic, to growing this American economy, to really rebalancing for the first time in decades, the opportunity for stability and wealth creation that working and middle-class families have versus the very rich. We're doing the most important work for, I think, for the economic threads

that hold together our democracy since the New Deal, certainly since the Great Society. And we're this close. And if we get it done, then I think the race we're in is finding out whether people give a shit, whether we've told them or not,

whether it's actually impacting their lives. I mean, you guys saw this movie with the Affordable Care Act, right? Everybody loves it now, but it took years to convince people why it was so important and why it would make such a critical difference in their lives. We have an advantage, which is that the changes we're making are more immediate. Child tax cut. I think you'll see this in lowering people's health insurance premiums, expanding Medicaid coverage, and even things that will take a little longer, but that are really important, like universal pre-K, paid family medical leave, universal community college. These things go right at what matters to a family's hopes, dreams, budget, and we can get them all done. Well, let me ask one more question about that, because obviously the negotiations are still ongoing over Build Back Better and what's going to make it into the final bill.

Which proposals are most important to your frontline members? What are you hearing people who are in the toughest districts say, this has got to be in the bill or this is really important to get in the bill? to get in the bill? Well, I think that progressives may undervalue how important state and local tax deductions are as something that a lot of frontliners ran on, as something that their voters really care about. So think about the extraordinary overlap, and this is a conversation only pundits would love, but think about the overlap between competitive congressional districts and higher taxed, higher property valued suburbs. It's the best overlap in the House of Representatives, right? And so it's no accident that swing districts in Long Island, New York, in the Hudson Valley, where I live, in New Jersey, in Orange County,

California, in Illinois, all are very focused on this. So that's an important issue that I think you'll see included in a final package. That's good. But there's a lot of others. I think that more broadly, absolutely what I just spoke about, the child tax cut is really important. And so I think you'll see the debate on whether it's permanent or whether it's authorized for a number of years, but it's going to be there. Right. And then I and then and then I'm look really focused on the infrastructure bill as well as something that people really understand and want and think is a real win in competitive seats. We're going to put a cap on that salt deduction to make sure that super rich people can't take advantage of it. I know it hits some middle class people in these suburban districts, which is totally fair, but I feel like there should be a cap at some point.

Are you open to that? Yeah, listen, I mean, you're in danger of bringing us into a policy conversation and I'm talking about politics. If you want to get all substantive, I guess we can do that too. But look, there's different proposals out there. I mean, my friend Katie Forty would tell you that if you get the cap high enough, you'll actually make money on the restoration over 10 years because it's going away completely in 2027. She made the best case, I thought, for it when we had her. Yeah, look, that's a clever argument. I think my preference is a little cleaner. I would give people their deductions back full stop, and I would do it for the next couple of years.

And if you can't afford it, do it for less time, not for fewer people. But I'm chairing the DCCC. Stipulating that the most important thing to do, as you said over here, is deliver for people by giving the pandemic under control, passing these very important bills. as you said over here, is deliver for people by getting the pandemic under control, passing these very important bills. You're also a huge part of this election to be making a case against allowing Republicans back into control of any part of government. What is your most current thinking on the best narrative to use against Republicans? Because there's no shortage of bad things they have done or things to be afraid of. So how do you think is the best way to frame the argument against Republicans? Yeah, this is where I might be a little different than some of my colleagues. I mean, remember, it's unusual to have a DCCC chair from a super

competitive seat, right? But Donald Trump won my seat in 2016. So I kind of live and breathe this stuff. And you're talking to a guy who's a gay guy with an interracial family in a Trump district, right? So I don't, I don? So I don't win my seat by, you know, hoping for the best or thinking everybody will change all their views about Democrats or things that maybe they don't like about us. The way you win in a competitive seat is you invalidate the other choice and you let people hold on to enough of kind of who they see themselves as and their cultural values and some of their other kind of drivers that might not always be in our direction, but they're voting for you. And so you do that, it seems to me,

by delivering in a real way for your district. And so that's really important. And I think that therefore, what I'm trying to tell you is my narrative centers around, you can't do that. Like, you don't have to love everything about the Democratic Party, but you can't do those guys right now, because whether you're talking about storming the Capitol and asking us to look the other way when a bunch of cops got hurt and killed, whether you're talking about spreading dangerous conspiracy theories like QAnon or getting in the way of our efforts to vaccine, get the vaccine out and end the pandemic, whether you're talking about people who question whether, you know, victims of school shootings were child actors, as some of them do, who form a white

supremacy caucus. You see the point. Point is, is you can't do that. And look at what we're doing. You may not think we're perfect, but man, you're getting that child tax cut and it's working a miracle in your family budget. And if you don't vote for the Democrat, you're going to lose it. So what do you want to do? So I think for me, the core messaging in the competitive seats is to say, we got a plan for the future. It's helping you. It's happening right now. And the other side is a dangerous group of people.

And so you got to stick with us for a little while longer until we heal our country and get us back to a better place. Is talking about Trump and the looming threat of him returning to the White House or staying on the political stage part of that narrative, or is that counterproductive in the sense that may generate some of that turnout that was so problematic in 2020? I don't think my fear is that it generates the Trump turnout. I think that's uniquely about whether or not he's on the ballot. I mean, look at what happened in the Georgia special elections, right? I mean, it was just a couple of weeks later, they're using

all the same message. And we elected an African-American and the first Jewish senator from Georgia, for goodness sake. Look at the California recall, pretty good matchup between the right Newsom and Elder, not a bad proxy for Biden, Trump or for Democrats, Republicans. And we kicked their butt, including in the competitive areas like Orange County, not just statewide. Watch the Virginia governor's race. I'm very focused on that. I think that's good data. Right. But I think that I think that the key right now is to is to understand the parts of Trump that that invalidate the Republicans who try to run on that toxicity without him. Meaning, the big lie about the election, the big lie about the pandemic and the vaccine,

those are real vulnerabilities for any Republican. Or how about taking away a woman's reproductive freedom? I mean, that is Trump toxicity without Trump on the ballot. I would argue that if they keep going down that road, that's an anvil on which we can hammer them in competitive swing districts, right? And so I think that I wouldn't kind of just go against Trump as a blanket message, but I do think the toxic elements of what his presidency represented are really bad politics in swing seats. I have one last pretty nerdy question. Polling was once again pretty bad in 2020. Have the pollsters that you guys work with done anything to adjust? And do you feel confident in the numbers, just in terms of being able to move the resources to the most important districts? Because for the public, who cares? We follow the polls up and down. But for you guys, getting polling right really matters because it's about, you know, the resources campaigns have and where they go. Absolutely critical. You know,

my whole job is efficient resource allocation, right? And I can't do that if I don't have good data. So you better believe the pollsters have heard from us on that. We're also going to grade them, by the way, on how well they do. That's never happened before. And so we've communicated a set of metrics to them around what we really need from polls to make good allocation decisions. And we want them to manage to that test. We want them to get better at those things. And we're going to grade them after the next election as a way to say we're holding you accountable. But more to your point, I think we have a very good handle on what happened in the polling this cycle. It's a harder job to fix it, but it basically falls into two buckets, right? We saw a little of this in 2016, by the way. We thought it corrected in 2018. It did as a practical matter, but not in a way that set us up well for 2020. Here's what

happened. What happened is that you've got a bad set of models being used on who's going to turn out, right? And when you get your model wrong, because people assume polls are just about kind of tallying up right what people tell you, but they're really about guessing right who's going to show up in the election, right? And if you guess wrong, even by a small degree, because you're wrong on how powerful Trump's attraction was for low propensity voters, then those small differences in your model can be a big swing in the polling results. So we went back and looked at a bunch of the polls and then corrected for that turnout mistake. And guess what? You see most of the error in most of the polls corrected. So if you're if you're DMP in southern Florida and somebody tells you you're up six points and you lose by two, you're pretty pissed that the poll was off by eight.

In fact, that's a very minor shift in the assumptions about turnout among low propensity Republican voters. You're correct for that. You see the poll come back in line. There's a second problem, which is that, you know, and it's a sloppy way to say it, but basically Trump people don't like to talk to pollsters, right? And so even if you're getting your demo, and we've known this for a while, the fancy term is non-response bias. And what it means is that you think you got the right demographics in your poll, but there's something about, for example, your high school educated white guys, they aren't the right high school educated white guys. They're the ones that are picking up the phone, talking to a pollster. And we've seen

that skew the results a little bit. And you put those two things together, you get about 95% of the polling error in 2020. Some of that will correct naturally without that kind of Trump surge in turnout. But a lot of it also requires some work. And we're pretty confident that we've got a pretty good beat on it. Our data was really good. We ran some tests in the special election in New Mexico where Melanie Stansbury kicked butt. And our data was pretty good on that race. So I can't tell you we've wrestled everything to the ground. Remember, polling has some problems of its own because nobody answers their phone anymore and talks to a pollster. So just the general response rates have come way down from, say, 20 years ago.

So we're also elevating qualitative metrics, more focus groups. There's a bunch of new technologies you can use that are better than traditional polling. So there's a lot of work to do, but I hope that's not too expansive an answer. But we really are focused on it. No, it's great. But I hope that's not too expansive an answer. But we really are focused on it. No, it's great. It does seem like the optimistic scenario for 2022 is that the sort of college educated voters who came out in 2018, many for the first time to vote for Democrats, continue to turn out in in 2022, even even without Trump on the ballot. And yet the low propensity voters who turned out for Trump in 2020 don't show up in 2022. Is that what you guys are thinking?

I think that's such an interesting point. I think that's a hypothesis. I tend to share it. Yes. And it's an interesting way of saying we're kind of switching voters. For a long time, it was that the more reliable voters were Republican voters in midterms. It may be the opposite, right? It may be that those low propensity voters who turned out for Trump are actually not reliable voters in the midterm. And our surge among college-educated voters means we have a more stable group of voters who will turn out. But it's not going to stop me from piling resources into the efforts to win the ground and to do, you know, the kind of community engagement and mobilization I think we really need to do. But here's hoping, yeah. Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, thank you so

much for joining us. Come on again soon and let us know what you're hearing on the ground. Hey, happy to do it. All right, before we go, Crooked's own digital guru, Elijah Cohn, has a brand new game called Take Appreciators that we're going to try. Elijah, take it away. All right. Hi, guys. Welcome to the Take Appreciators.

Great to be here. I'm going to share some notably bad punitry with you. The producers have seen these takes. John and Dan have not. They will give their reactions in real time and then rate them on a scale of one to four politicos. Bear with us as we work out the kinks of this game in real time. John and Dan, are you ready?

Ready as I'll ever be. I don't know. Let's find out. All right, the first one is a banger. This piece in the Daily Beast titled Kirsten Sinema and Liz Cheney are America's best and bravest politicians. Here's a quote. You can't lobby or intimidate them because it's impossible to push or mock someone with that level of confidence. Indifference is the ultimate form of power. Your thoughts. Can I get an author on this? Matt Lewis. With that level of confidence, indifference is the ultimate form of power.

Your thoughts. Can I get an author on this? Matt Lewis. You know what? If you had given me a multiple choice of people likely to have made that take, Matt Lewis would have been high on the list. What was the last sentence of the take, Elijah? Indifference is the ultimate form of power oh my god i don't even know i want to go back to the um like the take itself was pretty bad the headline is really what got me going that there that liz cheney and kirsten cinema together

are america's heroes because it is heroic if you're Kyrsten Sinema to, I don't know, say nothing about what you believe, not reflect the will of your constituents, and what? What the fuck is heroic about that? I guess what's heroic to Matt Lewis is that they're both doing things that Matt Lewis likes. Elijah did not read the subtitle of that article, which I believe is accepting invitations to DC cocktail parties, whether hosted by Democrats or Republicans. It's like tattooing both sides on your forehead and walking out in public.

Like what? Yeah. You know, I think, I think, I guess we should probably rate this take. Like it definitely bothered me, but it is a very I'm Matt Lewis. Here's my beliefs. I'm a I'm a never Trumper, but I'm still pretty Republican in a lot of other ways. So this is my sweet spot.

I like Kirsten Sinema and Liz Cheney. Like, it's not like I will appreciate the take, but I won't. It's I've seen worse takes. So I'm going to give it I i'm gonna give it two politicos i'm gonna give it one politico like in the slam dunk contest you never give out your highest scores in the first round so you see what else is coming that's really smart that's really smart all right we're off number two this piece in the washington post titled protest kirsten cinema all you want but have some decency while doing it.

Ah, wait a minute. Wait, I just, I think I just heard something. Red Hen. Civility alert. Red Hen. Civility alert. Paging Chuck Todd. Paging Chuck Todd. Tip O'Neill.

Ronald Reagan. You're needed with a bourbon in the West Wing. Red Hen. Red Hen. Red Hen. Red Hen. My favorite part of that is how long Tommy went and just continued to offer more content in the middle of the Civility Alert. I really appreciate that. It's brilliant.

So here's a highlight from that article. Quote, many of the Capitol rioters on January 6th have basically said that they lost their minds in the melee. Who's to say that the next inflamed progressives who confront Sinema won't be wielding a club or something worse to compel her obedience? Your thoughts? No. Okay, let me, can I, can we guess? I was going to say, yeah, I was going to say, you guess first, you guess first. Is it former Bush speechwriter, Mark Thiessen?

It is not. Is it former Bush speechwriter, Michael Gerson? It is not. Okay. I got one last guess. Okay. Kathleen Parker.

No, over three. It's a Henry Olson. That's not a person who exists. You made that up. Look, comparing, okay, comparing the people that yelled at Kyrsten Sinema in the bathroom to the people

who violently attacked Congress in order to overturn a free and fair election, that gets fucking three politicos for me. Absolutely, three politicos. Three politicos as well. also i will say you know it's how little attention we paid to the washington posted op-ed page that we all guess people who we didn't guess anyone who didn't start working there after 2010 basically yeah i don't i didn't know i don't really know who henry olsen is he's just like someone whose name i see once in a while next to a take that pisses me off and which will continue all right well moving on a third kirsten cinema take here from the wall

street journal this one titled kirsten cinema the bad maverick this highlight is short and sweet it's just a simple question that opens the article quote is kirsten cinema the democrats john mccain is she you know what lazy take lazy bad take everyone's talking about kirsten cinema being the next fucking john mccain blah blah blah someone smartly pointed out that the one of the big differences uh between the two of them are John McCain talked to the press constantly. You knew what John McCain thought about everything. You didn't necessarily agree with it. Sometimes you rolled your eyes. Sometimes you got angry. But like he talked nonstop to the press about every single thing he thought about every single issue. Kirsten Sinema

does not do that. She runs away. She hides from the press and she just likes playing this game. So I don't think they're like at all. And I think it's a shitty take. I think it's a it's a bad, bad take. One Politico. One Politico. I I'm going to give it two Politicos because I think you're dismissing the obvious reason that they are the same. They're senators from Arizona.

Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's it. You're right. That's very that is how they got to that super smart, clever take that no one had made ever before. Galaxy brain right there. All right, next take. How do you guys think the segment is going so far? Look, I am a little less angry than I thought I'd be, but I'm getting there.

I'm thinking by take seven, I could be pretty riled up. I'm giving you, to rate you you for this three Acostas. So that's good. I'll take it. All right. Well, maybe, maybe this one we'll, we'll get y'all going here. Um, for the, also from the wall street journal, Democrats destroy political norms to save themselves. So this is a piece about our loss of faith in our democracy and threats to the election or returning elections. Quote, this narrative of continuing constitutional crisis for which only Republicans are to blame is convenient political cover for Democrats. Until those on the other side acknowledge their own role in undermining democratic legitimacy,

the crisis will only deepen. What political norms have we violated that are equivalent to storming the fucking Capitol and overturning an election? Bathrooms. Some protesters stupidly, but follow Kirsten Simons into the bathroom. Did you not, did you miss take one or whatever that was?

What is it? Yeah. Is this, do you, Elijah, can you tell us what the norms they're referring to are? The Russia investigation. Is this a Kim Strassel? Gerard Baker.

Oh, the former editor of the paper. That's a pretty bad take. That's getting three politicos from me. I'm going to give it two. I'm hesitant to give out the four yet because we just don't know what the ceiling of this is. And I think you really got to earn it. But what that column set is to me is how Gerard Baker explains his support of Trump to his children. That's what think that is yeah it's it's tough i haven't given it for yet either it's because like we haven't heard from chris eliza we haven't heard from playbook we haven't heard from axios like there's a lot of

a lot of uh stars out there in the bad take world that have just uh that haven't popped up yet so yeah that that one had norms and both sides. I figured y'all would like that one. Here's one from Playbook itself on the filibustering car route. Quote, one note of caution for Dems, just as eliminating the filibuster for court nominees eventually led to doing so for Supreme Court nominees, an exception for the debt ceiling would inevitably trigger other demands. One could imagine voting rights advocates crying foul, for instance, insisting that their issue is worthy of similar treatment.

This is a, this is one Politico in my book, because what a one Politico take to me is taking something that is patently obvious and then packaging it as smart insider conventional wisdom. And that is what this is like. No shit, Sherlock. Yeah, I read this one because, of course, I'm a self-loathing playbook reader. And I do think that it is a correct take. They, of course, you know, they framed it as like, oh, whiny voting rights advocates, you know, just going to be complaining. It's like, yes, no, exactly. If that's our hope,

we hope so. Yes, we all hope that is correct. All right. Let's turn it up here. This one is from Ben Shapiro on his own outlet, The Daily Wire, which is extremely conservative and one of the most popular outlets on Facebook. This piece is titled Facebook Reveals How It Suppresses Articles Protecting Leftist Legacy Media. Shapiro tweeted, understand that the Facebook whistleblower story is just the next step in a never ending Democrat media quest to cuddle Facebook into quashing alternative media. I mean, you have to give Shapiro credit for the shamelessness of that take, which is why it's actually true to the title of the game. It's a truly appreciated take to be that shameless that your entire company,

everything you do is fueled by the facebook algorithm that works in your favor and yet you complain about facebook that is really ballsy from ben shapiro so actually worse well let me i don't want to step i don't want to step on your grade give your grade oh i'll give it three politicos okay i'm giving her four politicos because it's not just that ben shapiro happens to benefit from the Facebook algorithm because he, through the genius of his own self, figured out how to make the most compelling content. His pyramid scheme of websites violates Facebook's rules in every way, shape, or form. And despite having that fact flagged to Mark Zuckerberg on multiple occasions, Facebook has refused, under the advice of Joel Kaplan, their Republican best friend of Brett Kavanaugh, who runs their policy department, to not enforce the rules against Shapiro because that would make them look biased against conservatives.

And that would anger Republicans. So Shapiro knows this. So it's not just that he is living in, I imagine, a large house that Mark Zuckerberg bought for him. He's living in a, it's a very, that house is made of glass is what I would say to close that take. Wow. Elijah, I feel like that reaction is what you were looking for when you pitched take appreciators it is it really really is it kind of hits all all my my takes uh goals there yeah all right well this is the last

one dan sorry to get you riled up on that last one because this this one is also pretty much directly for you it's from philly sports network a piece titled The Sixers Need to Be Patient with Ben Simmons. A poll from the article is, quote, it's time to realize that maybe it's not the player who is the problem.

Fans in the city are too comfortable booing. I don't, I feel like grading that on a scale of politicos is a mistake. I think that is, uh, that's three parted my takes.

How's that? That's funny. We can call it first. Yeah. That's a terribly stupid thing. If anyone who, or three skip balances or whatever, whatever you want to do with that.

But that is an absurd take. And Philly fans coddled night, nicely supported Ben Simmons for very long until he was unsupportable. And so I am for the patients, but it ain't the fan's fault. There was no Philly fan who was whispering in Ben Simmons's ear. Do not shoot. That was not what happened. So fans too comfortable booing.

That is quite a take. I love that. It's accurate to philadelphia yeah all right well that's most of those very friendly fans go ahead yeah okay we don't we don't need to we're very kind very kind in boston we're known for our kindness yes all right well that concludes the first installment of the take appreciators elijah fantastic game i'm looking forward to playing again can't wait for for uh love it and tommy to join in on a monday pod for this because this is uh this was fun i want to do this one again thank you for the game uh thank you to sean patrick maloney for joining us and

talking about dCC strategy. Everyone have a great weekend and we'll talk to you next week. Bye everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Flavia Casas. Our producer is Haley Muse. And Olivia Martinez is our associate producer.

It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Brian Semmel, Caroline Reston, Madison Holman, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.