Pod Save America - “The fun part.”

Episode Date: September 30, 2021

Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are still holding Joe Biden’s agenda hostage despite exclusive new polling that shows his Build Back Better plan is extremely popular in some of the most competitive House districts. Then, Dave Wasserman from the Cook Political Report talks to Dan about the new redistricting maps that have been drawn so far and what they might mean for control of Congress.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, please visit crooked.com/podsaveamerica. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's pod, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema still won't back Joe Biden's agenda despite exclusive polling showing that Build Back Better is extremely popular in some of the most competitive House districts. We'll get to that later. Then Dave Wasserman from the Cook Political Report talks to Dan about the new redistricting maps that have been drawn so far and what they might mean for control of Congress. Just before we started, Dan said this conversation made him hopeful. Trying to emphasize that.

That's not what I said. I said it was the most optimistic conversation I've had about politics in the last couple of weeks. So we're grading on a tough day here. We're heading into some rough water. I'm trying to put a positive spin on it for the folks who are tuning in today. One quick note before we start. There's only one episode left of This Land.

This season, award-winning journalist Rebecca Nagel takes you inside her year-long investigation into a series of custody battles over Native American children that exposes a larger plot by right-wing forces to dismantle American Indian tribal rights. plot by right-wing forces to dismantle American Indian tribal rights. Just like last season, the Supreme Court will once again hear the case in this season. So catch up on all the details before the court's new term begins. I know you're probably thinking it's the Supreme Court. It's not going to go well. It went well last time because on Native American rights, there's some interesting coalitions on the court with some justices that you wouldn't normally expect who support Native rights. Anyway, you can binge the first seven episodes of This Land Now

before next week's finale, wherever you get your podcasts. It is a fantastic season. Rebecca does some just incredible journalism, and it's a really, really compelling story, so check it out. All right, let's get to the news. Dan, I got my phone i got my i got my phone here in my hand and my twitter feed up because uh what we're doing right now is we're recording at 10 a.m pacific time 10 30 a.m pacific time thursday uh and the news is moving rather

quickly but it's going nowhere but it's going nowhere quickly yeah but we are we are hoping this is an episode that doesn't feel completely stale by the time it is in your ears later this afternoon on thursday we need to record various reacting to various scenarios that have not yet happened like the very famous and outdated saturday night skit. Gerald Ford's death. Gerald Ford died today. Let's see if anyone gets that. And yeah, so things could change

rather quickly. As of right now, Joe Biden and the Democrats have figured out how to avoid a government shutdown. That's good. Everything else is fucked. Currently. At's good. Everything else is fucked currently at this moment. Republicans keep filibustering any attempt to raise the debt ceiling, which must be done by October 18th in order to avoid a catastrophic recession. So that's one thing. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema keep

refusing to negotiate the details of Joe Biden's Build Back Better plan despite hours of meetings at the White House this week. And progressive Democrats in the House keep saying they'll only vote for Biden's bipartisan infrastructure bill if Manchin and Sinema agree to pass Build Back Better, a vote that is scheduled to happen today. Here's the latest from Pelosi this morning on how she feels about all this. We're on a path to win the vote. I don't want to even consider any options other than that. We will have a reconciliation bill. That is for sure.

Look, I think that Joe Manchin is a great member of the Senate. This is the fun part. A few moments ago, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer was asked if he's confident that it will pass. His answer? Nope. Thanks, Steny. Thanks. was asked if he's confident that it will pass his answer nope thanks stenny thanks glad glad everyone's on message glad the message coordination is tight i'm glad that nancy pelosi thinks that this is the fun part um all right let's start with the vote on the infrastructure bill in the house which again as of this recording is still supposed to happen today. If you were the distinguished congressman from Delaware, because let's say that

you haven't made it to the Senate yet, you haven't beat Chris Coons or Tom Carper yet, you're the congressman from Delaware, how would you vote? I would vote no. What would you need to see before voting yes? The Senate has to pass a budget reconciliation bill. Nothing less than passage. Legislative text, mansion and cinema, do a press conference, bells and whistles, they make a promise, they swear a blood oath. No, nothing. There's no point in voting before that. The BIF is not going anywhere.

Our roads and bridges have been crumbling for decades. Even if you were to pass it tomorrow, there's not a bunch of like guys, men and women in orange vests going out to fix roads. Like that's not what's happening right away. It takes time. And so just wait, see what the Senate does. Keep your leverage to that point. I don't even know why the House is drawing up bills or like none of it does. Keep your leverage to that point. I don't even know why the House is drawing up bills. None of it matters.

What matters right now is what Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin can agree to with Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders and the rest. And everything else is just noise. And so they should pass it. And this is the leverage. If you want your biff, pass a reconciliation bill. There's been, if I were a member of Congress, I would not trust that Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema would be able to execute on a deal that they came up with. There's just too many moving pieces.

So pass a bill. Send it to us. If it's good enough, we'll pass BIF too. We'll do it on the same day. It'll be cool. Then everyone can have their champagne. Can I play – I'll play devil's advocate okay all right godheimer's advocate i was gonna say the distinguished the distinguished gentleman

from the state of no labels uh address the house i've so i've seen some of uh some of the never trump or republicans have made this argument right uh they're like, here's the deal. Why would Democrats have this big win, this big bipartisan infrastructure bill? Joe Biden could pass it. Look at this. I got a bipartisan win, lots of money, projects, hard hats, construction projects all over the country. You can go home to your district and talk about how you delivered the goods for your district we're paving roads all this kind of good shit um why not take that take that win and then keep working on the reconciliation bill because it doesn't seem like that mansion and cinema care that much about the biff i'm still calling it the fucking bit care that much about the infrastructure bill dying or that's not like leveraging any real

pressure on them. And they're either going to support a reconciliation bill or not, but it's not going to have anything to do with whether the infrastructure bill lives or dies. Well, Congressman Gottheimer, I do not trust you. It's if we put aside cinema and mansion for a second, uh, You also need Josh Gottheimer and you have a three-seat majority in the House. And so that's one point, right? I think the leverage does matter. It's maybe not as significant as we want. I think we've determined that at least thus far, Kyrsten Sinema's That, at least thus far, Kyrsten Sinema's – her – how would I say this? Her affection for her own reputation is as an iconoclast is – seems greater than anything saving the planet or anything else.

But I think it still matters and you don't want to take – it may not be all the leverage, but it's some leverage. I do – like I saw that tweet from Tim Miller about about this point last night i do think it was probably and i should say by the way not just tim miller i heard our i heard the hacks hacks on taps all talking about this our friends you know no it was gibbs gibbs we're gonna talk gibbs was not as not as into this obviously mike murphy was um and then here's a democrat terry mccullough i want to get to the governor yeah we'll get but we should just tell everyone terry mccullough running for governor of virginia very tight race um said that the democrat should just pass the infrastructure bill now and he also supports a build back better bill but not he also said not 3.5 trillion which guess what we're not getting 3.5 trillion at this point anyway um but anyway

that's that's for that's for later but so there's a bunch of people saying this. Yeah. So in hindsight, the better approach to this from everyone involved would be to not trash the bipartisan infrastructure bill. It is a fine bill. It is a good bill. It is actually a pretty amazing validation of Joe Biden's theory of governance that he ran on. And many people, no one on this podcast, of course, but many people doubted he could actually do. But if we lived in a vacuum, if we did not know about another bill that would extend the child tax credit and raise taxes on the wealthy and do amazing climate change things and do all these other things, the BIF or whatever would be a huge win. It'd be a giant win. There would be signing ceremonies. There would be columns written about how amazing a legislator Joe Biden is and getting this done. All of that would all would have happened. But because

it has been trashed as a lobbyist written bill, written by big oil and all of that, the ship has sailed on. If they were to pass BIF today and Biden were to do a signing ceremony, the press coverage would suck. It would not be good. It would not be triumphant. And we do know with infrastructure, it's not like it's going to dramatically change everyone's lives by the time the election comes or that a few weeks will matter. like dramatically change everyone's lives by the time the election comes or that a few weeks will matter. And so I don't think there, we don't live in a world where passing Biff would be treated as a big win for Biden right now. It is, we have, we put all our chips in the table. It's get both things. And it's a huge gigantic win for the party, the country, the planet,

or it's a loss, whether it's a half a loss or a full loss is still a loss. It's a loss, whether it's a half a loss or a full loss is still a loss. I'll say two things. One, infrastructure bill is also very popular. We're going to get to the polling that we have in a minute, but especially in competitive house districts, people love infrastructure. The reason they love infrastructure is because they don't like having crumbling roads and bridges and infrastructure also creates a lot of jobs, right? So it is completely insufficient.

I would be with one of those progressives in the House voting down the bill until I get billed back better as well. So it's completely insufficient. And I think when you say that, as the proponents of the infrastructure bill do, that it also contains some climate provisions, environmentally friendly provisions, yeah, sort of, but not really. Yeah. I mean, compared to like it is like woefully inadequate on climate even though there's some small climate stuff in there but you're right it's a fun it's a good job creating bill that we tried to pass something like it in the obama years many different times talked about the importance of infrastructure great um but again uh joe biden ran on this this broader agenda and uh you know

we're talking a lot about mansion and cinema but one reason back to like you know the argument we should just take the win on the biff uh you're starting to see a lot of mainstream democrats and even moderates in the house, moderate Democrats, frontline Democrats, vulnerable Democrats say we need to pass both of these bills. They believe we need to pass both of these bills because if infrastructure fails and and Build Back Better fail, it's not progressives who are going to suffer in the midterm election. They're in safe districts. They're going to be fine. You know who was going to suffer when they have to go campaign on passing absolutely nothing?

A lot of these moderates. A lot of these people in really competitive House districts because they're going to have to campaign in 2022, and the voters are going to say, what did you do for me? Democrats controlled the White House, the House, and the Senate for two years. What did you deliver? What are they

going to say? Nothing? Because we just didn't want to pass the president's agenda, President Joe Biden? No, of course not. That's why a lot of, like, you don't even, even Godheimer, you don't hear them saying like, no, no, no, it's just, it's Biff or nothing. They all, most Democrats in the House, just about like 90% of them plus, all want to pass both the infrastructure plan and Biden's Build Back Better plan. The problem remains, as it has been from the start, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, right? Yes, but I think on an even more meta level than their just unwillingness to say what they want, engage in good faith and all of those things. The problem here is, like everything else, it's the filibuster. The problem is that the only – and I do think one important point here that we cannot get lost in this is the biggest problem is that the Republicans, who have 50 of the 100 Senate seats and nearly

a majority in the House, not a single one of them wants to do a single goddamn thing to help a single person. And so we have to do this all by ourselves. And because of the filibuster, we have to do all of it in one bill. And that makes it so much harder, like, because the coalitions are so intermingled ideologically and regionally, and where every single thing is tied together. So you got the small handful of pro-pharma Democrats who are sinking the Medicare negotiation

plan. That's bad because people need cheaper prescription drugs. We should be a sane country and negotiate better prices. But it also means there's now $700 billion that can't be spent on something else. So now that affects climate or that affects the child tax credit. Is it permitted? Is it limited? Does it not happen at all?

And it is a massively complicated thing to do. In the best of scenarios, when you're doing zero margin of error anywhere, it's just so hard. And that is because the filibuster is pushing us to do it all in one bill, which is insane, right? Just absolutely insane. So as of this recording, we do not know whether Pelosi will still hold the vote and then watch it fail, which if she holds the vote, I don't see how it passes. Absent a deal. Absent a deal. Absent a deal.

Because Jayapal, Pramila Jayapal, who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said that at least half her members are still ready to vote no if there's no deal, which would be enough to sink the bill because it does not look like the Republicans will give us the votes, even the Republicans who want to pass the infrastructure bill, because Kevin McCarthy saying don't help them. Why would you you help them because why would they do anything constructive for anybody um so if she holds the vote it looks like it will fail absent a deal or she'll delay the vote i actually again speaking before we know what happens i don't think that either outcome there's much difference between either outcome perfect personally whether the vote fails or

whether she delays the vote do you no i have it i don't know the press will treat each whatever outcome as a you know armageddon right and they'll but like i actually don't think either outcome matters all that much yeah it'd be pelosi has never lost a vote she's called like that has been a point of pride of her as long in her many years as speaker And so I would be shocked if they don't have the votes and they have the vote anyway. I heard Stephanie Murphy, a moderate member from Florida who was part of the group of centrists who work with Josh Gottheimer and sort of screwed this whole process up, say, if we don't have the vote, that's like a violation of trust. a violation of trust. I cannot understand why you would want, if you were so passionate about this bipartisan infrastructure bill, why you think it would help your cause to lose the vote, to actually call it and lose it. It makes no sense to me. I don't make no sense to me either. So Jayapal also said when she came out of Pelosi's office

this morning, we're in the same place and we're willing to stay here all weekend if we need to see if we can get a deal. You could imagine something where the vote goes down today or the vote is delayed today. And then finally, Mansion Cinema, the progressives all get in a room over the weekend and try to hash something out. Although Josh Gottheimer has predicted yesterday that the bipartisan infrastructure bill would pass. He said, we'll be drinking a nice glass of champagne over here thursday night so we shall see we shall see i mean he's going to drink that champagne because we have now spent seven of the first 18 minutes of this podcast talking about josh gotheimer which might have been the goal all along all along all right so i mean here's the thing here's why it's sort of silly is joshahnheimer is not a real player. He's just doing whatever Kyrsten Sinema and Manchin tell him to do.

Or Mark Penn. They are the people calling the shots here, which is why we're going to move to them. What do Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema want? The question that we have been screaming into the void since January. We still don't know. No one knows. It's not clear that Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema know. Despite hours of meetings with Biden and other Democrats, neither of them have told anyone what level of spending they'd support, what kind of taxes they'd support, or any other details that might help move this bill along. Manchin released this crazy long statement late Wednesday that didn't say much of anything new. The key line is, while I'm hopeful the common ground can be found that would result in another historic investment in our nation, I cannot and will not support trillions in spending or on an all or nothing approach that ignores the brutal fiscal reality our nation faces. He goes on to say he wants the bill to only help those in need and he wants to undo the Trump tax cuts. All right. So there's this very confusing statement

that Manchin puts out Wednesday night. Everyone's very upset about it because he says, you know, passing 3.5 trillion is the definition of fiscal insanity and blah blah blah blah blah everyone goes nuts so then this morning politico finds a memo that mansion and schumer both signed july 28th that basically outlines exactly what mansion wants in the build back Better bill, even though Manchin has not said that publicly. And the memo says he wants it to be $1.5 trillion. He wants the debate on it to start October 1st. He wants means testing for every program. That means making sure that the wealthiest don't benefit from a lot of of these uh proposals he wants uh on on energy and

climate he wants to make sure that all the investments you make in climate reward clean energy but don't penalize fossil fuels which is a fucking bummer uh he wants the corporate rate at 25 he wants to raise income taxes to 39.6 at the top rate raise capital gains and carried interest so fairly good on taxes even though not quite where uh biden and the democrats are on the corporate rate so that's what mansion wants and what do you think about this whole thing that like schumer so schumer basically signs the bottom of this memo and then says writes also i will try to push joe to change some of these who is he writing that to what What's the promise? I don't understand. Anyway, this memo has been sitting there

since July 28th. Everyone's been like, what does Joe Manchin want? He writes these fucking inscrutable op-eds and statements. Meanwhile, we have a very clear memo here the whole time. I'm so confused about this.

I just, I feel like we almost have to apologize to Joe Manchin. Not for, he's definitely wrong on what needs to happen. Elijah, there's your SEO for today. Pfeiffer apologizes to Joe Manchin. I mean, our frustration has been he wouldn't say what he wants. And he said what he wanted. And he wrote it down in pretty significant detail

and then got the Senate majority leader to sign the piece of paper. Isn't it his fault, though, for forgetting what he wrote down or not being able to fucking articulate what he wrote down? What is wrong with this man? Well, you know, he... I don't... Is he playing with the full deck here? I do not know. But he did today.

He had some sort of press engagement, and people asked him, like, why didn't you say anything? He said, I was trying to uphold my end of the agreement. Yeah, so what's the agreement? Hush, hush on everything. Like, don't, don't even tell your colleagues. That's what I'd like to know more of. Like, what's the point?

Like, this is, we're going to try to do this behind closed doors and don't like keep your cards close to the vest. I don't, I don't know, but he like, here's what I can't figure out for the life of me is Joe Manchin wrote down what he wanted. Like, here's what I can't figure out for the life of me is Joe Manchin wrote down what he wanted. Why is Joe Manchin and Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Biden in a fucking room together working this out? This is what I've been saying for months. Put them all on the almost heaven on Manchin's houseboat.

Fucking pull up the anchor. Send them out to sea. Don't let them come back until the deal is done. Just keep them out there. I mean, this is through all of this, right? Whether it's Manchin, Sinema, these house moderates, the centrists, Gottheimer, the people who sank the Medicare thing. It's like everyone has to take a step back and look at the big picture here, which is we're not going to agree on all the details.

Joe Manchin is going to be way more conservative than we want him to be. Kirsten Sims is going to be way more difficult than we want her to be. We're not going to get everything we want. We won't even get probably most of what we want, which is what happens when we have a 50-seat Senate majority that depends on a guy who represents a state that Donald Trump won by nearly 40 points. We're not going to get what we want here. But everyone stop fucking around, get your heads out of your asses and go figure it out because the stakes could not be any higher. This is our last chance to do something about climate change, potentially our last chance to our best way to try to protect the majority from this group of fucking lunatics who were

trying to come in here and steal the next election. And it's just like, there is like, why are we communicating by vague statements and secret agreements and tweets and just figure it out? It's, it's hard, but it's not as hard as we are making it. No way to run a railroad, Dan. Is that, that's a, that's a, is that a saying? That's a, yeah. Yeah, of course. I don't know. I mean, isn't that a, let me know if I'm just old. I don't want to ignore the substantive implications of Manchin's memo. We have this has been a problem, not just for us, but all Democrats are this entire process talking numbers and politics and negotiations and keep forgetting about what the fucking bills are going to do. So at $1.5 trillion, and I saw Jeff Stein from the Washington Post tweet about this, that would only pay for, I should say only, the full extension of the child tax credit, which has already basically cut child poverty in half over the last several months. And to have that permanent would be quite something. And then the climate provisions.

That would leave out all the education provisions and all the health care provisions, which is which is really bad. Now, there's a lot of mix and match there. Maybe you don't make the child tax credit permanent. You extend it for a couple more years and then use the rest of the money on some education and health care, whatever. But it's a real you would really have to start scaling back a lot of the proposals at 1.5. Now, Manchin was also asked at this press gaugle, is 1.5 that your final offer? You will never go above 1.5. And he gave some wiggle room. He did not draw any red lines. So maybe you could see this getting to 1.9 to, I don't know, but it's certainly not going to be 3.5, which is something that we've known for quite a while now. Yeah, there's been definitely an expectations management problem among everyone involved.

And I think part of it comes from everyone was so blown away by the success of the American Rescue Act process, where it's like Joe Biden asked for $2 trillion. He got $2 trillion. And yeah, Joe Manchin did some annoying things on means testing. And Kyrsten Sinema did a few annoying things. But we got what we wanted. This is amazing. And everyone's like, Democrats have learned all the lessons.

We're going to be big and bold and not afraid. And we forgot that. And I think what we lost in that was that was a unique situation. And it's sort of, if you look at like the last many years of Congress, sort of the Affordable Care Act and the Trump tax scam are the exceptions, not the rule. Everything else significant that has been done has been done in the middle of a crisis facing a gigantic deadline that would have dramatic impacts, right? Tax cuts expiring, taxes going up, default. And so just, there's no real deadline here. Like the fact that we're having this conversation about the vote tonight, that is a fake deadline. That isn't something that Josh Gottheimer and the centrist asked for. It means nothing. And I know they'll say, well, the surface transportation authorization

expires. You know what happens tomorrow if we don't pass that? The roads don't close, people. It's a fake thing. You can put it in the CR and pass it tomorrow. It's not real. This is a completely fake deadline. And so that is one thing I think that it is worth stepping back from the brink when you read all of the apocalyptic news coverage that is likely to come tomorrow, which is this is a setback. Time is never your friend when you're trying to pass a bill. Like, you know, there's some metaphor about fish and smelling if you leave it out too long. You never want to leave members of Congress too much time alone with their thoughts. Like, bad things will happen.

Well, that, yeah. Idle hands. Idle hands, idle hands. But next week is just as good as this week. And Joe Manchin did say in that weird contract that Chuck Schumer signed and told no one that he wanted to start on October 1st. That's tomorrow, people. Let's get to work. I know. The other thing Joe Manchin said during this press gaggle today, he said, I've never been a liberal. I'm more of a conservative Democrat. If you want to pass a $3.5 trillion package, elect more liberals. And I had to, I was like, yeah, he's right.

He's right. And like, we spend a lot of time with Joe Manchin's thinking. What are Joe Manchin's motivations? We can like wrap, it doesn't really matter at the end of the day, because we can't do anything about Joe Manchin, at least until 2024 and probably ever. All right. He has a vote. You can yell at him. He still has the vote. You can run ads against him. He still has the vote. And it is possible that there is no hidden secret dark motivation to all what Joe Manchin does, except the fact that he is a

conservative Democrat, that he's with us on some things, but he's just not with us on everything else. That doesn't make him a good guy or a worse guy. It doesn't matter. It just makes, that's what he is. And that's the rules of the Senate and the laws that we have right now. And it fucking sucks. But if we want to change it, then yes, we have to elect more liberals. And I think that's a really important point about Manchin, because in a lot of cases over the years, you have Democrats representing red areas, and they are personally much more progressive than they can be and keep their seat. Joe Manchin, and then they retire, they lose, and all of a sudden, they're like, I know I never said before, but Medicare for all, great, right? Or it's just they are unburdened. And that happens sometimes when people decide not

to run for reelection. They are unburdened of the constraints of the electorate of their state, and they will take some tougher votes or more progressive votes. I think you're right. Joe Manchin is a conservative. He is a conservative Democrat. He is further to the right from the median of our party than just the right from the median of our party than just about anyone else, median of our party in Congress. And if he were to, you know, I often think like if Joe Manchin has always been assumed Joe Manchin would retire in 2024, but now he has given some indication he may run again. And I sort of thought, well, whatever person convinced Joe Manchin that he can win in West Virginia in 2024 is one of history's great villains, but that's not actually true.

He's going, he is almost certainly going to lose. I'm sorry to say that, but I don't think if Joe Manchin retired said announced tomorrow, he's not running for election. He'd turn around and do a bunch of progressive shit. I don't think that's who he is. And this is, this is what we're stuck with. He'd probably go be a lobbyist somewhere and make a bunch of money. And everyone would be like, see, he told you and be like, yeah, no, that's just, he's, he told us. He's like, that's who I

am. What are we going to do about that? I think one of the, just on that mansion thing, one, the, I think one of the rules, I think that for the rest of our time in the majority that we all have to abide by more is we should, we have to pay less attention to this, to the things Joe Manchin says, because they're very confusing and more attention to the things that Kyrsten Sinema is not saying. Like that is one of the things that she has been super silent through all of this. Great segue. I was going to, I was just about to get this because everything that we've been saying about Joe Manchin, uh, very little of it applies to Kyrsten Sinema because she is in a completely different political environment being a senator from Arizona. What the fuck is she doing?

Like, what is her excuse for pissing off Democrats? She like now again, what is Kyrsten Sinema want? We don't have a memo that she and Chuck Schumer signed at least yet. At least hasn't been leaked yet. But who the fuck knows? But from all the reports uh she's keeping the cards very close to her vest she doesn't give these you know gaggles like mansion does she's very quiet about this she's been meeting with the white house um for like hours

and days this week both with biden and with the white house staff so she has been negotiating she's not telling us we don't know what her negotiations are. We've heard some some leaks that she's where the Democrats are on climate or at least closer to where they are in climate than Manchin is, but further away than on taxes. But beyond that, we really don't know much about what she wants. We do know that there was a new super pack that launched today to um where you can donate uh to an eventual primary opponent so that's something uh what do you what do you think about cinema which i'm like again levitt said he's ready to uh break his finger hitting the uh act blue donate button which i have to be honest i'm getting pretty fucking close to depending on how this this vote goes oh i am i I don't. Almost without knowing who the person is,

I am supporting whoever is playing Kyrsten Sinema. I'm sorry. Arizona is not West Virginia, right? It's not. I think the person who is probably most annoyed at Kyrsten Sinema on the planet is not us. It's not Joe Biden. It's got to be Mark Kelly. He's just doing his job. He's a moderate. He's got Kyrsten Sinema making every Democrat in the state depressed. Mark Kelly is up for reelection next year. She, you have her making him look more, she's like setting the barometer of moderation in the state. So now he looks more liberal than he actually is. Like what a fucking disaster. I have, I cannot explain. There is no, there is a political logic as annoying as it is to Manchin, as we just said. There is, I do not understand Kirsten Sinema's, there is not a policy framework

for what she wants. There is not a political set of incentives here. It is just, ugh, that's just what it is. I don't know. Well, again, it's about things that we have control over and things we don't. There's not much we can do about Joe Manchin is the hard truth. We've said that many times. There's something we can do about Kyrsten Sinema. Again, not till 2024. But yeah, there's a lot of snarky people online who are like, oh, well, she knows her constituents better than online Twitter. It's like, well, what about Mark Kelly?

I keep coming back to that. Mark Kelly won in Arizona. He's pretty moderate. He's not with, you know, progressive Democrats on every issue, even most issues. And he's not fucking everything up right now. It is possible to be elected in Arizona as a Democrat and still reflect the more moderate electorate there and not be acting like Kyrsten Sinema is acting. It is completely possible. I totally believe that.

I mean, there is a Politico profile of Kyrsten Sinema from earlier this year. Like I said, time has no meaning. But it's like she was the first Democrat to win statewide in whatever it is, 20 years or something, which is a notable fact until two Democrats won statewide the next year. It's like, yeah, it's a state that is getting bluer. She didn't come up with some magic formula to win. It's just, it's a state that's getting bluer and she won. It's just,

I don't know. I do not know what to do about it. It's hugely problematic. Yelling about it doesn't seem to matter. Yes, we can break our finger giving money to our primary opponent who does not yet exist. That doesn't solve any problems right now other than making us feel better, which is a problem I would like to solve. Maybe – optimistic take. Maybe it puts pressure on her. Maybe she wants to be a senator again and she wants to win.

She is. And then the other sort of- John, she took the summer off to intern at a winery. Yeah, I haven't even gotten into that. She missed votes to run in a triathlon, I think. Like, it doesn't seem like legislating is her passion here. Living her best life. I will say the optimistic take is that she, if she really wanted to kill this thing, why

would she be running back and forth to the White House all week with spreadsheets and negotiations? Like, she wants something. We just don't know what it is. So whatever. Brings us to Biden in the White House. A lot of anonymous griping from Democrats on the Hill, as Democrats in the Hill are want to do, that Biden's not doing enough to land this plane. Is that fair? What else could he be doing?

It's inevitable that this criticism would come, right? It is. And whenever something is not going well that involves the Hill, there will be people on the Hill who will play in the White House. Sometimes that path goes the other way i don't even i would like say yes he should be doing more but what should he be doing i'm not entirely sure like it's like what i don't speech yeah it's like this is not a communication i'm gonna say what everyone said in the white house that always always made me really mad big speech let's give a big speech yeah i know the person who said that the most dan yeah it was you no no no south side of chicago hawaii indonesia maybe you know that guy um but i like i don't like i guess i don't like i can't yes do more solve the problem i can't

really tell you how like which is a side that it's more complicated than just like more presidential involvement. I mean, he's clearly meeting with the right people. He can't force them to come to agreement. It's not like he can't. There is no like be more like LBJ. I was like, I don't know what that means. Do like twist arms, go to West Virginia, go to areas like that. I don't think that's going to solve the problem here the one thing that i think the white house could do and i recognize it's incredibly challenging

is someone needs to make the case for this bill on a map like in a politically compelling way well that i mean i was only half joking about the speech thing and i'm not just saying this to now get revenge on speechwriters who were in the White House who have to do this because I've been in those poor Van Nuys if he's listening. No, like, and I don't know negotiating, please don't go out there and start just barnstorming the country and giving big speeches because it's going to push us further away from you and we're going to be less likely to have a deal. Maybe that happened. But I think you can give speeches about what's in these bills and how important they are and what the stakes are and what the urgency is without attacking Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Again, we've talked about this before. Like you can start attacking the people, the special interests who are trying to stop this bill. Billionaires who don't want to pay more taxes,

drug companies who don't want people to pay for cheaper drugs, big oil companies that don't want to transition to clean energy, that don't want the country to like there's a whole speech out there you can give about why the country... There was a report yesterday that the meeting between Manchin and Biden, was Biden just talking to Manchin about all the reasons that the country desperately needs these policies and build back better.

Tell the rest of us. You know, give a big speech. I mean, I keep thinking about what we did around ACA. And in 2009, in the summer of 2009, when things were looking shitty, right around Labor Day, we gave a big speech to Congress about why the Affordable Care Act was needed. Did we think it was going to change a bunch of Republican minds? No, clearly not, because one of them stood up and screamed, you lie in the middle of the speech. in the middle of the speech. Didn't we think it was going to change a bunch of minds of Republican voters? Also no.

But what it did is it rallied Democrats around Barack Obama and the Affordable Care Act and all the Democrats in Congress and the House and the Senate that were wavering about that sort of, you know, started supporting the bill. And it wasn't just that big speech to Congress. Then he went to the caucuses

and sort of gave an off-the-cuff speech, both the House caucus and the Senate caucus, that was even more effective than the big speech he gave to Congress. So I do think that there is some role for the president to play here in rallying at least the Democratic Party to his side. What do you think? Yes. I mean, yes. Just the situations are, and I think, it's because all the same people are involved, right? So it's like Ron Klain was around back then, right? Mike Donilon was in the vice president's office back then.

Jen Psaki and Kate Bedingfield were in the White House back then. So everyone, the situations are not analogous. And not that we had it free and easy. We just had bigger margins, more margin for error. We could lose a couple dozen house members and still be fine. The hard part here is like, we're like, get your message out. It is like 150,000 times harder to get your message out in this day and age. And we know not to be like political playbook, but like, just look at like what Ron Klain's

doing on Twitter. Like he's also, they're fighting a battle on vaccine mandates and COVID. Klain's doing on Twitter. Like he's also, they're fighting a battle on vaccine mandates and COVID. You got the FDA just like fucking up your booster plan and you have, and you have Afghanistan and you have your members on the Hill, your, your, sorry, your cabinet folks on the Hill, like dealing with, like, there's just so much happening that it's really hard to get lift. You know, could a giant speech to Congress make a difference? Maybe. I think the one thing we, everyone needs to do, whether it's Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, every Democrat, us, progressive activists, is make the positive case for the bill, right? Make for why it matters, why it's important.

Sort of lift out of the legislative minutiae. And in every moment, point out that Republicans are unified against this incredibly popular bill. I understand why it's lost in the press coverage. It's totally understandable. Republicans have no say in whether this bill becomes law or not. But in the larger historical rendering of this moment, we're trying to save the planet. We're trying to help people, give people food and shelter. Republicans are doing nothing.

And we should call that out. And so it's a special interest in their cronies in the Republican Party should be part of the narrative. And the White House can, I'm sure, do more to make that happen. It's just really hard. Again, there's things you can control and there's things you can't control. The White House cannot control all of the stuff that you just mentioned, right? They're fighting on 10 different fronts, but most of them are beyond their control.

They didn't ask for a lot of these fights. but most of them are beyond their control. They didn't ask for a lot of these fights. And getting your message out in today's media environment is fucking brutally difficult. What do you control? You control what the president says and what public events the president does. They can do that.

And I would imagine, again, the only reason I think, I don't think, like you said, we know all these people. I don't think that they just haven't thought about this. Right, right, of course. There must be something about the negotiations that are stopping Biden from doing more publicly. I would imagine that if the infrastructure vote fails today or gets delayed, the next phase of this, you could see Joe Biden saying, all right, I'm going to make a stronger public case. I'm going to make a big speech. Maybe it's primetime.

Maybe it's not. Maybe it's to Congress. Maybe it's not. Then I'm going to go around the country. I'm going to sell individual components of this bill. I'm going to make sure that the public is still on our side because the public is on our side because it's a very popular fucking bill. But you could see that being the next phase if they don't reach a deal today or in the next few days. Believe it or not, though, the budget negotiations are not even close to the biggest problem the Democrats need to solve right now. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the government will run out of money to pay its debts on October 18th, which means that the U.S. will default, which would trigger a global economic crisis and a catastrophic recession here

at home. The very easy and completely cost-free way to avoid this is for Congress to lift the debt ceiling, as they have done routinely in a bipartisan fashion for over a century. And Republicans are refusing to do so this time. Why? Because they want to lie to voters by running midterm ads that falsely equate Democrats voting to raise the debt ceiling with Democrats voting to add more debt. Which means that Democrats have no choice but to do this on their own. We thought through the budget reconciliation process, which only requires 51 votes in the Senate. But Schumer and other Democratic leaders, for some reason, ruled out reconciliation on Wednesday, saying that the process is too long and unpredictable to get done by the 18th.

Then today, before we started recording, Schumer said, we are willing to move forward on debt ceiling ourselves. What? What does that mean? What the hell is going on here? I don't have a clue.

I have not been able to figure this out for months. It is very strange to me. I mean, it's so wild that you have to use the sentence, the US Treasury Secretary said the United States would run out of money on October 18th. We're going to run out of money. And Yellen in the same testimony talked about some of the consequences of it. Obviously, recession, skyrocketing unemployment, 50 million Social Security recipients not getting Social Security, troops not getting paid. This is just gigantic.

I mean, it's a disaster of epic proportions. Now, it is not true that you can't do budget reconciliation in time. Is it easy? By the current rules as written, it would be very challenging to get it done in a short period of time. But guess what? The rules of Congress, all fake. They're all fake rules. They can just be changed by a majority of people. We have a majority. We could change them. You could do it. It would not be that hard. What are the Republicans going to do? Who do they appeal to?

Nancy Pelosi, who's in charge of the House? Fine, right? It's like, it's a fake thing. Sue us. I don't care. So you could do it. Now, the reason to take it off the table is you have to say there is no out, right? That we are, like, we're in a game of chicken.

We're heading towards the cliff and there is no, you know, you've like, there's no way out. So maybe I've been trying to, I've been really trying to figure this out because these people are not dumb. They don't want to default. They've been through this before. So like, what is going on here? Maybe they just want to push it as far as they possibly can.

And at the last minute, they'll say we're responsible and do it by debt, by budget reconciliation somehow by hook or by crook, or like, maybe they will blink. So the Republicans will blink? Well, I mean, just think about this, right? I don't like, I just, just, I think this whole thing is- Tim Kaine had the best quote about that today. Someone asked Tim Kaine whether he thought the Republicans would blink. He's like, that's like putting on rose-colored glasses and looking for a unicorn with a four-leaf clover.

Hey, Tim- Just mixing a lot of different metaphors, but I like where he's gone with that. Yeah, I mean, Tim Kaine, you have lunch with all these people once a week. You see them in the hall. Again, again, I ask, why aren't you all talking to each other? It's like if Crooked Media operated solely by us talking to each other on the podcasts

and we never had any meetings. That's what Congress operates like that to me. That's what it looks like to me right now. They talk to reporters, they talk to each other through reporters and press releases, and yet these people don't have the discussions they need to have to do their jobs in these private meetings. What is going on? So here's how this could, there are a couple ways this could end. One, default. That's bad, but it could, that could happen. Don't want that. Second is Democrats just blink and do it by debt reconciliation, which is the fakest blink ever. Like who gives a fuck? Like it's not a real thing. There's no

concession. You're not doing anything. Like there's never been a fight with higher stakes about less than this one. Like no one wants anything. Democrats don't, or they're not demanding anything from Republicans. Republicans aren't asking, This isn't like 2011 or 2013. They're not asking for Social Security cuts or Medicare cuts or spending cuts or the repeal of affordable character, anything. They're asking for nothing. They're saying, do it on your own, but we're not going to let you do it on your own. So it's basically, we've come down, this critical moment has come down to two options, two primary options here. One is Democrats blink into it by budget reconciliation, or Republicans agree to a consent to waive the

filibuster so Democrats could just vote 50 votes for it. Like those are the two things. Or a third option, which has been my wild theory about this whole thing, that maybe this has been Schumer's plan all along, that Republicans refuse to waive the filibuster, but the Democrats use this moment as we are about to default and cause an economic catastrophe to finally convince Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to waive the filibuster and Democrats use this to get rid of the filibuster. Now that is me, the filibuster radical from way back when wish casting probably. Me, the filibuster radical from way back when, wish casting, probably. But, like, I just, the reason I keep thinking about that is because, look, what else has Schumer been doing?

It is such a fucking bizarre strategy to me. Like, if it's true that it can ultimately be done by reconciliation, Republicans know that. Mitch McConnell knows the rules of the Senate. You're not fooling him by saying, oh, no, it can't be done through reconciliation. Just kidding. It actually can. You're not fooling anyone with that. What do you do it? I don't understand. So maybe if it really can't be done through budget reconciliation in time for the 18th, because it's a real long process, then the only option really is to get rid of the filibuster. And if Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are looking at the options to get rid of the filibuster or let the country default,

they're much more likely to get rid of the filibuster than McConnell and the Republicans joining in. Yeah, I think that is true. But before people get their expectations out of whack, it'll be like, we're giving the filibuster, we're going to pass the For the People Act, and all of that. It's going to be a debt ceiling carve out. Right. I mean, maybe that's the Camelsons under the tent that starts us on our path. You know, the first one's free, Dan.

That's right. They get you hooked. Yeah. I don't know. It is, it's wild. I do not believe that any of these people will let us default. I agree. I am not, there's a lot of reporters completely freaking out about this and they're like, everyone should understand the country. This is the scariest moment yet that we've ever,

you know, this is the closest we've been to the brink ever. No, it's not. In 2011, we could have defaulted because we didn't have an agreement with the Republicans and Republicans just would let it happen. I firmly believe that Democrats are going to figure out a way to make sure the country doesn't default. I am not losing sleep over this. Maybe I should, but I'm not losing sleep. If this was Kevin McCarthy in the house, I would be very worried that he would stumble ass backwards into a default. Like the issue wasn't even in 2011, wasn't whether we could get a deal with Boehner and Eric Cantor. It was whether they had the juice to get their members to vote for it. And that almost failed at the last minute because

they were too weak and too stupid to lead their party. McConnell, we only need 10 Republicans. You don't need a majority of the majority like you do with the House. And so I think they will figure something out. It's just such a stupid waste of time and energy. And it's going to start affecting people's lives. It's going to affect the stock market pretty out. It's just such a stupid waste of time and energy. And it's going to start affecting people's lives. It's going to affect the stock market pretty soon. That's going to affect people's 401ks and their income and everything else. And it's just dumb. Yeah, it's stupid.

When we come back, Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report talks to Dan about the latest redistricting maps and what they mean for control of Congress. Draft congressional maps are circulating furiously on Twitter. The redistricting process is underway here. To explain it all to us is Mr. Redistricting himself, the U.S. House editor of the Cook Political Report, Dave Wasserman. Dave, thanks for joining us. Hey, thanks so much, Dan. I want to talk about a lot of specifics happening in states, but first, redistricting is your passion. It's your Twitter handle. This is your Super Bowl, your Olympics. It happens once every

10 years. It is here. How are you feeling? How are you doing? No pressure, right? Right. So it's amazing. I feel like redistricting has exploded in the public consciousness over the past decade, in part because it's become existential, right? As voters are more geographically polarized, urban versus rural, than they used to be, as straight ticket voting has hit all time highs. really is so important how these district lines are drawn. I mean, they essentially determine, predetermine political outcomes in, you know, all but a handful of the most competitive drawn districts. When I signed up for the Twitter handle at redistrict back in, I think, 2009, I thought I was just signing up to cover the 2010 redistricting round and then I would get off Twitter. Little did I know that redistricting never is fully resolved, right? There were lawsuits that lasted all through the decade. And in fact, had it not been for Democratic lawsuits that overturned Republican drawn maps in Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, Democrats would not be

holding the speaker's gavel right now. Kevin McCarthy would be speaker, not Nancy Pelosi. Do you spend the nine years leading up to this training, working on spreadsheets, just drawing fake maps to train like a biathlete for the Winter Olympics? How does that work for you? This sounds crazy, Dan, but my way of zoning out at the end of the day is to draw maps. And that's been true since I was a kid. But now there are more high-tech gadgets to be able to do that. My favorite app is actually Dave's redistricting app, which people think is me, but I didn't actually build it. I've consulted to help with it, but it's a guy named Dave Bradley, who's a retired Microsoft engineer out in Seattle. And he put this together in advance of the last round, but now it's basically got so much sophistication with the help of his team that it's on par with the

most expensive software that has been used by political professionals to draw maps. And so it's really small d democratized the game. Although, of course, this is still the province of insiders in most states. So as the process was going under getting underway, after we sort of knew, the Democrats had not done as well at the state legislative level as we had thought in 2020, there was a lot of fears among Democrats that the redistricting process would cost us the majority in itself. It would maybe would put us so far in a hole we couldn't possibly overcome it. You have been, you sort of, I don't want to say poo-poo because it's not poo-poo, but you've been more sanguine about the threat to Democrats and others. Can you explain why that is? Well, look, just because I think redistricting

this cycle could be only a minimal gain for Republicans doesn't mean I think it doesn't matter because the net effect of redistricting is to reduce the overall number of competitive seats. And we see what's happening in Texas. I'm sure we'll talk about it, but Republicans proposed a map that essentially moves all nine of their vulnerable incumbents into much more solid Republican districts by purging as many Democrats and minority voters from those districts as possible. So that isn't necessarily a seat gain for Republicans, but it's a game of keep away, right, from the Democrats. And so, you know, it's a continuation of what we saw in 2011, where Republicans had almost a five to one advantage in the number of districts that they got to draw over Democrats. And what they did was they locked in their gains from 2010, when they had a really great anti Obama

midterm, right. And so they they were able to use those lines to preserve power for most of the decade. But I think what happened in 2018 was a couple things. Number one, by eight years into a census cycle, a lot of suburbs have changed. A lot of the best laid plans of partisan cartographers unravel because political trends overtake it. And so we saw a number of districts that were drawn by Republicans last time to be safe red seats in places like Atlanta and Houston and Dallas and the suburbs of Detroit that flipped blue when you had this blue wave in 2018. The other component of it was the Democrats got some really good court decisions. They managed to take a majority on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which overturned the Republican gerrymander in that state that had given Republicans 13 of the 18 districts for most of the decade. As a result of the new court-ordered map, the delegation is

now split 9-9. And so you have much more politically equitable maps in place in North Carolina, Pennsylvania than you used to. So I maps in place in North Carolina, Pennsylvania than you used to. So I'm glad you brought up Texas, because when the Texas map came out, you, among others, remarked that it was not as aggressive as you thought. Democrats, myself included, thought Republicans would try to net as many as three or four seats out of this. But it was, as you said, less aggressive.

The history of Texas Republicans is not that they are doing this because they care about democracy or fairness. They have been the most aggressive, certainly in the 2000 cycle. Can you help people understand why they made the specific decision they made in Texas to do this? Sure. So look, I don't think this was a case where Republicans relented much. This is a smart map. I think it's the map that Democrats would have drawn if they were in charge of Texas and the roles were reversed, right? Was it as aggressive as I might've expected? It wasn't maximally aggressive in the sense that Republicans probably could have bacon mandmandered a bunch of districts out from Houston into really rural Texas, and it could have looked totally absurd, and they could

have maybe squeezed one more district out of it. But there are a couple of constraints on what Republicans were able to design. And the first is the Voting Rights Act. Keep in mind that those districts in South Texas, which are super Hispanic majority seats, Republicans did try. They are trying to flip one of them from a Biden plus two district to a Trump plus three district. And they could be successful in flipping that seat red. in flipping that seat red. But the reason they couldn't draw it into like a Trump plus 15 was that they would need to reduce the Hispanic population in a way that would trigger a Voting Rights Act suit. Now, there still is guaranteed to be litigation, VRA litigation over Republicans map if it's passed. The reason is 95% of Texas's net growth in the past decade was people who aren't white, including 53% Hispanic growth. And there's not a single new Hispanic opportunity district on the

map. There's a new Democratic vote sink in Austin, and it's a Biden plus 53 district. And the reason Republicans needed to draw that was that the Democratic vote growth in the Austin and I-35 corridor is unsustainable for all of their incumbents who represent parts of it. Travis County and Austin were split six ways under the old map. It's still split in a lot of ways this time, but essentially Republicans managed to stuff all these Democrats into one district so that each of their incumbents in surrounding seats gets 15 points safer. It's exactly what Democrats would have done had they been in charge. So the thing about this is you use the term, and some of you write on

this, called defensive gerrymander, right? Which essentially, as I understand it, trying to do is instead of trying to grab as many seats as you possibly can right now, right, putting at both risk the court action, which could take it out of their hands, but also sort of as a bulwark against the changing demographics of the state, which are heading in one direction. Is that correct? That's absolutely correct. And, you know, back when Republicans drew this map the last time in 2011, they designed

these seats with the understanding that they they probably get more purple over time. And in fact, they did. And it's pretty impressive, actually, how Republicans just barely managed to hang on in the 2020 cycle. They managed to reelect nine incumbents in districts where Biden got more than 47% of the vote. So had this been left untouched another cycle, I think Republicans might have lost a whole bunch of seats. But now they get to move those seats to higher ground. We may be talking about a similar dynamic at the end of the 2020s, where a bunch of seats that look safer Republicans today in DFW and Houston, in the Austin area, are once again competitive, but it's going to be a while until that happens.

You, among others, have suggested that Florida is a place where Republicans might take a more aggressive approach to redistricting. What are you expecting from there and how bad could it be for Democrats? Well, Republicans' biggest weapon this cycle is probably Florida. The reason is they have a 16 to 11 edge in the delegation today. And it was a map that was altered by courts in the middle of the last decade. And now Republicans feel like they have a freer hand because the state Supreme Court, which is charged with essentially enforcing the Fair Districts Amendment that was passed by voters there in 2010 that was supposed to curb gerrymandering, has taken a hard right turn. So six of the seven justices on the

Florida Supreme Court were appointed by Rick Scott or Ron DeSantis. That's a real sea change from what we had when in 2015, the Florida Supreme Court struck down the previous Republican map. So this time, Republicans could add three seats to their total for a 19-9 breakdown. I think they're going to target Stephanie Murphy's seat north of Orlando. That's probably the easiest to gerrymander into a red district. We'll see if she runs again. Charlie Crist in St. Pete is running for governor and Republicans could draw that seat into a double digit Trump seat, but they'd probably have to stuff parts of St. Pete in with Tampa, which was struck down under the last court ruling. We'll see if the court would green light that this time. under the last court ruling. We'll see if the court would green light that this time. And then Republicans could add the state's new seat to their column. It's gaining a district, and they could put that in the villages or somewhere in Central Florida, right? But keep in mind that in South Florida, Republicans have to protect their own incumbents. They've got two

Miami incumbents who need some boosting in the remap. And Maria Salazar is the number one example. I think Republicans will probably try and chop Miami Beach out of that district and perhaps brickle into Debbie Wasserman Schultz's district to flip it from a Biden seat to a Trump seat. And then they have to find a way to protect Carlos Jimenez to the South. So Republicans in the Sunbelt states they control, they're constrained by the fact that number one, a lot of these maps are already Republican gerrymanders. So you can't gain a seat you already have. Number two, they have to shore up a lot of their own people. And number three, demographic growth, population growth has mostly been in areas that are urban, more diverse, and more democratic.

Are there other states under Republican control that you're watching that could be determinative in how this plays out in terms of the House majority, both this time and over the next decade? Oh, yeah. You know, the other states where Republicans could conceivably gerrymander their way to gains are North Carolina. But again, you know, the state Supreme Court there is going to be crucial. North Carolina is the only big state where the governor does not have veto power over maps. And so the Democratic- Which is not an accident. Which is not an accident. Yes. Well, actually, it was a change that was made a long time ago by Democrats thinking that they would always hold the legislature. But there might occasionally be a Republican governor. Now, you know, it's got a law of unintended consequences. So Republicans could try and squeeze two more seats out of North Carolina. But that's really subject to to the state Supreme Court. Carolina, but that's really subject to the state Supreme Court. And the Democrats actually heartbreakingly for them lost a state Supreme Court race for chief justice by 400 votes in 2020.

That could be hugely consequential to the MAP outcome. Georgia, right now it has an eight to six Republican advantage. I expect Republicans to try and push that to nine to five by putting Lucy McBath and Carolyn Bordeaux into the same district, or at least making one of those districts much more Republican. And then Ohio is a real wild card here. You know, Ohio has this new kind of hybrid process where there's supposed to be bipartisan buy-in required to pass a new map. But if the party's deadlock, then the Republicans who control the legislature with the super majorities can pass along party lines a map that's valid for four years. That's what I expect they'll try to do. And they could try and convert their 12 to 4 advantage in Ohio into as wide as 13 to 2 by getting rid of

Tim Ryan and Marcy Kaptur's seats. However, again, the state Supreme Court, which is more moderate than the legislature, could strike that down as a violation of the reform that was supposed to take effect. So one theme that is really emerging this cycle that's new from last cycles is because Congress and the Supreme Court have failed to step in and put guardrails up against gerrymandering, the last line of defense against partisan shenanigans is really state courts. And not only in North Carolina, Florida, and Ohio, but all over the country, they're going to be critical. And that's an important point just for people to understand, which is parties can sue under

the Voting Rights Act if it's a racial gerrymander. But if it's a partisan gerrymander, they no longer can sue in federal court because of a recent Supreme Court decision. Is that correct? That's correct. And the Supreme Court decision in 2019 that said you can't bring a federal partisan gerrymandering claim, that's really curbed what Democrats had hoped for as the most powerful tool to combat Republican maps. But I think it's actually added some clarity

at the state level that this is really a matter that states need to resolve if they want to combat the most extreme excesses of the majority party. Now, of course, that's tricky. You know, are states able to pass a ballot amendment? Are they able to establish a commission? We do see that this time around, there are three more commissions than last time. Actually, four, because Montana's commission now gets to divide the state in half because it gained a seat. So you've got 10 states totaling 121 districts with commissions in place. And those are real wild cards as well. Let's go to the Democrats. And I want to come back to the commissions for a second.

But as I understand it, there are probably three states where Democrats have an opportunity to be aggressive, they control the process, and there's a movement. The three most notable states in everything I know about redistricting, I know from your Twitter handle, but is Illinois, Maryland, and New York. Is that correct? Are there other Democratic states where the process could advantage them? The only other one could be New Mexico. And, you know, that's a state to watch as well. But, you know, you make a very important point. The states that Democrats control are really important. And at the same time, had it not been

for more of these commissions, they would have, you know, much more parity in terms of the districts they get to draw. You know, the total is there are 75 districts under Democratic control. There are 187 districts under Republican control. Had it not been for commission states, though, and if legislatures got to draw maps in, for example, California and Virginia, and you had Democrats in control of those processes, the total breakdown would be 200 for Republicans to 168 for Democrats. So a much closer margin. But those three big prizes for Democrats, the onus really falls on those states to counteract what Republicans are doing elsewhere. So in Illinois, Democrats could convert a 13 to

five breakdown now into 14 to three. And they do that by probably eliminating Adam Kinzinger and converting Rodney Davis's district downstate into a Democratic seat. Now, Democrats might say, well, Adam Kinzinger, he's our favorite Republican. Well, the Democrats I talked to in Illinois are convinced that they're not well, Adam Kinzinger, he's our favorite Republican. Well, the Democrats I talked to in Illinois are convinced that they're not necessarily eliminating Adam Kinzinger so much as they'd be eliminating a pro-Trump Republican who would beat him in a primary. So that's the calculus there. In Maryland, Democrats could completely eradicate Republicans from federal office by eliminating Andy Harris's seat. And

the strategy there would be to combine most of the Eastern shore of Maryland with parts of Anne Arundel County and perhaps Howard County. So Annapolis and Columbia perhaps, and that would flip a double digit Trump seat into a double-digit Biden seat. We'll see if Maryland's congressional delegation, whether the Democrats there, are able to coalesce behind that strategy because everyone wants a safe seat. But New York is by far Democrats' biggest redistricting weapon. It's really the biggest weapon for either party in the country. Currently, there are 19 Democrats and eight Republicans in New York. And Democrats, if they're able to override the commission there, which is really kind of an advisory commission,

they could purge as many as five of the eight Republicans from the delegation for a 23 to 3 breakdown overall. Governor Kathy Hochul has said that she's willing to help Democrats in this regard. Keep in mind that she was essentially drawn out of a winnable district in the last round when a court got to redraw the map. This is the first time Democrats have had unified control of Albany in a redistricting cycle since 1912. So, you know, a lot of people ask, well, why haven't Democrats done this before? Well, they haven't had functional control of state government to be able to impose their will. But the way this would work is Democrats would take advantage of two Republicans who are not running for reelection. Lee Zeldin on Long Island, his

seat could be converted from a Trump plus four district into a Biden plus 10 district in the Hamptons and parts of Islip and Babylon. You could see in Western New York, Democrats combine the seat of retiring Republican Tom Reed with Chris Jacobs into a super Republican vote sink there. And then as much as Democrats hate Elise Stefanik, it's probably actually in their interest to put her into a super red district in the North country to maximize Democrats' chances of winning other upstate districts, including those held by Claudia Tenney and John Katko. And then probably the most egregious from a community of interest standpoint would be combining Staten Island with parts of Brooklyn like Park Slope and Prospect

Park and Cobble Hill so that you convert a Trump plus 11 district into a Biden plus 12 district. And that would basically roll out the blue carpet for Max Rose to come back to Congress there. So when you add that all together, that's the gerrymander that could net Democrats five more seats, or sorry, four more seats for them, but five fewer seats for Republicans. And I want to just push on the commission boards as people were. You tweeted out, Colorado is what became the third state, I guess, to finish its map. Or no, they're not finished yet. They have finalized the map, they send it to the Supreme Court. It is a, I think the Cook Report scored it a four, you think it's a four-four split in the state that Joe Biden won by 13 points?

Well, we think it's more like 4.5 to 3.5. Who gets the 0.5? Do we get the 0.5? Democrats get the 0.5 or Republicans? Who gets the 0.5? Do we get the 0.5? Democrats get the 0.5 or Republicans? So, you know, the map that the commission agreed to in Colorado is a compromise map between the parties. And even though Democrats think that the 8th district, the new seat Colorado's getting from the census should be theirs. And the reality is the reform that voters passed put an equal number of Democrats and Republicans on the commission, in addition to, you know, for unaffiliated commissioners. And so they had to arrive at a deal. And the deal is that this new eighth district north of Denver would be a seat that voted for Trump by two points in 2016, but by Biden for five points in 2020. So it's more of a fair fight kind of district. It's designed as kind of a Hispanic influence district. And Democrats, you know, if I had to really guess, I think Democrats will end up keeping it, but it's likely to be very competitive. And so you have four solid Democratic seats, three solid Republican seats, including Lauren Boebert's, by the way.

And then you've got this new competitive district. And so, you know, it could be a 5-3 map. It could end up being 4-4, which would be a great outcome for Republicans in a blue state. But over time, I expect that district to get bluer. You know, 20 years ago, Colorado gained a seventh district, and it was designed as a fair fight seat north of Denver. Over time, as the Denver suburbs got bluer, so did that district. So the same scenario could play out right now. And then last question, California, which also has a commission, do you have an understanding or a thought or expectation of what happens there as California loses a seat for the first time ever, I believe? or expectation of what happens there as California loses a seat for the first time ever, I believe? So that's right. And California's commission, no one is sure what they'll do right now, but we do know where the population is. And so the seat loss is going to have to come from LA County. LA County had enough people for 14 districts 10 years ago. It only has enough people for 13 this time around. And the conventional

wisdom is that a Democratic seat somewhere in LA County gets collapsed, but that could have some reverberations outside of downtown, right? So if you eliminate one blue seat in LA, then a lot of surrounding districts have to kind of move inward a little bit. And if Mike Garcia's district in Northern LA County gets pulled a little bit South, it could torpedo his chances of, of winning reelection. If young Kim's district in Orange County gets pulled closer into LA, that could, could make her reelection race much tougher. that could make her reelection race much tougher. And so overall, I'm expecting at least a couple of Republican held seats to get bluer. And Democrats own less competitive real estate at the moment. So the odds are that the seat loss will come from Republicans' column, but we're just going to have to wait and find out. Awesome. Dave, thank you so much. This is very helpful. We will everyone needs to follow every

district on Twitter, not just during their district, but also on elections nights for the official call of seen enough. Dave, thank you so much. And we'll talk to you again soon. Hey, thanks for letting me nerd out. All right. Before we go, we do have some exclusive polling that was conducted for the good folks at Tax March by ALG Research, which is John Anzalone's firm, former Obama pollster and Biden's top pollster. They surveyed a few thousand likely midterm voters in six districts represented by some of the centrist Democrats in the House who forced this infrastructure vote and have been complaining about Build Back Better. Kurt Schrader in Oregon, Jared Golden in Maine, Scott Peters in California, Lizzie Fletcher in Texas, Stephanie Murphy in Florida, and Carolyn Bordeaux in Georgia. Here's the bad news. Biden's approval is underwater

in all these districts except California and Oregon, and Republicans lead the generic midterm ballot in the Maine and Georgia districts. Here's the good news. Despite that very challenging political environment for Biden and Democrats, Build Back Better has at least 57% support in every district. A plurality of voters in every district say the bill would have a positive effect on them and their families personally, and that they would be less likely to vote for their member of Congress next year if that member voted no on Build Back Better. What was your takeaway from these polls? What are we doing, people? You have a very popular piece of legislation that people like. And it's not just that it is popular. It's also not polarizing. Republicans are not angry about

this. This does not get them fired up. By focusing on these issues in this bill, we are focusing on issues that unite our base and divide their base. That's exactly where you want to be in politics. It's very hard to find those things. We have them. It's before us. And we are tripping over our own two feet.

This is why I maintain some measure of relative optimism that something is going to get done here because the political logic for doing it is so overwhelming. Failure is an obvious disaster. And even the people, as you pointed out earlier, the people who need this most are the most vulnerable Democrats. This is good for them. This is not like the Affordable Care Act or the stimulus or these other very polarizing environments. The Republican coalition does not get fired up about size of government issues like it used to. They don't care about the debt, the deficit, they don't care about anything else other than racial grievance and cultural issues. And so you can go do this and it will strengthen you

with your base and strengthen you with independence. And it's not going to make your problems any worse. It's not going to fire up Republicans. So just go do it. And lest anyone think that the way the question was worded was just, you know, some progressives in a poll trying to make it sound as good as possible. Here's how the plan was described in the very long question that I'm about to read. Congress is considering legislation to lower costs for health care, prescription drugs, child care, education and electricity bills. The plan would include a tax cut to help working families pay for health care premiums, would allow Medicare to negotiate with drug companies to lower prescription drug costs, expand access to paid family and medical leave, and help families cover the cost of child care, elder care, and community college.

The plan is estimated to cost $3.5 trillion. They broke your rule, Dan. They put the $3.5 trillion in the description that they polled. What was the result? 61% support that plan, 36% 36 oppose this is not a national poll this is a poll in the most competitive house districts in the country split fairly evenly between democratic republican and independent voters in these districts i don't know what else to say i don't know what else to say no one's asking you to do anything hard. We're asking you to do something popular and good.

What a world. And they asked another version of it where they threw in, they're going to raise taxes on big corporations and the wealthiest Americans who earn more than $400,000, just as popular, people like that. They put in one, they tested one with the $3.5 trillion and the taxes, one without the $3.5 trillion. They all tested around the same, which was interesting to me. They all tested the same.

Because when people hear the component parts of the bill, which, of course, they are not hearing because of this fucking mess in D.C., they like it. And they want it to pass. Even if it costs a lot of money, they like it. One thing that I think is worth noting, we said the whole thing about speeches and messaging, and that is definitely true on the earned media side, on the press side. But whether it's the Build Back Better group or a bunch of Democratic super PACs have all been spending a lot of money to advertise this bill in these districts. So it is not an accident that even if the Twitter press narrative is just a fucking shit show of legislative morass, the messaging that a lot of swing voters are getting

in swing districts is exactly what the bill should be. And it's one of the reasons why it's so popular, because that is one lesson the Democrats definitely learned from the early Obama years, which is you're going to have to pay to put your messaging in front of people, because when you get to the legislating and the sausage making, it's disaster. And so there's good messaging about this. People are getting the actual narrative of the bill out there and it's showing up in polls. And one last point on this, on the other side, there's a ton of money being spent by Republican groups trying to oppose this and they're doing their best to message against it. Inflation, Nancy Pelosi gets a park in San Francisco, this money isn't going to you. And they've been out there with those ads for a while, and they haven't made this any less popular.

So those attacks clearly are not landing. So anything people can do with this information other than scream about it? I mean, call your member of Congress, right? You know, sometimes we're like, call this Republican member of Congress or call Joe Manchin. Like, here you have members of Congress who, and you're asking them to do something popular and good for their district, call them and tell them. If you are someone who volunteered on their campaigns, was a donor of their campaigns, call the campaign office and tell them how their vote on this is going to dictate your enthusiasm level for next cycle, right? That message will get back to the Congressman pretty darn fast. I can tell you that. And you always say this, Dan, obviously there's a lot of paid advertising out there.

Obviously it's hard for the White House and Democrats to get their message out through this media environment, but we all have the ability to help get the message out. We all have Twitter feeds. We all have Instagram feeds. We all have platforms, right? Like start talking about the different provisions in these bills and why they're so important and how they would change people's lives, what they would do for climate, what they would do for people looking for an education, what they would do for people looking to pay less for health care, what they would do to create jobs. Like, there are plenty of ways to talk about why this bill would positively impact people's lives. Clearly, when you describe it to people, a plurality of voters in the toughest districts in the country say, yeah, that would be pretty good for me and my family.

It would actually personally affect me. So that should tell us a lot. Okay, thank you to Reed District himself, Dave Wasserman, for joining us today. And we'll talk to you Monday. And I'm sure everything will be figured out by then. Bye, everyone. and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Brian Semmel,

Caroline Reston, Madison Hallman, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.