Pod Save America - “See you on the other side.” (Pre-election special!)

Episode Date: October 30, 2020

Jon, Jon, Tommy, and Dan break down the closing arguments and strategies from Donald Trump and Joe Biden, answer your questions, and offer some final thoughts on the 2020 election. Then, a few of Vote Save America’s incredible volunteers will talk about why they got into political organizing.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. This is our last pod before Election Day, so we've got the whole crew here to talk about Joe Biden and Donald Trump's closing arguments and strategies, offer some final thoughts, and answer a few of your questions. Then, at the end of today's show, you'll hear some conversations we had this week with a few outstanding Vote Save America volunteers who've

been working incredibly hard for a very long time now. A few quick housekeeping notes. Vote save America dot com. Go there. Sign up for a phone bank shift or a text bank shift anytime between now and when polls close on Tuesday. Please. And on Election Day, VSA will have everything you need. Voting information.

Last minute volunteer opportunities., voter protection resources. We got it all. So bookmark the site, tell your friends, spread the word. VoteSaveAmerica.com has you covered. Also on Election Day, please join all four of us at Crooked.com slash election for a live pre-show starting at 3.30 p.m. Pacific, 6.30 p.m. Eastern, right when the polls start closing. It's just a pre-show.

We're not doing a live stream the whole election night because we're too nervous. Just going to be honest with all of you. But what we're going to do is you can follow us on our group thread with some of your other crooked friends. As the results start to come in, we'll be on group thread all night. And in the group thread, we'll be commenting on the results.

We'll be giving you information, county results as they came in. All the good stuff right in one place with some levity, hopefully. Yeah, I think we could be live on video or we could self-medicate throughout the night, but we couldn't do both and we made our choice. Yeah, my commentary is going to range from mediocre joke to disinformation and I might not remember any of it.

So get ready. College towns vote late. All right. And then the next Pod Save America will come out on the Wednesday after the election, November 4th. Hopefully the election is not still going on, but it probably will be. So until then, keep up to date with the news with What A Day, Crooked's morning daily news podcast. And the nightly What A Day nightly newsletter.

We'll have that every day. Subscribe to both at Crooked.com slash What A Day. That is next week. All right, let's get to the news. We head into the final few days of the race in the midst of the country's worst COVID outbreak yet. And both candidates are responding with slightly different closing arguments. Here are a few clips of Donald Trump from his very crowded maskless rallies. Many of our greatest companies and labs are coming out very quickly with the vaccines. They're doing great, very shortly, very quickly. It's gonna be delivered fast. That will quickly

end the pandemic. It's ending anyway. We're rounding the turn. Some people said I get a call from all the experts, right? Guys that ran for president six, seven, eight times. Never got past the first round, but they're calling me up. Sir, you shouldn't be speaking about Hunter. You shouldn't be saying bad things about Biden because nobody cares. I disagree. You know, maybe that's why I'm here and they're not. But they say, they say, talk about your economic success.

Talk about 33.1 percent%, the greatest in history. Now, look, if I do, I mean, how many times can I say it? I'll say it five or six times during the speech. 33.1. All Biden does is talks about COVID, right? He doesn't call it the China virus. You know why? Because China hasn't paid off.

He can't use that term. No, it's COVID. You turn on the news covid covid you know when they're gonna stop talking about it so much november 4th you're right november 4th so at the very end of the 2016 campaign trump was relatively emphasis on relatively, disciplined in terms of message. Hillary was corrupt. He was the one who would take on the Clintons and the entire political establishment

on behalf of forgotten Americans. What's the message this time around? Is there something we're missing here? Dan, you want to take a cut at this? Maybe there's something we're missing. I don't know. I want to hedge my bets in case this we're missing. I don't know. I want to hedge my bets in case this goes horribly wrong. I don't know. I mean, like he, it is an example. We've

talked about this before, but it is an example of just how bad a messenger Trump is. He gets this GDP number. It is deceptive and it actually speaks to the problems he created in the economy. But the headline is greatest GDP growth in history. And he can't find the time to actually talk about it. And so it's basically, his closing message, and he has one, is, I'm the victim.

Here's my grievances. And here are some things I would like to see on Tucker Carlson tonight. Like, that's fully what his message is, I guess. Tommy, what did you think of Trump's closing message? He's really into the laptop. He's really into the laptop.

I don't know if he can explain the scandal. Yeah, it ranges from, you know, adverb abuse to Bobulinski fantasies. I don't know. I mean, it seems like even Tucker Carlson is tired of the Hunter Biden controversy, whatever it is exactly. It kind of reminds me of the early days of Benghazi when they were still trying to figure out what the scandal actually would be before they settled on talking points. So, yeah, look, I'm with Dan. I don't want to sound cocky, but I'm not I'm not picking up a message that says this guy will fight for me. Love it. How much of Trump's challenge is a message problem and how much is a COVID problem? Well, it's hard to say because it's like,

there's two ways that Trump could have gone in the homestretch of this campaign. One could have been to kind of fight inside of democratic politics, you know, become more serious about COVID after he had COVID drive some kind of message around a second term agenda. But the fact that they don't have that second term agenda, it's like, how do you, you know, it's, it's like. They forgot the second term agenda. Yeah, that was a big thing. One little thing they forgot in the campaign. It's connected, right? Because one of the biggest questions people have is what are

you going to do to end the pandemic and revive the economy? Mark Meadows goes on television this week and says, right after the election, we're going to roll out our plan for, we have all kinds of plans in the works. You have the promise of a healthcare plan. If the Supreme court repeals, uh, Obamacare, then you say, Oh, after the election, all the therapeutics are going to come. So there's this sort of like wag the dog, like Hollywood promise of like all these wonderful things that are going to happen after the election, but that's not a second term agenda. Um, and so they resort to the Hunter Biden stuff. So it's like his choice was, do I fight this inside of democratic politics and make an actual argument in the homestretch, or do I abandon all premise of that and just go to misinformation and distraction and propaganda?

And that's the choice he made. It may work because his actual substantive argument that he would need to be making inside of ordinary politics is so terrible in the midst of a COVID pandemic, in the midst of an economic depression. So he just made his choice. I don't think we know right now. None of us want to believe it can work, but it could work. Every so often there are tweets from Donald Trump, ostensibly from Donald Trump, that say, you know, I'm not your typical politician. I never was, but I'm fighting for you. And there's these like form written tweets that the campaign must send out. That you can tell is the message that they wanted in the homestretch. And I'm sure their

advertising is closer to a message that actually works. Maybe. He is so far off message. Like, if you tell me that Donald Trump trump could win i won't argue with you if you tell me that you know donald trump's campaign for the last four years has been finding and registering uh non-college white voters uh to turn out in droves on tuesday i won't argue with you there either if you tell me he's been good in the homestretch with his closing message, I think you're full of shit. Like that I will argue. Like I think this is, it is absolutely insane

what he's doing, that he's going from state to state, most of which have horrible COVID outbreaks. And he's talking about Hunter Biden. He spent a day on Miles Taylor, who turns out to be anonymous. Literally. Literally anonymous.

The Trump administration. Literally anonymous. Still anonymous. Still anonymous. The Trump administration official who wrote the op-ed and then wrote the book and is a big fucking hero, right? My reaction was, what a stupid story. And then Trump talked about it for like a full day. Let's do one last change research poll and say open-ended who is miles taylor did he work in government was he uh on tool time like id this guy let's see how let's see how this time let's we should put up let's put up a picture of miles taylor and a picture of tony boulinski and see if anyone can guess who's who. He's attacking Rick Snyder, the former governor of Michigan, for endorsing Joe Biden. Like, he is fucking off the rails.

If he wins this thing, it will be in spite of anything he has said in the last two weeks. I do feel confident saying that. Who is the Republican politician who ran for president and lost and who called and had a private conversation with Trump to try to give him some helpful advice? And Trump's response. Who is it? My first reaction, my first reaction, that was it must have been Chris Christie, but I don't think they're on speaking terms anymore because he almost killed him. Chris Christie got out of the hospital, barely survived a run in with Donald Trump

to vote for Donald Trump. barely survived a run-in with Donald Trump to vote for Donald Trump. So that's Donald Trump. Like, I don't think it's... And also the Hunter thing just does not seem to be breaking through in any kind of way because there's a great Politico story about how like everyone in the MAGA universe, Tommy, you were touching on this, like they can't even keep the story straight. Like Seb Gorka was interviewing Steve Bannon and he's like, Steve wins the bombshell. And Steve's like, it's out.

Yeah, I wandered this morning. I was up way too early and I wandered over into some of the darker corners of the MAGA internet. And the place they've gotten to on the Hunter Biden story is so gross. It is so irrelevant. It is so far from anything anyone would give a shit about when it comes to Joe Biden himself. It's just like character assassination. It's about revenge. It's just the most vindictive, cruel, like baseless garbage. It's it's it's offensive.

It's embarrassing. It's Rudy Giuliani just being drunk and on live TV all day long. That's all that's happening. It's interesting, though, you know, I think we have a little bit of a memory hole around 2016, which is we remember it as like the emails as the ultimate thing that brought down Hillary Clinton. But we like, you know, even going back and looking, you forget just how much shit Trump was trying to throw against the wall in the closing days. And he's doing it again now. There's a reason it's not as effective with Joe Biden. But it's also just, again, like he would help himself so much with a positive agenda before he gets to the improv, misinformation, propaganda portion of the rally. But that's all gone.

That's all gone. He just gets up there and he starts riffing about Hunter Biden and how COVID is a hoax. And when we did the word cloud in the change poll and then CNN did one, too, you know, for Biden, you can see sort of corrupt and sun popping up there. But it's all from Trump voters entirely. So it's smaller. And you also see words like presidential, empathetic, caring, competent. Right. And I think right now for Trump voters, like, yeah, if you talk to them, they'll probably tell you all kinds of crazy shit about Hunter Biden. You know, we've had volunteers. We've talked about this before.

They contact Trump voters and they talk about pedophilia and all kinds of really dark stuff. So, like, it's breaking through to the Trump people. But it does seem, Dan, like he's given up on persuading swing voters a long time ago. I don't know that he has actually given that, but I just think he's wrong about what swing voters care about because he lives fully inside the Fox News universe, right? Like we've talked about this with Fox before. It's like when he watches Fox,

he thinks he's looking out the window at what America looks like and he's really just looking in the mirror, right? It has become like this self-actualization of propaganda where the people who are hearing it and saying it have all become one. I think there is a way to look at this and say that Donald Trump, because he has not been able to truly penetrate the Hunter Biden message or all this other sort of right-wing marginalia,

as I say that somehow our institutions have resurrected themselves in 2016 or the right wing media machine has weakened. I actually don't think that's the case. It's just the context is different, right? We have one singular issue that is affecting everyone's life in the pandemic. You cannot escape it. It dominates. You can't leave your home.

It's affected your kid's school. It's affected your work. It's affected your Thanksgiving plans. And there's nothing that Donald Trump or Fox News or Sean Hannity or Rudy Giuliani can do to change that. And Trump's problem is he refuses to address the reality he's dealing with. Like, he needs a, you can't run a campaign that ignores the biggest issue in the country. And even like, and that's what Trump does on his best day. On his worst day, he ridicules the biggest issue facing the country. Like just today. today right he complains about it just just today as we were talking about talking about this in one of his

many super spreader rallies he's doing today he makes fun of laura ingram for wearing a mask she is at the event and wearing a mask i miss that because they're politically correct for wearing it so two problems with that one incredible, you are doing large, unsocially distanced, largely unmasked crowd events in the middle of a huge coronavirus spike. You are making fun of masks. You're ridiculing someone for wearing a mask. It is also noteworthy, the person wearing a mask is one of the primary faces of a network that has spread a massive amount of misinformation about masks. So it is very clear that at least people like Laura Ingraham are in on the grift, right? They know that the idea is to say, masks aren't good for you, but I'm going to protect myself. I don't care if you get killed. I think there was an incredibly telling quote

from a former senior administration official in Politico. They said, if you think COVID is a big deal, then you're not voting for the president. That's how they see the race. Or you're dead. Or you're fucking dead. Glad they granted anonymity for that sharp insight. What a fucking genius. Wow. Nailed it on background politico. Thanks for that. I guess that's their plan, right? Like if you think COVID's a big deal,

you're voting for Joe Biden. If you don't, then we got your vote. If you think gravity's a big deal, you're not going to jump out a window. Like, that's the thing. Can I make a quick pitch, which is Dan's idea of when you sort of like, you live within your own constructed universe and you think something's a big deal when no one else outside of it does. I think we should call it getting strassled, right? It's when you bite on a pitch, you report it out,

and you think you just had the biggest blockbuster scoop in the world about Bob Bobulinski or whatever the guy's name was, but you got strassled because no one else cares. The news side of your own Wall Street Journal, Kim Strassel, undercut your whole story. John liked that pitch so much he left. He left. John just left. John just left.

Quick, now, before he comes back sorry i don't care about polls i don't care about polls yes you do i do i do i really do so um let's talk about joe biden his message has basically been the same since the primary uh here is a closing ad that the campaign released this week. I started this campaign saying we're in the battle for the soul of the nation. I believe that even more deeply today, who we are, what we stand for, maybe most importantly, who we are going to be. What we stand for. And maybe most importantly, who we are going to be.

It's all at stake. Characters on the ballot. The character of the country. And this is our opportunity to leave the dark, angry politics of the past four years behind us. To choose hope over fear. Unity over division. Science over fiction. I believe it's time to unite the country.

To come together as a nation. But I can't do it without you. So I'm asking for your vote. We need to remember this is the United States of America. And there's never been anything we've been unable to do when we've done it together. Dan, why do you think that's worked for Biden so far? The primary reason is that it is truly authentic to him. He's not trying to be anything he isn't or anything he wasn't before. And because it's authentic to him, it comes out that way.

And I think that message could be very effective in a more normal time, but it is even more effective in the moment we were in, is even more effective in the moment we were in, where empathy and competence and hope for something better just like stand so, just feel so much more important than it would like in a time that felt more normal, like 2016. I know it seems crazy, 2016 was normal, but compared to this, anything is normal. And I think the thing that is interesting, and I've been trying to do sort of a audit of the things that I've gotten right and wrong in this election. And we talked throughout the primary about the best way to beat Donald Trump was to have the strongest contrast with him, right, to be changed to his status quo. And because that is our lived experience working for Barack Obama. And there was a fear because Joe Biden was also a white man in his 70s, who was someone who had spent nearly a half century within the

political system, that he would not represent change in the way you would need to defeat Trump, that he would be, there wouldn't be enough contrast. But ultimately, when you sort of, and this really hit me during the second debate, is Joe Biden and Donald Trump may be of the same generation and the same gender and the same race, but they are potentially the two most different people you could possibly find. is decent where Trump is indecent. Joe Biden is a unifier where Trump is divisive. Joe Biden is serious and competent where Trump is unserious and dangerous. And I think that, and the Biden campaign to their great credit, never diverged from that, right? They never did anything that put the, they had to take a lot of lumps in the primary and they never did a single thing that took them away from who Joe Biden is and what he could do. And I think, you know, I don't know, like Blake said, we don't know what's going to happen, but it is a message that has been incredibly effective and has been because it's been so incredibly authentic.

Lovett, did we underestimate the potency of Biden's message in the primary? Or do you think the context changed because of the pandemic and the recession? I think, I think, yes. I think another thing happened too, which is that Biden did an excellent job. The campaign did an excellent job addressing those concerns. I think, you know, in the primary, we talked about this a lot that there's this, you know, pool of voters we need to appeal to that are looking for normalcy, whatever that means. And they're, you know, independents, they're moderates, they're suburban voters are the kind of people that gave us the midterms. And at the same time, there is this progressive base and this big pool of marginal voters or non-voters for whom normal is a crisis and are looking for genuine change, who are very,

very skeptical of politics, who are skeptical of politicians. And what has been striking to me is how Biden has on issues that take off on social media that rile cable news, right? Terms like defund the police, questions about whether or not he'd be willing to denounce violence in protests. He was consistent in making sure he appealed to those kind of moderates and those independents that he needed. But on the policy front, he puts AOC and John Kerry together to figure out a consensus climate policy that doesn't exactly embrace the Green New Deal, but goes incredibly far and embraces some of the goals that people

like Jay Inslee had in the primary. He calls upon Elizabeth Warren to help develop the economic policy. He works with Bernie Sanders to get his buy-in on a healthcare plan that's not Medicare for all, but has a public option and is more robust than what he offered in the primary. So there was this really, I think, smart effort to appeal to both of those big groups at once, one on policy, one on rhetoric. And I think it was really effective.

So I think it wasn't that those concerns were wrong. It was that they did an exquisite job of addressing them and threading a really, you know, walking a really fine line over the past, you know, six months. Tommy, what do you think? Look, if the Biden campaign wins by one vote, I think they deserve all the credit in the world. And I will celebrate them in perpetuity. Anyone who suggests they knew how this campaign was going to end when it started is a fucking liar. We're in the middle of a historic pandemic. No one predicted this. No one planned for this, right? I think the one thing that's probably true out of the primary is voters weren't looking for a revolution or necessarily

for inspiration. They were looking for an alternative who they thought could win. And they may have chosen wisely. We'll find out. But I mean, that was the driving issue during the primary was whatever electability meant. They thought Joe Biden was it. The polls suggest he's running ahead. We'll find out. I will just say on message, I remember in the primary, I was drawn to Elizabeth Warren's message because I, you know, am a fan of economic populism, partly because I believe that inequality is an enormous challenge in this country. But I remember when we've had we used to have discussions about Warren's message and we would say, I do think there's something a little bigger necessary. Like she talks about economics a lot, but the country's going through something bigger. And right there all along, it really was Joe Biden talking about this is a battle for the soul of the country. And Dan, we've talked a lot about is it a referendum

or is it a choice? And of course, it's easy to say that it's just a referendum on Donald Trump, which this election has become, but that the Democratic candidate should also strive to make it a choice as well. And Joe Biden actually from the beginning laid out that it was a choice, that it was a choice between the type of country that Donald Trump represents and where he was taking us and sort of the better angels of our nature and the better angels of our history. And by talking about a battle for the soul of the nation, it actually was right. Now, I do think that the pandemic made that a much sharper message. And I also, by the way,

think it made it a sharper message because the crisis we went through as a country is a crisis where a lot of people were dying and a lot of people were suffering. And Joe Biden knows suffering and knows tragedy more than most people in public life. And I think we like sort of underestimate the potency of his message because it is so rooted in his own family's experience. And there's a lot of people out there grieving right now and have, you know, gone through a lot of loss. And I think Joe Biden's empathy is like like you said, Dan, it is it stands in stark contrast to Donald Trump. But it also just, you know, sometimes the moment just works out. The man meets the moment. Would you say hope in history rhyme, John? Yeah, right. And like I said, like, well, like Tommy was saying, too, like, I don't think anyone could have predicted that. But suddenly we're in a pandemic. And the guy running against Donald Trump is someone who's experienced a lot of loss in his life and is a really good, decent human being. And so it matches up pretty well.

All right, let's talk about the closing strategies from both campaigns. Joe Biden's trying to win with a rather conventional strategy of persuading and turning out the most voters in states that add up to 270 electoral votes. Donald Trump is trying to win by doing everything he can to prevent people from voting in the states that add up to 270 electoral votes. The New York Times describes the Trump playbook in Pennsylvania, which may be the most pivotal state of all, as, quote, a three-pronged strategy that would effectively suppress mail-in votes in the state, moving to stop the processing of absentee votes before election day, pushing to limit how late mail-in ballots can be accepted, and intimidating Pennsylvanians trying to vote early. The Trump campaign is shopping around for right-wing judges to help them suppress the votes in other states as well. On Thursday, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that mail-in ballots in Minnesota must be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day, even though months ago the Minnesota Secretary of State had extended the deadline to November 10th, so long as the ballots were

postmarked by Election Day. The court has ordered all ballots arriving after November 3rd to be segregated in case the ruling is appealed. First question, Tommy, what do we do about this? I mean, I think the only thing we can do is do another volunteer shift, tell people to vote early in person or to take their ballots and put them in a drop box. Do not put them in the mail. It is way, way too late to put any ballots in the mail. But just, you know,

we shift our messaging accordingly. I do think the thing that people just need to really get here is how disgusting this is. Trump and all the Republicans are lying about wanting an outcome on election night. That is not their motivation here. In fact, they are taking steps in Pennsylvania to slow down the counting process by refusing to let certain boards of election open the ballots and prepare them to be counted. What they want to do is lay a pretext to invalidate a bunch of vote by mail ballots because that's what they think Democrats are overwhelmingly voting by mail, right? It is a really dirty, dirty game. And it's something we

need to remember no matter who wins. If Joe Biden pulls this out, we need to take a whole bunch of steps to prevent voter suppression like this from ever happening again, because it's absolutely disgusting. And then on top of that, they're slowing down the entire postal service on purpose because, you know, they don't want vote by mail ballots to show up to begin with. I mean, it's just, it is like, it's mind bogglingly brazen and happening in the open. Dan, what's the right way to talk about this for Democrats? What's the what's the right way to message all this in the homestretch? Because, you know, you and I talked about this last pod, but there's a lot of alarm, understandably, out there.

alarm, understandably, out there. But, you know, I also, we don't want to sort of scare people into thinking that their votes won't count and that it's not working. I mean, we have to talk about this from a language of empowerment, right? Voting is an expression of our political power. We control what is going to happen here, right? Not Brett Kavanaugh, not Donald Trump, not some MAGA election official in Erie County. There are more people in the battleground states in this country who support Joe Biden and support Donald Trump. If they turn out and vote, we will win. And I think we have to do two things. We should not dismiss what is happening here, because we should use it to motivate us to work even harder over the next few days.

But we should file it away for afterwards, because as soon as this is election over, whether Joe Biden wins by a little or wins by a giant fucking margin, we have to fix the system in this country. And so the presumption is on counting all of the ballots from as many eligible voters as possible, right? As opposed to the opposite where now the burden is on you to prove you're an eligible voter before you get your vote counted. And I do like, I appreciate the New York Times for reporting on this and the way you talked about it, but talk about fucking normalizing anti-democratic chicanery, right? Like they have two strategies. The Democrats want to get people to vote. The Republicans are doing

shit that would receive a sternly worded statement from the state department if it happened in another country, right? You're trying to steal an election. That is what you're trying to do. There is one side is trying to win fair and square and one side is trying to steal it. They are a bunch of fucking yahoos who represent a minority of voters. So I don't think they're going to be able to steal it. But let's not treat it as if it's a political strategy like he's trying to close on health care. You see a lot of these headlines because we won a few cases and it'll say victory for Democrats. And a court says that ballots can count like victory for Democrats that people's votes get to count.

That's a victory for Democrats. Well, it's it's I do not think political reporters are comfortable covering news that is actually not politics. This isn't politics. There is a big group of people who are pursuing politics. The reporters are part of that group. Democrats are part of that group. Voters are part of that group. These people are outside of politics trying to stop politics.

That's what we're talking about here. And so whenever it is covered inside of a political argument, it's another sign of how the press has been victimized by Trump because they don't have the language or they're not willing to use the language to describe it honestly, because it means admitting that there's one campaign that is both inside of and for democratic politics and democracy generally. And there's one that just isn't. And this whole campaign and strategy relies on being outside of it. It's very similar to how climate change is covered in this country, which is one side is for science and saving the planet and one side isn't, but you have to treat that as two sides of the same coin instead of one side being right and one side being absolutely dangerously fucking wrong. Yeah. And it is sort of like these, you know, you make the point about, we need to think about voting rights after

this election, but like, this is why I think like win or lose the fact that we are so anxious, the fact that we are so nervous, the fact that Trump can win is a sign of just how much like, you know, there's anti-democratic forces set against democratic forces. We don't know how it's going to turn out. Our job after this election, regardless, is about it's about voter suppression. It's about figuring out how to counter misinformation and propaganda. And that's true regardless of the outcome. But it's not just Pennsylvania. Like, right. The people of Florida overwhelmingly voted to reenfranchise formerly incarcerated people. But then the Republican Party in Florida put in place what is clearly a poll tax to prevent them from voting and then made it almost impossible to figure out

how much you owe so that you could pay those fines. These are like so brazen, so anti-democratic, so un-American actions by these people that, yeah, I mean, we just we can't we cannot forget it is all I'm trying to say. And they packed two courts to do it. They packed the Florida Supreme Court, and then they rigged the U.S. Supreme Court to make sure that their poll tax stayed in place. Yeah. If Joe Biden wins, I do not want to hear the fucking pundits and older Democratic strategists talking to the pundits and talking to the reporters being like, these Democrats pretty extreme with their court reform. Like we have fucking right wing maniacs on courts right now invalidating ballots. And you're going to tell us that like that court reform is extreme? No.

And look, you know, part of the challenge here, too, is that a whole group of Republicans don't believe there's any political price for being against democracy. That, that, that, you know, I, I talked to Brian Schatz about this, you know, the, you know, the Biden campaign Democrats generally, they're campaigning on healthcare. They're campaigning on sort of, you know, meat and potatoes, like basic issues. And they should, that's the issues that they think that they can win on. But there's a real, I mean, we need to be honest after this election that, that democracy as a campaign issue, right. It's treated like a process.

It's treated like, it is treated like a process. It's treated like a sideshow. And we have to figure out how to have a conversation, a political conversation that resonates people about the importance of democratic institutions in and of themselves. Yeah. I think that posture is important here. Like I saw people being like, well, this Pennsylvania thing, that's why we just got to win one of the Sunbelt states and call it like, yeah, I hope we win the Sunbelt states, too. And I think we have a good chance. But like, you know, let's not throw away Pennsylvania just because it could take till Friday. And just because on election night, you know, Donald Trump could be up 10 to 15 points in Pennsylvania because they haven't started counting the mail in ballots yet. We're going to sit and we're going to wait. We're going to count the ballots and the winner is going to be the winner.

we're going to sit and we're going to wait. We're going to count the ballots and the winner is going to be the winner. John, like we just got to be. I just disagree with you. I read a great op-ed by David Gerget in The Hill who suggested that counting all the votes is divisive. And I think that you should really maybe tone down the rhetoric and maybe just go to the red hen with Stephen Miller and kind of work this out. I do have faith that most reporters get this at this point. I also, by the way, like I thinking about our change research poll, how like 90 percent of voters who want to vote in this election are paying close attention to the news. And so I do have faith that like people who want to vote are going to figure out how to vote to like make sure they go to their Dropbox or go in person if they can't.

how to vote to like make sure they go to their drop box or go in person if they can't you know obviously i'm i am worried about the people who have already put their ballots in the mail with a couple days left and and mail delays getting them there but i you know a lot of everyone should know that a lot of state parties a lot of organizations are doing everything they can digital advertising telling talking to as many people as possible to let people know that they should not be putting their ballots in the mail. They should be dropping them off at a drop box or at their county election office or show up on election day. And everyone who's listening, you should tell everyone in your life the same thing. We just got to spread the word. But fortunately, people are very, very engaged in this election and are paying attention. And for all we know, these idiots could

disenfranchise a bunch of Republicans, right? I mean, this could cut both ways. It is immoral. It is terrible. Just count the votes. Republicans should get to vote too. Okay. Let's take some questions. Questions. Anonymous. So I assume this is Miles Taylor asks. By the way, earlier I said tool Time. I obviously meant Home Improvement. Tool Time was the show within Home Improvement. That was very meta. Tommy, I knew what you meant.

I knew exactly what you meant. We all got it. I'm a JTT guy. I'm a fan. I know you live inside the Tim Allen Extended University. Dude, Tim Allen's comedy, for me, just doesn't get any better. This is a man's kitchen. I think he's been canceled by know yeah this is a man's kitchen he's been canceled by this is a man's kitchen because i use a chainsaw to cut a potato like a man

anyway okay so the question is the question from miles taylor is do you think there was any media lessons learned from 2016 can i ask did jordan waller just like send tommy a message to say he got the tool time thing wrong and had to fix it? Like what happened there? No, no, no, no. It's not true. Do you think Jordan watched? Jordan was definitely not alive.

No, but I bet she Googled it for sure. There's no one alive other than me maybe who remembers that. Have they learned lessons? I think they have. I think we need to give the media some credit for learning some lessons. If you look back at the hysterical media coverage at the end of 2016, it was way worse. That was in part because Jim Comey was helping the New York Times put on its front page totally alarmist allegations that the email scandal had been reopened by the FBI. But there was also like the drudge report. People were running with all the email stories. Like, I do think the way that the Hunter Biden controversy has been handled by the mainstream press has been markedly different than last time. Am I wrong? Dan, I would love to hear Dan's Dan's retort to this. Yeah, they've learned some lessons. Yeah, they have. I mean,

there's certainly more fact checking that, you know, like the presence of someone like Daniel Dale coming on CNN and going line by line through Trump's lies is very helpful. Anchors themselves are doing it more. Jake Tapper has very aggressively done this on multiple occasions. Others have done it as well. There have been more really good interviews with Trump, like the ones Savannah Guthrie did, where you push back aggressively against it and you treat it serious. One of the problems in 2016 was Hillary was treated as if she was president throughout the entire campaign and given that level of scrutiny, and Trump was treated as a sideshow who could never be president.

So the media establishment did not care enough about what he did. Not to say that there wasn't a lot of bad coverage of him, but it just wasn't treated with the same seriousness as Clinton was. I am skeptical that this will stick around forever. There's a tendency to really adjust to what happened in political coverage, adjust to what happened in previous election, then get right back into the stupid cycle afterwards. But I'm actually less concerned in the long run about how the press handles this than how Facebook handles it, right? And Facebook has clearly learned zero fucking lessons

and it's gotten worse over time. It's terrible. And like that, like we can feel great about the, like it's easy for us to say, wasn't that great that Kim Strassel had that stupid fucking totally fake thing

and then the Wall Street Journal behind their paywall came back and said it wasn't true. Like that's all happening within the universe of people who follow politics incredibly closely. We're not paying enough attention to still what is happening on Facebook and what that is doing to absolutely shift people's belief, you know, spread conspiracy theory, spread misinformation and totally fuck up our politics. And that is to me the much bigger

challenge than how the group of very Twitter savvy cable news friendly media people handle this election. Yeah, it's like, what do you do? What do you do when the head of Facebook's editorial board is Dan Bongino? classifying the media as one group, because I think there are a handful of the usual suspects who have learned zero lessons and we all know who they are. I'm not going to name them all here. Name them. Give me five of them. I think they are now a much smaller group and a much smaller portion of the larger political press. And I think by and large, the political coverage has been quite good and responsible. Yes. For this election.

All right. Paul and Ria from Australia ask, there's so much focus on where candidates go or don't go in the last weeks of the campaign. Why isn't this an antiquated approach to what drives turnout and engagement in a digital world? Or is there evidence that it makes a difference? I don't have an answer to this question, Dan, what do you think? I feel like you might know

that. It does make, it does still make a difference because like in a normal world, you would go, you'd have a big rally. You would sign everyone in. You'd recruit a bunch of volunteers. You would, what we would often do in 2012 is you would have an early vote rally that is near an early vote location. And then people would leave in mass to go vote at the early vote location. It's different here, but it still matters because you're still, you're getting more press coverage when you go, you're becoming more a part of the conversation there.

It has more impact than just doing a zoom event. We sort of saw the sort of perils of a purely zoom style of regional campaigning early in this campaign when Biden was doing like a Florida senior's town hall via Zoom. And he would do it, but it would have no impact in Florida. But there is still something that – I mean it's antiquated obviously about an airplane landing in Florida. All the television networks being there to film Joe Biden or Kamala Harris getting off that plane, putting it on the news. People talk about it more. So it has – like it's not a – the game about it more. So it has, like, it's not a, like,

the game changer, but it has impact. And the more coverage you get, the more people who would not otherwise vote may be reminded to do so in the way that ensures the vote gets counted. So I think it is certainly worth doing. I mean, Trump gets to capture the data from everyone who comes to his rallies. That's the upside. The flip side is one out of 20 dies from COVID. Would you see that? Do you see that cap study that showed that half of Trump rallies have led to a spike in coronavirus cases in that community? Did I see that cap study? Pause there. Of course I saw that cap study, Dan. Do you say that? Did I say that because Jesse Lee also DM'd it to you? That's fine.

The, uh, yeah. Alex Wall sends me something. I retweet it. It does seem though this year that the super spreader rallies may be counterproductive. And we don't know right now. Regardless of the, regardless of the, regardless of how many people, how many people Trump leaves on the battlefield. The press coverage has always been a mix between what he says and also the fact that they are dangerous and irresponsible events. And the polling is very clear on that, too, that people, even Trump supporters, oppose doing these rallies. They think it's crazy. They do.

So Tiffany asks, in the final days, how much sleep are the campaign managers getting? And Amelia asked something similar. What do these last few days look like for campaign staffers? Tommy is someone who was out in Iowa sleeping on an air mattress, driving around a truck that you abandoned in the state. What is it like in those last few days on a campaign as a staffer? in those last few days on a campaign as a staffer? Oh, I mean, what a normal campaign would be like is you would, you know, your bag call time would be at what, 5 a.m.?

You'd drive to the airport at 6. You'd get on the plane to go to your first event. You'd eat while on the ground. You'd watch the event. You'd get back on the plane. You'd eat in the plane. You'd land somewhere else. You'd eat again on the ground. You'd eat again on the plane. you'd eat in the plane, you'd land somewhere else, you'd eat again on the ground,

you'd eat again on the plane, then you'd fly somewhere else, and then you'd drink with some reporters who you mostly hate until 1 in the morning, and then there'd be another bad call at around 5 a.m., and you'd send a lot of emails in between. It sucks. It really sucks. No, actually, Tommy, as you were just saying all that, I'm like, ah, I miss being on a campaign it's

so horrible i kind of miss that i miss it a little bit i'm eating like that that's how i'm eating that's how i'm eating right now well this this is a similar question uh jenny asks where were you and what were you all doing on election night 2008 and 2012 uh let's start with 2008. Love it. Where were you in 2008? I was watching. So I was just watching the returns as a, you know, as a Hillary right-hand voter. You and Lady Linda Rothschild. I was, no, I will tell you though, my honest feeling on election night was I had, I did sincerely have conflicted feelings about it because we had been part I was part of the Hillary campaign. And I remember over the course of that night, all the ambivalence sort of went away.

Like, I remember feeling it in real time, like, oh, my God, this is happening. This is so exciting. And then I remember walking from my house to the White House because I was in D.C. because that's where I lived and just being outside with everybody outside of the White House, just hectoring George W. Bush, the previous worst president in history, while he watched Returns himself. And I always remember being outside of the White House on that night. I remember we were in, the three of us were in the Chicago headquarters in the Obama campaign. And I remember the moment that it happened because they called Ohio. And when they called Ohio, that's when we really knew it. And I was sitting next to you, Tommy, and we just like looked over at each other like, holy shit, did this just happen?

Yeah. We won? Are you fucking kidding? I don't remember being happy. I remember being like, what do you mean they called Ohio? what are you talking about yeah this isn't right we're confused this didn't happen and we got on some weird tram and went down to the park and then watched him speak the grand park yeah and then went to some club until like five in the morning we're all like fucking walking pale zombies and i don't remember after that very drunk very drunk and 2012 wasn't as 2012 wasn't quite as celebratory though it was pretty celebratory we were like in a hotel room in

chicago remember i was burning you and i was burning benghazi documents i was i don't know that that's right you were burning benghazi documents dan and i were in a hotel in chicago so i mean i was both times at 08 and 12, I was in the quote unquote boiler room where everyone sits for 15 hours in a room, sort of like people from the field staff, the legal staff, and you just get data the whole time. And it's incredibly exhausting. And it's like 10 times worse than just scrolling Twitter because you'll get a call that's, and I remember very famously in 2012 getting this call that said, turnout is way down in Cuyahoga County where Cleveland is, way down in the Cleveland precinct. And we are like very concerned.

I have to call Obama and tell him he's got to put a suit on and start doing Cleveland satellite hits. And in between calling him and leaving a message and waiting for him to call me back, we find out that the turnout was not down. So for 40 minutes, we were in an absolute panic that maybe we had, because you lose Ohio, we thought we were going to lose. And total panic, only to discover,

it's not that turnout was down in Cleveland, is that it was so high that they couldn't keep up with the numbers. And so we were just getting our reports low. And then the other thing, and this is, I think, relevant to election night in some ways for us this time, is the moment that we knew we were going to win in 2012 was when the polls closed in Florida. Because if you remember, and I think we've been reminded of this by some of these tweets that show what the polling averages were, Obama was down in the polling averages to Romney up until the very end because both the Washington Post-ABC poll and the Gallup tracking poll were giant pieces of shit that were fucking everything up.

And there was so much last polling, so it was skewing everything. And we were confident based on our data we were going to win. And we were looking at our model and we were trying to tell reporters, we had a gazillion conversations with the idiots at Gallup trying to say, you're doing this wrong. You're doing it wrong. And they very arrogantly told us they were not. They then abandoned their entire polling model two days after the election. But, and I'm not still bitter about it, but the, wow, that is some, that is a small and

old grievance. I let none of them go. But then when Florida came in and they dumped the early vote in and we saw what the margins were, they'd matched our model within a point. We knew we were going to win at that point. But, Fabs, you remember we ended, because Romney would not concede, that speech was so late. Do you remember we ended because Romney would not concede that speech was so late. And we went back at the end of the night with Plouffe and a bunch of other people to Axelrod's hotel room for our party. Because but all the bars were closed. Men's shit got wild.

But it was so. Hacks on tap. It was so late. Hacks on tap late night. It was so late at night. There was nothing on tap. The kegs were kicked because they stopped serving booze in Chicago. And someone, it was neither you nor I, tried to convince the manager of the hotel that because we were friends with Rahm, the mayor of the city, we should be able to get booze. But it did not work. That's smart.

Bobulinski at the bar over here. idea. That's smart. Bobulinski at the bar over here. Can I read you guys something crazy? I just saw Trump is apparently going to watch election returns from the White House with Pence. But at Mar-a-Lago, they're hosting an event for 400 people to watch to watch return. So if you want to pay a ton of money, go to Mar-a-Lago. Of course, he's not going to watch it at Mar-a-Lago because he's going to be in the White House barricading himself inside the White House in case he loses. He's making a pillow fort. This question is from Robert Pfeiffer, who I can only assume is a relative of yours, Dan. How much CBD oil is the maximum safe amount to consume in one night? Love it.

Well, it's so funny you asked that because that is my relative. That's my brother. Is it really? I confirmed by text this morning that was his question. Yes. Thanks for a great question. Thanks for a great question. I did not know that.

I don't know if science has an answer, but we're interested in you. Look, 2020 is all about untested medical experiments on yourself. That is what this year has been about. And so keep us posted. Put it in the Lancet, you know? Yeah, I'd say infinity. Yeah, I think you're fine. Don't worry about it.

All right, final question for you guys. For four years, we have been out of the prediction business. We are not getting back into it now. Don't worry. But in these final days, what is worrying you? What is making you feel hopeful?

Let's all start with worrying so then we can all end on a high note. Voter suppression. Who wants to go first? Tommy says voter suppression. Yeah, it's the system. It's like I am not worried that Donald Trump has some magic trick up his sleeve or he has some closing message or that Joe Biden is going to do something cost him this race. My concern is that America has a completely fucked up, perverted political system that

could collapse under this. That's the thing that keeps me up at night. Love it. Yeah, that's how I feel. I think our goal has been to make sure that everybody does their part, donates, volunteers, votes. I think everyone, no one is taking it for granted. Everybody is pulling out all the stops.

And so what stands in our way, it's not the sophisticated message or argument for a second term by Donald Trump. It's the anti-democratic forces we've been talking about. And they're very strong. And at this moment, we don't know if democracy is strong enough to overcome them. And that is what makes me nervous. It is. if, if democracy is strong enough to overcome them. And that is what makes me nervous.

It is. And, and it, and you know, there'll be, if, if we do lose, like there will be so much hand-wringing, so much guilt and so much shame, uh, because even that is easier, I think, than facing just how unfair and rigged this election was. And, you know, notions of legitimacy are always grounded in like the law and the process, But there is legitimacy inside of the kind of campaign a person chooses to run. And Donald Trump is not running a legitimate campaign. I'm worried about all that. I still have a little bit of fear about the potential surge of, you know, Trump voters who did not cast a ballot in 16 that the campaign has registered since then showing up in big numbers at the polls. I never underestimate Trump turnout. And, you know, I also we have a number of voters, groups of voters who feel more comfortable voting in person and not by mail and not early voting, especially voters in the black community and the Latino community, young voters. early voting, especially voters in the black community and the Latino community, young voters.

And a lot of this is like really hoping that they all turn out on election day. And I know that the campaign and other organizations are like intensely involved in making sure that they turn out those voters and help those voters turn out election day. But you could see the combination of a Trump surge with his voters and a little less turnout among ours on election day causing issues. But that's just a little something that keeps me up at night. What's making everyone feel hopeful? Early vote. I mean, I share your concern that you could see a big surge of Trump voters on Election Day, but a vote banked is a vote banked. And we're also broken and burned by 2016 that we don't sort of reflect on that fundamental point. And then if you look at the early vote numbers in places like Florida, they're at 72 or 75% of their statewide totals for 2016. Of those votes, like a quarter of them are people who didn't vote in Florida in

2016. And the data nerds have been able to figure out that Biden has like a nine point advantage among those people. So Democrats are voting early because we do vote by mail and we are more motivated. But also among new voters, you're seeing suggestions that Democrats are doing well there as well. All of it could change, but it is hopeful. Dan? I have to admit, I don't know whether it's the anxiety or the fact I've been getting up at three in the morning only to wake up to a text from you with a state poll of middling quality sent to me. Come on. I always send high quality polls.

No way, man. You're a survey monkey stand. Trafalgar over here. I never give you a Trafalgar poll. Nate Cohn or bust. give you a Trafalgar poll. Nate Cohn or bust. But I've been,

like in the last few days, I've been getting, like it's been sort of, like the whole thing's been sort of emotional. Like I just spoke to, I just was speaking to the Crooked Media political meeting

and I got kind of choked up doing it. I spoke at a staff call for the North Carolina field staff and got choked up and it is, like it didn't, I don't't like we do not know what's going to happen. Donald Trump could still win this election.

But if you think about where where we were the day after the election, 2016, and what has happened since is that it didn't have to be this way. There was an alternative scenario where people just checked out and they said, fuck this. If politics is this broken, that this guy can be elected president with fewer votes, then just checked out. And they said, fuck this. If politics is this broken, that this guy can be elected president with fewer votes, then I'm out, right? And the exact opposite thing happened. And we've had this incredible privilege to see this back when we could leave our homes and we would travel to do Positive America stuff, is that people became engaged like never before, right? It started with the Women's March and then people going to the airports. And the amount of activism, the amount that people who have put so much on the line and given

so much of themselves to try to take this country back to try to fix what happened in 2016 is, it's like it, it's very inspiring and it is very hopeful in the long run. And the fact that people kept doing it, right? This is not a time where people have extra money or extra time. People are working, are struggling in this pandemic and they are still working their asses off. I mean, I talked to a volunteer, a Votes of America volunteer the other day, who is a first generation immigrant, cannot vote in this election and has been working his ass off in Miami-Dade County for months now. And it's like, that is something that like for all the darkness in America and in our politics, like that is really fucking hopeful. And it's not something we've ever really seen in a very,

very long time. Well said. Love it. Yeah. I mean, I was thinking about what we were worried about at the beginning, right? In the early days of 2017. And I remember we had a lot of conversations about whether or not our institutions would hold up. And I think the jury is still out. And I think we had a lot of conversations about the harm that Trump could do and our fear that there would be a crisis. And that crisis happened. The crisis that we feared happened. And it cost us dearly. and it cost us dearly. But at the same time, there was, especially after the women's march,

the protest against the Muslim ban, there was this fear, right, that this coalition would be exhausted and that the kind of powerlessness, the disenfranchisement that comes in facing a kind of, you know, improv authoritarian like Trump would exhaust people that maybe they would have protested at the beginning, but by the time we got to 2018 or by the time we got to 2020, that people would have given up, that they would have been exhausted, that they would have run out of steam, or that just the stakes and the fear and the anxiety and just disagreement would drive a rift inside of the Democratic coalition. That happens when you face an authoritarian like this. That happens when you face right-wing nationalists. And we head into this election with an incredibly united coalition that runs all the way from the right of our party to AOC and Bernie Sanders. AOC and Bernie to John Kasich and Cindy McCain and the Lincoln Project. And everyone is under one big tent and everyone has behaved.

It's an extraordinary thing. Everyone has behaved. And, you know, look uh we will have we will decide what we think of the lincoln project come wednesday but it's like it's sort of like a messy silly coalition right there's parts of it that make you roll your eyes and all that but like by and large everyone has behaved and like just sort of driven towards the same goal together. People have argued at times. But in the background, everyone's been like, I want to be careful here because this is the real threat, Donald Trump.

And we've got to sort of get together and focus on that. And that's extraordinary. That's an extraordinary moment in history. That's never happened before. This has never happened before. We've never faced a threat like this before. We've never responded like this before. And so I think a lot of the uncertainty comes from that.

But I think we should be incredibly hopeful in what we built and what we did together because, as Dan said, it just didn't have to go this before. And so I think a lot of the uncertainty comes from that. But I think we should be incredibly hopeful in what we built and what we did together, because, as Dan said, it just didn't have to go this way. Yeah. And I just I mean, that all makes me hopeful, too. And I want to give a special shout out to all of the Vote Save America volunteers and everyone who has volunteered and donated over the last four years. You know, you guys have raised $42 million as of a few days ago, over $42 million. Almost 300,000 people signed up to adopt a state. 4,000 have joined the volunteer community here. More than 8 million calls made, 6 million texts, 600,000 unregistered voters have been contacted through our program, 2.5 million total unregistered voters contacted through all of VSA registration efforts, 27,000 poll workers recruited, 1, at Crooked Media. Every single person who works at this company has been part of that and made that happen. And, you know, you guys are about to hear

from some of these volunteers in some interviews we did the other day. But like, you know, I had the chance to talk to two of them and one was 13 and one was 18. And I do think, you know, one of the many, many reasons I want us to win on Tuesday is so a lot of the young people who are involved right now still believe that politics is worth it, that you can make a difference, that organizing works, that activism works, and that you can still hold on to that belief and that, you know, we're not cynical about the ability to change this country. That to me is, you know, one of the most important things about this election, because that will sustain us for a long, long time.

And and you guys should all know that no matter what happens on Tuesday, we will be here because Joe Biden wins or Joe Biden loses. We're going to have a lot of fucking work to do. We're going to have a little more work to do if he loses, but we're going to have a lot of fucking work to do. We're going to have a little more work to do if he loses. But we're going to have a lot of work to do if he wins, too. This fight does not end with this election. Everyone should take a breath. Everyone should hopefully relax and not think about politics for a little bit.

But all of the forces that gave rise to Donald Trump are still going to be here the day after the election, even if we win. And we're going to have a lot of work to do. So I hope everyone who got involved and is organizing, is volunteering, sticks with us and sticks with this fight. To quote someone cooler than us, we're not going back to brunch. Now, that's because there's still a raging pandemic and thousands of people are dying. But we're also going to have to keep working. We're not going back to brunch with plexiglass dividers. Too expensive. Plexiglass is too expensive.

Too expensive. Too expensive. All right. You will hear from some of our fantastic volunteers. And you will hear from us right before polls close on Election Day on our live stream, cricket.com slash election. And then we will have a full pod on Wednesday. We'll see you on the other side. Holy shit.

My name is Enrique Rosell. I'm from Miami, Florida. I'm a first generation immigrant, and I've been volunteering with ballot curing with the Miami-Dade Dems. I've been doing phone banks, text banks. I've also been poll observing in front of one of our local poll places, which has been really, really interesting. So I've been trying to dip my toes into whatever I can, you know, to help out and get as involved as possible. First of all, I want to say, you know, as a first generation immigrant, things have been rough, you know, with my family growing up, but there's always been like this like image that I had, you know, of America and what I grew up hoping that America was and thinking that America was and knowing that America was and could be. And I think like, you know, I just didn't see that in the last four years. But starting off, I remember in 2016, I was 20. I had never been involved politically in a campaign. And I remember

the day of election day, I was so full of nerves. I went home and I couldn't really turn on the news and watch it all unfold, you know, with the electoral college. So I got home late from work and instead of watching, I just went straight to sleep. And I remember at like three or four in the morning, it was super late. My dad, so my dad is also, he's high risk. I mean, he's obese and he's got diabetes. And the first time we were ever able to have healthcare was with the Affordable Care Act, with Obamacare. And I remember when Trump won

at like three or four in the morning, my dad came into my room and woke me up. And I remember clear as day, he was like, Trump won, I don't know what's gonna happen with my healthcare. I don't know if we're gonna be able to get my weight loss surgery. I don't know what's gonna happen now.

And he was so scared. And I don't see my dad scared very often. And that feeling of hopelessness, you know, and that feeling of like, just not being able to help my family and not being able to understand what was going to happen in the future was, you know, really devastating. And I was really scared, you know, to start phone banking and stuff. Like I'm sure a lot of people were because it's scary. I was like, am I even prepared, you know, to answer questions? Am I, you know, do I have the knowledge to help? You know, even with the training, sometimes it's a little bit scary. I remember the first time that I was ballot curing, I was going through and getting a lot of voicemails, getting a lot of voicemails.

And I was on a Zoom call with a lot of people. And then somebody had a Spanish speaker and nobody in the Zoom call except for me knew how to speak Spanish. And that's something that I really was so happy to be able to help with because my Spanish isn't perfect either. You know, I'm an immigrant here. So I live in Miami. I speak English most of the time. Right. So my Spanish is a little choppy sometimes. But being able to use my background and use my heritage and be able to help somebody, you know, another Hispanic person, make sure that their vote gets counted, you know, was was and be able to help somebody, you know, another Hispanic person, make sure that their vote gets counted, you know, was really, really nice. So I remember hopping on the call with this voter and helping her through the entire process of getting her ballot cured. And that's when I was like, totally hooked. I was like, I have to keep doing this. This is so great.

So I really believe in Joe Biden's plan. And I think that Joe Biden has a great plan and the compassion that he displays, you know, just the way that he handles everything. I think that's what I always thought America could be growing up, you know, and I really want to just live it in America again, where I feel proud and happy, you know, wearing the American flag. I remember growing up, my sisters and I would be so excited for the 4th of July and to wear the American flag and to go celebrate and look at the fireworks. And that sentiment just hasn't been here, you know, the last four years. And I think that Joe Biden, and I think that with Joe Biden's plan, we can get back to that America where I look at the flag and I'm proud of what it means and what it stands for. Hey, Enrique. Mr. Pfeiffer. Man, I got to tell you, listening to you talk was so

inspirational and made me feel just so humbled by everything you're doing. It is truly, you're incredibly impressive. The work you're doing is so critical. And I just wanted to say thank you. No, it means so much. I had no idea you were going to be here. I thought it was somebody named Kyle. This is so great. I mean, no, thank you for all that you do. Like I said, I wouldn't be doing half of this if it wasn't for Vote to Save America. And I listen to you guys, and it just makes me feel a lot better about everything that's going on in the world. And I just love what you all are doing. And it's really inspired me to keep doing this.

I had always wanted to get involved politically. But if it wasn't for your podcast, I probably would never have found the avenue to get started. So I really appreciate all your work and everything that you guys do. I mean, that means the world to her. And I just want you, I know you're going to work your ass off over these last few days here. You've been working your ass off for so long, but take a moment and just reflect for a little bit on what you're doing. Because this is one of the most important moments in American history. This is where we're going to make a decision on where this country goes. And the fact that you have stepped up in this moment when your friends, your family, your community needs you so much,

and you work your ass off to do this, like this, which is what you're doing is so inspiring. I think because of your work and the volunteers all across this country, I believe as nervous as I am, but I know it, like we're all feeling this way. We're all freaking out. We're looking at what various Nates tell us on Twitter about the polls. But if we keep doing what we're doing, if more people do what you've been doing all this time, and we keep doing that work for the next few days, I think you're right. I think we're going to wake up.

I don't know if it'll be Wednesday morning or Thursday morning, but we'll wake up and we will be, and we will have set this country in a much better direction. And the message I've been trying to give everyone is we have to work through up until the moment the polls close on Tuesday, but that's just the beginning. Because if we win this election, then the real work begins

of fixing this democracy and undoing the damage that Trump has done. But you're already there. You're already preparing to do that work. So I'm just so grateful to you and humbled by what you're doing. And the idea that our podcast could have played the tiniest role in getting you more involved in politics is the entire reason why we started this thing. So thank you so much. Definitely. No, it was it was a it was great talking to you. Seriously, it was it was awesome. And I can't wait to, you know, keep listening. Tell everybody else I say hi. Love them. They're great. Be safe. Thank you so much.

So my name is Mallory Zumbach. I'm based in Portland, Oregon. My adoptive state is Michigan. So that's been my primary focus, although also helping out with other battleground states wherever I can. So my son just turned four a couple weeks ago. And that means that he was born a few weeks before the 2016 election. So I, during that election cycle was very much like distracted by the fact that I was about to have my first child and not really do any volunteering. I mean, I think I donated like very minor amounts of money to that campaign. And so of course, at the time I lived in New York City and could not actually stay awake for the election results that night. So woke up the next morning, it was just like, what? Like went to bed and it seemed fine. Woke up and found out that Trump won. And that was just devastating.

And I think just having this new little baby, it was sort of like, what have I done? I brought this child into this world where this person got elected. And that has haunted me literally ever since. And so I think with everything that's been going on with COVID and with Black Lives Matter and the, you know, issues with the police that we've been having and stuff, I was really feeling sort of down about the fact that, like, here I am, the single mom, sort of stuck at home with my four-year-old, and, like, what can I do? And then a friend, like, a colleague from an old job posted about Adopt-A-State, and I was like, oh, bam, this is perfect, because, um you know I've always sort of lived in places I grew up in Texas where it was very red when I last was able to vote there and then I lived in New York where it was always very blue and now I'm in Oregon also very much a

blue state and so I was like that seems like a way that I can really proactively help out um in a manner that will make you know actual tangible change to help out in the state that is this true battleground state and I have a I work in the music industry and one of the catalogs that I represent is based in Michigan. And I have several friends who went to college there and still have ties there. So I sort of have these like small ties to it, but Michigan just sort of jumped out at me as an option. So that's how I came to the whole BSA crew. I actually had a text bank exchange with a woman in Michigan, and she thought that she couldn't vote because she was a convicted felon. She had served her time, and she had done her parole work and everything. And I was actually able to help her realize that

she could be re-enfranchised. So that was huge. I mean, I feel like I have a great, at least one or two like incredible interactions, pretty much every phone or text bank. I mean, I have never volunteered for a political campaign before anything in my life. And now I'm like helping people, you know, in real time with how to vote, how to track their ballot. So that's, that's been great. We should all be really proud of the work that we've done so far, but we can't stop yet. We have to keep going. And I, like I used to run half marathons and there's like this concept in distance running. It's called like having great kick. Like that's what makes the difference between a really good marathoner and a great marathoner is somebody who can go that incredibly far distance and then turn around and like just pull it out right at the end

that's what you know helps people win races right so I think we're in that phase right now like we've we've been running and running and we're tired and we really just want to be able to go home and take the nap that we want to take after our race is run. But like, we can't do that yet. We have to dig down deep and find that last bit of push, that kick, and like really just like give it our all as we go through the tape, so to speak. So I know that we're going to be in it to win it, for lack of a better phrase, in these last few Get Out the Vote days. Hi, Mallory. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for volunteering so much.

Thank you for having such a great attitude too in these final days. I know that I am struggling to have a good attitude right now. Not that I have a bad attitude. I'm, you know, equal parts fearful and hopeful, but I just think it's a good reminder that we need to run through the tape, you know? Now, I've never you know, equal parts fearful and hopeful, but I just think it's a good reminder that we

need to run through the tape, you know, and I've never seen tape and I've never run toward it, but I'm glad that you have. And I understand the metaphor. Yeah, that's good. I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm not that fast of a runner. Well, Mallory, thank you for everything that you're doing for being a super volunteer. We're so grateful. Thanks for adopting Michigan. We've got to get Gary Peters back in the Senate. Gary gang.

I'm all about it. Team Gary. The Gary gang. Got to get the Gary. The whole Gary gang is doing a lot of work. Got to win Michigan. All right. So thank you.

Absolutely. Thank you so much. So nice of you to say thanks. And you guys are so inspiring. This is great. What you've done here is amazing. I'm so impressed by all of it. So thank you. phone banking and texting and writing letters and all of that kind of thing for both down ballot races as well as for the presidential race. So I am, I'm an autistic woman. And we especially those of us who are late diagnosed, we tend to struggle with comorbidities like depression and

anxiety disorders, OCD, PTSD, things like that. So access to quality mental health care is really, really important for my well-being. And I'm lucky enough now to have that access, but most of my life I didn't have that access. And I really had to basically gamble with tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt and move across the country, thousands of miles away from my friends and family, from everyone that I know, just to get a damn therapist. So I know that there are so many other people who don't have that option, who don't have the option to move across the country for healthcare. And I know that there are so many people who don't have the privileges that I've had that have allowed me to

get here in the first place. So many undiagnosed autistic people or misdiagnosed autistic people, particularly Black and Indigenous people, end up in prison or worse, effectively for lack of access to good quality mental health care. All of that said, fixing all of this starts with getting Donald Trump out of office and phone banking, it can increase turnout by as much as 3.8 percentage points. So, you know, that's all I need to know, to sort of like push through those anxieties and all of the things that make you reluctant to actually like take that jump and get into volunteering. There's so much that's rewarding about it. A lot of it is difficult, I'll be honest. You know, there's some days where you kind of have to push through, but always, even on those days, there's always something that I can get really excited about. It's whether it's

even just the people, the community that we're volunteering with has been so incredible to be a part of, and the conversations with voters, that's the other big thing, you know, there's, I mean, just volunteer, do it, even though you don't want to, like, do it, even though you're tired. I mean, if you are able bodied and capable of it, then then do it. There's no reason not to because we need a landslide. And the way that we do that is if we all, you know, push for those extra percentage points, we need to get every single one. That means texting.

It means phone calls. It means talking to all of your friends. You have to get involved. Do it now. Go sign up for a shift. Hi, Autumn. Hi. Hi, John Logan.

Good to see you. Thank you so much for all that you're doing and the volunteering that you're doing. Hi, Autumn. Hi. Hi, John Logan. Good to see you. Thank you so much for all that you're doing and the volunteering that you're doing. Thanks for telling your story. Thanks for being here. Thanks for pushing other people to volunteer. Thanks for adopting Pennsylvania. How are you feeling? Where's your head at? I'm feeling good. I'm feeling, my head is at, I can't think too much or too hard about anything until November 4th. So that's where my head is. Yep. How are you? Where is your head? Me? Oh, well, it's, um, I'm embracing, I'm embracing the anxiety because I'm trying to

remember that this feeling doesn't matter. Right. Right. Dread, dread is a fear of an outcome, but that the outcome is worse, right? If things go terribly, this dread is nothing. And if things go well, this dread is forgotten. So it doesn't really matter. You know, anxiety is just your body caring. Yeah, no, I mean, it's your stomach wanting to win. It's 100% the thing that really drives me. It's just, I got to do something. I got to do something with all this anxiety. What has it been like as someone who is neuroatypical making calls? It was a journey, just getting to the point where I would do it it's a lot I'll be I'll be square with you um it's definitely um something that I had to really really push myself to do but it's also it's interesting because um it's really a lot like sales I I did work in customer service for a long time and did a lot of like, I sold mainly, I sold discount cards at a bookstore. So that is surprisingly a lot like phone banking. And

that actually gave me a lot of the tools that I needed to be able to do it. to be able to do it. I like that. I like that trying to elect Joe Biden and prevent America from descending into a kind of, you know, neo-autocratic, shambolic, failed state is a bit like getting people to buy gift cards. I think that's nice.

Yep, yep. Discount cards. Discount cards. Very small, but a big difference. No, it matters. It's a big difference. You still have to get your credit card out, you know? Yeah.

Well, Autumn, it was so nice to meet you. Thank you so much for what you're doing. Thank you for volunteering. Let's go win this thing. Yes, let's do it. Thank you for having me. And thank you for everything that you have all been doing and for gifting us with this amazing community that we now have.

Hi, Andrew. He, him, his on Hocum land in Phoenix, Arizona. Sam, he, him, same thing. We work in the entertainment industry, which has been annihilated by the pandemic. And so we are in the unique position of being fully unemployed right now and had the mobility to commit to full-time volunteering. And I feel like a big reason to volunteer is for all of the people who actually can't and would like to be volunteering. We've known how important this election is, even as it's gotten more important every day. And so as soon as we realized we actually could clear out the space to really go hard, we knew we had to. And you can draw a direct

line from what we do or anyone that works in entertainment or hospitality to how this administration has handled the pandemic. So you literally can say, if I do this, it is going to mean I can work sooner. I can return to a life that could possibly, you know, offer me a paycheck. And also it's selfish. I'm a remarkably anxious person and I don't want to wake up on November 4th and feel like I could have done more. I want to wake up and say like, I am X amount more broke because I spent a chunk of my savings going to a swing stay.

I want to wake up and think I'm tired and my lower lumbar is an intense pain because I walked so much. I'd rather feel bad than what I felt in 2016. That is for sure. We have been in Phoenix for about a month, bouncing between Tempe, Mesa, all around. And we have been canvassing, we have been phoning folks, we've been doing all sorts of other things. I think the most moving thing for me is that humans are so hungry to talk to other humans. It's how we're wired. And in fact, canvassing is like what we actually are made to do as humans, because we are social creatures with a social brain. And it is so rewarding to talk to people who don't know where to go, who don't know that

the election is on the third and not the fifth, who are genuinely undecided. And the highlight for me is, which is both an uphill battle for us in the future, but critical right now, is everyone is getting terrible information. Anyone who is undecided right now, it is because they do not have clear information. So a lot of our work is just saying, hey, here's what we know about that. And having that real connection with humans has been so moving and worthwhile. I would also add that just being in Arizona, it has really, I think one of the more awful things

that's happened in the last four years is that Democrats and Republicans have become like cartoon versions of themselves. And like the bias is so real. Like you, you, you look at somebody and you assume certain things and we're in Arizona, which neither of us are from Arizona. We've never spent time in Arizona and we're pretty much always wrong. If we're making a guess about like someone's values or how someone's going to vote and, you know, being in, we're in Maricopa County, we're in the biggest swing district in the country and seeing the move of Republicans for Biden, seeing the move of Mormons for Biden. It's just like a vision of frankly, like how democracy

works and like how many people care about this election that I think we certainly have never seen living in New York and Los Angeles. And it has frankly given us a lot of faith in human beings to not just be garbage. We also, we saw Kamala speak yesterday, which is one of the cool things about being a volunteer. It's like sometimes the candidates are around and she said i think i'm paraphrasing but she said that um democracy is only as strong as

our willingness to fight for it and feeling that with our bodies right now like feeling that intersecting with people from everywhere people of all ages intersecting with people who are actually willing to unite around a thing, seeing that physically, like actually participating in that, I think no matter what happens with the election is like enough to power us through for a little while. And I don't believe in like shaming people into volunteering, but I do really like wish that everyone can participate in this as an act of joy, because that really is what it feels like. Hi, how are you guys? I was just listening to you all morning.

You were giving me additional anxiety. Thank you so much for all the work you're doing. And thank you for all the incredibly lovely moving reasons you're doing it. I especially liked faith in human beings to not be garbage. That really resonated with me. Like, why is that like not like, shouldn't that be everywhere? for all of us to do something. Listen, I just, you know, we just wanted to, first of all, hear your voices, get people on the podcast itself who have done so much work and who like, obviously, I have no idea if Joe Biden is going to win or not, nor does anyone, as evidenced by John and Dan's just dripping anxiety on the most recent podcast. But if we do win, I think it's going to be because a lot of

people stepped up and worked their asses off and gave like so much of themselves and their time and their money to this cause. So we just wanted to say thank you. Wow. Oh, my God. Thank you. Thank you all. Thanks for all the work you're doing. Yeah, thank you. We know so many people who are volunteering because of the work that you're doing. So we really, it means a lot. Thanks for connecting. It means the world to me. It means the world to John and John and Dan and our whole team. And so just thank you.

Yes, my name is Salvatore Bizzaro. I am originally from Italy. I came when I was 15 and a half. I'm an immigrant to the United States. I was 15 and a half. I'm an immigrant to the United States, and I really care about the immigrants, you know, and what they can contribute to the United States. county, but also in central Florida and some calls in northern Florida. But mostly they're concentrated on Miami and the Sarasota, Tampa area and Orlando as well. I always do things, you know, I always volunteer to try to elect Democrats. And since I voted in Florida, I decided that was a very pivotal state and needed me reaching some Latino communities. I have spoken mostly with Puerto Ricans, Colombians, Venezuelans and Cubans.

The most rewarding part is when I ask them whether they can ask two or three more people to vote for Biden, you know, to vote on the Democratic ticket. And I got an answer from one family. I said, well, in my household, four people voted for Biden. And then I got another answer in Miami-Dade County. This woman said, well, we have a family of 10 people in two households, and we all voted for Biden. And the most rewarding one was one yesterday from Miami-Dade County as well, when this woman told me that 20 people voted for Biden in her family. So those are the most rewarding ones. I get some pretty bad calls as well. You have to be very vigilant because we know how Republicans might steal elections. We have seen that in the past and it's much more of an effort now.

So don't be afraid to make phone calls. Even if you get one person to vote for Biden, it's a good deal. Hey, Mr. Vizzaro, this is Tommy Vitor. I'm also... Hi, Tommy. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. I see you on TV all the time.

All my favorite TV programs. I just wanted to say thank you so much for everything you're doing for the Vote Save America program, for Adopt-A-State, and also for letting GC work with us. He's basically single-handedly propped up the company as every other sponsor slowly fired us during a pandemic.

He was the only person on the planet that was able to bring in new sponsors and actually help us continue to build out this team that allowed us to have this whole Vote Safe America program. So we owe you a hundred times over. Listen, if he had not worked for you and had, for example, accepted a job from Rush Limbaugh, I would, I told him, you know,

it's up to you to do whatever you want to do, but don't ever call me again. If you did, but he would not, you know, he didn't accept the job. That was before you. I was listening to your stories earlier, and the story about calling a house where 10 or 20 people tell you

that their family voted for Biden is like, it's music to my ear. It's the only thing that's calming my anxiety today. Well, that's good. I make about 100, 150 calls a day. Wow, that's incredible. And are they all going to Florida? Yeah, they're all going to Florida. Wow. That's incredible. And are they all going to Florida? Yeah, they're all going to Florida.

God, that's amazing. That is such important work. Again, I still have no idea if Biden is going to win. But I think if he does, the difference this year is people like you making that many calls. And it just wasn't happening in 2016. There just wasn't that energy, you know? Right. happening in 2016 there just wasn't that energy you know right i'm very afraid that you know i wake up uh after the same way that i did in 2016 you know but but i'm i'm hoping a little bit more

this time yeah i'm more hopeful we're all i think uh we're all scared but uh i i've just been amazed at how many people are are channeling that fear into work and enthusiasm and something really good. I'll let you get back to all the calls, but thank you again and have a great day. Yes, thank you very much. Thanks. My name is Maddie. I'm from the middle of nowhere, Georgia. I have volunteered in my adopted state of Pennsylvania, but I've also been volunteering

a lot in my home state of Georgia because it's a very competitive state here. I have been doing a lot of phone banking and text banking in Pennsylvania. It's been for Biden and for down-ballot candidates. And then here in Georgia, I have been doing work for John Ossoff in his Senate campaign. I decided to volunteer because this is my first election ever. I just turned 18 last month, and I voted for the first time last week, which was really exciting. And I decided to get involved

because this election is the most important of our lifetimes. As we can see, elections have consequences. We just saw Amy Coney Barrett get put on the Supreme Court for her entire life. That's a 40-year conservative Supreme Court. So four more years of Trump in the White House would be disastrous to my entire generation. I think for me, the most rewarding part is the voters who are voting for Biden, the people who just became citizens, and this is their first time being able to vote. The people who ask, hey, I want to volunteer. I think

my favorite conversation I ever had was with a woman in Pennsylvania. She was 78 years old, I believe. And she said that she had voted in every election since, I think it was like the early 60s, she said. And she told me, she was like, how old are you? You know, you seem pretty young. And I told her that this was my first election. And she said that it made her so happy to see all of these people getting out there. And she even asked me how to become a poll worker in Pennsylvania, because even though she was 78 and at risk, she felt that this election was just too important that she was willing to go and help people cast their vote because she just believed that democracy is important. And she's very excited to be voting for Joe Biden and all the Democrats. And that call just gave me hope because I feel

there's a lot of uncertainty around this election in this year, but women like her and all the voters that I've talked to that have been like, yes, I'm voting for Biden. I'm so excited. Let's go. Those calls, just one person can make the whole difference in this election. It's so rewarding to just connect with people and to the volunteers. I just want to say thank you. I know that's really cliche, but one volunteer reaches one more voter, reaches five people. It's like the diffusion, the six degrees of separation or whatever it is. Talk to the people immediately in your life. If they've voted, see if they want to volunteer. See if they want to adopt state and help out people in that state.

Just talk to people. Talk to them in person if you can. If not, try to avoid just, social media is good, but I really think that we could all just spend a little bit of time not screaming on Twitter. Just up until the election, I would like to see some just humanity. Let's all just be positive and optimistic and go into this election that no matter what the outcome is on November 4th, we will know that we did everything that we can do. Hey, Maddie. Hi. I just wanted to say thank you. And I currently have 538 up on the screen. And then on my other screen here, I've just i've just been scrolling twitter so despite all that just listening to you give those answers to elijah has been the most

inspiring part of my day and i know you talked about um callers giving you hope but you give me hope and especially the fact that you are 18 years old and dedicating so much time to doing this. I was not doing that at 18 years old. I wasn't really politically active until college. But you feeling good about Georgia? Kind of. So the Senate debate was last night. I'm not sure if you saw John Ossoff.

Ossoff was amazing. Yes. I woke up this morning and saw him destroy David Perdue, which was amazing. Absolutely. Amazing. I didn't know that Jon Ossoff had it in him. Oh, he has it in him. One of my friends actually saw him last week in Athens on the University of Georgia campus

and said that he was a phenomenal speaker. And he really is. And his ads are also really good, too. They're everywhere. So I feel kind of good. I don't know if we'll flip both our seats being realistic, but I think if we can flip Purdue's seat, that would be really rewarding. I mean, I don't know either, but Georgia would be so sweet to win. Like,

I mean, just especially after, you know, in 18, I was like so excited about Stacey, you know, and her campaign and then have talked to her since then. And just the sheer amount of work that all of you have done in Georgia to energize people, register people, like turn into a purple state, maybe turn into a blue state. It is very inspiring. And the fact that no matter what happens on Tuesday, Georgia is going to be a competitive state for the future, for good. It's just amazing. So exciting. Well, anyway, I just wanted to say thanks. I hope that you are incredibly proud of the work that you've been doing. And I hope that whatever happens on Tuesday, that you stay engaged and active in politics because you know the world needs you and you should also know and feel good about what you've done so far because

at a moment when the country was in danger and democracy was in danger like you stepped up and you did your part and and you'll be able to say that for the rest of your life and that's that's something pretty special yeah so keep up the good work and uh you know let's, that's something pretty special. Yeah. So keep up the good work. And, you know, let's, let's run through the tape, you know. Thank you so much for all of this. My name is Herschel Doby. I'm living and volunteering in Arizona. I'm only 13. I can't vote in this election or the next one. So why am I making thousands of calls to voters? One, I listened to Jon Favreau's podcast, The Wilderness. Two, he introduced me to an amazing local candidate, Christine Marsh. And three, no matter how many Marvel movies I watch,

there's just no such thing as superheroes. So there's just normal people doing the right thing. such thing as superheroes. So there's just normal people doing the right thing. And right now, the right thing is to help people vote. As a volunteer, I've talked to so many people who hear discouraging messages about voting. It won't count. It doesn't matter. But the truth is encouraging. Your vote will count. It does matter. How you choose to vote today has the potential to give us all a better future, and being able to give people that information and help them know what they need to do, it feels really good. I talked to this one man a few days ago. He hadn't heard of any of the candidates I was talking about. I was actually phone banking for some state senate candidates, so I stayed on the

line while he looked through all of their websites, and he just kept on telling me, I like these people. I think I'm going to vote for them. I went through all my talking points. I told him about text updates, everything, and just afterwards, it felt like he knew everything he needed to know to go vote. I'm only 13, so I don't have social media, but if any of you find yourselves freaking out or doom scrolling on Twitter, just take a deep breath and remember to focus on the important thing, and that is having one-on-one conversations with real people. A tweet isn't going to change someone's mind. A like isn't going to make people vote. But what will help is giving people the information and encouragement they need to make the right choice come election

day. Hey, man, how's it going? It's going well. I'm kind of tired, but I could not be like more energized, honestly. Jittery, bordy bordering on freaking out but still energized same i feel the same way i i will say that just listening to your advice right now that is like advice for me too i need to uh just have some more one-on-one conversations instead of doom scrolling through twitter because i'm on a roller coaster of emotion right now. How are the calls today? How are the phones? I have not had a shift yet today. I have a four to six one for Christine, but phone banking during the week has been so much better than on the weekends. I don't know why. I think it's because a bunch of big organizations like VSA are just absolutely bulldozing all these states with calls. But calling on like a weekday night, I've had like a 10, 15% contact rate.

So it's been nice. How are you feeling about Arizona? I feel really good. I've been calling a lot of persuasion lists. And like for every two diehard Trump supporters I get, I also get a lot of people who are like, oh, yeah, I'm going to vote for him. Or, oh, yeah, I like Mark Kelly. It's cool that he's an astronaut. That's good.

I feel pretty good about Arizona, too. I have ever since we did that episode in the wilderness when we did Southwest and we talked to Christine Marsh. I've been bullish on that state. So I'm glad you're on Team AZ. I just wanted to say, and I know I've said this before, but I just wanted to thank you for doing this and not just for volunteering. I mean, I know you said that there are no such thing as superheroes,

but you're pretty close, man. I have to tell you, for a 13-year-old to be, you are well beyond your years and you have a wisdom and a way to inspire people that most 20, 30, 40, 50 year olds don't have. And so I really, the future is bright for you. And I hope that whatever happens on Tuesday, you stay involved and engaged in politics because we need you. And when I say we, I mean, everyone who cares about politics and the country. So please stay involved and please stay engaged because it is rare to find people as talented

and hopeful and inspiring and just as dedicated as you are. So we're really grateful for you, man. Thank you. I'm grateful to you for inspiring me and getting me into this. Well, I'm happy to do whatever I can. Five more days, man. Bring it home. Five more days. Oh, God. All right, buddy.

I'll let you get back to your life. Thank you. This was a lot of fun. Pod Save America is a Cricket Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer.

Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Quinn Lewis, Brian Semel, Caroline Rustin, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim. Thank you.