Pod Save America - “The greatest defeat in history.”

Episode Date: November 7, 2019

Democrats win big victories in Virginia and Kentucky, a new Crooked Media/Change PollerCoaster 2020 survey shows majority support for impeachment, and the Medicare for All debate between Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden gets heated. Then Run for Something’s Amanda Litman talks to Dan about all the new candidates who won on Tuesday.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. In studio. What a special day. Big day, people. Big day. Today on the pod, we have Dan's interview with Run for Something's Amanda Littman about all the winning candidates they helped support on Tuesday. Before that, we'll dig into the results of this week's big elections.

We'll announce the results of our latest 2020 Polar Coaster survey on impeachment. And we'll talk about the latest Democratic primary skirmish between Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren over Medicare for All. I'm calling them skirmishes. Skirmishes? Yeah, I don't want to get... What is that?

I don't want to get into too much... What words? Destroying each other. Yeah, what levels of fighting can fall on either side of skirmish? Yeah, I don't know. It's getting a little hotter than skirmish. But a few other crooked pods

to check out this week. On Pod Save the World, Tommy and Ben talk about what the death of al-bagdadi means for isis the future of climate activism after the paris climate agreement iran's increased nuclear activity protests in chile and iraq and the privatization of spying lots going on are these i love the pot save the world promos they are so thorough so thorough then for everyone that wasn't even the end then then america dissected host abdul al-saeed joins to talk about ebola super bugs and global public health if you're not listening to america dissected check it out it is extremely well done

informative and entertaining terrorism climate change super bugs it sounds like an obama foreign policy speech it sounds like the title should be three ways you could die. Finally, you've heard us talk about organizing core 2020 before. This is a new organization of former Obama people that's training a smart, diverse group of young people to become field organizers for 2020 in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, and Arizona. If you are from one of these states and interested in joining the general election as a field organizer, go to organizingcore2020.com. If you can't work in the general election, you still can help sponsor the training for someone who can. It costs $5,000 to recruit, train, and pay an organizer. An early investment now has a huge payoff come June of 2020 when the Democratic nominee will have only five months to wage a general election campaign against Donald Trump. This is a great program.

It's training organizers in the communities where they come from, where they're going to be working. It's training young people who are in college, just out of college. So check out OrganizingCourt2020.com if you want to participate and you're a young person or if you just want to sponsor someone. It's great. And before we get to the news, I believe you have some news. I do have some news. It is time to answer that periodic question. What do I do with my time? While the rest of you are running a company, you have your own podcasts. You've turned your dogs into Instagram influencers.

All of those things. I feel like you are quite busy doing all of the podcast stuff and raising a child. Is raising a child not as hard as I think it is? It is quite hard and has turned me into a firm opponent of Daylight Savings Time. Oh, yeah. A lesson you will... Having a child has taken me to the point where I actually agree with Lovett on one of his rants. So yes, but my actual news is in addition to raising a child, I wrote another book. Wow. I know you do a lot of

work. Well, when you get up at the crack ass of dawn, you can do some writing and this book, which will be released on February 18th, 2020, is called Untrumping America, A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again. It is born of the idea that there is nothing more important than beating Trump in 2020, but that is not enough to fix our democracy. Because you have to beat him like a drum? The first chapter is a series of drum emojis.

Please continue. The book is about what we can do to win in 2020 The first chapter is a series of drum emojis. Please continue. The book is about what we can do to win in 2020 and how Democrats have to make themselves the party of democracy. We have to put fixing our democracy at the top of the agenda because if we do not do those things, none of the progressive issues that we care so much about will happen because America will continue on a path where we are a country of a progressive, diverse, growing majority governed by a conservative, mostly white, shrinking minority. And if we want to make sure the Trump number happens again, we have to fix our democracy. So this book is my playbook for how we win in 2020 and what Democrats do with the power after that, how we fix our democracy, how we put that at the top of the agenda. And I wrote it in the hopes that it would provide guidance to Democratic leaders, our activists, and voters out there about what we have to do to make sure that we never go

through what we're going through right now again. This is going to be such a good book. It comes, well, that's the fucking hope. But it comes out on February 18th. It comes out on February 18th. I am donating a portion of the proceeds of every book sold in the presale period to our friends at Fair Fight, Stacey Abrams' group that is helping protect voting rights and doing as much as anyone out there to ensure that America is a democracy. And the last thing I will say is my publisher has told me almost every day since I started this book that selling a second book is much harder than a first book. The wisdom of saying that

to someone staring at a blank page, I leave that to others. But because he's done it, I feel as motivated as I possibly can to encourage people to buy the book in the hopes that we can, I would love you to read it, that'd mean a lot to me,

but also in the hopes that at the end of this, we can deliver a nice contribution to Fair Fight and help their efforts. You can buy the book by going to untrumpingamerica.com. That gives you access to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, where you can get it from a local independent bookstore. And if you do buy it and you want to make it so that I can sleep better at night, Tweet out or share on social media a copy of your proof of purchase in the hopes that we can encourage other people to do it and contribute to Fair Fight. Fantastic. That's what we call when we do the cash app ads, a win-win. It is a win-win, yes. You buy the book, you learn how to save democracy,

and then by buying the book, you're also helping save democracy by helping Stacey Abrams Fair Fight. It's a virtuous cycle. A lot of democracy. I will say that, you know, after reading your first book, which was fantastic, I was very hopeful and excited that you would write a second. So it's good for America. Against my own, perhaps my own best interests, I did. Okay, let's get to the news, which for once is actually quite good. We're going to start with some good news. On Election Day 2019,

Democrats won a series of significant and even surprising victories, continuing the streak that began since Donald Trump took office. In Virginia, Democrats flipped both houses

of the General Assembly, which gives them full control of the government for the first time in decades. In Kentucky, a state that Trump won by 30 points, Democrat Andy Beshear

narrowly defeated Republican mini-Trump Matt Bevin in the race for governor. Democrats also elected more progressive prosecutors and gained control of city councils everywhere from Trump counties in Pennsylvania to Mike Pence's hometown in Indiana. Dan, first reactions to the night overall. Were you surprised?

I am generally surprised by good news because I live by the credo, prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and then don't really hope that much. That's right. But yeah, it was, I was surprised. And my takeaway is I love winning and I love winning even more when it makes Donald Trump sad. of the individual races in a second, but I was, I'd sort of expected a good result in Virginia because being entrenched in wilderness production right now, you know, I just, the demographics in Virginia are quite favorable to us and they're getting more favorable. The demographics in Kentucky are not. And so I was, I was a little surprised that Andy Beshear pulled it out, pleasantly so. Let's start, though, with what I think is the most meaningful victory of the night in Virginia.

So now the Democrats have flipped at least two seats in the Senate and five in the House. Some are headed to recount. They have taken control of the General Assembly. They have a Democratic governor in Ralph Northam. What can happen now? What does that mean? Well, everything means that Democrats will be controlled. The redistricting process. It means that Democrats can expand health care. It means the Democrats can pass gun safety laws that have been held up by Republicans since the shooting in Virginia Beach recently. And it means the Democrats could put us closer to amending the Constitution to ensure that rights are equal. Imagine that. The Equal Rights Amendment. This is sort of, it was a little bit under the radar in the weeks leading up to the election.

But there was an expiration date on the original amendment. It's the Constitution, not milk, people. Right. And it says like, so this has to be ratified by 1982, I think it was. But there's legal questions over whether that even matters but if it does matter congress can just lift the ratification date apparently the house obviously we can vote vote in the house in the senate there's two sponsors of a bill to lift the ratification date and those are uh susan collins and lisa murkowski so you could imagine actually getting the votes in the Senate to do this.

Or you might not need them because a court may rule that the ratification date doesn't really matter anyway. Either way, it's very possible that we're headed for a amendment to the Constitution because a lot of people worked their asses off in the Commonwealth of Virginia to elect Democrats. That is so huge. And people have been working on it for 45 years, 45 years to give women equal rights. Maybe it's 47 years, but it's a lot of fucking years. It's been happening longer than I've been alive and has been noted previously. I'm not that

young. Yeah. I'm just, you know, it's such a Democrats for so long. Um, you know, the critique has been, and it was a critique during the obama years fair at times that um we have not paid enough attention to down ballot races and here you have there's no governor's race in virginia we all focused on that in 2017 but there's an assembly right like how many people are in the country pay attention to state legislative elections now a lot do and a lot did in virginia and people have worked their asses off there for not just around the election, but for years to flip Virginia. And now that they have, there's going to be tangible benefits in the lives of people in Virginia, minimum wage, gun safety. redistricting happens in 2021, which will at least give Democrats in the House in Virginia the seats that they have and possibly make another seat competitive for Democrats, which is huge. So

it's really great. It's really great. And I will say, you know, in May, we launched our Fuck Gerrymandering Fund with Data for Progress to identify and support winnable races in Virginia in 2019. And we identified the races where your contributions would go the furthest, so they were the toughest races in media markets where your money could go really far. You made over 50,000 donations since then, which helped raise over $250,000 for these candidates, five of whom, five of the targets won, and three more are headed to recount. So again, we won by only flipping a few seats, and thanks to your donations, five of these candidates won and three more are headed to recount so again we won by only flipping a few seats and thanks to your donations uh five of these candidates won and possibly eight so thank you for doing that

the donations really made a difference and it's great it's a great feeling dan is virginia blue state now yes it is i mean it's pretty blue it is i mean i want i feel like i have to knock on wood a thousand times just for declaring anything as a blue state after having once declared that Pennsylvania was a blue state. But it is clear that it has been moving in one direction for 10 years. Right. Going back to Obama's quite surprising at the time win in 2008. And it is continued. And I think the results in Virginia, even the results across the country, but particularly Virginia, show that what is happening in the suburbs since 2016 has gone from being a simply a reaction to Trump's win to an actual realignment of the electorate. And it is blue. It is a state that is unlikely to be contested in any way by the Republicans in 2020. And that's notable. And there's and the reasons that the suburbs are moving so quickly towards the Democrats, there's two main reasons there.

One, as cities become even more crowded, a lot of working class folks in the cities, particularly people of color, are moving into a lot of the inner suburbs of big cities. And they tend to vote Democrat. So that's one thing that's happening. The other thing that's happening is college educated white people in some of these suburbs who are a little wealthier, who have traditionally voted Republican, are being turned off by Donald Trump's presidency and the extremism of the Republican Party. And so they are switching their votes. So the composition of the suburbs are changing to be more favorable to Democrats demographically. And you're getting a bunch of college-educated former Republicans who are switching parties. And that combination is making suburbs not only in the traditionally big blue liberal cities and liberal states more Democratic, but places like Phoenix and places like, and we're going to talk about like the area around Louisville and Kentucky, right? And so this is happening all over the country. Now, the flip side of that is in rural areas and the exurbs, the far flung suburbs, those are becoming more Republican. So, you know, that's why it's still close. Let's talk about Kentucky, where Donald Trump suffered, in his words, the greatest defeat in the history of the world.

Those were his words spoken the night before the election at a rally for Matt Bevin. Democrat Andy Beshear has declared victory over Governor Matt Bevin with a lead of about 5,000 votes. Because Bevin's war on teachers and people with health care made him one of the most unpopular governors in the country, he tried to nationalize the race by tying himself to Trump and railing against impeachment. It didn't work, though Bevin has refused to concede because he says there were voting irregularities. He's apparently keeping to himself what those irregularities were. Well, I mean, to be fair, Republicans all up and down the ballot lost due to oh wait no all the other republicans won it was a very specific set of irregularities that only affected the

bechir bevin race honestly that's the argument i saw him use at one point that the other republicans won and he didn't so there must be irregularities yeah you're the fucking irregularity dude um how did uh dan how did andy bechir win this race in a state that Trump won by 30 points in 2016? It really was an update of how Democrats won in the Obama era, right? Which is running up big numbers in urban areas, doing very well in suburbs. And the update is doing much better in suburbs than they had previously done. And then holding down losses in rural areas. They're even in a lot of these sort of coal counties in Kentucky. Yeah, northeastern Kentucky.

Where Bevin had done quite well four years ago, Beshear did much better than his previous opponent, held down those margins, and was able to cobble together a victory in one of the Trumpiest states of all, when you look at what the composition of the electorate is. Very heavily, very white state, very heavily non-college white state. It should be a state where the Trump coalition does quite well. Did not do here. The other element of that was very important to Beshear's win was he ran on healthcare and education, particularly healthcare where Kentucky under his father, who had been governor until 2015, had expanded Medicaid, called it Kentucky Connect. It had been very, very popular. Bevin came in, undid it,

caused all kinds of problems to healthcare, was an avowed opponent of Obamacare. Beshear ran on restoring that and fixing healthcare in Kentucky, and that was a very powerful message. So you're saying a Trump-like executive who tried to take away people's healthcare was not very popular. That was my favorite part of the Republican spin, as I was watching CNN, and Dana Bash was on, and she had just talked to a bunch of Republicans who were trying to spin these results, why they didn't mean anything for Trump in 2020. And they were like, look, Bevin's a unique case. He's a controversial, prickly personality, gets a lot of attention, tried to take away healthcare. That's like a unicorn. That's not a thing that's going to matter in the future.

I don't know anyone. I don't know anyone like that. I mean, it is. I think there's a lot of focus on Bevin being Trump-like and his personality and being offensive and all that. But I do think, like, his very public war against, you know, people on Medicaid and teachers, he basically tried to go after health care and retirement for a lot of citizens of Kentucky. And I think, you know, when we're talking about

Donald Trump and how to beat Donald Trump, we talked a lot about healthcare in the lead up to the 2018 elections. We haven't really talked, and we've talked about this in the pod before, we haven't really talked as much about Trump's budget and the Republican budget. And if he wins, if Republicans win in 2020, what that will mean for the health care and retirement of many people in this country. And I think this election should teach us that is very fruitful territory for Democrats to go after. I do think, you know, back to how Bashir won it. Again, it says something about the silliness of this turnout versus persuasion debate. Turnout was off the charts. Bevin got more votes in 2019 by a lot than in 2015.

Yeah, a lot. A lot more votes. So Republican turnout was way up. Democratic turnout was way up. Andy Beshear, I saw in some of the urban counties around Louisville and Lexington, had the same number of votes as Hillary Clinton in a non-presidential year. That is crazy. But if that was all that happened, Republican turnout out, Democrat turnout up, Beshear doesn't win. He only won by also, like you said, keeping those rural margins down in coal country and some of the places in Kentucky

where, you know, Bevin tried to take away people's health care. And I think that was a big, that's a big deal. A large number of people who voted for Trump in 2016 voted for Andy Beshear in 2019. Just happened. That's notable. Persuasion is a real thing. People really do switch their votes and it matters a lot. So just to talk about what this means now that Andy Beshear is governor, he will end the Medicaid work requirements that were kicking tens of thousands of people off their health care and he's also pledged to restore voting rights for a lot of people in kentucky which is a huge deal um and he's pledged to try to fix the absurdity that they close the polls at

6 p.m yeah and then they make kentucky the first results we get on election night and it always makes you nervous i was more focused on the work on the working folks who were disenfranchised by oh right right that too that's it but yes it's gonna make you feel better thinking about the needle thinking about the needle it's always kentucky and indiana first never good news we're called the nate cone bill so how much does this tell us if anything about what might happen in kentucky in 2020 or then what might happen overall in 2020. Let's start with Kentucky. Is Mitch McConnell in danger here? I think Bevin and McConnell are very different cases, and we should just be very clear about that. Andy Beshear is perhaps the perfect candidate to take on Matt Bevin. His father was an incredibly popular governor. He had name recognition. He had the right profile, ran a phenomenal campaign by all accounts.

But if Beshear had lost and Kentucky had reverted back to a 2016-style politics, that would be a sign that McConnell was certain to win. This at least shows that Democrats are in the game and that you can put together a coalition to get to a plurality in Kentucky because there was a third party candidate got 2% of the vote. And McConnell is vulnerable. We should be crystal clear about how hard it is to win Kentucky in a presidential election year. But this should at least make people in the McConnell campaign more nervous than they would have been with a different result. Yeah. I mean, McConnell has a 24% approval rating in Kentucky. He's one of the most unpopular senators in the whole country. So it is literally one of the few things Americans can agree on is that Mitch McConnell is terrible. Yeah. But like, you know, Democrats should be clear about

Andy Beshear and what kind of campaign he ran he's a moderate right and like andy basheer would not last a couple seconds in the democratic primary for president right like he was asked what do you think about donald trump and do you think he's a good person and he said oh i don't know but i'll work with i'll work with anyone to help kentucky which is the right answer for kentucky you could imagine giving some Democrats some heartburn, you know. So I think it would be immediately canceled. Yeah. Right. Like, I think it does show us that in some of these redder states, there is a path to Democrats to win. But like it is a it is a moderate path. You know, I mean, he he talked about shoring up the Care Act, and he was against the Medicare work requirements, right?

So he had some good progressive positions, but he ran as a moderate. He did, but I will say that he is going to, by executive order, restore voting rights to, I think it's 130,000 formally convicted individuals. And that is not moderate by any definition well that's that's sort of my point you know like because you could say like why is this guy not attacking trump more but it's like all right would would you rather have andy beshear like gone out there and said bad things about trump or now 140 000 people have their voting rights and a bunch of people aren't going to get kicked off medicaid it's pretty good good outcome. It's a pretty progressive outcome. I do think we sometimes confuse moderate and centrist. That's true.

That moderate can be a person who has a more moderate approach and then a mix of, quote unquote, centrist and progressive positions, right? Ralph Northam would be an excellent example of that. Doug Jones would be another one. And centrist is a different thing. Centrist is not an ideology. It's an identity. It is a decision that you're going to put yourself immediately equidistant between the two polls as a way to try to win a majority of voters. How would you, if you were running a campaign against Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, what would that campaign look like? It would be a labor of love. I would say that. I think that the way to run against McConnell is to run a campaign about him being not only a product, but the actual creator of our broken political system. And that he may have gone to Washington as a Kentuckian, but he became a creature of the swamp. And there is a whole he has gotten quite wealthy since he went to Washington.

There are very sketchy details about how his office and former lobbyists have worked with his wife's apartment. And it would just be like I worked in a campaign for Tom Daschle, who was the Senate minority leader of the time. He had been in Washington for a very long time. The Republicans ran a very, very good campaign that beat us by a couple of points in the year Bush won by showing people that he had lost touch with South Dakota. I don't think that was an accurate assessment of my friend Tom Daschle, but it was an effective one. In this case, it would be both effective and accurate. And you should hammer him 24-7 for him losing touch with Kentucky and doing things to help the National Republican Party and not the people of Kentucky. And healthcare is at the center of that. I was just going to say, I think proof point number one is if you thought it was

bad that Matt Bevin wanted to institute work requirements for Medicaid, Mitch McConnell and his Washington Republican friends want to eliminate any Medicaid expansion at all in Kentucky and the entire Affordable Care Act and will if they are returned to Washington. And very importantly, Mitch McConnell is the largest proponent in Washington of cutting Social Security. Yes. Yeah. So you didn't like Bevin go after retirement benefits and health care benefits? That's what Mitch McConnell wants to do. So what lessons, if any, do you think Democrats should take from this race?

Well, I think there's a comfort we should take from it. I would say this about Kentucky and Virginia and everything else, which is like there was some fear heading into Tuesday night that, look, in 2017, people turned out in an off-year gubernatorial and all these special elections because there was nowhere else to channel our anger about what happened in 2016. And then 2018 comes, and it's obviously one of the most important elections in history because we need a check on Trump's corruption and criminality, something that's borne out every day in this impeachment inquiry. not every day in this impeachment inquiry. But there was this fear that now once we had the House that in the 2020 election looming, that we would succumb to a combination of complacency and distraction, right? That we would not, both in the states in which the election was taking place and nationally in terms of volunteers and donations, be engaged in like we are looking potentially at the grand irony that america's worst citizen becoming president has sparked a avalanche of citizenship in america yeah and you're seeing people engage in these races and that is very i think that is the most important thing so the lesson is i think think, for Democrats is activism works, organizing works, and that if you run everywhere, compete everywhere, you can win. to necessarily do with an election since Donald Trump became president. And even before Donald Trump became president.

Turning Virginia blue was years in the making and it required a lot of activism on the ground. I often think because of Virginia's weird election cycles and its one-term governorship, it has to be fucking exhausting to be a Virginian. Because you're always- It's like 2016, where Virginia was supposed to be competitive. 2017, governor's race. uh 2018 congressional races 2019 we have the fight for the assembly and

now take a nap because here comes the presidential election again i know it's pretty rough but yeah no so activism works i also think you know it should tell people don't be afraid of impeachment, you know, because that certainly it is way too early to tell if impeachment is a boon politically for Democrats. But it does not certainly seem to be a drag on Democrats. Yeah, it does. Like we spend a lot of time in sort of political conversations talking about what turns out various bases, right? Democrats shouldn't do X because it will excite Republicans. Republicans shouldn't do X because it'll excite Democrats. And I think the evidence has been pretty clear for the last three years that people are excited.

Turnout is up. And so the sort of things that- On both sides. On both sides, like so high. I suspect we are going to break records in this Democratic primary in the in the general election. And we should. So I just think we should put less stock in this sort of view is like, don't do ask us or excite the other side. Right. Oh, impeachment could cause Republicans. Republicans are fucking turning out. So we should worry about the things that excite our voters and worry about the

things that persuade the voters that we need to persuade and not worry about the things that might excite the other side because they are coming out. Yeah. And I think it shows the unpopularity of, you know, Trump's agenda and the Republican agenda as well, which sometimes gets lost in a lot of the discussion is about Trump's character and his, you know, how offensive he is, stuff like that. And clearly that is turning away and has turned away a lot of the college educated crew and former Republicans. But there is this untapped set of issues that, you know, about taking away health care, taking away retirement benefits. issues that, you know, about taking away health care, taking away retirement benefits. And look, I noticed this from the focus groups I did, too. Even when you talk about things that Trump has already done on the policy front, it is not necessarily as powerful as talking about what

he is going to do in a second term. I talked about ACA and they were like, yeah, you know, like we've heard this before. But when I talked about how much of you are about Trump's budget and Social Security and Medicare, you know, everyone perked up. A couple of people had heard like I heard something about, you know, taking away Social Security benefits or cutting Social Security benefits. And that's horrible to me. And these were Trump voters, you know, and so I think that could be a really powerful argument. And we found that in our polling. What lessons of any should Republicans take from this race? So, you know, Trump's lesson is apparently that his rally helped Matt Bevin jump 15 points in the polls, but wasn't enough. But look, Matt Bevin brought Donald Trump to Kentucky the night before the election.

He also made the race. He tried to nationalize the race. He made it about impeachment. I think we have a I think we have a clip about uh matt bevin talking about impeachment the day but was it the day before the race i think i think it was monday the fact that you ask why this is being nationalized and why people are talking about president trump would indicate to me that you really have sort of maybe come out from under a rock because here in america that's pretty topical every night and the fact that it's being talked about in kentucky should not be a surprise. The president is talked about pretty much every night on every network everywhere in America.

And people in Kentucky are no exception. We're not going to pretend that we're not part of the United States of America. We are part of the United States of America. But you don't know whether we talk about it or not. I mean, we're talking about is this a civics lesson now? You think I don't understand what the role is? Talk to the average person. Ask the next 100 people who come in here if they care about this impeachment process. And they will tell you, almost to a person, that they do because they find it to be a charade. It's an absolute sham. And we care about this because we're part of the United States of America. the United States of America. And we don't appreciate when a handful of knuckleheads in Washington abdicate their responsibility as elected officials and try to gin up things that are not true because they can't handle the fact that Hillary Clinton didn't win. That's why this is talked about here and everywhere else in America. You're going to find the same thing

today in Mississippi, the same thing in Louisiana, and you'll find the same thing in 45 other states next fall. And you're going to not stop hearing about it until the people in Washington can handle the fact that Donald Trump got elected once and he's pretty certainly going to get reelected based on the cast of characters running against him. I mean, I don't know how you can make it more about impeachment. Matt Bevin just did. He made the beginning half of that. I found myself agreeing very much that people all over the country are watching the same national news about Donald Trump and impeachment, only it didn't really work out for him in Kentucky. I have two non-serious points, which stand in stark contrast of all my very serious points. Great, great, great. One is,

non-serious points, which stay in stark contrast of all my very serious points. Great, great, great. I like that. One is, I really enjoy how you always interval clip with, I think we have. Sometimes I don't know. It's your company. These people all work for you. I know. Well, you know, I'm always like prepping for the pod. Michael's sending me clips, doing everything he should. Kyle's got it up there. And I'm like, did I ask for that? Is it there? I don't know. The other thing I found interesting about that clip was, what's going to happen in the other

five states? Why did he say 45 states? No, I'm sure it's part of the right wing fever dream information environment where they think that like the Democrats are going to win California, New York, Massachusetts, you know, Connecticut. Maybe that's it. I don't know. It's like something's going to happen in 45 states. Illinois, yeah, that's it. They think Trump's going to win 45 states.

I think for when you think about this like you're exactly right there was nothing that happened on tuesday night that says democrats should be scared of impeachment it certainly didn't create some sort of republican revolt of the silent majority or whatever i think the results also should we can talk about what it means for trump because of the anti-democratic vagaries of the Electoral College limits on the impact of it. But if I was a Republican senator up for reelection, what I saw on Tuesday would make me very nervous because you see this revolt of the suburbs. You see incredibly jacked up Democratic turnout and you see tickets splitting. Democratic turnout and you see ticket splitting. And that, I think that is very concerning if you are Martha McSally or Cory Gardner or Susan Collins, right. Or Georgia or any of these other

states, Tom Tillis, North Carolina. And so there's lots of reasons to be nervous for that. And it's like the realignment causes problems for Republicans in certain states, and they have Senate races happening in a number of those states. You pointed out in the outline that you found this Washington Post story about sort of Republican concerns over impeachment and the races on Tuesday, very compelling, specifically this line. Still, the Kentucky defeat has sparked concern among the party's donors and many longtime GOP leaders who are worried that the nonstop twists of the House impeachment inquiry and Trump's growing fury

are making it increasingly difficult for Republicans to make a clear and compelling case to voters. This is basically why I wanted to do the impeachment thing, right? Because it could be, and we'll talk about this when we get to the poll, it could be a wash politically in the end. It could. But every day that we make this election about, like, Donald Trump's abuses of power, his crimes, his wrongdoing,

and he's freaking out and saying all kinds of crazy shit is another day that Donald Trump and the Republicans aren't talking about all the things they want to talk about, which is not this. No Republican strategist would tell you that this is what they really want to talk about every day between now and the election. I mean, this is the opportunity cost for Trump in the impeachment thing. I've told this story before, but on Labor Day 2011, Barack Obama's poll numbers were as low as Trump's. We were losing to a generic Republican in every battleground state. And between Labor Day in December, Obama took his approval rating from 42 to 49. And he did that by focusing on the

economy. He had a clear lane because the Republicans were fighting with each other in an absurd primary that involved Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, the leading lights of the conservative movement. And they were fighting over incredibly stupid things. They were going as far to the right on immigration and things as they could. And Obama was out there just talking about the economy, being president. Obama's approval rating on election day when he won a large electoral landslide was 49. For all the things that happened in 2012, debates, gaffes, et cetera, the work, the most work that was done to get Obama reelected happened in the fall of 2011.

the work, the most work that was done to get Obama reelected happened in the fall of 2011. Trump and the Republicans are now spending that time having an absurd discussion around impeachment. Just in that the impeachment is absurd. Their discussion about it is absurd. And they are, they are freaking out, having temper tantrums, exhibiting the behavior that our previous polling has shown is very detrimental to Trump. And so in that sense, Trump is losing his best opportunity to gain strength against a divided Democratic Party. Yeah. I mean, I remember we did the sort of jobs bill speech in the early fall, and then we treated the State of the Union in 2012, which is now in a couple months, as basically sort of laying out our reelection message in front of Congress. Who knows what Trump's state of the union is going to be like?

Will he be in the middle of impeachment? Will there be a trial? Now, this is this is talking, you know, in November of 2019. Once we get past impeachment, who knows? The environment could change. But it means less time for him to sort of catch up. It is an erosion of the advantage of incumbency. All right. Speaking of impeachment, we have the results of our latest poll with Change Research.

All right, speaking of impeachment, we have the results of our latest poll with Change Research. We polled 971 voters across the country from October 31st to November 3rd about their views on the impeachment inquiry. We also tested to find out which are the most persuasive evidence and arguments to voters. You can find the full results on Cricket.com, along with a great piece by Brian Boitler about this. But we will go through some highlights right now. Is he still pro-impeachment? He's still pro-impeachment. Just checking. Yeah, it's tough to tell.

It's weird. His new column is called Confirmation Bias. First, we found that 53% of respondents support the impeachment inquiry while 45% are opposed, and that 51% of those polled support impeaching Trump and removing him from office, while 46% are opposed.

The partisan breakdown is extreme. 94% of Democratic-leaning voters support the inquiry, while 94% of Republican-leaning voters oppose it. But 51% of independents and 60% of swing voters favor the impeachment inquiry. Dan, what were your main takeaways from the poll? America seems quite polarized my goodness but you can look at that two ways one could be well this doesn't matter everyone's minds are made um and that is true for the overwhelming majority of americans but that is true about everything in politics these days for the overwhelming majority of americans but the difference in getting that number among independents from 51 to 60 has dramatic electoral consequences.

Dramatic. Upping that swing vote number from 60 to 70. Dramatic electoral consequences in the key battleground states. And so it is an argument that Democrats have the wind at their back. There is room for growth and there is huge imperative to continue to tell the story in a very compelling visual way. The thing we should caution ourselves with is there is nothing in this poll that suggests we are in this world where we are one, two, three, 17 revelations away from a collapse of the Republican support for Trump. Yeah. Trump's base is locked in. That virtually guarantees how the Senate will react no matter what the rest of the House finds.

Because they are the, I don't know who the tail on the dog is and who's wagging who, but as long as Trump's base sticks with Trump, there is no political incentive for Republicans to do the right thing. Yeah. I mean, look, there are an extremely small percentage of voters in this poll whose minds are not made up already on impeachment, whether you're Democrat, Republican, independent. I think it was like 2 percent or something like that. You'll have to look in the poll. So there's not a lot of persuasion to do here. And by the way, we go through this whole battery of evidence messaging because, you know, I should say one thing we did learn is a very high percentage of people in this poll had heard about the impeachment inquiry in general, the whistleblower and the call with Zelensky. The impeachment inquiry in general, the whistleblower, and the call with Zelensky. 55% have heard a lot about the Trump administration officials testifying, which is not a lot. And so there's a lot of people in this poll who have made up their minds about impeachment without even knowing about all the stuff that's going to come out, that has already come out about the witnesses, and that we're going to see on television. So the ability to persuade, I think, is fairly limited.

And like you said, I think that should both give the Democrats hope that there's not going to be some backlash, but it should also temper our hopes that there's going to be some huge swing towards us because of impeachment. This very well could be a wash at the end. Is the poll, do you think, an argument for a longer and broader inquiry or a shorter and narrower inquiry? I should start by saying voters want Democrats to expand the investigation beyond Ukraine if evidence points to additional abuses of power. 51% hold this view, while only 17% believe that the inquiry should focus exclusively on Ukraine. Another 32 percent are unsure. So this is this is sort of a pundit as cop out answer that I think it is an argument for Democrats to follow the evidence where it goes. Yeah. And not allow a arbitrary deadline to cause them to short circuit the investigation. Because I think that would have blowback on our own side, right?

If like there is a definitely concerted effort to slow this down, to try to force the Democrats to in order to abide by their deadline, to vote before you get all the best witnesses, right, in front of a television camera. And I think that's going to be where they're going to have to make a decision. I think obviously a fishing expedition, going into a million things, getting back into all the Mueller report, that probably is, I don't know how much it hurts, but I don't think it's helpful. Right. But I think if we, if all of a sudden it's like we get to Thanksgiving, it's like, we haven't heard from some of the key witnesses yet because of

battle, court battles, whatever else. And we're just like, well, we're going to vote and call that a day, I think that would be problematic. Yeah, I do too. I'm sort of in the, this is also sound pundit-like, but I'm sort of in the medium camp. Oh, here's our message to you, Nancy Pelosi. Goldilocks strategy. No, because realizing that we pay

incredibly close attention to all this, probably most of our listeners do as well, but in this poll, there's a lot of people who still don't have basic information about this. I think the public testimony in the coming weeks will be incredibly important. It made me think that today there was news that John Bolton said that if he is cleared by the court, which, of course, opening arguments aren't until December on the case that would let him testify, he would testify and he would even testify about private conversations he had with the president. So it could be incredibly damning for, you know, the president's own national former national security adviser to testify against him.

And I think it takes time for people in the country who have busy lives and are not paying attention to the news to really understand everything that's happening. And that takes repetition and that takes a little time. And so I think Democrats should take that time to make sure that everyone knows. But I also could see a situation where if we're still sitting here in March or April doing this, that people could tire of this and have sort of fatigue over this, especially because so many minds are already made up. So I do worry about that. We also tested the most effective evidence and messaging around impeachment and found that the most persuasive pieces of evidence are the damning testimony from Trump officials. Mick Mulvaney's admission of a quid pro quo at the press conference was up there. The White House hiding the call transcripts, not only of Zelensky, but with leaders in

Saudi Arabia and Russia on a secret server was very persuasive and the White House blocking officials from testifying. So I should say that the margins for all of the arguments were very slim. So these are like small, small differences, but those four were the most popular arguments. When we tested different arguments for impeachment, messaging arguments, the clear winner there was about Colonel Vindman. And the message we tested was the top Ukraine expert on President Trump's National Security Council, a decorated war hero who was on the July call between President Trump and Ukraine's president, testified that the White House erased the most politically damaging parts of the call from the transcript they released to the public. So that led in the messaging. Dan,

what did you think of all the evidence and message testing? Anything stand out to you? What I took from it was the fact that for most voters, the cover-up is evidence of the crime. Yeah, cover-up still works really well. Anything that was secret, anything that was blocking people from testifying, that was persuasive. I think you can confuse people a lot about what a quid pro quo is, how it relates to Ukrainian corruption. What do politicians typically do? We've seen other polls that talk about how this is something that they think presidents of both parties would do. I think that's confusing, right? But what people do understand that when you do something, that the evidence you did something wrong is your attempt to hide it. And so when you start doctoring transcripts or putting hiding call transcripts on secret servers, that is proof to people who don't really understand exactly what a crime is in the in this situation that the Trump people know Trump did something very wrong. And so I think that the focus on the cover up about the crime is a very trite thing to say. But I think it matters a lot to voters here because it cuts through the confusion of what the crime is. Polster mentioned this too, that, you know, credentialing Vindman, war hero, decorated

veteran, did, it had an effect on specifically Republicans, right? Who didn't move towards impeachment, but moved towards, oh, maybe it doesn't make a difference, or like neutral, you know? And so I think that's the thing. The other thing is right behind the Colonel Vindman message, the next two that worked were one that had to do with Trump's abuse of power and one that had to do with no one is above the law, not even the president. So I think you understand why sort of Democrats are fitting all of these crimes under abuse of power and trying to make value statements about the president. Right. No one in this country is above the law. Everyone should be held accountable, even the president of the United States. And the president shouldn't abuse his office for political gain, right? These do not have

specifics as much attached to them, but they are just value statements that people agree with. And it speaks to the general perception of Trump that that's pushing on an open door, right? Yes. It is very believable to people, regardless of what you think about this, that Trump has used his office for political gain and that Trump has abused power. He's just like a walking high crime in that sense. And I think the question, I think the no one's above all nine of the president is an incredibly important message. That is a message that is more about Democrats justifying to voters why they're doing this than it is about persuading voters about Trump. But that is very important

because we got a lot of Democrats in these purple and red districts are going to need some people who voted for trump in 16 and voted for them in 18 to understand why they went down this path and stick with them in 20 and so i think it's a very important message anything make you nervous in the poll i mean i the whole thing makes me nervous for democracy the stat in there there about people who primarily get their news from Fox News. Yeah, please do that one. Yeah, so one other interesting finding. Republicans who watch Fox News, and the way we asked it is, what is your primary source of information about impeachment? And so people who said Fox News are much likelier to think the allegations are false than other Republicans.

89% of Republicans who get most of their impeachment news from Fox oppose the inquiry because they think the allegations aren't true. Not they think they were wrong, but not impeachable, which is also a choice we gave them, but they just don't believe any of the allegations. 59% of other Republicans say the same. That's a 30 point gap just among Republicans. And we, I should also say the other interesting stat, we took Trump's name and Biden's name off the specific abuse of power and just said, you know, do you think it's right or do you think it's impeachable for a president of either party to pressure a foreign government into smearing his political opponent? And the numbers jumped up to

60 percent believe it's impeachable as opposed to the 51 we have when trump and biden's names are attached but that that part is not surprising and like in all things right like i mean you remember in um in in the obama administration if you tested the trans-pacific partnership in polling. It polled terribly because Democrats and Republicans opposed trade. If you called it Obama's trade deal, then the numbers went up because Democrats then reverted to their standard support of Obama.

The Fox thing is, I think, really scary. Like, joke's not the right word, but we talk all the time about the dangerous role Fox plays, but Fox News exists because of a decades old conservative strategy to nullify the idea of objective truth. And they have been phenomenally successful to the point they can convince a significant portion of the base of one of our two political parties that the truth is not the truth and that is a very scary thought it's a very hard thing to undo it also speaks i think it's the it's the

most dangerous development in our democracy in the last however many decades and it's number one it is involved in a symbiotic relationship with another development, which is it also speaks to the inability of the traditional media to push back on that. Yeah. Right. That we have moved. That's a combination of a million things that involve the Republican strategy and involves how Facebook and Google have sort of helped destroy the economics of traditional media, filter bubbles, all of that. But that we are that is a very dangerous place for American politics to be. And it's completely on one side, to be very clear. Let's remember how one of the reasons that Fox News started and how it started, Roger Ailes,

who worked for Nixon, said if Nixon had only had fox news during his impeachment hearings he would have survived it so let's get let's let's make sure we have a propaganda arm like that i can think of nothing more dangerous than a collection of foreign political operatives starting a media company why do you think we did it um no it and and look it again, another thing I was surprised about in these focus groups is the strong distaste and distrust for the media. But Fox News has won in that there's a lot of people who told me, I don't trust the media at all because it's all biased. I have to check Fox and then I have to check CNN because they're on both sides of the spectrum like people think that cnn people don't like fox and don't necessarily trust fox at least these swing voters but they have also bought into the idea that cnn is the liberal equivalent of fox news which would make us scream because

no none of us who work in democratic politics who've worked in democratic politics ever think that cnn is the liberal equivalent of fox there's no liberal equivalent of fox news there is not msnbc is not the equivalent of the liberal equivalent of fox news um so obviously democrats have a lot to work with here looking at this poll but they're also facing you know a bunch of republicans like lindsey graham who's now saying he refuses to read the transcripts of the witness testimony because the whole thing is BS, in his words. Based on that dynamic and what we learned from the poll, what advice would you give Adam Schiff and the Democrats running the hearings next week? I think it is focus, use the cover up as evidence of the crime, right? Like there is a very real danger of overcomplicating this. Republicans are going to try to gum up the works.

And so it has to be, it has to be tremendous repetition of the very simple principle that Trump abused his power to interfere in an American election and then try to cover it up. And here's the evidence. And don't take our word for it. Take the word of these career nonpartisan professionals and the word of Trump's actual staff. Right. This is where Gordon Sondland's revision of his testimony. Right. It's easy. Huge deal. It is deeply dishonest, but easy to to call these career ambassadors, these intelligence officials, the whistleblower to call them deep state operatives.

officials, the whistleblower, to call them deep state operatives, right? It is much harder to say that Gordon Sondland, $1 million donor to Donald Trump, who then Donald Trump then appointed ambassador. Literally paid a million dollars for an ambassadorship. Yes. That's this guy. Yeah. And for him to say there was a quid pro quo, that is much harder to dispute. Yeah, though Lindsey Graham is certainly trying already. He was on Fox saying, you know, I saw that Gordon Sondland, he kept calling him Sonderland. So that's how much Lindsey Graham is paying attention. Well, he hasn't read the transcripts.

Right, he hasn't read the transcripts. He said, you know, he revised his testimony and I'm a lawyer and I want to know if he was in cahoots with Adam Schiff. And that's why he revised his testimony. So they're going to try. I mean, I was saying want to know if he was in cahoots with Adam Schiff. And that's why he revised his testimony. So they're going to try. I mean, I was saying this to you on Twitter. Like every Trump staffer, every Trump supporter, Trump fan is one honest statement about the president from becoming an Ever Trumper. That's how it goes. You are either 100% loyal to Donald Trump and believe everything he says is right and wonderful and brilliant.

And if you break away even a little bit, you're a never-Trumper Democrat, and you always have. I mean, you're like John Brennan's intern. So that's – but no, I do think Jim Jordan and the Republicans are going to try to turn this into a circus. They're going to try to turn it into a partisan circus. Their one hope here is to say this is a purely partisan exercise. Democrats have wanted to get Trump forever. They're going to try to turn it into a partisan circus. Their one hope here is to say this is a purely partisan exercise. Democrats have wanted to get Trump forever. They're all lying. Look at how they fucked this whole thing up with the process and all that.

They're going to turn it into a circus. And I think Democrats have to be calm, cool, collected, and repetitive about the facts of the case, the idea that it's an abuse of power, and the idea that they tried to cover it up, which gets to the motivation. And you said this on the Monday podcast, but it needs to be scripted like a television show, not just in the various episodes, right? Like what order are we going to do Bill Taylor, Gordon Sunland, Vindman, Mick Mulvaney, who are other people we might get access to, but how do we script the episodes themselves, right? What is each member taking on? What order are they taking it on in?

And then who is assigned with pushing back on which Republican argument, right? It has to be just very incredibly scripted. Also, just as one point of preference, no opening statements before your questions. Just ask the questions. The exception there is Adam Schiff, who should give an opening statement that lays out the story the way he'd... I mean, remember, the most effective statement during the Mueller episode was Adam Schiff's opening statement, where he sort of laid out all the facts of the case in a story that was accessible and compelling to people. He does that very well.

And I think... And I imagine, you know, Schiff starting with Bill Taylor next week, I believe. I imagine he's going to lay out the story, not just in a way that's the most compelling with the most compelling witnesses, but in a logical order that's easy for everyone to understand. Do you think Schiff should read the call transcript? Word for word?

I would. I mean, it would, it's sort of... With the edits that uh colonel uh vinneman made originally yeah probably i mean even even without the edits it is yeah he should say that president trump keeps asking us to read the transcript so here you go i have i have millions of people watching me let's let's read yeah i'll read it it seems more effective yes i think we should have the other i think you should read the other. I think you should read the text messages. I think you should read the call summary. I mean, he's got a lot of witness testimony.

And going back to the point about opening statements, we would give the same advice to members of Congress that we give people who ask questions at our live shows. If your sentence ends in a period instead of a question mark, it's not a question. Yeah, no, I agree with that. All right. Let's talk about 2020. Here's what, I agree with that. All right, let's talk about 2020. Here's what's going on in the Democratic primary right now. Last week, Elizabeth Warren released her plan to finance Medicare for all without raising middle class taxes. In response, Joe Biden called her plan, quote, mathematical gymnastics. In response to that, Elizabeth Warren

noted that it was former Obama economists and health care experts who did the math. And then she said, quote, Democrats are not going to win by repeating Republican talking points. If anyone wants to defend keeping those high profits for insurance companies, then I think they're running in the wrong presidential primary. In response to that, Joe Biden said, I have fought for the Democratic Party my whole career. That's not something everyone in this primary can say. These kinds of attacks reflect an angry, unyielding viewpoint that has crept into our politics. If someone doesn't agree with you, it's not just that you disagree. That person must be a coward or corrupt or a small thinker.

It's condescending to the millions of Democrats who have a different view. It's representative of an elitism that working and middle class people do not share. We know best. You know nothing. Woof. I found that exhausting. Exhausting. So let's actually start with the substance of Warren's plan before we move on to the politics of the back and forth.

She says her plan will cost... Which is important because we are both trained health economists. Yes, and we love substance here. She says her plan costs $20 trillion, which is less than Bernie's $30 trillion plan. And that she'll cover the cost by increasing her wealth tax on billionaires from 3% to 6%, taxing capital gains for the top 1%, the same as income, taxing financial transactions like stock trades, and taking the money that employers currently spend on health care

and shifting 98% of it towards the new Medicare program. And then she gets the rest of the money by going after waste and fraud Medicare and health care, passing immigration reform, and a few other things. Does this work in terms of math? And does this work in terms of a politically acceptable answer for Warren? What do you think? I have no idea if it works in terms of math. for warren what do you think i have no idea if it works in terms of math you're not you're not whipped out your calculator and double check my ti81 don berwick's uh calculations here

i'm glad you're up don berwick a a series of very credible people yeah looked at this all the financing of all campaign plans all legislation in its draft form is kind of bullshit right like it like not necessarily bullshit but it uh you know it's a little you're you it's a little hocus pocus yeah there's yes exactly there's smoke and mirrors there right it's like half of the bills in congress are funded by improving tax collection and getting rid of waste and fraud. Like that, it's a, you're just trying to cobble together a set of payfors that reach whatever the cost of your bill is. And look, and part of this is politics, but part of this is not knowing what will happen in the future after certain policies are passed, right?

So there is- It's all theoretical. There is an argument about how much healthcare, how much healthcare spending there would be under Medicare for all. We don't know yet because we don't know how many people would about how much healthcare spending there would be under Medicare for all. We don't know yet because we don't know how many people would use how much healthcare under a new system. We just don't know, so you have to project. And it's based on population growth, economic growth, all these things. It's impossible to figure out. Yeah.

So I don't know about the math. Smart people, people much smarter than I, say the math works. I'll take their word for it. People, people much smarter than I say the math works. I'll take their word for it. I do think it answers the male politically in the sense that we have a debate coming up in a couple weeks, which also seems exhausting. And this has been the really the only weak spot in any of Elizabeth Warren's debate performance. This has been about getting wrapped around the axle of this question of raising taxes.

This now allows her to say, I have a plan. I will not raise taxes on the middle class. Done. Yeah. No, I think that's right. She also said that she would be saying more about the transition from the private health insurance system

to a Medicare-like single-payer system in the coming weeks. Do you think that's smart? Or in the coming months, maybe? Well, we'll have to see what she says and whether it's smart. I think the elimination of private insurance causes concern for lots of people. Because it's just healthcare politics is always a battle between your dissatisfaction with the known and your fear of the unknown, right?

And so lots of people have lots of, like we pretend like people love their private insurance. And I'm sure some people do. Some people must love all kinds of things, but it's more that they're okay with it and they are nervous about something different. I also think a lot of people confuse their healthcare plan, keeping their healthcare plan with keeping their doctor.

And I noticed that one thing that she did in this plan, which I think she should have done and Bernie should have done much earlier, or maybe they have, but it hasn't really broken through, is, and we've said this before, in a single payer system, you absolutely can keep your doctor because there's only one network in the country and all doctors are in that network. So I think an argument that's fair for Medicare for All proponents to make is under the current system, you may not be able to keep your doctor because there's different networks of doctor. And depending on the different insurance plan you're on, the doctor might be signed up to that insurance plan. And so would you rather keep your private insurance plan or would you rather keep your doctor?

And under Medicare for all, you can keep your doctor. I think it's a powerful argument that they have not made enough yet. And it was good to see that she started making that here. But yeah, like I don't know if it works either. I think it is. I wonder how many people are going to say, OK, you really can. You really can propose this program and put all these taxes on all these wealthy people and corporations, and it's not going to hit me at all, maybe they'll believe that.

I mean, the Affordable Care Act was paid for. Yeah. Did not add to the deficit. There was literally nothing that we could conceive of doing that could convince people that didn't add to the deficit. That's true. People's natural view is, it's a natural cynicism that large government programs add to the deficit and we will eventually pay for them in some way, shape or form, right? An immediate tax,

a later tax, a cut in services that I get provided. And so that's sort of what you're pushing up against. Yeah. So obviously the math did not work for Joe Biden, who called it mathematical gymnastics. What did you think of Warren's response? What does that mean, do you think? I don't know. It's, again, like most things that come out of that campaign, it sounds like a mid-90s, 2000s response. I just don't like trying to envision, like, are the numbers doing some results? I don't. I don't. Yeah. He's trying to say it's a lot of smoke. I mean, I get the gist, so I guess it works.

What did you think of Warren's response that he's using Republican talking points and might be running in the wrong primary? I have made the point myself that some of the critiques of Medicare for all from some of the more centrist candidates like John Delaney were using Republican talking points. And so I can't now attack Warren for saying the same thing about Biden. I do think it is unfair to say that Biden is running in the wrong primary. I do too. I thought it was unfair. If Biden was advocating for eliminating the ACA, you could say that. Biden is running on a position more progressive than Hillaryary clinton's health care position in 2016 yep like you cannot say that person's running in the wrong primary and just politically i think

medicare for all proponents um of which i am one get into dangerous territory when you start saying that plans that fall just short are somehow you know uh designed by insurance companies republican and all that kind of stuff like i don't i don't think it's fair i don't think it's correct um i just think it's not it's not the best argument right like i'm i'm i'm a proponent of medicare for all i'm still stuck between whether the best way to do it is you know a public option that eventually gets you there like p Pete has proposed and, you know, other people have proposed as well. Or if we should just take the leap at once, all at once, like Warren and Bernie propose. I think there are pluses to both and minuses to both. I really do. I'm still sort of-

Both politically and substantively. Both politically and substantively. Exactly, and by the way, like President Obama said many times, if we were starting from scratch, I would absolutely be in favor, no questions asked about a single payer Medicare, like Medicare for all program, for sure. But the difficulty is in the transition, not just politically, but substantively, what are you going to do with all the people who work for the insurance industry? What's going to happen with hospitals? How are you going to make sure that people are okay with moving from their private plan to a public plan? How are you going to finance it?

I think these are difficult questions substantively, not just politically. And when we say politically, we do not mean- Getting Republicans on board. Right. Or we don't mean we are speaking to some theoretical group of white working class voters in Wisconsin. We are talking about the election. Every American. Well, we're also talking about the feasibility of getting it done. Yeah, that's right. Like how are you like there's one thing is how you're going to sell an election. The other one is how are you going to get it done? And all of those questions matter for the ability to get it done. Yeah. And so I think there is a

legitimate debate. And I think that the Warren-Biden debate on this was completely fair and substantive and above board when she puts out the plan, he says mathematical gymnastics, she says,

what are you talking about? The Obama economists and healthcare people helped me calculate it. All that is fair. Good talk. She gets into then you're running

in the wrong primary and then he gets into, by the way, you're elitist because people don't agree with your plans which i also found incredibly unfair like now they have both gone into territory that i think is unproductive for the primary yeah i mean we should put this in some perspective that these are we think unfair attacks i think we're still in the skirmish phase we haven't figured out what the words around it is. I don't think it's anything like. But all of this, the math of Medicare for all, whether Biden's running in the right or wrong primary,

Biden calling Elizabeth Warren an elitist, is like almost everything else in this election. It is a proxy conversation about electability. Yeah. That is what we are doing. No one really knows what electability is. They know it is a third rail to be talking about it

because it is so steeped in racial and gender tropes. But they also know that who beats Trump is the number one issue for voters. So when Pete talks about Medicare for all, when Biden talks

about Medicare for all, they are not talking about the policy impact of it. They are talking about the political viability of it. They are trying to say that a candidate who supports Medicare for all cannot win Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania. Therefore, they cannot be president. So it would be a mistake to nominate them. When Biden calls Warren an elitist, he is saying she cannot appeal to those voters. It is both, like that is kind of, I think it is a dangerously narrow view

of how you win an election because we are doing the thing that we hate, which is we are allowing this group of theoretical white working class voters in some small set of Midwestern states to decide the Democratic nominee when there are multiple paths to getting there. Yeah.

The irony has not been lost on me that Elizabeth Warren accused Joe Biden of using Republican talking points and running in the wrong primary, which I thought was unfair. And then Biden hits back by using Republican talking points and seeming like he's running in the wrong primary by calling her elitist. Then the accusation is correct because his response to it was like that. And I mean, we were just talking about this before the uh podcast started it's basically what hillary clinton ended up doing to barack obama in the primary uh after the guns and religion thing you know she started saying that barack obama was elitist and she was the hero of working class people and she was saying was barack obama would

not be able to win the role white voters necessarily get to 270 electoral votes. Right. And and that's what and that's what. Yeah, he did. He did. So looking at the polling over the last few weeks, Warren has either lost a few points or at least plateaued, though she's still leading in Iowa. Are all these attacks that come from being the front runner having an effect here, not just from Biden, but from Pete and, you know? I want to see more polls before we make a determination about whether the race has changed. The only changes in the race has been Warren rising and Pete rising. The rest of it's been pretty stable from the very beginning. And so we need to see more data to see if this Monmouth poll where she dropped five points

was an outlier or a precursor or something to come. But there's definitely more scrutiny on Elizabeth Warren, right? She went a long time in this race for reasons that blow my mind, but a long time in this race without anyone attacking her.

While she was rising at the expense of Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, and Joe Biden were all attacking each other and now attacking Elizabeth Warren or even attacked just drawing contrast with her. So now she has the scrutiny of her front runner. And that is, they have to be ready for that

because they're going to have to be able to respond to those attacks. They're going to have to be able to make the quote unquote electability case, right? However they choose to make it, but you have like, while electability is quote unquote bullshit, you do have to convince voters that you can win. So how are they going to, now that once someone gets to the top or the other top of the polls, then voters start to try to start imagining them running against Trump. And you have to be able to tell the story about how you win that race. And so, you know, this next period, I think,

is going to be very critical for her. Because my guess is, if you had asked her campaign, they would have preferred to be in second place in that Des Moines Register poll a few months ago and be first place in the one in December or January, or whenever the next one is. They peaked early. Very possible to sustain it.

But it's a long time to have the glare of the top on you. And last question on all this, the person we haven't really talked about here is Bernie Sanders, who is clearly gaining in the polls and has for the last couple of weeks. And the Bernie folks have had a long running complaint that the media doesn't take him seriously enough. And as i've watched him sort of climb in the polls and and show a lot of strength

and a lot of these both early state polls and national polls over the last couple weeks i i looked at it and i was like you know what they're right he there there are i mean we had this whole conversation earlier in the week about the nate cone new york times polls and the swing states and all the discussion around the polls was, you know, some people vote for Biden, but not Warren. And it's Biden, Warren, Biden, Warren. And like Bernie Sanders is in between them in all those polls. And it showed that actually he could put together a path to 270 from those polls in those swing

states and beat Donald Trump. And no one really mentioned it. I think you're 100% right. And 99% of the time when campaigns complain that their can is not getting enough coverage it's just sort of tilting at windmills but i think in this case they are correct and part of it has been bernie's stability right whereas biden has gone down in the early states at least warren has gone up particularly in the early states bernie has just been there and it's just it has been this place and he's demonstrated this very high floor

and the very real belief that from a lot of people that his campaign was in real trouble after he had his heart attack yeah and that that was you know and he had had that statement about perhaps not traveling as much but he has emerged from that situation must run at a very impressive debate performance the endorsement of aoc and other members of the squad very important he's shown strength in these polls so he is a force to be reckoned with and like when you start like trying to chart out people's paths to the nomination right where so it's like bernie is a very real threat to win iowa and then follow that up with the one in new hampshire or even come in second or third in iowa and then win new hampshire

and then do very well in nevada too he he is a very the it's a caucus he has always done very well on caucuses um he has expanded his um his coalition since 2016. They suggest he could do better in that caucus. And he doesn't do as well as Biden does with voters of color, but he does better than Warren or Pete do with voters of color, too. So he does have a coalition that looks a little bit like Biden's and a little bit like Warren and Pete's, too. So he's at the very least like he and he's got a little bit like Warren and Pete's too. So he's, he's at the very least like he, and he's got a shitload of money and a huge organization. So he ain't going anywhere even, you know, after the first couple of states. So, okay. When we come back, we'll

have Dan's interview with Run for Something's Amanda Littman. I'm now joined by Amanda Littman, the co-founder and executive director of Run for Something, which helps recruit and support young, diverse progressives running for down-ballot office. Amanda, welcome back to Pod Save America. I am so glad to be here. How are you feeling this week? It's a pretty good week to be a Democrat, huh? Winning is so great. I cannot recommend it highly enough. I feel like I'm standing taller. My skin is clearer. This is such a good week to be a Democrat, huh? Winning is so great. I cannot recommend it highly enough. I feel like I'm standing taller. My skin is clear. This is such a good week to be a Democrat. Talk to me a little bit about the work that Run for Something did to help prepare for what was a great election night on Tuesday. So Run for Something had 155 endorsed candidates on the ballot across the

country. We had been working with these folks in some cases since their races in 2017. These are a couple of folks who had ran and lost and were considering running again. Others we started working with last year. We've been helping them with everything from campaign support, making sure they knew how to get on the ballot, actually filing, getting the voter file, communications, press, amplification, voter contact, everything you can imagine. And Tuesday was amazing. We had 50% of our candidates win. 60% of those winners are women. They are incredible. They're across basically every state that had an election earlier this week. And I am so, so, so excited because they're the future of the Democratic Party. So we're in good hands. Are there any particular,

I know I would never ask you to pick among your many candidates, but are there any particular ones that you would like to highlight for our listeners? Well, there's an amazing candidate in Virginia who flipped seats, Joshua Cole, we've been working with since 2017. But my personal favorite is a young woman in Maine. Her name is Sophia Khalid. She's 23 years old. We've been working with her for a better part of the last year. In the final weeks before her election to Lewiston City Council, she got tens of thousands of racist trolls harassing her on social media. She's a Somali refugee.

Her community is predominantly white, but there's been a large influx of refugees to Maine and to her city over the last couple of years. She got harangued, ripped apart. They used a photo from her when she was in high school to make it seem like she was aggressive. She deleted her accounts, which is always a good idea, and kept knocking doors. And she ultimately knocked a thousand doors, talked to basically every voter, and creamed her opponent, making history as the first Somali-American elected to the Lewiston City Council. And if that's not a metaphor for 2020 of knocking doors, talking to voters, beats internet trolls, I don't know what it is. That's an amazing story. She is incredible, And she's not the only one. It's what gives me so much hope.

I don't know what to say. It's one of the concerns. I think one of the questions that was hanging over the elections on Tuesday was the sort of idea that in 2017, Democrats channel their energy into special elections and the Virginia, Virginia, New Jersey races, because that was the only place where we could, you know, sort of focus our post 2016 anger and activism 2018, nothing more important than taking the house. But now here we sit here in 2019. We have, you know, taken the house and therefore have, you know, at least a measure of a check on Trump, we have this presidential election looming, and there's this fear that people will either be complacent or distracted about sort of the importance of down-ballot races. And Tuesday, I think, proved the opposite. What are you guys seeing at Run for Something and how people are trying to remain engaged at this level? and election cycles. We did stuff in 2017 too. We had 20,000 people sign up to say they want to run.

In the 11 months since then, we had another 20,000 people raise their hands and say they want to run for office. Since election day earlier this week, we've had an additional 1,500 people raise their hands. And next week when we celebrate National Run for Office Day on Tuesday, I expect thousands and thousands of more. People are fired up. This was never about Trump to begin with. It has been about solving problems in their community. And we're going to see what happens with the Democratic majority in Virginia and prove that investing in these races yields immediate outcomes for people. It makes people's lives better. So I am really optimistic because the flood of people who want to get involved in these local races just keeps coming. Now the question is, will we have the money and the infrastructure to support them? I hope so, but it's easy to get distracted. So as long as we keep our eye on the ball and think big picture, I'm still really optimistic. Have you seen any difference in sort of the grassroots and financial support for your organization since the 2018 election? Is it remaining strong? It is as strong as ever. You know, we're up to more than 20,000 donors, which is amazing for an organization of our size.

We've only spent about $10,000 or $11,000 per candidate. So every dollar that goes to us goes a long way. These races, you know, they feel small. Like, what does it matter if there's a city council, a Democratic city council in Indiana, or the first black mayor in a town in North Carolina? But one that literally makes people's lives better, better clean water coming out of their pipes, better roads, better security, better schools. But it also makes sure people feel like they have a voice in government. There's a Democrat there that represents them, that they have a relationship with. voice in government. There's a Democrat there that represents them, that they have a relationship with. It's not the party they're seeing on TV. It's not the mess they're seeing in the news. It's somebody that they can connect to and engage with and feel an affinity for this brand. And whatever gets them to the polls in 2020, whether it's voting for a school board candidate or a

presidential candidate, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that they show up and vote. So I think as you consider the range of ways you can invest in both your time and your money for the next cycle, focusing local, your dollar goes much further. One of the really important impacts of taking the House and Senate in Virginia on Tuesday was redistricting, right? The fact that Democrats will be able to direct that process and do it in a fair and independent way as opposed to the gerrymanders that happen around the country. I know that Run for Something has been very focused on this. You've been working with other organizations. Can you talk about the work you're doing there and how you explain the connection between state down-ballot races and the importance of redistricting?

I think this is a five-alarm fire that we are not shouting about enough. It is a crisis of structural power. If Democrats do not win key state legislative chambers in 2020, it will not fucking matter who's in the White House. And I say that because it won't. If we do not win these state legislative chambers, Republicans will control who draws congressional boundaries. They will ensure that Republicans have majority power over the House after 2022 and beyond. And that's it. That's the end of functioning government in Washington. That's the end of

Democratic representation. Republicans have understood this for years. In 2010, Karl Rove wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, said we're going to spend in 110 state legislative races this year. We'll drop $35 million. We're going to win and we're going to control Washington. And they did. And we left our eye off the ball. This time around, that's not going to happen. We're actually working really closely with Arena and Swing Left as part of the grassroots redistricting project.

closely with Arena and Swing Left as part of the grassroots redistricting project. Our role in that is ensuring that we're running full slates of candidates in at least the top nine redistricting targets as identified by Eric Holder and the redistricting committee. So for us, we're looking at Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin. We want to make sure that in those places, we're running as many candidates as possible, because in an election like 2020 with record turnout, we have no idea where our wins can come from. Yeah, there's going to be some top targets that are going to be really vulnerable at first glance. But a really good candidate who's running a grassroots campaign can make a campaign competitive and can force Republicans to spend money where they don't want to. and can force Republicans to spend money where they don't want to.

So for us, we're looking to fill as many of these races as possible with really good, really driven, really authentic people who are willing to put in the work. And we're working closely with other organizations, including ARENA, Swing Left, DLCC, and the Redistricting Committee to make sure that it takes a village to win these chambers. As you look across the progressive landscape, what gaps do you see in our infrastructure when it comes to winning these down-ballot races, and how can we fill them? That's such a good question. There's a lot of stuff that exists for state legislative races.

There's almost nothing that exists for city council and school board races. We're one of the few groups that engages in these races, which have a direct impact on people's quality of life. And there's no one there really to help them. So we try and work as close as we can, but there's not a committee even or an organization that says, if you're a school board candidate, how can we help you as the Democratic Party? So for me, that's one of the biggest places where we can do more work. You know, we have a lot of people listening here who are obviously very engaged in politics. What pitch would you make to them to run for office, you will not be alone. There are a movement of people, especially young people, especially young women, especially young people of color who are stepping up and changing the game and redefining what is electable and who can be

viable in these races. So if you want to run, especially if you're a young person, we as Run for Something will support you, will help you figure out what office to run for, how to get on the ballot, how to set up a campaign, we'll help you find staff, we'll connect you to volunteers. We will do anything we can to ensure that you have a chance of success. And if you lose the first time around, which pretty good chance you might, we will help you the second time around too. chance you might, we will help you the second time around too. Two-thirds of our candidates who lost end up running again. That's incredible. We're building a bench of talent, not just for today's leaders, but for tomorrow's and beyond. I have no doubt that somebody who decides to run over the last three years for the first time will one day be president. That seems like an obvious next step for me five or 10 or 15 years down the road. You wrote an op-ed about Katie Hill's resignation a few days ago that started with the message to young people thinking about running for office one day, do not let what happened to Katie Hill scare you out of your ambitions. How has what happened with Congresswoman Hill impacted the conversations you've been having with potential candidates?

I think it's something women especially have always been cognizant of, that our sexuality can be weaponized, that our bodies are embarrassments, that especially men can make us feel shame. But I have seen, especially the women who have stepped up, say, I don't care. Simply by running for office, you are confronting the status quo. This is not a new phenomena, but it is one that I think women are refusing to settle for. I really, really, really hope that the act of cyber exploitation or whatever you want to call it, revenge porn, gets criminalized and stigmatized and is punished at the fullest extent that we can possibly find a way because the people who should be afraid after what happened to Katie Hill should be the ones who are perpetuating the crime. Women should not let this scare us. That fear, I think I said this in the op-ed, that fear is what gives the patriarchy oxygen to breathe. Do not let it take

over. It's very powerful. Thank you. I mean, I think I feel really strongly about this. And I think it's also really important to note that talking about how hard this makes it for women to run perpetuates a cycle of fear that it makes it for women to think it's harder to run. So I really hope that any young woman listening to this who thinks, I've got photos out there, I can't do this, please know that the more of us who run, and especially the more of us who run and win, the more normalized this becomes. I would encourage everyone listening to read Amanda's op-ed on this.

It's a very powerful and persuasive message. You have a big day coming up on Tuesday, National Run for Office Day. What's going into it, and what do you hope to accomplish with it? National Run for Office Day is everybody's favorite kickoff to the holiday season. It is the week after Election Day. This is the third year we're doing this. We're working with more than 70 partners across the progressive movement. The idea here is that the best way to get more people to run for office is to ask them. So if you are thinking about it, go to runforofficeday.com. We'll also be tweeting and posting and sharing as much as we can. Last

year, we had about 10,000 people sign up in 24 hours to say they want to run for office. All of that information gets shared with the relevant groups where it can help these candidates. It is just a first step. It is raising your hand and saying, I'm thinking about it. So we're really excited about it. We're hopefully going to have some really fun people supporting it. I am so, so pumped that this year, instead of a holiday card, Run for Something sent National Run for Office Day cards to all of our supporters.

That's one of my favorite things. So I think it'll be really fun. Well, Amanda, thank you for joining us. And just want to encourage all of our listeners to support Run for Something, either run for office if you can. If you can't run for office or you're not ready to run for office yet, contribute to run for something. It is one of the absolute most important organizations in the Democratic Party. And we are so thankful for everything that you have been doing over the last few years to get us out of the mess we're in. Well, I am so grateful to you all.

I should say that after I came on the pod a couple of years ago, Crooked Media was the number one recommender of potential candidates, which makes me really happy. So anyone who's listening to this, people like you, literally like you listening to these podcasts are the people running for office. So don't be afraid to step up. Give. Run for something.net is where to go. Amanda, thank you so much.

And we will talk to you again as the election heats up. Thanks. Thanks to Amanda Lippman for joining us today. And we will see you next week. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a product of Cricket Media. The senior producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer.

Thanks to Carolyn Reston, Tanya Somanator, and Katie Long for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Narmel Coney, and Yael Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as a video every week.