Pod Save America - “The pundit gap.”

Episode Date: April 29, 2019

Another white nationalist targets a synagogue in California, voters believe Trump is guilty of obstruction but aren’t ready for impeachment, and Beto O’Rourke rolls out the first detailed climate plan of the 2020 campaign. Then former Obama pollster Cornell Belcher talks to Jon F. about the state of the race, and what Democratic voters are looking for. Also – Pod Save America is going on tour! Get your tickets now: crooked.com/events.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Jon P. Pitor. Later in the pod, you'll hear my conversation with Obama pollster Cornel Belcher about what, if anything, the 2020 polls can tell us about the state of the race. One thing Cornel pointed out, I want to see if you guys can figure this out. Cornel said, guess who was leading the Democratic field at this stage, late April of 2004, which is how he says that this race reminds him most of the 2004 primary.

I had already guessed Dick Gebhardt, but that was apparently wrong. 2004. I can give a big hint. It's not Wesley Clark. It's a fan favorite of yours. Love it. John Edwards.

No. A fan favorite of mine? In the most sarcastic way possible. Chris Evans. Howard Dean. Oh, my God. Not Joe Lieberman. Yes!

Joe Lieberman! Of course he was. He was the Democratic vice president four years earlier. He had yet to decide that he didn't want people between 50 and 65 to have health care. It was a lot. He had endorsed John McCain. He was a lot. He had endorsed George. Wait. He endorsed John McCain.

Wow. He was a three-way tie for third in New Hampshire. Hadassah and I are so blessed. That's what he'd say all the time. We relish Hadassah. That was one of the best signs. That's right. That cycle, yeah.

Wow, guys. Some people are like, 2004? What are they talking about? Okay, in addition to that uh the 2020 candidates continue to come visit us here at crooked headquarters tommy talked with massachusetts congressman seth moulton on friday you can listen to that episode now damn right i did dan pfeiffer is here he's in the other room just preparing for his interview with congressman tim ryan he's really buckling down what's that he's really buckling down i saw him dan is buckling down right

now uh tim ryan's coming in here later today that will be released on tuesday dan's conversation Tim Ryan of Ohio. What's that? He's really buckling down. I saw him in there. Dan is buckling down right now. Tim Ryan's coming in here later today. That will be released on Tuesday, Dan's conversation with Tim Ryan. And then I will be talking with former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper on Tuesday for an episode that you'll be able to check out on Friday. So we're trying to get all the candidates in here before the first debate. Who knows if it'll happen? Lovett wore his Merlot pants for Tim Ryan. For Tim Ryan?

I think so. I think they're more of a burgundy. That's a first. Well, you can wear them in French. That's fine. Tommy's got his Stitch Fix red hoodie on. Yeah, which we know most of what I'm wearing is free. Next topic, John. Okay. Now we get to the news, and the news is very serious. A gunman with an AR-15 attacked a synagogue in Southern California this weekend,

leaving at least one dead and several others wounded, including a rabbi and a young girl. The attack in Poway, California, which happened on the last day of Passover, came half a year after the shootings at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Police arrested a 19-year-old suspect, who may have also been involved in a recent attempt to burn down a mosque. A user of the far-right message board 8chan, with the same name as the suspect, posted a manifesto to that site before the attack took place that accuses Jews of trying to destroy the white race through immigration, a post that's strikingly similar to the one posted by the alleged gunman

behind the attacks that took place on mosques in New Zealand earlier this year. There was also disturbing news from Northern California this weekend. Police in Sunnyvale, which is near San Francisco, said on Friday that they believe a driver who ran his car into a crowd of people last week did so because he was deliberately targeting Muslims. So, shortly after the shooting, a commentator on Fox News referred to the gunman as a lone wolf. And you heard this in a couple different places.

This is a lone wolf attack. Tommy, was this a lone wolf? Is this what we describe as a lone wolf? I don't think so. Because you see packs of these individuals coordinating and talking about their plans on social media sites like Gab and 8chan and 4chan in certain areas. And so no, I mean, I think that these are people who are feeding off the last attacker, who are building a community based around hate and hate speech and frankly trying to incentivize people to violence. So, I mean, like I view this as as dangerous to the United States, to citizens here as ISIS or Al Qaeda, and that we should resource it appropriately. Because the nightmare scenario has always been in counterterrorism that there's some individual in the U.S. that is inspired by or adheres to al-Qaeda or ISIS or has a sleeper cell. The sleeper cell is here now. And it's like angry white 19-year-old kids who are living on the worst places on the internet and getting radicalized. Yeah, well, I couldn't help but wonder, like, how would we be talking about this and responding to this if the New Zealand shooter, if the Poway shooter, if all of these people had been Muslim?

Yeah, I mean, even, you know, what gets described as terrorism depends on the religion of the person perpetrating it. We have lifted up extremism that flows from Al-Qaeda, that flows from Islamic extremism, and held that up as somehow separate and special compared to anti-Semitic violence, white supremacist violence. And what we're learning is that that's a mistake. This is just going to keep happening, right? There was a conversation about this on one of the cable networks, and it was someone saying, I can't believe I'm here again six months after what happened in Pittsburgh. Why are you surprised? We've done nothing to address the underlying cultural forces, radicalizing groups of angry, lonely white men. We have done nothing to address the policies that allow these people to arm themselves. We have done nothing to, there's been no attempt on the part of those on the right to police their own rhetoric and their own language to look at the extreme, which is what, you know, stochastic violence, right?

Stochastic terrorism where, no, you can't point to any one sentence offered on Fox News. You can't point to any one bit of extremism promulgated by Donald Trump as the cause, the proximate cause of something like this. But all of it feeds into a culture of hate that at the very bottom of the Internet is helping to foment what we see. And these kinds of events are going to pop up again and again and again. And we shouldn't be surprised. This is not going to be the last time someone shoots up a synagogue. It's going to happen again. And we should just face that and be honest about it because I don't think we usually are. Yeah, I mean, to your point, Levitt, this is the definition of terrorism.

It's violence or murder to make a political point. And the point that this guy is trying to make is very similar to what the New Zealand shooter is trying to make, which is something you see on 8chan and 4chan and Gab all the time, which is that minority groups or Jews are trying to replace white people

and that we need to separate out the races and this is their way of doing it. I mean, I went on fucking 8chan last night just to see what was going on there. It is a horror show worse than you could ever imagine. It is people joking that this guy didn't get a high enough score. They've like gamified mass murder. They wanted to kill more people. It is like straight up Nazi propaganda. And it will live there to incite other people today, tomorrow, the next day. And because of the shooting, because of conversations like the one we're having,

people are going to learn about it for the first time and end up going there more. I mean, this is a problem that's growing. It's metastasizing. It is not getting better. It's getting worse. We sure as fuck aren't doing anything about AR-15s being in every community on the planet. We're barely even talking about gun control, despite the Las Vegas attack being one of the most horrific things to ever happen to our nation. So yeah, no one should be surprised. And it's not just bubbling up from 8chan and Gab and sites like that. I mean, you know, you mentioned Fox News, you can't point to a specific sentence or whatever. You actually can. Tucker Carlson, in Octoberober of 2018 literally attacked liberal

pundits for encouraging what he called quote the genocide of white male christians i mean this is their most popular host um has the prime time spot on fox news millions of people seeing that and that's the most extreme example from tucker But you're right that some of the other hosts, they talk about immigration is changing the character of this country forever. Democrats are trying to bring immigrants in so they can get votes. All of this is up to Steve King, congressman from Iowa, doesn't even try to hide it. I mean, right. But this is that exact language, too. Right. And this is the point, right? When when Tucker Carlson says that he's not he never says in that he would and he wouldn't say and I don't think he would want to say go out and kill people. Right. But what he doesn't appreciate, what he doesn't seem to care is that when he says something like that, even though it is a step removed from any kind of call for violence, it feeds into a radicalizing culture that leads some random person to take it as inspiration or to contribute to the inspiration that he feels. And it's always he. So, you know, and this is also at the highest levels of the White House,

right? This is, you know, Donald Trump during the campaign retweeted an account that's a, you know, white genocide account. You've got Stephen Miller has talked about these views around immigration, right? That, I mean, it's, yeah, look, there's a think tank is the Network Contagion Research Institute. I'd never heard of it until I read this article this morning. They analyzed like 100 million comments on Gab and 4chan. They found that anti-Semitic slurs and content on those platforms doubled after the election of Donald Trump. Right. There's data that shows that between July 2016 and January 2018, the politically incorrect message board on Gab or on 4chan went up drastically.

I mean, it's normalized people's feeling that they can say these things without repercussions. So a lot of conservatives and some other media personalities have responded by saying that anti-Semitism is a problem on both sides of the political spectrum. Some Republicans pointed back to Ilhan Omar's comments. New York Times columnist Barry Weiss tweeted, the past few days provide a useful case study. Thursday, an anti-Zionist cartoon is published in the New York Times. Saturday, a white nationalist guns down Jews in a synagogue. Sunday, Zarif appears on Fox, the foreign minister for Iran. The three strands of modern anti-Semitism, far left, far right, and Islamist. Guys, I'm having trouble seeing an equivalence between what Ilhan Omar said

about AIPAC and the idea on the right wing that Jews are part of a white genocide conspiracy. Can you help me out here? You don't even have to go there. I mean, you don't even have to go there. I've been lectured by conservatives for quite some time for not conflating violent actions with words right that that actually that that's something that chills free speech and that's politically correct but even putting that aside anti-semitism is one of the most potent dangerous forces in human history and they are playing with it like it's a partisan cudgel. And it is very frustrating. This is something that is alive now. It has been around forever.

It has caused untold harm and misery over the course of human history. It is so dangerous. They are playing with such an incredibly powerful force. And to use it and to cast it into our partisan frame to make it easier to stomach, to make it easier to process is reprehensible. We have a problem. The problem is white nationalists and anti-Semites killing Jews. That's the problem we're talking about. Well, and it's also, I mean, I saw someone in the Intercept write this piece, you know, we have the same enemies, right? That it's not just anti-Semitism that is a result of white nationalism. It is anti-Islam, right? Like it is, there is a belief, there is an ideology that the white race is superior. It's Nazism. It's Nazism, right? And

that includes anti-Semitism, but goes much broader than that. And it also, it's worth noting too, that in the past few years, like there has been a rise in hate crimes. And who have those hate crimes targeted? They've targeted Jews and they've targeted Muslims. Those are the two religious groups being targeted right now by violence. And African Americans. Remember, there was a black church burned in Louisiana just a few weeks ago. So that is, the targets are black Americans, Latino Americans, immigrants, Jews, and Muslims. Those are the targets of white nationalism. Anti-Semitism is a centuries-old evil, as Lovett said. I don't think it's rooted in a party or an ideology.

Louis Farrakhan says vile anti-Semitic things. We should condemn those things. The Labor Party in the United Kingdom has had real problems with members saying things that are blatantly and vilely anti-Semitic. I do think we just need to be smart enough to separate out what we've seen lately, which is far-right white nationalists whose views are so sick and depraved that it leads them to violence. And you're right. I mean, the fact that, you know, in an effort to defend Donald Trump or distract from the fact that, you know, these are right-wing, radical white men that we throw Ilhan Omar's name into the mix.

Months after this discussion, it is so cynical. And every time you think that something is so serious that we might look inward and deal with the problem, our friends on Fox News and on the right fail to do so. And it leads to a sense of just despair that we'll never deal with these problems. Here's Ilhan Omar on the shooting. My heart is breaking after today's deadly shooting.

On the last day of Passover and six months to the day after the Tree of Life shooting, we as a nation must confront the terrifying rise of religious hate and violence. Love, Trump's hate. How much are these media outlets and platforms responsible and what can be done about them? I mean, you know, I saw some calls

for someone's got to shut down 8chan. I don't know how you do that. Clearly, Fox is a problem that we haven't been able to solve. Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure how you would do that. You know, I mean, a whole bunch of companies that host websites have kicked things like 8chan or the Daily Stormer off. Yeah.

And then there's just sort of a few that linger, like sites that are just willing to allow anything to happen. And I don't know how to increase the political pressure on them to get rid of those people. I mean, certainly, I think it's better than having them all over Facebook or all over Twitter where there's millions and millions of people. But again, every time we have this conversation, someone learns what 8chan is for the first time.

And maybe you don't need help learning what it is if you're in some of the more dark corners of 4chan or, you know, you're watching Fox News at night, which leads you down this path into the really radicalizing, dangerous shit. Yeah, and part of it, I think, is defining, like what we were just talking about, defining exactly what this kind of hate and hateful ideology is. I mean, here's one example. kind of hate and hateful ideology is. I mean, here's one example. Last week, apparently, there was a report that when an employee at Twitter recently asked at an all-hands meeting why they couldn't ban content from white supremacists like they do with content linked to terrorist groups like ISIS, that person was told that coming up with an algorithmic solution would be more complicated because it could also affect content created by Republican politicians. Yeah. And what that tells me

is that all the bad faith attacks on Facebook and Twitter and other tech platforms from Donald Trump Jr. and Donald Trump about shadow banning and all this made-up bullshit they do, they work. They work.

And these guys end up fearing being called partisan more than being accused of allowing Nazis to fester on their platform. That is a really fucked-up way to think about the problem. Yeah, and it's the inability to say that certain types of speech are hateful and can incite violence and to say that, yes, sometimes they might come from Republican politicians because they're so afraid because then that makes it partisan. And God forbid you are ever seen or accused of being partisan.

That is the worst sin possible, that you did something that you're accused of being partisan, even when the truth is right there. Yeah. Let's talk about Trump's response to all of this, which unfolded over a few days, culminating in a batshit crazy speech in Wisconsin on Saturday night. So he did offer condolences for the victims and condemned anti-Semitism. That's good. anti-Semitism. That's good. But on Friday, the president responded to Joe Biden's announcement video by claiming that he gave the perfect response

to the white supremacist neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, and that when he said there was very fine people on both sides, he was referring to those who just didn't want to see Robert E. Lee's statue come down. Guys, what's the problem with this explanation? It's not just from Donald Trump. I've seen a ton

of conservative commentators say they all got Charlottesville wrong. Yeah, yeah. He condemned anti-Semitism and he was just talking about the statue people. It's just a lie.

Yeah. The Unite the Right rally was explicitly organized and people went there to spread racist white supremacist views. That was the point of the rally.

And you didn't need to see what happened on Saturday to know that. You could have watched those motherfuckers marching with tiki torches on Friday night and terrorizing black students at UVA. Like it, this is one of those conversations where we're just being asked to not believe our lying eyes. And it is so infuriating. We even have to talk about it. It's a, yeah, I mean, there's so many ways when Donald Trump wants to denounce something,

he never struggles. No, you know, when he has no trouble denouncing Democrats or he has no trouble denouncing cable ratings, cable ratings, any any celebrity that criticizes him. It seems to me he only has trouble finding the words when it has to do with Vladimir Putin or white nationalists. That's when he seems to be able to. That's the only time the corners get sanded down. It's it's it's just get sanded down. It's just nonsense. Also, fuck Robert E. Lee. He was not a great

general. He was a traitor who led a war against his own country. He's a vile racist, unrepentant, disgusting human being. Get out of here with this. I know. Yeah, there's that. Excuse me, Donald Trump. Get out of here with this. What got me so mad about it is that even before we get to Robert E. Lee, the very premise is wrong.

There weren't people. That wasn't the purpose of the rally. Finally, Tommy, you had mentioned guns earlier when we first started talking about this. Just hours after that, gunmen shot up the synagogue with an AR-15. Trump said in his Wisconsin speech that Democrats are trying to take your guns away. Trump said in his Wisconsin speech that Democrats are trying to take your guns away. Trump was fresh off appearing at the NRA's convention in Indianapolis, which also ended in a bonkers leadership crisis,

all while its tax-exempt status is under investigation by New York's attorney general. So that's some good news. Guys, how hard should Democratic candidates take on gun control in the NRA in 2020? Should this be a bigger issue than it has been in the primary so far? It's a great question. Politically, it's hard. I don't know. I mean, I liked what Kamala Harris had to say, I believe, over the weekend about some executive action she would take.

Yeah. Because we need to focus on things we can do by executive action to deal with any problem since the Republican Senate is likely to be there. Yeah, we should talk about it. So Harris made news during her CNN mega town hall. It was last week. All these things sort of blend together. That if no action by Congress was taken

within the first hundred days of her presidency, she would move on a series of executive actions. Harris has made a pledge that includes mandating background checks, revoking licenses from dealers and manufacturers who break the law and closing a legal loophole to keep those convicted of domestic violence from purchasing guns among other things um you know we know this is difficult because we tried this with obama we kept pushing and pushing to see how much he could do via executive action on guns versus getting something passed and there is quite a bit you

can do but still the big big stuff still has to happen in Congress. Yeah, I mean, I think they should be talking about what they do, talking about what they do with a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House. You know, we're still trying to get through modest proposals that have massive bipartisan support, things like background checks and other steps like that. We've had the first hearings in a decade on gun control in the House because we finally have the branch of government back. So I think that should continue. I think we have to just keep pressing the issue. I also, you know, I do think when it comes to gun control, as always, like we conflate the three kinds of violence. We conflate gun deaths by suicide, gun deaths by kind of quotidian murder, and then mass shootings. They each require a different response. And then on top of that, I also think we are in a real cultural rut in how we talk about mass shootings. You know, this is a small thing,

but every time there's a mass shooting now, someone goes on television and says the people of this community are strong and they'll get through this. It is a, I understand why they say it. I understand why they feel the need to say it. No one's ever gone on television and said, this community is weak and it will succumb to this mass shooting. But the reason they feel the need to say it is it ascribes agency to all of us in the fight against what happens after a mass shooting. But it's actually a false sense of agency. It's trying to make people feel like they're empowered when actually they're just sort of the grim victims of a lottery. And I think all the kind of hopeful notes that come at the end of coverage is harmful and wrong. I agree with that. I also, you know, there's a lot of journalists,

you see a lot of reporters on TV in particular, who, you know, are heartbroken and frustrated and screaming about how they don't want to have to report on the same story again. I feel like that rage and frustration is rarely translated into a political setting where you could clearly say that one party has done everything they can to side with the NRA and prevent gun control from happening, and one has not. Like, Eric Swalwell is the only one talking about banning and buying back military-style assault weapons like the AR-15. It's the most obvious thing we can do. I know the politics are hard, but I would love for the outrage to extend into the political setting because one party is the problem. Yeah. And I will say that there is

hopeful news once you get past sort of national action via Congress and the president, right? Like, you know, you've seen this almost at every single candidate's events. There are moms demand action activists there. The Parkland students have been active. And what they're trying to do is they say, okay, well, on the national scene, it's very tough to get things moving with this Congress and this president. We're going to take on the states. And not only have they stopped a lot of really bad laws from passing that would make it easier to have a gun, but they have also passed real gun safety reform in state legislatures all across the country. And so that is, if you're thinking about how to do something that's not just thoughts and prayers or our community is going to get through this, there is real grassroots action happening right now

all across this country at a lower level than Congress that should give us hope for the future. Alright, let's turn to the Trump investigations. The Washington Post and ABC have done the first big Post-Muller Report poll. I'll read some questions and results, and then I'll go to you guys for reaction. Did the Muller Report clear Trump? 31%

yes, 53% no. Did Trump tell the truth? 33% said yes, 58% said no. Did Trump obstruct justice? 47% said yes, 41% said no. Now, should the House begin impeachment proceedings?

37% yes, 56% no. And that's 62 percent of democrats are in favor of impeachment proceedings but 60 percent of independents are opposed and of course 90 percent of republicans are opposed guys anything in here surprising to you or what's your take from these numbers it's not particularly surprising i actually think that 47 percent of people believing he obstructed justice is pretty good yes that was surprising that was actually think that 47% of people believing he obstructed justice is pretty good. Yes. That was surprising. That was the one that was surprising. In a news cycle that basically went Democrats saying he did, but we're going to take it slow. And Republicans being like he's exonerated and the media being teaching the controversy. It doesn't surprise me, but that

feels like some truth got through. I'll tell you, the 37% who want impeachment proceedings to begin versus the 47% who believe that Trump broke the law and obstructed justice, that's the pundit gap right there. That's what I'm calling it. That is a whole bunch of voters who are like, he broke the law, but I'm hearing on TV that it's a little worrisome that Democrats might overreach by moving towards impeachment. I will say also there's a little bit of a Clinton gap in there, too,

because there might be some people out there who vaguely remember that Democrats were against removing a Democratic president who obviously obstructed justice. So there's a little bit of like a kind of lawless overhang from like the last 30 years, a little bit of a hangover from presidents being above the law. Like kind of can't remove a president for breaking the law. I would like to see data on that only because I think we can barely remember what happened last week.

Oh, no, we're goldfish. I don't I don't think it's like a one to one connection of people making it. But there is a kind of the that we've we've elevated holding presidents accountable to such a high bar, which I think is inappropriate. And I think both parties have contributed to that over a very long time. This is really bad news for Trump. What are we talking about? This is insanely bad news for Trump and I think that what Democrats need to do now is use hearings to bring the Mueller report to life on TV because it was 448 pages. Nobody read the whole thing. There's all sorts of explosive stuff in there. So I want days and days and days of testimony from key officials stretched out over a year that explode this thing on television and create moments that break through.

And again, I've been skeptical about impeachment because I don't fucking want a moral victory and I'm a crass political hack. And to me, that says we need to do some more work here to sell people on how bad of a person he is. And also, I really, really want to know if impeachment is more likely to motivate our base or his base. I think in some ways that is the key question to figure out. Yeah, I mean, I don't know that it's possible for his base to be any more motivated. I mean, this is what I thought. Absolutely it is.

Kavanaugh. But that's what I'm saying. Before and after Kavanaugh. But what I'm saying is I think during the 2018 election, we learned that no matter what it is, there will be something, whether it's impeachment, which starts a year out of the election, more than a year out of the election, whether it's a Kavanaugh fight, whether it was the caravan. Remember, it started with Kavanaugh, then Kavanaugh faded out, and then it was the caravan, right? Like, they will, they have an entire propaganda empire that will find something to motivate their base. Count on it. Yeah. The people talked about it, but I don't think it's fully been like absorbed into our thinking. It is the propaganda machine.

I would say the biggest surprise of the 2018 election is just how hard the Republicans turned out. All this notion that like there's that, that, that Trump is demoralizing to some segment of this base, all this, the, all the conversation about how, uh, energetic and,

and, you know, come alive. The liberal base is all of that is, that is actually true. But Republicans came out, they came out in massive numbers. They surprised people like Beto O'Rourke in Texas who hit his targets on how

many people turned out. And all of a sudden there were more Republicans than anyone expected in Texas. Same thing happened there, happened in the house races. It happened in the Senate races, happened everywhere. They all hit their targets. They hit their targets. So it's the Republican turnout machine is vast, quiet, and incredibly impressive. And so it's just, I don't think that's been fully kind of part of the conversation. And there's a reason it's impressive. It's because Donald Trump has turned the party into a party that runs on grievance politics and only grievance politics. There's always a reason to feel fucking aggrieved, according to Donald Trump and Fox News, whatever it may be. It's always going to be easier to motivate a homogenous base than for Democrats, where we're a coalition of African Americans and liberals and higher

educated and Latino voters. We're arguing over everything all the time. There's not going to be one thing that gets us going. That's exactly right. And also these are older voters. They are registered. They are not moving. They know where their polling place is. They vote every time. I will say one more thing about, so this was the Washington Post ABC poll. The New York Times did a story where it talked about Democratic politicians holding town halls with voters, and they said there's not a big push to impeachment. Including many friends of the pod, like Katie Porter? Yep, exactly. But what drove me nuts about this, the story was well written, what drove me nuts about some of these voters is not one of them raised their hand and said, hey,

can you focus on healthcare instead of impeachment? Because I don't think impeachment's important, right? They all said, please focus on healthcare and other issues because I hear that if we focus on impeachment we're going to lose and it's going to excite Trump's base. Everyone, all these voters are acting like fucking punks. They're all auditioning for the Meet the Press

panel this Sunday. It's all of our collective fault. It's the impeachment or a burros. It's all of our collective faults. It's the impeachment or a burros. It's all what you think might happen. It's the same thing we deal with in the primary when people say, I love Elizabeth Warren, but I don't know that she can win, because the pundits tell me she can't win.

And because the pundits are saying she can't win, she can't win, because the conversation is about how she can't win. I want impeachment, but the pundits tell me that impeachment's not going to be good. Look, I go back to my thing. I'm just as much of a crass political hack as you, Tommy. But I think I think that what you just said, which was bringing the Mueller report to life on television for people instead of reading a dense 300 page, 400 page report is a much better political move for the Democrats, even if they don't come out of that victorious, because no one expects Donald Trump to be removed by the Senate. But I will say, the idea of sort of dragging Trump administration officials to Congress to testify, that's not easy either. Right now, this week, we're dealing with William Barr, Attorney General William Barr is now threatening to cancel his

testimony before Congress this week, because he's upset with a format that would allow for extended questioning. That's why Barr's pissed. Of course. So the question is, and I saw, you know, Ted Lieu did an interview with Greg Sargent about this, is the move now to possibly threaten impeachment proceedings if the White House continues to stonewall and not provide any officials to give any testimony? Like, what if we can't have these hearings because the White House refuses to allow anyone to testify? Well, one of the articles of impeachment against Nixon was about the administration's efforts to thwart Congress's investigation. Right. It's congressional obstruction. Right. So I do think that's a place to go. I don't know how to game out where impeachment falls as a threat to them.

I don't know. I do. I do like the stories suggesting Democrats are beginning to consider more drastic measures to enforce their subpoenas, whether it's through fines or even potentially threatening contempt in jail time. I think that that is important. You know, one one thing we've talked about a million times is how much we rely on norms of behavior, especially. And that is especially true in the dynamic between the White House and Congress. But it's very clear that this administration is not going to respect those at all. They're not turning over the tax documents. Donald Trump is suing to prevent subpoenas to his accountant. We have a lot of evidence that they are going to fundamentally disregard the kind of fair play between the two branches,

and that may force them to go further in one direction or another. Yeah, I mean, I think the tax issue is a very specific one for Trump, and I think he is playing to delay it for as long as humanly possible past the re-election, basically. But writ large, I want to see Democrats just hit the gas everywhere.

No more waiting to subpoena people. Just subpoena them. No one knows the difference. Hurry up. Get everyone you want before you start the process now, because a lot of this will end up in courts. It gets dragged out. There's negotiations.

Enough. And if they reject a subpoena, hold them in contempt, and take it as far as you can. Let's go. Yeah, because it's also worth stepping back stepping back to first principles. Why do we want the tax returns? So they can form the American people in their decision making on re-election. Donald Trump will face one more election in his life until he runs for mayor of New York and wins that.

No, he won't. He won't. He can't. Probably can't. No, but his returns are only of importance to the American people for another year and a half. That's it. This is the time. We get them now or it doesn't matter. Yeah. All right. Let's talk about 2020. We don't love covering primary horse race polls here, especially this early. But I want to quickly talk about the post ABC poll because they questioned respondents in an interesting way and got a different kind of result. It's fascinating. It's fascinating. It's fascinating. Instead of reading a list of candidate names, the Post asked people to name the candidate they like off the top of their head as opposed to

reading on the list. So with people who are leaning towards a candidate included, so they asked people, who would you vote for today? And then also, who are you leaning towards? So that combined, you have Biden leads with 17 percent. Sanders gets 11 percent. Buttigieg gets 5 percent. And Kamala, Warren and Beto all get 4 percent. But the big winner is no opinion with 35 percent. What does that tell us about the state of the race? And what does it tell us about polls?

I really appreciate this for a few reasons. One is I like that basically a lot of polls you see biden somewhere say around 25 percent and 30 yeah let's say let's say it's let's say it's 25 percent uh and he got what 17 in this one that means that there is about eight percent of people who support joe biden however cannot remember his name when asked which i think is very interesting. That like, who am I for? I'm for Joe Biden, but you got to remind me that he exists.

And then I love him. What did you think, Tommy? Yeah, I mean, big picture take home is how early it is. There were some interesting things within the numbers. Bernie's support was pretty even among whites, non-whites, college grads, those without college degrees. I think that sort of cuts against conventional wisdom about who's supporting Bernie Sanders. So, you know, notable, interesting. Ben Smith, who is the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed, wrote an interesting piece about how it used to be that candidates got

little like earned media boomlets from the press and then the press looked at them closely and then criticized them and discarded them. Reminded me of Howard Dean and some of the frontrunners of the past. His argument is that today is different because of social media and someone like Bernie or Biden could use social channels to prop themselves up throughout the primary. It'd be interesting to see if that plays out. Certainly you look at Mayor Pete and the way he's used the media and his own channels to really boost himself. Like, that would tell me yes. Although, you know, you look at Beto O'Rourke, who had huge, you know, social media presence, Facebook presence that propelled him in the Senate race.

He has not, you know, done this successfully the last few months. So, a lot to learn. last few months. So, and yet, a lot to learn. Despite the fact that, at least in Buttigieg and Beto's case, the Buttigieg boom

has been like all over media for the last couple weeks and ton, and Beto has been almost absent from national media, and they're separated

by a point in the poll. And, you know, and Elizabeth Warren and all over, like, it's, what stands out to me in that poll is, A, that it's interesting

that Bernie and Biden are both a little lower when you ask people to name them off the top of your head but also that for all that we've talked about and thought about uh kamala harris elizabeth warren pete budaj and better o'rourke they are all sitting at four and five percent right now and 35 percent of people don't have an opinion which means this fucking race is as wide open as ever, and it is early. And also, as Cornell said to me when we just had our chat, these horse race polls this early are complete bullshit. Yeah, I was.

Just throw. You might as well burn 30 grand if you're like the Washington Post. I think that democracy dies in the darkness. I think that you could. shame on you, Tommy. I think there's like an optimistic read and then there's a pessimistic read. I think the optimistic read is it's a wide open field. There's a lot of really, really great candidates. And it could really be anyone and any one of these people could walk away with it. We have debates to come.

There's a lot to happen. I think there is a pessimistic read that's worth airing, which is, I think part of what we're seeing, I think part of the reason, first of all, there's no one clear person that everyone recognizes is like the person they want, right? They're just absent. And I think that could be because we haven't found them yet from this pool of really good options. It also could be that in part because Democrats are so shaken by 2016 and, but, but also in part because there's a gut sense that none of them are kind of capturing what they were hoping for in a candidate, that everybody is still kind of feeling around because they look at each one of these people and they like them. Maybe they like how policy-focused they are. Maybe they like the voice they bring.

Maybe they like the critique they bring. Maybe they like the experience they bring. But for whatever reason, there's a gut sense that none of these people are capturing what they were looking for in the person that was going to stand across from Donald Trump because they recognize how important it is. I don't know, but I think it's worth certainly the anecdotal evidence among recent presidential candidates who threw their hats in the ring. They're clearly not seeing what they want to see, which is why we're on number 20. Yeah, yeah, it's right. And as much as people joke about all new Democrats getting in, the reason it's not laughable, the reason it's not seen as completely ridiculous is because there is a sense that, you know what, it really could be someone who's not in the race. Yeah. And I would just say that I still think it's just too early.

Like, I think that the idea that people have there's voters out there who have seen all these candidates, vetted all these candidates and are like, no one has got what I'm looking for is probably not true just because we haven't even had the first debate yet. I think that's overstating my critique. I think it's just a little bit of a nervousness. I think once I think and good like we've seen this before, good candidates become good candidates throughout the course of these primary campaigns. They revealed themselves to be good candidates. Like, you know, and we just had two elections, 2016 and 2008 on the Democratic side, where Hillary Clinton was the dominant front runner in both of those elections. You know, it was not Hillary Clinton's position in 2008 is not like Joe Biden's position in 2020. Hers was much, much stronger. And it's also one of the reasons I'm kind of I want everyone to at the end of this, like come together and I don't want there to be too much kind of vicious infighting, but I'm sort of glad to see there's the first hints of some mixing it up because one of these people is going to go up against an overflowing insult toilet and whoever that

is, I would like to see what happens on a debate stage when people start mixing it up. I don't hate it. All right. Now that we've done all the horse racy poll stuff some substance what yes i gotta go uh some new postmates is here uh during a campaign trip through california on monday former congressman and democratic presidential candidate beto o'rourke released his first major policy proposal which he also says would be his first priority as president a climate climate change plan that calls for a $1.5 trillion federal investment in new infrastructure technologies

and helping people transition to a carbon-free economy. He says he'll pay for the plan by changes to the tax code and by ending tax breaks for fossil fuel companies. Beto's campaign says the plan would meet the Green New Deal resolution goal of net zero emissions by 2050 and be halfway there by 2030. It's so far the most detailed climate plan we've seen from any of the other 2020 candidates. We know also that Jay Inslee has made it a centerpiece of his campaign as well. Guys, what do you think of the plan? And why do you think Beto started with this policy? Seems like he's going to roll out what two or three big policy ideas, or that's what they've hinted at. So I think that leading with climate shows that

it's your top priority. It's a thing you're going to do on day one. I think in terms of process, they did a pretty smart rollout. He's here in California. He did an OTR meeting with firefighters to highlight the fact that climate change is driving these horrific fires. He went to Yosemite to show you an amazing natural resource. Like, it's a good plan. It was well done. I do think we need to remember, I mean, we've talked a lot on the show about how bold and impressive and comprehensive Elizabeth Warren's policy plans are. And we're political nerds.

And so, you know, of course, we love that sort of stuff. But on some level, who has the best plan is irrelevant once you get into the White House. So that's why you guys are constantly asking about, you know, how are you going to get it done? Eliminate the filibuster, pack courts, like questions like that. It's why I'm always asking about foreign policy, because you actually have a lot of freedom to just do stuff on foreign policy grounds. So anyway, long way of saying good plan. Glad he's starting to roll it out. Maybe we shouldn't get too, too seized. Well, let me stop there because I don't want to tell people not to care about policy. Well, I was going to say, I totally agree on it's important

to figure out how you're going to get it done, right? That's why we've been pushing people on this. So I was actually glad to see one of the things I was happy about in this plan is he has a whole bunch of things that he can do via executive action that's what right away because we all know whether it's the green new deal or medicare for all or any of these plans um it's going to take a minor miracle to get some of these through even a congress with a democratic senate because um as we've heard from all the candidates and certainly from schumer and all them they're all afraid of getting rid of the filibuster, right? So it's going to be really hard to move legislation.

So in this plan, he says rejoin Paris, which they're all saying, which is great. He's going to restore Obama's Clean Power Plan. And then also, he has a plan

for net zero emissions by 2030 on all public lands and stopping all new fossil fuel leases, which is something that's interesting. I love all the executive action stuff. Yeah, because for some of these people...

I worry about the big... And that's why I liked Kamala Harris' executive actions on gun stuff, too, because I'm glad... I'd love to hear more people talking about their executive actions. Lovett, what do you think? Yeah, look, I think Elizabeth Warren has staked her claim on an argument

about the economy and the scale of the challenge there, and she has put out a set of policies that meet that moment, and it is why I think she's inspired a lot of people. I think Beto has been criticized by a lot of people for not being substantive, for not having an actual substantive policy argument for why he should be president. I think he's looking to answer that. I think it speaks well of him that he's starting with climate. You know, Jay Inslee has staked his claim on climate, but I actually don't think he's maximized that. He hasn't put out a specific claim yet.

I'm sure he will if he's making his claim. Of course, of course. But he hasn't yet. But I think he hasn't, and I honestly was not super happy. Like, when you talked to him at Pod Save America, you asked him very specific questions about climate change. I thought that he gave kind of pretty, kind of, I don't know, unsatisfying answers ultimately. If you're a long-shot candidate staking your claim on climate change, you would expect someone to come to the table with a bolder and more kind of exciting set of ideas, a way to captivate people and show why this is so important and why you want to make it the centerpiece of your campaign.

So I think that does leave an opening. And I think it speaks – look, part of campaigns is revealing who these people are and what they care about. He's approaching this and saying he's looked at the vast sweep of areas where he could make a big proposal, and he chose climate because he believes that's the most important. I think there's a good argument for that. I think it speaks well of him. Kamala Harris, I think, has come out with proposals on tax code proposals and teacher proposals that speak to, I think, a more cautious approach to policymaking, and it speaks to the more cautious approach I think she would take as president. And there's good arguments in favor of that. There's good arguments against that. But that's what this campaign is about. We're going to start to learn who these people are. Yeah. One other interesting thing about this

policy, because obviously everyone who rolls out a climate policy will be compared to the Green New Deal. Right. So the Green New Deal resolution says that, you know, the globe needs to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, and they need to get halfway there by 2030. 40% to 60% by 2030. Yeah, so that's the resolution. That's the resolution introduced by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey. That's the resolution that has been agreed to and signed on by Kamala, Booker, Warren, and Gillibrand.

Sorry if I'm forgetting anyone else in the Senate who's running for president. And Bernie Sanders, of course. And so they all signed on to this. And so that's what Beto's plan is. And yet, the Sunrise Movement, who we've talked to, put out a statement critical of Beto's plan this morning, saying that we actually need to do, we need to be net zero in the United States by 2030, because we need to go faster than the rest of the world since we have more emissions, which is a completely fine position to have. But it's very interesting that I didn't realize this until I saw this, that the Sunrise Movement's goal is not in line with the actual Green New Deal resolution that was introduced by AOC in Congress.

Doesn't that make sense, though? It's just funny. They never said anything when the Green New Deal resolution came up. Right, but I imagine, you know, look, this is, I think, the first presidential candidate to outline a specific policy plan around climate. And so this is the first opportunity the Sunrise Movement has to criticize it. It would make sense to me for them to stake out a maximal position because their goal is to try to keep Democrats further to the left.

I think it's a kind of natural place for them to be in. You know, we've talked about, I can't, I'm about to say the phrase Overton window, but whatever, uh, they're in a move over to window, but the, uh, trying to make sure that they make sure that as long, they have to stake out further left because they can feel how our politics is going to pull wherever we land to the right. That's all. The only other thing I'll say about this is, I think everyone criticized the Green New Deal when it came out as like, you know, pie in the sky thinking, whatever, it's unrealistic. I thought that it's one of the most politically pragmatic plans from a messaging perspective, because it combines, here's what we need to do on climate with, here's what we need

to do to make sure that our economy transitions in the right way, and that everyone gets something from this, right? That there's, you know, dignified work and benefits and all this kind of stuff. And so, and I think Beto's plan leaves room for that. But I hope that not only Beto, but all the candidates as they talk about climate, don't just talk about, here's what we have to do to prevent the planet from extinction. But here's what we also have the opportunity to do to make sure that as we transition to this new renewable energy economy, clean energy economy, that we can also make sure we lift up poorer communities and make sure people have good jobs with good benefits. Like, I think the economic messaging is really important. Sorry, we've really we've really adapted because I remember when we used to talk about climate change and it was all we talk about the carbon tax, talk about the cap and trade, and we lead with that. And man, you know, he does outline a massive

climate proposal and it's like, we're going to do this, we're going to do that. We're going to restructure the tax code and we're going to do this and we're going to get all this other shit done, but also we're going to restructure the tax code just a little bit. You're going to have to get some taxes from people. And so I think that that's sort of a interesting change in how we're talking about it. And I think for the most part, it is a lesson learned about bad faith arguments and what you need to actually do to get something done. Okay. When we come back, we'll have my conversation with a former Obama pollster, Cornell Belcher. On the pod today, Obama pollster, DNC pollster, just brilliant all-around guy,

Cornell Belcher joining us today. Welcome back to the show, Cornell. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. So I thought we'd have you on now that the Democratic field is almost set, barring a few. I was going to say, is it set yet? I'm not sure. Right. I think we've got like two or three out there. But now that our old friend Joe Biden is finally in the race, it's starting to look like the field is set.

How much is polling even useful at this stage in the primary? And what, if anything, do the public and private polls you've seen tell you about the race so far? Well, that's a really good question. And let's do a little bit of educating and informing for our audience. Yes, please. There's a big difference between the public polls that you all see on a regular basis in Washington polls, the NBC, Wall Street Journal polling. on a regular basis being watched and polled in NBC, Wall Street Journal polling.

And those polls have a lot of basic horse race numbers in it and favorability ratings, job performance ratings, etc., which gives you a snapshot. As you know, John, campaign polling is different because campaigns poll around building strategy and figuring out what's the best outlay for their resources. You know, who are they targeting? What demographics, what geographic groups make sense for targeting? What are the best arguments for those candidates? So right now, I would say a lot of the public polling that's taking a snapshot of the horse race numbers are completely meaningless, particularly when you look at the history, particularly the history of the Democrat primary.

The history of the Democratic primary says that the candidate who is in the lead right now is usually not in the lead six or seven months from now. It is often the kiss of death to be in the lead at this point. I will point you all to 2004 when, at this time, Senator Joe Lieberman was the leading candidate in all of Poland. I forgot about that. Right. Do you remember Joe Lieberman was the leading candidate in all the polling. I forgot about that. Right. Do you remember Joe Lieberman? Yes. Unfortunately. Senator Joe Lieberman was leading in polling at the time,

and then followed very quickly by Wesley Clark. Remember Wesley Clark? I do. There was a little Wesley Clark boomlet there for a couple weeks. There was. And then you had my guy, Dean, rise, and then Dean and Gephardt got into basically a murder-suicide pact in Iowa, which led the way for John Kerry to come up the middle. And I think this time around was a lot more like 2004 than 2016, and I'll talk about why I think that is.

But so polling that takes a look at the horse race number, and you see Joe Biden right now leading in the polls, although the Washington Post poll had him not as far ahead as it feels that some of the other polls did. But that is basically name identification and who voters know and they're comfortable with right now. But for campaigns, campaigns are pulling right now to figure out what's their lane. You know, in a crowded primary field, there's going to be several lanes, and who's in my lane? You know, if you are a Beto, is Mayor Pete in your lane?

If you are Warren, is Sanders in your lane? Try to figure out who is in your lane when you look at the voters who are likely to move to you. And what are the arguments, what are the best arguments to make for yourself to raise your name, particularly if you're the rest of the field and not Biden, we're saying there's a race and name identification. Get voters to know you and get voters comfortable with you. And then at some point, and this is what people hate about politics, but, John, as you know, this is part of politics. And then at some point, I'm going to have to figure out how I'm going to contrast myself with the candidate that's in my lane who's ahead of me. So, for example, Biden is going to take a lot of shots that's in my lane, who's ahead of me. So for example, Biden is going to take a lot of shots over the next couple of months, not because they just

dislike Biden, but because it's politics. And if Biden's ahead of you and Biden's in your lane, you're going to have to do something to contrast himself or to knock support down away from him. That's just politics 101. So a lot of the campaigns right now, that's what they're himself or to knock support down away from him. That's just politics 101. So a lot of the campaigns right now, that's what their polling is doing and trying to figure out, and that's their internal polling that we'll never see because it lays out their strategy. So tell me more about why you think this race looks more like 2004 than anything else. like 2004 than anything else?

And look, it's... I think it looks more like 2004 because if you look at 2004, you had, again, you had a very sort of crowded field of candidates, some really well-established candidates. You know, Gephardt was a well-established Democrat.

John Kerry, Lieberman, you had a lot of well-established candidates in a crowded field. I think this is more like 2000, and no one was really a dominant, dominant frontrunner. 2008, Hillary Clinton was a dominant frontrunner. She was. She was ahead 20-plus points in all the polling from the field. Oh, yeah. And she was just as dominant a frontrunner in 2008 as she was in 2016. issue was in 2016. So that's because when I look at Vice President Biden, yes, he's a frontrunner, but is he as dominant a frontrunning figure now as Hillary Clinton was in 2008? No, he wasn't.

So I think you have a more crowded, bunched up field. And when you look at most of the primary polling right now, and again, it's all on name identification, but when you look at most of the primary polling right now, and Washington Post headlined this the other day, the field was rather wide open. Yes, Vice President Biden has advantage, but there are a lot of voters out there shopping around and looking for candidates. And just for my qualitative, I've been doing some qualitative in some of the early states,

voters know and they like Vice President Biden, like myself. I know and I like Vice President Biden. But to say that they are locked in on Vice President Biden now, they're not. They're shopping around. And I think he and his campaign know that they're going to have to work very hard to hold on to a lead and expand and break away from the pack. Yeah. So let's talk about the voters a little bit. You said you've been doing some qualitative research, which is known as focus groups also. And you said you've been doing some qualitative research, which is known as focus groups also. What are the top qualities that Democratic voters are looking for in a nominee this time around?

Is it experience? Is it someone new or different? Is it competence, inspiration? What are the different qualities that keep coming up when you talk to people? You know, that's a really good question. And there's no silver bullet. And this gets us back to the conversation about lanes. And there's no silver bullet. And this gets us back to the conversation about lanes. So there are certainly a segment of the Democratic electorate that is just straight up, whoever can beat Trump will take him or her. And it is just whose best position, who do we think can absolutely beat Trump? And then there's a segment out there who's really looking for candidates who are going to push a more progressive agenda and is going to really sort of push the boundaries of things. And there's a segment out there that's just looking for change. What I think is interesting is there's always an element of or a segment of the electorate,

especially in the Democrat primary, who will be driving and looking for the change-oriented candidate. Quite frankly, I think he's an elected Republican primary as well. I think Trump's an incredible unethical and corrupt person, but he was, to a certain extent, the anti-establishment change candidate for the Republicans, just the way Barack Obama was the anti-establishment change candidate in 2008. And I think the candidate who can own that anti-establishment change lane and can dominate that lane, that candidate has a pretty good chance of still be one of the few candidates

standing in six or seven months. I think there's a lane that's clearly the establishment, safe lane, experienced lane. And I think Vice President Biden has a clear advantage to owning that lane, although I think there's some candidates going to try to chip away at him in that lane. But I think he's clearly going to own that lane. And there's always a cohort of them who are change-oriented, anti-establishment, shake things up. And who can dominate that? And I think, frankly, I think we saw that in 2016 with Sanders. And look, Sanders, I think, did really well in the last Democratic primary and wasn't on the base.

And this is the question I think that's hanging out there. Was so much of that surge for Sanders, was that really about Sanders and sort of who he was? Or was that anti-establishment, change-oriented voter that he was a safe place for them, he was a safe place for them to land, he was the only place for them to land. He was the only place for them to land and be against the establishment and be anti-Hillary Clinton. Yeah, and I imagine people like, candidates like Elizabeth Warren

and potentially, I guess, Pete Buttigieg, Beto O'Rourke, a whole bunch of others are probably trying to compete in that lane in some ways, I guess, trying to be more of a change candidate. Does that seem right? I think that seems right, but each candidate has to run their own race because there's not credibility. Right.

Who can most credibly hold that change and that shake-things-up reign? And it's how they unfold their stories and show that – one of the things that I think was brilliant about the 2008 Obama campaign was how Obama made Hillary's experience a negative. And you'll remember how he talked about her vote on the war. So to a certain extent, he went after what was her, a large part of her predicate was his experience and his readiness and know-how to get the job done. You know, he undermined that by going after the experience, but he was also credible at it. Which candidate can credibly hold that change-oriented lane,

anti-establishment lane? And one of the other things that I'm finding in folks groups is, frankly, a candidate who has a really good story that doesn't sound like the pack, that candidate has a pretty good chance of breaking through. And when you look at Mayor Pete right now, Mayor Pete has a great story, Tom. And I think people resonate toward good stories. Now, can he hold that and build it? I don't know.

But if you look at the field of candidates right now and the one who's telling the best story about who he is, where he's come from, and how he got to this place right now, to me, without question, it's Mayor Pete. Now, I'm also going to be controversial. I'm going to push back a little bit on what I think is progressive conventional think. Not even progressive conventional think, I think it's sort of conventional political think, and say this. Are policy positions important? Yes, they're absolutely important. Are people making their decisions about who to vote for in a linear, rational, well-thought-out way around who's closest to them on a whole set of policy positions? processes to them on a whole set of policy positions. History would tell us that that's just not true, although we want to believe it's true. Look, if voters were deciding in a linear policy way, you know, Al Gore would be president.

You know, certainly Hillary would have beat Trump by double digits. But there's also that likability and charisma thing. Hillary would have beat Trump by double digits. Right. But there's also that likability and charisma thing. You know, I had a lot of policy issues with George Bush. But in the end, there was something about George Bush that made people want to have a beer with him. important that is for a politician from running for office is that people gravitate towards you because they like you and they trust you. Yeah. No, look, I totally get that too. And I always have this, I mean, I think Elizabeth Warren, for example, because she's the candidate that everyone says, you know, every day there's a new, bold, ambitious plan from Elizabeth Warren. She has a plan for that.

It now gets an applause line. She's got T-shirts. It's great. But I would say that I find Elizabeth Warren compelling as a candidate, not just because she has a bunch of policies, because I agree with you since I've been in politics for a long time and seen this. The policies that you lay out are not what gets you elected. the policies that you lay out are not what gets you elected. And when Elizabeth Warren talks to people, what she's constantly doing is talking about her story, her background, how her policies fits in with her background. So she seems to get that it's not just about plans,

that it's about your story, even though I feel like a lot of the coverage of it is like, well, the candidates who have a lot of plans aren't getting ahead in the polls. Like what, why is that? But that's also how they cover... That's also how, if you look at the coverage, and I'm guilty of this because I've been on television talking about how great her policy is,

she has some laying out policies, but how many of those voters really know her backstory? How many of those voters really know the rationale for why she's landed on this set of policies? many of those voters really know her backstory right i mean those voters really know you know that that the rationale for why she's landed on this set of policies you know she's right now she's looked at it as certainly you can with with the most policies out there and and people like those policies but they don't really know elizabeth warren yeah um so you've got a few of the leading candidates, Biden, Bernie, to some extent, Buttigieg, to some extent,

a couple others, making a case that the fastest way to win 270 electoral votes is to rebuild the blue wall in the Midwest, win back some of those Obama-Trump voters who left the party in 2016. You and I have talked in the past about another way to think about

building a coalition is to mobilize those, I think it's like 4 million Obama voters who sat out, who sat out in 2016. How do you see sort of the path to 270? I mean, you know, we talk a lot about like, it's a false choice. Obviously, you can do both. But as you assemble coalitions and think about messaging and candidates and all that, how do you see the coalition building? John, can we curse on your podcast? We sure can. We sure can. That bullshit is making my head want to explode. Right. All right. Perfect.

It is un-fucking-believable to me that, you know, who was the last, you know, I'll wait on this. When was the last time, other than Barack Obama, a Democrat has won back-to-back majorities? Right, FDR? FDR, I think that's right. Right, that's a long, long time ago. Heck, you've got to go a long way in our history to look at a Republican who's won back-to-back majorities. Barack Obama won back-to-back majorities. to back majority. Right.

Barack Obama won back to back majorities. You know, so the ideal that we can't rebuild and expand that coalition of Obama voters as opposed to us wasting, waste is the wrong word, to oppose us spending such a disproportionate amount of time and effort and resources chasing voters who support Donald Trump. Yeah. It's mind boggling to me. And the only way, and I'm sorry, John, the only way I understand it is I have to understand that a lot of the cabal that runs the party and the party organizations, be it the DTRIP, the DSCC, they are

They are old white guys who are disconnected from this broader understanding. And I understand the romanticism that we have about non-college white voters or sort of these working class white voters. And should we compete for working class white voters? Absolutely we should compete for working class white voters. And should we compete for working class white voters? Absolutely, we should compete for working class white voters. And if you ask, you know, who's Nancy Pelosi fighting for? When Nancy Pelosi goes to the floor of the House, who's she fighting for? She's fighting for working class voters. So yes, we should champion working-class issues, but from a campaign standpoint, look, when you look at the Washington Post poll that just came out, nearly 60 percent of non-college white voters approve of Donald Trump. Right. On the flip side, so how in approval from 2018 and from historically has lined up fairly closely with the vote. and for Trump, I would argue that perhaps you shouldn't put so much of your resources and time chasing those voters,

as opposed to, for example, when you have millennials who, on the flip side, are disapproving of Donald Trump by better than 60 percent, or you have college white voters who disapprove of Donald Trump by 58%. So it's this argument that, no, I'm not saying that we shouldn't target and we shouldn't try to win working class or these working class white voters, these non-college white voters. Absolutely, we should. But should so much of our time and resources be spent chasing a group that's approving of Donald Trump? And by the way, Donald Trump didn't win a majority in Michigan. He didn't win a majority in Pennsylvania. He didn't win a majority in Wisconsin. Trump's winning percentage was in those industrial blue wall states, they would have been losing percentages to Barack Obama. And this myth that there was all these Obama-Trump voters, I think

is, I fail to see from a numbers number standpoint something that really backs up that there was this this this huge swap of Obama Trump voters. Were there Obama Trump voters? Absolutely. But there were also Romney Hillary voters. And if and if Trump had won over so many Obama voters, he certainly would have done a lot better than Mitt Romney did in Florida. He certainly would have done several points better, perhaps even reaching a majority of the vote in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania, but he didn't. Right. Right. So what is going on with our party when we have some 4 million, to your point, Obama voters who just flat out sat out the last election because they rejected the binary choice of the lesser of two evils,

that all of a sudden, wouldn't from a campaign standpoint, wouldn't that be lower-hanging fruit? And if you look at the protest vote, and you and I have talked about this before, And you and I have talked about this before. Those voters who voted third party in 2016, who were once upon a time Obama voters, but they again rejected the binary choice of the lesser two evils, rejected that negative towards Hillary Clinton. Isn't that lower-hanging fruit to winning back a majority than going after a Trump voter? Yeah, I mean, have you talked to some of those voters? Like, what are those voters looking for in a candidate? What messages appeal to those voters? Like, if that's sort of maybe the key to reassembling a coalition or building an even broader coalition, how do we reach out and get those voters?

Well, one of the things is, and again, it really isn't rocket science. If you look at 2000, and you remember this, David Plouffe said in 2008, we're not going to be sitting around on election night waiting for the results of one state to come in to determine whether or not we're president. It is about expanding, expanding, expanding the electorate, expanding the playing field, and putting more states in play. What I fear is that Democrats are going to, again, put all of our eggs in one or two baskets. So on election night, we're going to be sitting around waiting for Ohio and Florida to come in to determine the election. And I think that's an absolute losing strategy. I think that strategy benefits Republicans, you know, as opposed to, look, Stacey Abrams lost Georgia by a hair.

And even in 2012, Seamus did allow us to at least poll in Georgia, Seamus being one of the Obama campaign folks. So I did polling in Georgia to look at what Georgia looked like, and even back then, Obama was only running behind Romney by a couple points in Georgia. And the idea was, you know, Georgia's state is coming online. North Carolina is a state. North Carolina is

North Carolina, the next Virginia. So, you know, is Arizona the... Absolutely, should we be playing and putting them on the defensive in Arizona? Yes. And part of it is – and it's an old Dean thing – half of it is showing up. a lot of conversations about, well, young people don't vote. Well, Obama knew he couldn't win without young people voting. So guess what we did? We put our resources and time and effort in reaching young people and talking to young people and engaging young people in a conversation of where they were in a way that no other campaign has. So if I look at what's happening right now in the party, will we make the same investment at going after millennials? Millennials are no longer a secondary consideration of vote. They are potentially a larger swath of voters than baby boomers.

And I think we need – and by the way, if you're putting that time and resources in millennials, millennials are also the most diverse generation of Americans in American history. So it also means you also have to make investments in Latino and African American and Asian American communities in a very different way than I think the party has in the past. And that's how you expand the electorate. That's how you build upon the Obama legacy, which I think, and of course I'm biased, and I think you're a little biased too, John, but I think that's the way you win back a majority if you're a Democrat. Yeah, no, I agree. Cornell,

thank you so much for joining us. I could talk about this stuff all day. Look at us. Well, you'll, you'll, well, you'll have to come back again as this crazy primary unfolds. We'd love to have you back on. Thanks for having me.

Thanks to Cornell Belcher for joining us today. And we'll, we'll see you on Thursday. Any, any closing thoughts on Game of Thrones? Spoil of Thrones spoilers spoilers if you haven't seen it just turn the fucking podcast off look I think the bottom line is we saw we saw one guy yell at a dragon and then we saw a woman come in with the policies we need it that's all I'm going to say you know that ruined it for me I'm'm going to say. You know? That ruined it for me. I have nothing else to say.

Immediately taking it to politics. Plundered over here. I was excited. It was so tense. I couldn't calm down for like hours afterwards. It was tense. I also, look, no shade to our friends at HBO, but man, when you're watching it and it's light out, it is really hard to see. That was my one critique.

It was hard to see. It was so dark. It's been like that before in battle scenes. Yes. It's always a game of turns. Fight during the day. I feel as though I've... I like the fire.

The fire made me feel like, oh, I can see now. There's fire. I feel as though I've also been preparing for this battle for some time because I pulled down two blackout shades. I adjusted the contrast on my magnificent television and I sat back and I thought,

I'm watching it the right way. We hung a blanket up over the window to my magnificent television. And I sat back and I thought, I'm watching it the right way. We hung a blanket up over the window to reduce the glare. I will say, for some people complaining about this episode, one thing to remember, some of the most crushing deaths in Game of Thrones

have come not during the battles, but at unexpected moments. It's good to hear you do this, because is this what it sounds like when we reassure people about politics? Yeah, that's exactly what it sounds like. I did not like it. The one thing I didn't like, I really enjoyed the episode.

I didn't like seeing the Night King up close, like smirking, becoming a full person with a personality. Keep him far away. Keep that steely, you know, grimace. I'm there. I'm hoping we still get some more backstory on the Night King. Yes, please. Because it would be criminal if they just ended it there and you didn't hear anything else about it. I don't know.

I'm very frustrated by everybody dies except the six people you care about. You know, it's like there was one shot where you're panning across and it was like. Three episodes left. I know, but like we had two episodes of buildup waiting for these people to go head to head. And then you kind of pan across and it's like almost out, but still fighting is Brianne and Jamie and Podrick and Gendry. And it's like, well, what are the odds? There were a lot of improbable survivals.

And there's something they've been doing where it's basically, you know, the zombies get on top of somebody you love, but don't worry, right behind them is somebody else you love and they're going to get rid of those zombies and they're going to keep on fighting. And then, right when everybody is fully fucked,

like we have fought, they're exhausted. keep on fighting. And then, and then, right when everybody is fully fucked, like, we have fought, they're exhausted, they've been doing basically two hours of heavy lifting and cardio. And then,

everyone, then all of a sudden the Night King makes that catty little smirk and he's like, wake up everybody, you're fucked again. And then they're still

gonna fight some more and they're still okay. I got some, I got some, the odds were too great. Deck was stacked too hard against them. It was a little World War Z-ish. got some, I got some, the odds were too great. Deck was stacked too hard against them. It was a little

World War Z-ish. And also, I have no idea what the dragon count is currently. Someone's gotta figure it out. I think we still got two live dragons

because in the preview for next episode, you saw the two, there were two dragons in the sky. So I know I weren't, You shouldn't have to rely on the preview.

Oh, and also, Ghost, Direwolf, John's Direwolf, I've been wondering where they, ran off, never see him again.

Like, did he die? No, in the preview for the next episode, you also see him standing in the back there. So Ghost, we got a Ghost, we got two dragons. Also, Melisandre disappears for years. She comes back, she's a human fucking Zippo. I knew she'd be useful. Just like, Daenerys flies away.

They clearly had a plan, and the plan was Daenerys at a key moment. All right, we're going to, for some reason, kill all the Dothraki at once right before we start. Not really clear why. But once they're dead,

there's going to be a key moment where we need you to use your dragon to set this shit on fire and then just sort of misses her cue. You know? Well,

I think that Night King had some power to stop them from breathing fire. Yeah, it was the weather. It brought in a storm. That was winter. So, fuck it, she got grounded in Atlanta?

So we had a fucking weather delay? I think it was Chicago, but yes. She got stuck at O'Hare? How about Theon just charging the Night King? Yeah. I'm like, you know what? That's the least surprising thing that happened in the episode. Imagine if Theon was the one who killed the Night King.

I will say, my friend Dan said this, which I thought was really funny which is that uh jorah mormont uh got friend zone to death his whole life in the friend zone got just like her fight his fight her final his final words are just like and she's like i'm just gonna kiss you on the cheek i really the only surprise i i had was i thought i was very worried that aria might die and boy did that not happen jamie i knew they could not have killed Jaime, because Jaime needs another scene with Cersei. No matter what he was fighting, I was like, they're not killing him. He's got to see Cersei one more time.

Alright. We just had to get that out. I'm sure some of you will still complain, even though we told you to turn it off. Bye, everyone! Bye. everyone bye you Bye.