Pod Save America - “Problems not solved.”

Episode Date: August 26, 2021

Nancy Pelosi stops a centrist rebellion over the budget, a new Change Research/Crooked Media poll of Virginia gives Democrats a small lead and a few warnings signs for 2022, and California Senator Alex Padilla stops by to discuss the California recall, voting rights, and more.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.

A quick note before we begin today's show. We recorded this pod early Thursday morning as the horrific terrorist attack in Afghanistan was still unfolding, an attack that has left dozens injured and dead, including multiple American troops. So we weren't able to fully cover that story on today's pod, but we will be talking about it a lot more on Monday's episode. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, Nancy Pelosi stops a centrist rebellion over the budget. In new change research, Crooked Media Poll of Virginia gives Democrats a small lead and a few warning signs for 2022.

And California Senator Alex Padilla stops by the office to chat with Tommy and me about the California recall, voting rights, and more. But first, check out this week's Hysteria, where legendary TV comedy writer and good friend of the pod Jen Statsky joins Erin and Alyssa to discuss her hit HBO series Hacks, one of my favorite shows over the last few years. New episodes of Hysteria drop every Thursday, so check it out. Also, if you are a registered voter in the state of California, listen up. Check your mail for a recall ballot. Fill it out. Return it by September 14th. If you don't want California controlled

by a radical right-wing Republican, vote no on question one. Should Governor Newsom be recalled? And leave question two blank, according to the Newsom campaign. And please note, what we just said was not authorized by a candidate or committee

controlled by a candidate, Dan. So you have to say that? That is something that I've been told that I need to say. Yeah, I do what people tell me. Anyway, visit votesaveamerica.com slash California to learn more. All right, let's get to the news. Is it possible to outmaneuver House Speaker Nancy Pelosi? This week, New Jersey Congressman Josh Gottheimer and nine other centrist Democrats decided to fuck around and find out after threatening for days to vote against Joe Biden's economic plan unless Pelosi first held a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. the group that no labels nicknamed the Mod Squad, caved, allowing the $3.5 trillion budget resolution to pass with all 220 House Democrats. What they got in return was a promise from Pelosi to put the infrastructure bill on the floor by September 27th, even though House progressives continue to say that they won't vote for that bill unless the full budget passes the Senate and comes to the House.

bill unless the full budget passes the Senate and comes to the House. Dan, did the problem solvers solve any problems here? Or was this just a huge waste of everyone's time? The only problem that I think was solved here was Josh Gottheimer having too many friends because now he has none. Yeah, not a lot of Democrats, not a lot of House Democrats very happy with my former boss, Josh Gottheimer. I should let everyone know when I was just a 22-year-old speechwriter on the Kerry campaign. He was the chief speechwriter. Back when you were a young problem solver, just learning to solve problems. Yeah. Apparently, I didn't learn well enough.

I didn't follow in Josh's footsteps. So I did not become a problem solver myself, unfortunately. But he was my boss. So yeah, well, I mean, the Chamber of Commerce, which unsurprisingly supported Gottheimer's Goobers, which is another name for them. Oh, pod title. I think I see it. They tweeted that the infrastructure bill has been, quote, successfully decoupled from the reconciliation bill. Is that true? No, they cannot be decoupled because the dynamics here are such that either both bills pass or neither bill passes, right? That is what is going to happen. Nothing changed throughout all

of this drama that was just documented minute by minute by Capitol Hill reporters looking to not have vacation in August or something. But ultimately, they have the same amount of leverage they had before. Nothing has changed. They're now just – Nancy Pelosi has a deadline by which she needs to get the Senate bill to her. And everyone knows that. It's not a surprise. So we're going to end up in the same place. And if they bring out – if the – let's say for some reason the budget bill does not pass the Senate by that time, then eight, nine, 10, 30 House progressives will just do what Josh

Gottheimer did and hold back on it. Right. Like this is. Yeah, they'll vote against like that. She could put the she can hold a vote on the infrastructure bill on September 27th. Doesn't mean it's going to pass if House progressives don't get what they want, which is a budget coming over from the Senate. Yes. In the long history of stupid, pointless legislative fights, this one is very near the top. Never has so much energy been spent on something of so little consequence here. There was a they want a minor kind of sort of change in a legislative procedure. And even in their grandest ambitions, if they had solved the problems to which they have dedicated themselves, what most would have happened is that a bill,

the bipartisan infrastructure bill would have passed three weeks earlier than it otherwise would have. Like that's really what they were pushing for. It's absurd. Well, let's talk about why it happened and sort of the motivations that led to it. Five of these Democrats are in Biden districts that range from D plus seven to D plus 17. Only Jared Golden is sitting in a district that Trump won of all of them. And as you pointed out before, the other six Democrats in Trump districts that are in the House didn't join this group. So what do you think their motivation was for doing this? And like, what do you make of the fact that so many other moderates, including groups like the Third Way and the New Democratic Coalition,

didn't join Gottheimer's gang? I really cannot possibly divine any actual reason for these, this nine eventually became 10 members to engage in this pointless fight other than sort of polishing their centrist bona fides for the world to see, right? Like we're going to position ourselves directly between Nancy Pelosi and the Republicans. It's all performance art. It has no substantive meaning. It doesn't even really help them politically. It probably helps some of them raise some money, but I think it's probably just attention and a desire for something involving leverage and really not a bunch of people playing checkers in a game of chess. But I think there's some

broader dynamics here that are interesting. One, the fact that most people whose districts are most at risk did not join them says everything about this, right? There's a lot of when folks like us and other progressive groups were criticizing these members, what they were doing. It's like, oh, look, pod bros in California weighing in to say that, to tell the Democrats who have to win Trump districts how to do their jobs. No, the Democrats who have to win Trump districts get the fundamental truth that Democrats will either hang together or they will hang separately, right? And it is like, yeah, I totally get that defending a $3.5 trillion bill that's going to

have a bunch of progressive stuff in it is going to be hard in Trump districts, but you know what's going to be a lot harder? If the whole party falls flat on its fucking face and passes nothing, right? Given a world of two options, success is the right thing to do here. And the Democrats who really need everything to go their way to win are not trying to get in the way of success. It's the Democrats who are can't like Ed Case and Jim Costa and these others are not going to lose. They have no danger of losing, yet they're the ones causing the problem here. Yeah, we can't divine their motivations, but there's certainly the fact that a bunch of Democrats sitting in Trump districts didn't join them certainly means that it wasn't entirely about the politics on the ground and their voters. We also know this because Data for Progress and Climate Power surveyed the districts of some of the members of this of Gottheimer's gang here.

Two out of three voters in those districts view additional climate and clean energy investments as an important priority. More than 62 percent support Biden's Build Back Better proposal, which is outlined in the budget resolution. And voters would be less likely, less likely by a 13 point margin to vote for a candidate for Congress who opposes the Build Back Better agenda, aka the budget resolution. Those are some pretty, pretty good numbers for Biden and the plan in those districts of people who decided to try to tank it because they wanted to vote on the infrastructure bill first. You mean the people who want to call themselves Biden Democrats and

then run on tanking the Biden agenda. Those people that you're talking about. Those people. Those people. What did you think of Sean Patrick Maloney, the chair of the DCCC, apparently calling the members of this group to warn them that they're putting the majority at risk, which they took as a fundraising threat? Just once again, the whole thing is so stupid, right? once again, the whole thing is so stupid, right? Like if you, you're, the difference in your ability to do the things you claim to care about when you run for Congress between being the majority and the minority is everything, right? You can do very, almost nothing in the minority other than vote no repeatedly. And so you have these members here who claim to care about all

these things and infrastructure and roads and bridges and all of that, putting the majority at risk for no real reason. What I think is interesting about this and why it played out differently, because as you pointed out, the typically moderate groups backed the progressives and Pelosi on this play, not the moderates. And that is the opposite of how it used to go. I think it says a couple of things. The first is what you pointed out from the Data for Progress and Climate Power poll is this is a popular and not polarizing agenda. People like it. This is not the ACA, which is

healthcare and therefore, by definition, personal and polarizing. It's not Bill Clinton's 1993 budget that had an energy tax in it that was devastating to Democrats in fossil fuel producing states. So it's popular. It also shows the power of Biden's moderate brand. signal to voters, including voters who do not love Joe Biden, that this is something different than the radical socialist Democrats to hear about on Fox News or Bernie Sanders or AOC. And I think that's really interesting. It provides actually Biden a lot of leverage and sort of running room as we go forward to push a very progressive agenda because the fact that it's Joe Biden's, it gives it some brand equity with a set of

voters that gives it these numbers in these moderate or vulnerable or purplish districts. I also think it says something about, you've talked about this a lot, the difference between being a moderate and being a centrist. Can you talk about that a little bit? Being a moderate means you have arist. Can you talk about that a little bit? Being a moderate means you have a set of ideological principles and policy preferences that are closer to the center. It could be, I support a public option, not Medicare for all. I support increasing the corporate tax rate X, but I don't support a wealth tax.

You have a set of moderate principles that guide your decision-making. And you're going to be for those, whether they are the policy of the entire Democratic caucus or a part of the Democratic caucus. Centrism is not an ideology, it's an identity. What it means is that you position yourselves in somewhere a few steps closer to the center from where your party is, wherever your party is, right? Whether that is a more centrist party of the 90s or the early 2000s or a much more progressive party. And it's, you know, moderates care about policy, centrists care about performance, right? It is about demonstrating that you are a centrist.

They want to be seen. They want to be seen as centrists. Yes. And I think- And moderates are just, it's what they believe in terms of policy. Here's an example I think helps make sense is Amy Klobuchar is a moderate. She ran for president as a moderate. She has a long history of being a moderate. Kyrsten Sinema is a centrist. Whatever, if she sees a progressive parade forming somewhere, she goes looking to rain on it. But Klobuchar, a longtime moderate, adjusts her positions based on the reality on the ground. She is for this bill. She has changed her position on the filibuster, but there are things

she will not do. She's not moving based on where the polls around her move. I think it's a really, really important distinction because we want moderates in our party, right? Even if we need moderates to win in a lot of districts around the country, just because of the political makeup of America and how many rural and exurban districts there are that have a lot of independent voters or Republican voters. But centrists are the ones who actually make the problem worse because they're running against the Democrats. You have Republicans running against the Democrats and centrists running against the Democrats. And that's how you lose. Yeah, that is exactly how you lose. Well, let's talk about what happens now,

because I have a feeling this isn't the last we've heard from the centrists. Over in the Senate, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema weighed in with statements of support for their House colleagues this week. Sinema even reiterated that she's not voting for a plan that costs $3.5 trillion. Manchin has also said something similar. So how did Biden, Schumer and Pelosi land this plane? And do you think this week's events made their jobs harder, easier, or no change? I don't think it made it harder. I think it just revealed how challenging this is, right? In a world with such narrow margins, we sort of always think about what does Joe

Manchin care about? What does Kyrsten Sinema care about? But what this group of 10 members sort of proved is any person, any house member can go find five friends and become Joe Manchin for a day, right? They have the ability to block anything. I think it just revealed the difficulties that always exist in trying to pass a bill with margins this narrow and such great ideological diversity within the caucus. So it's always going to be hard. I'm trying to think about how this plays out. And if there is going to be a bill, it's going to to be hard. I'm trying to think about how this plays out. And if there is going to be a bill, it's going to come from the Senate. And by definition, that bill will have the sign-off of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren on the left and Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin on the right.

That bill is going to come to the House. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin on the right. That bill is going to come to the House. And what I sort of, is there really room to the right of Joe Manchin in a state that Trump won by nearly 40 points for, to try to say this, like, I cannot support this bill, this progressive wild-eyed bill that Joe Manchin is for? That seems really hard, right? No, yeah, no. I think the action now moves to the Senate for sure. And then on the left too, same thing. Is Bernie Sanders going to sign off on a bill? It's his committee. He's helping write it. Is he going to sign off on a bill that is too mushy middle for the Congressional Progressive Caucus or the squad? That seems unlikely to me too. So what we really

have to do is figure out what is the one thing that those 50 Senate Democrats can agree on. And then I think we should be in an okay place in the House. There was obviously, as this last week proved, there's always the capacity for some troublemakers, but the big work is going to happen in the Senate. We've been saying this throughout this whole process, but again, like nothing goes anywhere unless Joe Manchin and Bernie Sanders agree on it in the House. You can say AOC and Josh Gottheimer have to agree. All these Democrats have to get together and agree on every detail of this plan, which is why it is always unhelpful to make a big public stink over your problems with the bill,

like this gang of moderates or this gang of centrists did this week. Good catch. Yeah, no, I'm going with centrist. It's why it's a problem because like, just do all this behind closed doors, right? Like, you're all going to have to agree on the same thing anyway. close doors right like you're all gonna have to agree on the same thing anyway fighting this out in public serves nobody except potentially the reputations of these centrists in their districts but i don't even know if it does like i don't know if if josh gotheimer or any of those uh centrists in the game go home you know and think oh this this actually gave me a boost this week

maybe maybe it does maybe maybe they can run ads and be like, I took on Nancy Pelosi. I don't know if that works. Maybe. I think, does it get them some round of applause at their local Rotary Club meeting from some business leaders who think that we're spending too much money, but also want a tax break? Maybe. There is a world of donors out there who, these are the people who are always yelling at Barack Obama about how he needs to kind of budget deal with Republicans who probably are more supportive of these members. But ultimately, nothing was gained and all that was lost was time. Yeah. So how do you think the broader political environment affects these negotiations? We've got Delta still surging. The economy is not where it should be.

You know, everything that's happening in Afghanistan right now, how do you think that will affect the way Democrats approach these negotiations? It's how it could affect it and how it should affect it. Here's how it could affect it, which is we've already seen some diminution in Biden's approval rating. If that were to continue to go down, there was one poll that I imagine slash hope is an outlier that had him in the low 40s the other day. But if that were to become sort of where his numbers are, you could see all of the sudden Democrats looking for the exits. It doesn't mean they won't pass anything, but the idea that we're all going to get on board with something nearing $3.5 trillion filled with a

bunch of big, bold, progressive jobs and family initiatives may seem less appealing. Because right now, Biden, and to date, has been the most popular Democrat and most popular politician, active politician in the country. And so it seemed like it made sense to follow him wherever he's going. If he becomes less popular, that always sort of weakens their ability to push their members. In reality, what should happen is, let's say that Biden's numbers do take a hit, it's a messy political environment for all the reasons you cited, that's actually an argument for doing more quicker in a more unified fashion than the opposite. It's like, oh, what's the best way to strengthen our political position heading into

2022, which is go pass a really popular bill, which poll after poll shows has bipartisan support and is popular in the places we need to win. And let's strengthen our incumbent president whose approval rating is very closely correlated with what our performance is likely to be in the congressional elections. That's what the mentality should be. Now, have Democrats always been closely familiar with their own political self-interest. Not always, but I think Schumer gets that. I think Pelosi gets that. I think probably the way this played out over the last week shows the vast majority of Democrats get that.

But obviously, anyone can be a skunk at the garden party here. Yeah. I mean, there's only two choices here, right? There is pass the infrastructure bill, is pass the infrastructure bill, pass the Build Back Better plan that's the budget, or not. And not is a huge political failure that has now joined a bunch of other bad political developments

to make it a really crappy political environment. Or it's to stand together and pass something knowing that it could be somewhat risky and that Republicans are going to attack it and they're going to frame it as some like big spending, you know, package that blah, blah, all the shit that they're going to do. There's risk to it, but also know that, you know, voters will appreciate that you have done something to make the economy better and to improve their lives.

On that note, I do. One thing I noticed this week is in all the reporting on this and the way everyone's talking about it, you hear talk about a budget. You talk about resolution, talk about a reconciliation bill. You hear the number three point five trillion. Right. And we are not talking nearly enough about what is in this budget, which is exactly what people like, according to all these polls. Right. Like we need to start talking about what's in this budget. We've got to boil it down to simple language. You know, it's about eliminating tax cuts for the 1%. So we can cut taxes for the middle class, create jobs, make education and healthcare more affordable, fight climate change, whatever it is, we got to get a message here and continue to talk about it. Reporters are not going to do this for us.

They're going to continue to talk about it in shorthand because that's just what they do. But Democrats really need to talk more about how this budget and how this Build Back Better plan is going to improve people's lives, because if that gets lost, it's going to be much easier to oppose it, I think. I have I have written about some rules for how to do this. I have violated all of them in this conversation because it's very hard. No, I do, too. It's hard. It's very hard to do the analysis of this. Like saying the Build Back Better plan seems weird to say, even though it makes a lot more sense to regular people than budget reconciliation. But how are you distinguishing that?

And the one that I think is really important, and it's hard to have this conversation about the legislative machinations without using this word or using this term, but we have to stop talking about the price tag. Not because the price tag is bad. This poll, the Data for Progress poll, very explicitly put the price tag in there to test it, right? Because it's cheating to not put it in there because you know Republicans in the media will use it. But this is something our friend and not Shankar Asario used to say, which is only Democrats try to sell a product by advertising the price tag, right? Talk about the product, not the price tag. What's in there? What are we trying to do

and get back, get away from all of this like legislative mumbo jumbo that we just talked about for 40 minutes? Yeah. So for all the Democratic infighting, Tuesday wasn't just a poop in the punch bowl news. Thank you, Dan, for that extremely niche joke. Can I just, I would just like to say that I write the outline. poop in the punch bowl news. Thank you, Dan, for that extremely niche joke. Can I just, I would just like to say that I write the outline very early on Wednesday mornings, sometimes to entertain myself, John, since I, I put Easter eggs in to see if you read the outline before our producers start doing the very good research for it. I would note that you did not read it in advance this time. And I had to point this joke out to you. You were very excited to point that out to me last night. You texted me, is that joke going to be still in there? And it wasn't going to be, but now,

now because you asked for it, I wanted to make sure everyone know that you wrote that. Yeah, it's a very niche joke because I'm guessing that a large portion of our audience doesn't know what Punchbowl News is. That is also true. That's why I said it's so niche. Anyway, Tuesday was also the day the House passed the John Lewis Voting Rights Act on a party line vote legislation, which would restore the 1965 Voting Rights Act by requiring jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination around voting to receive approval from the Justice Department before changing voting laws. Of course, no Republicans in Congress support this bill, except for Senator Lisa Murkowski.

So in order for it to pass, Senate Democrats need to reform the filibuster. So as usual, we are back at square one. Nothing new on the politics here. You know, we had every Republican vote against it in the House. But on the substance of the bill, Slate's Mark Joseph Stern wrote a piece where he called this legislation court reform and said it's the clearest indication yet that House Democrats are getting serious about reigning in an out-of-control Supreme Court. Why is that? Unlike the For the People Act, this bill is specifically designed to address a series of recent-ish court decisions affecting voting rights. And it's born in the recognition that in every situation where the Roberts Court, dating back nearly a decade, has the opportunity to vote in a way that curbs voting rights, they vote to curb voting rights. And so the three decisions here that it

addresses are Shelby County v. Holder, which goes back to 2013, which was when they essentially eliminated the preclearance function, which required states with a history of race-based voter suppression to get new election laws cleared by the Justice Department first. Their reasoning was basically that racism was over, which turns out that was not correct. No, they missed the mark there. Yes. The second one was Brnovich v. DNC, which just came down earlier this summer, which it basically changed – it shifted the burden in deciding whether a law violated voting rights by giving the state a wide berth to put in place restrictions and to cancel votes. And the third one is something we call the Purcell case, which is from 2006, but also made it much harder to challenge voting rights cases in federal courts. And so as it seriously thinks it challenges all of that, puts, reputs in place the preclearance function, puts in some guidelines, and is trying to draw some lines around the court

to prevent them from doing what they've been doing for a decade. It's critically important. It is not going to solve a lot of our current problems and not have a huge effect on a lot of the laws that have been passed since 2020, but it absolutely has to be done. People have been trying to do parts of this since 2013, and there has been, other than Lisa Murkowski, no Republican support to do so. And the problem has only gotten exponentially worse since then. I do wonder if these added court reform provisions in this bill that the House put in there, if, you know, Manchin and Sinema and those types will embrace them. It seems like so far they are, and they're working on compromise legislation to

introduce in the Senate as well. Everyone will hear, you know, we recorded our interview with Senator Padilla yesterday, but he gave somewhat hopeful indications that there are conversations they're having in the Senate with Manchin about compromise legislation that can get everyone on board. And then hopefully they, you know, believe that they can tweak the rules is what he says to ultimately pass this. Don't know what that means exactly. Don't know if that's too hopeful, but, you know, what else can we do?

But hope that Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema will come through in the end, except scream into the void. I mean, that is the other option. It's worked great so far. So I don't know why we would stop. I mean, that is the other option. It's worked great so far. So I don't know why we would stop. I just I think there's one thing that's worth putting a finer point on because it speaks to the state of the Republican Party today is when in 2006, the last time the Voting Rights Act was extended, it passed the Senate 98 to nothing. And the House 390 to 30, 30-something, I think.

And so this is how far the Republican Party has come in 15 years, where it is the official position of the party that expanding voting rights, or even not even just expanding voting rights, allowing voting rights to exist as they did since the 60s is an anathema to the party. And you saw a lot of these. Just when you go back, let's say we survive, right? And you flash forward like 50 years and you look back and read in a history book that every single Republican voted against the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. Yeah. Right? You're either going to look back and say, man, that was a weird fucking time or, oh, that's how we ended up living in Gitmo right those are the two ways you think about it uh yeah i mean it's so funny i mean i'm glad you put a fine point on it it was i think we've become so used to the turn that the republican party has taken and how how extreme

they've become that it just did not surprise me at all yeah no it's like everything that's happened in the last four or five six years tells tells you that, of course, there was no chance that any of them were going to support even the most moderate reforms to protect the right to vote. In 2013, after the Shelby decision came down, Republicans pretended like they were going to work on a solution for years. So even back even just less than 10 years ago, they felt an obligation to pretend to care about voting rights. Now it's just like, fuck that and just vote against it with pride. Send out fundraising emails about how they voted against it with pride. It's a very precarious position. Half the party thinks that the people who attacked the Capitol on January 6th were patriots. So that's where we are.

All right. So we've been talking a lot about the California recall. The other big 2021 race is the gubernatorial race in Virginia between former Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe and Republican private equity executive Glenn Youngkin. In 2020, Joe Biden won Virginia by 10 points, 54 to 44. In 2017, Ralph Northam won the governorship by nine points, 54 to 45. And in our latest Polar Coaster survey with Change Research, we find McAuliffe leading by six points, 49 to 43, with three percent supporting a third party candidate named Princess Blanding and another five percent undecided. What's keeping the race close? McAuliffe is significantly underperforming Biden by nine points among young voters and 16 points among Hispanic voters. His voters are also paying less attention to the race and are less motivated to vote than Youngkin's voters. All right. We got a lot more to dig into here, but I'll stop there for now.

Dan, what, if any, implications does this race have beyond Virginia? Why are we paying so much attention to this? And what was your first reaction to these top line results? Keeping in mind all the usual caveats that it's just one poll and polls can sometimes miss the mark. I mean, every once in every once in a while that happens. Every once in a while. Yeah, you got to watch out for that. I mean, my first reaction when seeing the top line number was relief, right? Six points is still a significant lead. When you look at this,

McAuliffe's at 49% and has room to grow because he's at 49 and underperforming. He's getting less of Biden's voters than Youngkin is getting of Trump's voters. So he is well-positioned. What is happening underneath is concerning. And the reason we care is we care about the people of Virginia. We want them to have a good governor, not a Trumpy private equity executive, which is a real tongue twister. But it also- Rich guy. He is a very, very rich guy. But it sets the political narrative for the year. If Republicans win the state that has been moving steadily in Democratic direction since we talked about with the poll numbers, it could bring that to a screeching halt. On one level, you can look at these, the enthusiasm numbers of Virginia and say, you know what?

I don't blame Virginia voters for being fucking tired. Their election schedule is stupid. They have to do, think about it this way, right? They- 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. Yeah, no. It's like you can't have a presidential battleground state,

a state filled with competitive house races necessary to keep or take the majority and then have a governorship on one year and then two years later put most of your state legislature up there. Like it's just, it's exhausting. But, and we've talked about this as it relates to California. When you look at the polling in California, you see a similar level lack of Democratic enthusiasm there. not that Democrats are not excited because there's still a lot of people volunteering and donating, but it's not at the sort of level that it was from 2017 to 2021. And that is concerning. And

that made me like, yes, we could probably win a state like Virginia with a candidate like Terry McAuliffe, who was incredibly well-known and well-liked in that state. But what happens when you get to Pennsylvania Senate race, Wisconsin Senate race, Arizona, Georgia, some of these closer house races, if there's an enthusiasm gap like this one going into those election days, we will lose. We'll lose the House and the Senate. I mean, that's pure math. Yeah. No, people need to start paying attention a little bit more. I don't know how many times to say, you know, it's like you hear some of these warnings and you're like, oh, it sounds so it sounds so gloomy and dismal. It's not to make everything gloomy and dismal. It's to say that, like, our destiny is in our hands here.

Right. And if you go out and you get people fired up that, you know, and you get them engaged, you get them registered to vote. And we do what we did in 18, do it in 20. Like these elections are ours for the taking. But if all we do is say, you know, I'm pretty tired and checked out. I got to take a break now. Then we're going to get really close results in blue states and and lose a bunch of purple and red states. That's that's basically what we're facing. I mean, the one sort of maybe counterpart of this, it is like, we'll want to check back in on this post-Labor Day. This has been a shitty summer, right? It is August, which is already usually a time of some measure of disengagement. It's obviously a lot happening around the world,

as you just talked about. We're dealing with Delta and all these other things. There's more than enough time to get this problem fixed for the midterms. Yeah, look, so digging into the poll, right? You know, we talked about some of the good news. Youngkin has outspent McAuliffe, you know, $16.9 million to $11.3 million so far. He's still losing by six. His favorability is 37% favorable, 40% unfavorable. So those aren't great numbers for Yunkin.

It's not like the race is close because people love him. Of the 5% undecided, nearly half are registered Democrats, a group that Yunkin is losing by 94 to 1. Trump is 20 points underwater in the state of Virginia right now in this poll. And 54% of voters found a message tying Yunkin to Trump, a persuasive reason to oppose him. So that's some good news, too. And then now we should talk about sort of the issue environment, right, which is obviously it's, you know, specific to Virginia in this poll. But I think you can extrapolate about sort of the larger issue environment

nationally from some of the stuff that we're seeing here. Voters think McAuliffe would handle almost every issue better than Youngkin by significant margins, including climate change, income inequality, education, abortion, and housing. Voters also agree with McAuliffe's positions on vaccine and mask requirements. They approve them by 60%. So it's not like there's, you know, Youngkin's position on a lot of issues aren't what's driving a lot of the race here. Although we can see, now back to the challenging news.

Yes. I like to call it bad news. I like to call it challenging news. A lot of the Republican messages are breaking through to voters. So 79 percent of all Virginians, including 68 percent of Democrats, consider violent crime to be a threat to Virginia. That's in the poll. Over 90% of Yunkin voters believe that critical race theory, illegal immigration, voter fraud, and socialism pose significant threats to Virginia.

Also, more than half of undecided voters and the third of Biden voters who are not yet supporting McAuliffe think that critical race theory is at least a medium sized threat. What's your take on sort of where the issue environment is right now? It speaks to the power of the right wing media ecosystem. Crime is a real issue that affects people's lives. I think the numbers in here suggest that the Republican focus on crime has given it a disproportionate role in the election. But we should-

I would also say, by the way, that it is, just before I forget, it's a Republican focus on crime and a Republican media focus on crime. Crime is also something that local media, even nonpartisan local media and just all media tends to focus on. When there is crime, it gets reported, it makes headlines. And so even if you look at overall crime rates and they're not that much different and all this kind of, you know, you look at all that, it's when crime happens,

when violent crime happens, it gets reported and people see it and they start worrying. That's just what happens. And it leads to news, right? Yes. And it's very, very rarely in the time. It's happened forever.

Right. It's very rarely in the context of how often it happens, right? Or what the circumstances are. But, so as your point, crime is real. Critical race theory and the rise of socialism are fake. Those are made, that is a. Entirely generated by the Republican media machine. Yes.

It is not a thing that's happening. We had a great conversation about this a few weeks ago or a month or so ago with Jelani Cobb on critical race theory. Socialism is not rising. It's all bullshit. It is just a Republican narrative, right-wing media narrative that is permeating to large swaths of the public. And one of the interesting things in this poll was that change actually separated out the Republicans who self-identify as consuming right-wing media. That could be Fox, it could be Newsmax, something like that. And the Republicans who self-identify as only consuming mainstream media, local news, newspapers, et cetera. Over 90% of the Republicans who consume right-wing media think critical race theory is a significant or major threat.

But more than 80% of the non-right-wing media-consuming Republicans also feel that way. And so this is not – and I think this is just such an important thing for us as Democrats and political analysts to recognize is these things spread far beyond the very small audience of people who watch Tucker Carlson every night. It is everywhere. And we have to find ways to deal with it. We have to recognize it's in the issue environment. We have to respond to it. We have to deal with it.

And I think that it is a warning sign and it's going to be a bigger problem in a more nationalized political environment in 2022. So one question about how to deal with it. We actually tested out two messages about critical race theory that Democrats could possibly use. One is about how Republicans want to ban our schools from teaching our children about difficult issues like slavery or racism, but denying the uglier parts of our history denies the heroism of everyone who fought to right those wrongs. Another message we tested is Republicans want the federal government to decide what's being taught in local schools. But teachers should have the freedom to teach all of American history without Congress dictating lesson plans. That one did much better with voters from all parties, which is interesting.

It's the idea that Republican politicians in Washington are going to get in the way of what teachers want to teach your kids. Although it is interesting and somewhat sad, I would argue that the one that didn't actually mention critical race theory or race in general was the one that did better than than the one. And I mean, it's not surprising because it did better with Republicans and independents. But it does show that there is some opening for Democrats to respond to these attacks on critical race theory. Yeah, absolutely. We also tested sort of messages about Youngkin and McAuliffe, the most persuasive positive messages for McAuliffe. We're talking about his plans, helping small businesses, raising the minimum wage, providing child care and paid leave. The most persuasive negative message about Youngkin was at Carlisle.

He was an exec private equity executive at the Carlisle Group at Carlisle. Youngkin outsourced and laid off employees as governor. He'll take care of himself and wealthy friends at your expense. Boy, isn't that deja vu to a guy named Mitt Romney that we ran against in 2012. It was basically the most powerful message against Mitt Romney that we had all that we tested in the Obama campaign. And it's amazing that this many years later, it's still the most effective message against Youngkin. And we also tested messages about his closeness to Trump, the fact that he had appeared at a rally within one of the insurrectionists in January 6th that he's going to Trumpify Virginia. And by the way, those messages were effective.

So I don't want to dismiss the effectiveness of the Trump messages. But he's a rich guy who outsources jobs and was a wealthy private equity executive is just a few points better than those messages and the most effective ones. What did you think of that? And is there anything, what did you think of that?

And then is there anything to learn from that that we can sort of extrapolate to the larger national political environment as Democrats think about the midterms? It's, it's, we have to relearn this lesson every single time, uh, which is the difference between Mitt Romney's 2012 loss and Donald Trump's 2016 win other than Jim Comey's gigantic ego and some Russian shenanigans, is turnout among working class Republican white voters in rural areas. That is the difference. There's some shifting from Obama to Trump, and then some shifting from non-voter to voter. And it's because there is a schism to be drawn in the Republican Party between their corporatist, plutocratic, tax cut, loving, Medicare cutting agenda, and their working class populist base. And we saw that work in 2012.

We saw that work in 2018 with a lot of races. And it was part of the Biden message, the Main Street, Wall Street situation. And it should work here. And obviously, maybe a broader lesson to Republicans, and I'll regret this if Youngkin comes back and wins, but is rich, politically maladroit private equity executives is maybe not who you want to go hand your party nomination to just in general. And we look, we should draw a distinction between him and Trump because some people are probably thinking, well, wasn't Trump a rich guy?

we should draw a distinction between him and Trump because some people are probably thinking, well, wasn't Trump a rich guy? Yes. But Trump worked pretty hard to make sure that his identity was not a rich guy. Yes. Yes. I mean, he had all the policies of a rich guy, but he also ran, he was able to like, this is a seven pod series about how I use nativism as a proxy for populism. Right. But he was a, you know, he was able to have an identity that was different than Mitt Romney or Glenn Trumpkin as the McAuliffe campaign, which I have to say, that hurts my ears every time I hear them say it or I receive an email from the McAuliffe campaign with it. But I do understand why they're doing it in the poll. Yeah, I do. It makes sense.

Like, because the other thing about Trump that's interesting is he is a net negative with the broader electorate, and he's not even really a net positive with even Youngkin voters. Only 8% of Youngkin voters say Trump's support is a major reason why they're supporting him, which I think is interesting. It's just, that's something to watch. Virginia is a very anti-Trump state. Just demographically it is.

But it's something to watch going forward that, you know, we saw a little bit of this in some of these special elections that maybe we are overstating Trump's impact within the Republican Party. When I look at this, I see a couple of things that I think Democrats need to focus on. One is get people reengaged and fired up. And part of that, I think, is finding messages about the Republicans that raised the stakes of the election. We won Virginia in 2017, the House in 2018, the presidency in 2020, because Democrats voted, organized, and donated as if the civilization depended on it. And it may not feel that way right now with Democrats in control of everything. And once again, it does again, right? We've talked about it before, but the consequences of losing either House or Congress is devastating. And people have to understand what that means. And so we need to find our truthful, non-racist, non-offensive, non-bigoted,

non-Nativist versions of some of these Republican issues like critical race theory and socialism that get people fired up. Because you can sort of understand why Republicans are more fired up than Democrats. Because we're talking about what we're putting on your kitchen table, and Republicans are saying that the civilization outside your house is burning down. Obviously, they're going to be more fired up over that because they create this apocalyptic political environment. And we were able to do that because Trump was such a dangerous manifestation of that. you pull that message, it ends up being the most effective message. And you can say Democrats are fighting hard for the middle class. Look at all Joe Biden's economic plans, right? Like, you know, that polls really well. It is hard to make that message feel as urgent and to raise the stakes with that message as some of the Republican messages are. And so then if you're

a Democrat, you think, OK, well, the messages that really raise the stakes are about the very real Republican threats to democracy itself or the idea that if Republicans are in charge, like the planet is fucked because we're not going to do anything about climate change. Right. So like then you sort of gravitate towards those messages. And then the other problem you have is the media narratives don't necessarily cooperate well with the economic messages. Right. Because the media doesn't necessarily focus on economic inequality, economic populism in a way that Democrats might want them to. Right. The media narrative is unpredictable and it's all over the place. all over the place. And so it is hard to find a message that sort of marries up with the media environment, which is what a lot of how a lot of voters just consume information about the world for Democrats if they're using a lot of these economic messages. I'm thinking out loud here, but that's just that's that's what I think we've never really figured out and what's really challenging for them. That's right, because you need not just not just media coverage, but media coverage that breaks through. And you need content that

gets engagement in social media and therefore is shown to more people. And I've talked to several progressive groups who've been testing a lot of things, and the economic message is hard. I mean, we see it sometimes in our own content when we write and talk about infrastructure, right? It's not exactly like- People don't care. Firing it off. But in this poll, I think there are three things that I think are worthy of further exploration than one sort of way to think about polling going forward. The three things are 90% of McCullough voters see climate change and white supremacy as significant threats facing Virginia.

Yeah. That's something to think about, about how we message that. And there's obviously nuance to how you do it, but the politics of climate have shifted that I think it can become – and it can tie into that plutocratic message because of who you're fighting for there. The other one is vaccine and mask mandates. I've been doing a whole bunch of research on this for a forthcoming message box, but I'm becoming more and more convinced that Democrats should run aggressively on vaccine mandates. And McAuliffe has started doing that. And Youngkin felt so sort of on the defensive about it that he had to put out an ad where he was kind of sort of maybe encouraging Republicans, Virginians to get the vaccine, but he was too afraid of upsetting

the MAGA base to really do it. And it sort of puts Republicans in a really impossible position. And that's kind of what you want to do. And then in general, I think one thing we have to think about as a broader political community when it comes to polling is looking as much at motivation as support, right? Yes, we see this all like people love this bill. People love the Biff. Are people really going to get fired up and vote? I'm going to get them off their couch. Yeah. Is the Biff going to get them off their couch? That's the question. Yeah. I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to venture no on that. Yeah. No, that no, that's that is I think we have laid out what the challenge is here. Yeah, no kidding. giant stakes in this election. You also have to realize that there are independent voters, swing voters, voters who aren't engaged in every election, who don't vote in every election, that are going to care more about some of these economic issues and making sure that the Democrats

have actually done something to improve their lives. And you're going to have to figure out a way to message all of the above, I think. Right. And it's not satisfying because a message is supposed to be like succinct and simple and stuff like that. But I think, right? And it's not satisfying because a message is supposed to be like succinct and simple and stuff like that. But I think in this environment, you need to find a way to communicate like all of these messages to different groups of voters. That's right. I mean, to think about it, to sort of put a fine point on the challenge, and like this is in this, you'll see this in this polling in Virginia, which is you need a bunch of younger, by definition, more progressive voters who were potentially tuned out before 2016,

tuned in in the Trump era, and maybe tuning out. And you need a bunch of suburban Mitt Romney voting Republicans who turned against their party to vote for maybe Hillary Clinton, but definitely Joe Biden because of Trump to keep them in the fold. So you have to get these people on the left more engaged, these people in the center from defaulting back to their their natural home. Need them both. OK, we'll end there for now. When we come back, Tommy and I talk to California Senator Alex Padilla. Joining us now is the junior senator from California, our Senator Alex Padilla. Senator, welcome to Pod Save America.

Thank you guys for having me. Thank you for coming in. It's amazing to have you in the studio. We would love to just jump right into the recall because we're here in California. I think, being kind of annoyed by the recall effort because it was an expensive distraction to seemingly being now concerned about whether Governor Newsom could be recalled. There's some recent polling that shows it's tightening. Why do you think that's happening and what do you think people can do about it? What do they need to know? Look, I think part of why it's happening is a recognition that we're living in some very unique times.

This isn't a normal year. We're in the middle of a global health pandemic. People are worried about just staying alive, number one. We're also at a time, like my wife and I just started sending our kids back to school last week, thank God, in person, but with masks and hourly sanitizing. So there's just a lot going on in your mind to to make you anxious and to process through all that election at an odd time. Like what's this recall thing? It's only happened a few times in the course of history. But it is critical. It is critical. So can't rest on our laurels. Yes, there's more Democrats registered in California than Republicans, but it doesn't mean anything if people don't vote.

Happy to see a lot of the reforms I put in place when I was secretary of state continue to be exercised. Send every registered voter a ballot in the mail automatically, right? Let's make it easy. Thank you for that. I'm very lazy. I'm incredibly lazy. I felt like they're doing it in other states. That was great.

And no easier way to vote than by mail. Mail it back in. You don't even have to worry about a stamp, right? Postage is covered. If you want to vote in person, you can vote early. You can vote the day of. You can vote at any vote center in your county. Like, there are literally no excuses, folks.

But when it comes to the recall, here's how I see it. Not just I do think the governor's doing a good job. This wasn't the first recall attempt at him. There was multiple. This is the one that finally qualified because there was a frustration about COVID. And have forbid we had a governor that listened to the public health experts and the scientists and said, hey, folks, I want to keep the people of California alive. We're going to need to quarantine for a bit. And when we go out, we're going to need to wear masks.

And, yes, socially distance and use hand sanitizer. If only that was the case in Texas and Florida and some other places, maybe the nation wouldn't be where we are today. So if you want a governor that cares about literally your life, vote no on the recall. Okay. And make sure you vote. The other thing I'll add, because I know you guys are a sophisticated bunch. Debatable. a national perspective. You see this BS of an audit in Arizona?

That would never fly here. I know the state and local elections officials in California. We stand by the integrity of our elections. You see the voter suppression tactics in Texas, in Georgia, other places? That would never fly. The California legislature knows better. And so if you're a Trump Republican eager to grab power somehow in California, you can't win on a regular election. Maybe you roll the dice and try this

recall. That's really what's going on. A lot of recent polls have shown a surprising level of support for the recall among Latino voters. Why do you think that is? Yeah. Well, I don't think it's firm. You know, having worked in electoral politics for a couple of decades now, I've seen the trend too often, frankly, but Latino voters are just kind of a little bit later, start paying attention a little bit later, start doing our homework and a little bit later to get around to making our plan to vote. But we do. And in increasing numbers. And so, frankly, that's what the campaign is for. We weren't issued ballots the day that recall qualified. The date was set.

And now the election is happening. The ballots are flying. You see the ads on the air, both English and Spanish. Thankful and bilingual, trying to do my part. And I think as Latinos do get the message of what's at stake, right? We have a governor who cares about immigrants, for example, and is investing in the immigrant community. Or we can go backwards with one of these other folks that are on the ballot if the recall

were to pass. You know, we have a governor who cares about climate and the future of our planet. We have a governor who's investing more in education, access to health care, all the stuff that Latino families, every family, frankly, really cares about. Do we want to keep going in this direction or do we want to go backwards? You think the Newsom campaign is doing enough to reach out to Latino communities? Because I saw a bunch of Democratic strategists, Latino organizers that are sounding the alarm about this. Are they wrong to be that worried? No, I think they're both right. I do think the Newsom campaign is doing a lot

more than I've seen in typical statewide campaigns over the course of the decades that I've been involved, but there's always more to do. There's no substitute for grassroots campaigns. You count Facebook, Twitter your way to victory here. It means organizing in communities. And if 2020 was any indicator, right, important statewide races, house races, legislative races. We had the census in 2020 with the limitations because of COVID, right? Going door to door is not the same these days. Are we willing to shake somebody's hand is not the same these days. But we've got to do that outreach, particularly in Latino communities.

So I have some petulant liberal friends here in California. They, you know, they're progressive, but they're annoyed at Gavin for various reasons. They're frustrated by all the things that we all had to go through because of COVID. And they're thinking about sitting this election out. And their argument goes something like, look, even if someone right wing and crazy like Larry Elder gets elected, what damage can he really do? There's a veto proof majority in the state legislature, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Can you explain to these big brained liberals what damage could actually be done if we had a Republican governor over the next year and a half or whatever?

Well, let's explain by analogy, right? Let's, you know, from 2018 to 2020, well, hey, Democrats took back the House. Nancy Pelosi was in many ways a backstop to a lot of what Republicans are trying to accomplish, not just Republican senators, but Trump, right? So, did it matter who the president was? Of course it did. Who's appointing judges to the bench? it did. Who's appointing judges to the bench? Who's appointing cabinet secretaries? Who's appointing heads of different key departments and agencies? Even if it's for a year of elder, God help us. Imagine that at the state level. And let me remind us, California is the most populous state in the nation, the most diverse state in the nation, the fifth largest economy in the world, largest economy of any state in the nation. So, yes, even for an interim time period, there's damage that can be done.

That's at risk. That's why we need to vote no on the recall. The other thing you do here is that, you know, the stakes could involve your colleague, Senator Feinstein. I know this is a delicate subject, but there's been some reporting where the New Yorker Politico have reported out suggestions from colleagues that she might be having some memory loss, some cognitive decline. There's a question of whether if Newsom is recalled, you get a Republican in her place, Feinstein retires early, that Republican governor could name her replacement. Given that concern, have you heard any talk of or recommendations that she maybe retire early and eliminate that risk? Is that something people are thinking about?

Maybe I've kind of heard it in the political gossip columns, but not in reality. That's nothing that we've talked about in the Senate or with the governor. But I get where it's sort of coming from. or with the governor, but I get where it's sort of coming from. And so let that be the biggest reminder of why we need to keep Governor Newsom in that seat. Look, it doesn't have to be Feinstein. My wife reminds me every day when I'm in Washington, we're on the phone. She says, please, please look both ways before crossing the street.

But heaven forbid I get size swiped and we're now in a 50-49 Republican majority in the Senate. So that's the times that we're living in. Well, now I'm anxious about two things. Well, God, there's 50 things to be anxious about. Last time I said that, my phone blew up. Just DoorDash, man. Just DoorDash. Can we get you a driver maybe? So, I mean, I want to ask you this because you were Secretary of State. Like, the recall will cost hundreds of millions of dollars for the state, right? It's the number of signatures required to trigger a recall is relatively small. It's pretty easy to get on the ballot.

Someone could end up winning with a very small percentage of votes. Do you think it's time for the state of California to repeal or at least reform the recall process? Oh, I absolutely expect a lot of conversation. There are probably some proposals once the recall is over, right? You don't want to debate the rules when you're in the middle of the game. But once the recall is over, win or lose, and God, I pray that the recall is defeated, they're going to revisit that question. And frankly, it comes up every election cycle. California is known for our initiative process. How many propositions are in every ballot? Is it too easy to qualify a measure,

is it too hard to qualify a measure. You bring the threshold down, then, oh, you're going to crowd the ballot, it's too easy to qualify. But you raise it too high, then all of a sudden it's, you know, no longer citizen democracy. You know, people go back to the progressive movement

and the reforms of the 1920s. So I think it's important, healthy debate, especially as they're maybe changing the rules of the 1920s. So I think it's important, healthy debate, especially as they're maybe changing the rules of how you gather signatures. Once upon a time, it was door to door standing in front of the grocery store. There's been a push to let people submit their signatures electronically. So if you can all do it by email blast pretty soon, then yes, is the threshold too high or too low? So it's a complex conversation, but let's get past the recall first. Yeah. So turning to your current day job in Washington, you're in the middle of budget

negotiations right now. You've been an outspoken advocate on fighting climate change. What climate policy do you want to see in the reconciliation bill that you would say is a win? that you would say is a win? Yeah. Well, we've made some progress already. And to just set the stage, before I was appointed to the Senate, before I served six years as California Secretary of State,

I served in the State Senate. And for six of my eight years there, I chaired the Committee on Energy, Utility, and Communications. So front row, seated at the table, with a gavel in hand, on renewable energy policy, a lot of the climate policy, which I think is a hell of a foundation for national policy. When we talk about increasing renewables or clean technology and innovation, even in the transportation sector, not just the electrical grid, these aren't just ideas that we think are good and we'll cross our fingers and hope they work. California has demonstrated

that it works. It is doable and you can make a difference. And so I get to bring that knowledge and that perspective and experience to the Senate as we're advancing this. So pushing the envelope on renewable energy mandates, not just in California and states who choose, but for the entire nation. That's one. Part and parcel with that, by the way, is a whole lot of worker retraining, right? It's one of the heartaches for colleagues from West Virginia, for example, just thinking out loud. Just to throw some names out there. Hey, it's not about, okay, coal miners are going to lose their jobs. It's how do we retrain them into a sector of the future?

Equally good paying, equally good benefits, but in a way that respects the planet in a better way. So that's one. And I have a story, actually. One of my first bipartisan bills was with Senator Cornyn from Texas. You know, took it, never let a crisis go to waste, right? So remember the ice storms in Texas a few months back? Yeah, yeah. So I approached him and I said, look, you're dealing with grid issues

because of these ice storms. It's only a matter of time before California deals with grid issues because of wildfires. There's got to be a way we partner, bring federal resources to bear. Let's modernize the electrical grid, not just for reliability purposes, but for resiliency purposes.

Imagine if we made the grid more efficient. We can reduce emissions, improve air quality. And I got the stop right there sign. As long as we don't put climate change in the label, we can do this. Oh, God. Hey, whatever it takes. But hey, you know what? We did.

We got the language right. The policy is good, so good that it got swept into the bipartisan infrastructure package. They multiplied the money that we're asking for times five and it just got passed by the Senate. So there is hope. There is hope. Did you have to zoom in Ted Cruz from Cancun for these negotiations or was he left out? He's not part of it. No, I can either confirm or deny. Got it. But here's another great example. And this one is very much on life experience for me. This idea of zero emission school buses. Once again, California demonstrating it's not an idea.

Maybe sometime in the future, technology exists. There's electric school buses en route to Oakland Unified, Los Angeles Unified, many other school districts that are beginning the transition. I was one of those kids that rode a school bus. And I still remember the smell of that diesel exhaust. It didn't smell good. I'm sure it wasn't good for me in hindsight. And imagine the federal government partnering with school districts to retire diesel school buses, which represent more than 90% of the bus suites in the nation, and replace them with clean technology. Better for the air, better for our kids' lungs, and better for their academic

performance because healthier kids learn better. And so that is another key strategy in the infrastructure negotiations. It does seem like a renewable energy standard would be the most impactful policy that you could include in the bill. Do you think that you'll be able to get support for that from all 50 senators, including, say, senators from West Virginia? I do think so. I do think so. Again, being thoughtful about not just the technology piece and issues like intermittency, right? This is now the engineer geek and me coming out. You know, what happens when the sun's not shining? Yeah, solar doesn't work as well. Or what happens when the wind's not blowing? You know, what about those wind turbines?

So you got to have a mixed portfolio. You got to, you know, account for, engineer for, intermittency, things like that, and address the workforce issues. But I do think there's a number of states

that have made progress where we have a lot of experience and data to work off of. Senator, a lot of progressives are pretty worried and concerned about the lack of progress on legislation like the For the People Act or the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act that would help fight back against these state by state voter suppression or voter subversion

laws. I go to your Twitter account. I see you constantly calling for the Senate to pass these bills. You have an interesting combination of sort of normal title case and all caps usage that we should get into later. But if only I can bold. Yeah, you're trying to all caps this thing over the finish line, which I love. But has the Senate made any progress on crafting a narrower bill that might be able to get more support? Or is there any progress on getting Manchin or Sinema to potentially

drop their opposition to the filibuster reform? Yeah. So look, I'm an eternal optimist, right? If you're not an optimist, you guys have been on the inside, you're in the wrong business. There's always got to be a way. It's not always easy, but there's got to be a way. And there's got to be a way on voting rights. As President Johnson said, once upon a time, it's the rights that preserve all other rights. And another example of my prior experience, in this case, Secretary of State days, being so meaningful and timely in the Senate. So the first time the For the People Act was going to be up for a vote in the Senate, there was an op-ed by Joe Manchin, right, saying he was against it, right?

We ultimately ended getting his vote. All 50 Democrats went up on it. Every single Republican wouldn't vote to begin debate or discussion on it. But how do we get there? Fun fact, there's only a couple of former state secretaries of state serving in the United States Senate. I'm one. Joe Manchin's another one.

So we had a chance to literally sit in his office underneath the Capitol, go through the bill section by section, line by line. What's the most important pieces here? This is how it works. This is how it works together. Chuck Schumer put together a committee that includes Manchin, myself, Senator Warnock, Senator Klobuchar, a couple of others, put together a committee that includes Manchin, myself, Senator Warnock, Senator Klobuchar, a couple of others,

to try to create a pared-down version of the For the People Act, the Voting Rights Bill, that we will probably take up soon after we reconvene after this August recess. So start paying attention soon after September 13th. I think there's going to be something to be excited about, to push for, and will be the final, final test, I think. Republicans, you're going to be willing to play ball. I'm not holding my breath. Or we're going to make the case as to why we need to tweak the rules, at least, for this, because the 2022 elections

will be here before you know it. This is the first hopeful news I've heard about. Yeah, I'll settle for a tweak. We started off with kill the filibuster. A tweak is fine if we're going to get voting rights passed. You're building suspense. I have something to look forward to. This is great. Great news that you guys are including immigration reform in the reconciliation bill or intend to. If the parliamentarian decides that that's not germane to include immigration reform, do you think that your predecessor, Vice President Kamala Harris, should overrule the parliamentarian?

I don't know if it necessarily will have to come to that because we're pretty hopeful. And a big part of our case to the parliamentarian is pointing out precedent. In 2005, Republicans were in the majority in the United States Senate, and they tweaked immigration law using the budget reconciliation process. It they tweaked immigration law using the budget reconciliation process. It had more to do with different categories of visas and numbers and whatnot, but there is precedent for this. Although no one challenged it then. That was the only thing I heard about that. And then no one challenged the rule because the Republicans were for it. So I wonder if they'll try to challenge it this time. But it wasn't just whether Democrats or Republicans

or anybody challenged, the parliamentarian said okay at the time. And so we're hoping that's going to be sufficient enough and that we craft the proposals appropriately enough. This isn't standard procedure. This is budget reconciliation. But hey, I hope folks go to my website and find the speech I made on the floor of the Senate making the case on immigration reform

as part of budget reconciliation out of recognition for the economic impact that immigrants make each and every day. We talked earlier about California being the most populous state in the nation, home to more immigrants than any state in the nation, and we're the largest economy of any state in the nation. That's not a coincidence. The contributions of immigrants to the economy as workforce, as consumers, as entrepreneurs, of course, it has a federal budgetary impact. And if we can score that, make the argument, balance the numbers, let's get this done. Let's do right by the millions and millions of immigrants that have been here for years. Do you know that? Here's another fun fact.

of immigrants that have been here for years. Do you know that, here's another fun fact, adult undocumented immigrants have been in the United States on average 18 years. 18 years of work and paying taxes, raising families. Very different population than, you know, young families or unaccompanied minors seeking asylum on the southern border. And so let's not conflate the two.

I know Republicans like to point to the border as an excuse to not make progress on immigration. You know, let's do right by dreamers, by farm workers, by essential workers, and so many more. So the two of us way back when worked for Senator Barack Obama, when he was a new senator, like 98th in seniority, right? He liked the job, but eventually decided he was going to, he got a little tired of the Senate, wanted to find another job. How are you liking the Senate so far as a brand new senator? I'm loving the Senate. Are you loving it? Really?

I'm trying to catch my breath. I know you can't say that you hate it, but does it frustrate you at all? Wink if you hate it. In all sincerity, like I've been in public service for many years. My city council days, when I was elected to the state senate, people would ask me, would you like better city government or the legislature? I liked them both. It was hard

to pick between the two. I was elected secretary of state. Even my closest friends in 2014 said, really? Voter registration? That's so boring. The 2016 happened. A little more exciting, yeah. But that was a good gig. They're all just different. Now I have a clear answer. Yes, the U.S. Senate is the favorite job that I've had in elected office. I mean, think of the issues

that we deal with. We're talking infrastructure, COVID response, immigration reform, access to healthcare, wildfires in California. I mean, it's huge. It's also a unique time. We talked earlier about, I'm making this transition in the wake of the deadly January 6th insurrection. That's not the typical way that it's done. During a once in a century global health pandemic, there's a lot going on.

It's a lot to reflect on during these cross-country flights. But I'm enjoying it. I've been blessed with a good staff, a lot of Californians especially. Resumes came my way when the appointment was announced. I think we've hit the ground running

in part because of the experience over the years and a lot of great relationships that we've developed over time. So hoping to earn a full six-year term next year and settle in for a longer haul. Is it annoying that you represent

like 40 million people and you walk around in like Rhode Island's trying to throw its weight around? You're not, that's not a state. You're like, I'm automatic voter registration registered more Californians than you have in your entire state. I think my favorite line is we have schools bigger than that. A little bit when you're counting, you notice, look, between two centers per state, is that fair? The filibuster rule, electoral college, a little bit when you're counting, you know, look between, you know, two centers per state, is that fair? The filibuster rule, electoral college, all those reasons why states with larger populations should be frustrated, have a chip on our shoulder, maybe one on each shoulder. Uh, but then I'll get sage wisdom from colleagues like Cory Booker who says, man, you're from California. You maybe just got here, but you got to walk in with some swagger.

You're from California. So if a few other senators are thinking that way, we'll use that to our advantage. man, you're from California. You maybe just got here, but you got to walk in with some swagger. You're from California. So if a few other senators are thinking that way, we'll use that to our advantage. Cory Booker's like quoting King, quoting Gandhi, quoting somebody else. This is a dumb question maybe. So Senator Manchin gets all this coverage and love for living on a houseboat.

It's kind of over the top, we think. Have you considered some sort of like kooky living situation like an rv or something that like might kind of draw the media's attention away from the houseboat yeah all right so at the risk of tmi uh if you ask me would i personally consider it yeah i'm trying to save it for my kids college yep but if you ask my wife she was the first one to put her foot down you You are not going to be doing that.

Even if it's a small apartment, you're getting yourself an apartment, you're going to live. You're not like living with Durbin and Schumer in some small little apartment or whoever lives

in that apartment. No, no, no. Small studio apartment, 10-minute walk to the office. I got a bed, a chair, and a coffee machine. That's all you need.

That's all I need. Remember, early in 2006, John John I both worked in the Senate and I think Obama wrote about this in the book eventually but he got his place he got like the bare minimum stuff in the apartment and he forgot a shower curtain so he was like trying to get ready in the morning just blasting water all over the bathroom in some like crappy place he lived was a little too much of a college five ecology but I'm glad you got yourself a place and a hot

spot and a hot spot. And a hot spot. Senator Padilla, thank you so much for coming on the pod. Please come back anytime. Hey, this is home. Absolutely. Come back anytime. Absolutely. Take care.

Thanks to Senator Padilla for joining us today. Hope you all 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 Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Flavia Casas. Our associate producers are Jazzy Marine and Olivia Martinez.

It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somenator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Rustin, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, Yale Freed, and Narmel Konian, who film and share our episodes as videos every week.