Pod Save America - "The War on Christmas Trees."

Episode Date: December 9, 2021

Democrats outsmart Mitch McConnell on the debt limit but are still trying to solve their Joe Manchin problem, former Obama pollster Cornell Belcher offers his read on how to frame Republican extremism ahead of the midterms, and Fox News suffers a critical casualty in the War on Christmas.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

The Supreme Court has had a busy summer loosening gun restrictions in states, overturning Roe versus Wade, and severely threatening our Miranda rights. I'm Leah Lippman, and each week on Strict Scrutiny, I'm joined by my co-hosts and fellow law professors, Melissa Murray and Kate Shaw, to break down the latest headlines and the biggest legal questions facing our country. It's more important than ever to understand the repercussions of these Supreme Court decisions and what we can do to fight back in the upcoming midterm elections. Listen to new episodes of Strict Scrutiny every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Right here in studio, our own Dan Pfeiffer. Yeah, I tried to sneak a visit to LA in between variants. Fuck. I might have been a little too late. Dan was here for our What A Year livestream, and it was the first time I've seen you in two years. Yeah, it's been since Super Tuesday was my last visit to this office. Just amazing. Well, it's good to have you here.

It's great to be here. You're here for a show where we talk about how Democrats outsmarted Mitch McConnell on the debt limit, but are still trying to solve their Joe Manchin problem. See, nothing has changed. but are still trying to solve their Joe Manchin problem. See, nothing has changed. Former Obama pollster Cornell Belcher gives us his read on how to frame Republican extremism ahead of the midterms. And Fox News suffers a critical casualty in the war on Christmas.

I'm just excited about that one. I'm sorry. All right, but first, a huge thank you to everyone who tuned into Crooked's What Are Your Live stream. You donated almost $60,000 to No Off Years, which goes directly to grassroots groups and swing states who are organizing and registering new voters. If you still want to donate, you can help us chip away at our goal at crooked.com slash nooffyears. And if you want to watch all of us embarrass ourselves on the live stream, you can check it out at youtube.com slash crooked. When is the Crooked merch store going to start selling

Elon for president bumper stickers? Look, there were some great tweets. There were some great heartfelt tweets that we posted, we were forced to post. And I love that game. I want to bring that game out on the road when we do our tour.

Cringe tweets? Cringe tweets. Okay. Because it's really fun posting a cringe tweet knowing that you had to post a cringe tweet and then watching um people not get the joke i've never had a more fun twitter experience than that a bunch of people mad at me but i knew that i didn't really care because that was a low bar my friend best colonoscopy ever had i will say people are

still mad still mad today two days later it's great it's great anyway uh also check out the latest episode of take line where jason and renee talked to hannah kaiser of yahoo sports about the mlb lockout the news about antonio brown using a fake vaccine card and more new episodes of take line drop every tuesday all right let's get to the news uh here's something to feel good about democrats have now diff diffused the Republicans threat to shut down the government as well as their threat to default on our debt and crash the economy. This now clears the deck for the Senate to focus on passing the rest of Joe Biden's agenda. It's great, right? Here's something to feel less good about. Joe Manchin is still a senator. And per usual, he's giving interviews to reporters about the Build Back Better bill, which don't exactly inspire confidence that he'll support the legislation,

especially by Chuck Schumer's self-imposed Christmas deadline or ever. But we'll talk about that. And here's something I have no idea how to feel about. Senate Democrats are telling reporters that they may have a plan to pass voting rights and democracy reform with rule changes that don't involve abolishing the filibuster. How about they're smoking? You know, it's pretty, it sounds exciting. That's good. Let's start with the debt ceiling deal. Thanks to an agreement between Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, 14 Republicans voted with 50 Democrats Thursday to allow a complicated procedure where Democrats can vote to raise the debt ceiling on their own. Donald Trump attacked McConnell over this on Hugh Hewitt's show. Here's a clip.

I know you lost your brother. One thing I'd like to bring up is the debt ceiling situation. So Mitch McConnell has the greatest hand. I know you lost your brother. But anyway, what I really want to talk about is the debt ceiling. What a segue. He's a human empath. How was

the interview? I woke up this morning and you and Tommy, it seemed like you had read the entire Hugh Hewitt transcript of Donald Trump. It seems like it was a fun one. It was unbelievable. If you are down, Omicron you are down, Omicron got you down,

read this transcript. Don't listen to it because you don't have to listen to Trump or Hugh Hewitt. The written word, the transcript is available online. It is so good. It is just,

Donald Trump's answers are even more insane than you remember. Hugh Hewitt, who you hopefully don't even know who is or care about, his questions are such a perfect mix of pretentious and obsequious. It's hard to get that just right. He is name-dropping random people you don't care about left and right.

I mean, it is unbelievable. Didn't he say at one point, I heard from someone that you're not only the best president for Christmas, but the best president for Israel and Christmas. He said, I'm going to paraphrase the, this is a question. Oh. He said, last night I was at a book party slash holiday party by this person you never heard of, hosted by this person you never heard of, for this other person you never

heard of. While I was there, this third person you never heard of, who you definitely know Donald Trump, came up to me and I said, I am interviewing the president tomorrow. And this third person you never heard of said to me, you tell that president, you tell him that he was the best president for Israel and the best president for Christmas. He saved Christmas. Mr. President, what do you think about that unbelievable so good so anyway anyway enough about that interview um let's talk about this debt ceiling deal why do you think mcconnell agreed to the deal instead of forcing democrats to raise it through reconciliation which i was sure would happen um and and I guess the second question we can take on later is,

does this even matter? This does not matter. This whole, I mean, most people will see that like, all right, we're not going to have a catastrophic default. Yeah, that matters. That matters. That's great.

But then like how it got done, this complicated procedure, I'm sure people don't care about. But why do you think, I'm interested in McConnell and why he did this. Well, I think McConnell genuinely does not

want the global economy to collapse one week before christmas because of republican incompetence like you don't have to be a political savant to recognize that's not super for your political brand as you head into an election in which your favorite the whole thing speaks to how stupid the debt ceiling mechanism is and the conversation on the debt ceiling, right? Which is you have an esoteric legislative measure to allow the government to pay the bills it's already spent. And the way this deal is, this esoteric legislative measure allows Mitch McConnell to claim a victory because democrats will have to vote on a majority vote to lift the debt ceiling but republicans so he claims a win republicans have to vote on a different esoteric legislative maneuver to allow this esoteric legislative and then democrats can care can claim victory

that they were able to avoid using the a process exactly like the one we're just using, but called reconciliation. It doesn't matter. The whole thing is so stupid. It's so stupid. I think the point you made about McConnell is the most important one, which is, I think it reveals that he believes he has a really strong hand. And like you said, if you're favored in the next election and you're mitch mcconnell you're thinking i could be majority leader if i just don't fuck something up and give people a target yeah um to criticize like oh republicans shut down the government or republicans cause a catastrophic default on our debt like he doesn't he doesn't need that that's not advantageous to

him so if ted cruz gets mad at him which which Ted Cruz is mad and Lindsey Graham is mad and Donald Trump is mad, does it really matter if Mitch McConnell can just say, OK, let's focus on we're going to be able to attack them on build back better. We are attacking them on inflation. We're attacking on everything. Do we really need to have this fight over the debt limit right now when we're doing so well? Yeah, ultimately, when the debt limit has been used in the past, it has been used as a point of leverage to try to achieve

some policy aim, right? Massive cuts in spending in 2011. We know now Republicans have no policy. That's right. So they're like, what are we going to do? Right? Yeah, they used to like cuts. Yeah. Isn't it though tied up in I think they inserted it in some bill that was a would avoid Medicare cuts. And now I'm wondering if if all the 14 Republicans that voted for this, but all the rest of the Republicans, can we say that they didn't vote to avoid Medicare cuts? I mean, theoretically, yes. I mean, there are a set of automatic cuts to Medicare that go in if spending exceeds a certain amount, if I remember correctly from our days. And then all it takes is a vote to avoid it. our days. And then all it takes is a vote to avoid it. But I think the big takeaway from this,

based on Trump's reaction, the insane response from House Republicans over it is if Democrats do not keep the House, the first thing they have to do in the lame duck session is eliminate the debt ceiling mechanism for the remainder of Joe Biden's presidency, because they're ticking time bomb. Mitch McConnell, savvy enough to avoid collapsing the global economy. Kevin McCarthy. No, no way. Yeah, no, I i agree um all right so now chuck schumer says his next move is to hold a vote on build back better before christmas uh but here's a sampling of what joe manchin said not at a town hall in west virginia mind you but at the wall street journal ceo summit where else would joe manchin be quote the unknown we're facing today on inflation is much greater than this aspirational bill we're looking at. He also said, quote, I said,

let's take a strategic pause a while back. I still feel strongly about that. And here's what he said to reporters on Wednesday. Quote, we haven't even seen the complete scrub from the parliamentarian. And then we haven't even seen the final text and they're still negotiating different parts of it. So we're doing what we can. But then he gave reporters a list of major bipartisan legislation passed by Congress in the last year, along with how much it all cost to say, look how much we've already done. What is your best Manchinese translation of all that? And does this sound like a guy who's ready to vote for Build Back Better? It makes me very skeptical that we are going to pass this legislation before Christmas. Yeah, which I don't.

I mean, whatever. Who cares? I mean, it was like Labor Day. Yeah. Veterans Day. Thanksgiving. Halloween. Thanksgiving.

Christmas. yeah veterans day thanksgiving halloween thanksgiving christmas but i think i mean is there anything more designed in a laboratory to be annoying than joe mansion reading fallacious republican talking points about inflation at a conference attended by the richest people in the world paid for by rupert murdoch he's just like he's trying to make us yeah sometimes i think he's really dumb make his sometimes i think he's really dumb and then sometimes i think he's just trying to troll us but i can't tell well i mean you maybe his incompetence naturally trolls us without even trying it's not neither or some of the most successful trolls on the internet dan bongino the trump children are particularly stupid i want to

talk about schumer and the rest of the senate Democrats, though, because I am not someone, I know you're not either, who thinks that like Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden and Senate Democrats can like bend Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to their will by yelling at them, threatening them, whatever, like these two people don't care about being yelled at by their colleagues and by Joe Biden because they feel like they know how to win elections back home. Maybe they're wrong, maybe they're right, but that's how they feel. But Chuck Schumer's walking around like, I'm so confident we're going to get this done by Christmas. I'm feeling great. Chris Murphy was on this podcast this week saying like,

I feel great about it. I think Joe Manchin's going to come around. I think we're going to get this done. We've interviewed a number of Democrats who've said this. Honestly, the only person who was maybe a little honest about the situation was Elizabeth Warren when I talked to her and she was like, yeah, Sinema seems like she's negotiating in good faith. Joe Manchin seems like he's walking around a grocery store confused about which aisle he's in and what he actually wants on his grocery list, which was like, I think the most honest part about it. But like, haven't the Democrats sort of let this expectation game get out of hand here? Like if Joe Manchin is really this down on Build Back Better, I don't know, isn't it time to start raising alarms here? Or am I just?

Well, I think the expectations management on this part of Joe Biden's legislative agenda has been horribly mismanaged, primarily by people in Congress. You have Bernie Sanders at 6.5 million, then we're at 3.5, and now we're at 1.75, and it's clearly going to be less than that. And you're continually setting – like politics is not that complicated. You want to exceed expectations, not fail to meet them. And if you set expectations in an unmeetable place, you are setting yourself up for political loss. Now, the problem with this is this is where Congress and political messaging success run headlong into each other because what is sometimes good for your legislative process, which is move the Overton window, start at 6.5 so you can end here, will get you a better substantive result. But the problem I think with that is, and we've dealt with this very painfully with the Affordable Care Act,

is it ends up in a place where the final product, which viewed in a vacuum, would be a huge historic transformational win. And instead it ends up being half a loaf at best or in this case if i can do my math right it's like 25 of a loaf some percentage of a loaf yes but here's what i don't understand and i know i've said this a million times already don't these people fucking talk to each other in congress like you think that the first move after the house passes build back better and you know we had our problems in the house but like at the end of the day pramila jaya paul and josh gonheimer and the rest of the gang they all got together they all tweeted each other they all compromised they passed something they all walked the plank and took the vote you the first step would have been chuck schumer going

to joe manchin's office and kirsten cinema's office and be like okay what Schumer going to Joe Manchin's office and Kyrsten Sinema's office and being like, okay, what is it going to take to get this to pass? Well, I'm going to presume that happened. Right. I am too. So then they're like, what are we doing? I imagine the problem is largely on Manchin's side. I'm sure he's saying, I need more. I need more. I need more.

And I imagine... You'd think that they'd be like, all right, Joe. You need more. We understand that. We're willing to make more changes if you want. Just one thing. Please don't go to the Wall Street Journal CEO summit and shit all over the entire bill two weeks before Christmas. At the very least, just keep your concerns quiet and let's talk about it. I think one of the problems here, and this is this is the mansion problem, and it's even more.

this is the Manchin problem. And it's even more, this is much more, even more Manchin than Sinema is in the House at the end of the day, there are disagreements on strategy and policy. But I truly believe

that everyone in that caucus from Josh Gottheimer and Jared Golden to Pramila Jayapal and AOC believe they are in it together. Yeah. And that they're going to rise

and fall together. And that's how they voted and that's how they've acted, frankly. Right. Joe Manchin does not believe, and he's not incorrect, that he is rising and falling with the Democratic Party. No, he clearly believes it's advantageous politically for himself to place himself between the parties.

At the end of that Wall Street Journal thing, they were like, are you going to change to become a Republican, which everyone asks him all the time? And he's like, no. He goes, but I feel like I'm in between these two parties. And too bad. That's where I'll stand. You know, which I'm sure he just loves that. He loves it because that makes him look reasonable and moderate back in West Virginia, which, you know, again, voted for Trump by like 40 points.

I mean, you think I should wear the Republican label? They think I should wear the Democratic label? I will wear no labels. There you go, Mark Penn. Some Senate Democrats are pushing Schumer just to put it up for a vote and see what happens. Is that wise? I mean, eventually you're going to have to do that. I mean, it is...

But aren't we... It makes me feel like we're just headed to a fucking, you know, reverse ACA repeal scenario where Joe Manchin walks in and, like, McCain and gives us thumbs down and that's that. I mean, in part, you probably have to play the long game here, which is at some point you just have to call the question. Right.

And if you fail, then that at least gives you something to go back and deal with or decide the whole thing is not happening. Because if let's say they call it and Manchin is a no. And then it's like, OK, where do we go from here? Do we is there a scaled back thing we're going to do? Are we going to move on to voting rights? But just living in this purgatory where we're just moving the deadline time after time after time is massively damaging to our political prospects for 2022. Yeah. I mean, one thing I tried to get out of Murphy when he was on is like, are these big changes or small changes that Manchin wants?

Because sometimes you hear him be like, oh, I don't like the methane fee and I don't like this. And you go, OK, you can move that here and there. But then he starts talking about, I don't like that any of these programs have been cut down to three or four years instead of 10, because I believe that's fuzzy math. Because obviously these programs are going to be reauthorized. So we should count all that money towards the cost of the bill. And I think that's too much. And it seems like if that's his fundamental problem, that's going to be a hard one to get around.

I mean, his problem is he says he wants a strategic pause that which is not until what November of 2022 when there's a fucking midterm. Right. I mean, I just think we also have to say is it cannot be said enough. This bill is not going to make inflation worse. Every economist looks at it as a fraction of the federal budget. The Larry Summers who are worried about inflation, all these people, none of them think that it's going to. Yes. Yeah. And more importantly, because sometimes we get so like tied around the macroeconomic axle that we can't like common

sense. If you give people money, they're going to be able to pay for things that might be a little bit more expensive right now because they don't have to pay as much money for childcare or elder care. And I think there's one thing that is looming over all of this is the child's tax credit expires on New Year's Eve. Right. So perhaps that's a forcing mechanism. Well, because, you know, Joe Manchin, passionate about helping poor children. Poor children. Yes. and Republicans have had about the way the place operates to see if we can restore it to operating better and do it in a way that would facilitate the passage of voting rights. The Hill also reports that Manchin himself has been talking to Republican senators about rule changes to make the Senate work better. How many edibles do you think Tim Kaine was on when he said that? Do you think

it was like five milligrams, 10 milligrams? Tim Kaine is a very optimistic human being. He is. Now, there's a number of Democrats who said this to Politico. I was trying to read between the lines on this one. There's something in the works where they think that they can not abolish the filibuster, but still get voting rights passed. And I don't know why Republicans would agree to any rule changes that allowed voting rights to pass. I think that there is a general sense, bipartisan, in fact, that things are not working the way they should. It's just around because they couldn't pass the-

These people are bright. That's why they got elected to the Senate. It took them not long enough. But the defense authorization bill, huge bipartisan bill, could not pass it. They had to engage in some weird chicanery to get done because – and this is sort of Mitch McConnell's problem right now. And it's Mitch McConnell plus the Republicans that voted for the bipartisan infrastructure is you have a bunch of attention trolls in Ted Cruz and Tommy Tuberville. All the people. And if you look at the Senate candidates for 2022, that's going to get a lot worse come

next year. So are there way, and they've done this in the past to facilitate confirmations. Like for a long time, almost every appointment above a certain level needed 60 Senate votes. And they made a whole bunch of those in a bipartisan way, non-Senate confirmable. You could just hire them because the government was hollowed out because the Senate didn't have time to do these things. How that squares with something that would allow Democrats to stop Republicans from rigging the 2022 election, which would give them power, seems very hard to imagine to me.

Especially as the maps are all getting drawn right now. Yeah, I can't imagine that. On the redistricting side of it. I am sure that there will not be a ban on, as sad as this is, that if there was some sort of compromise-like thing that got through, I don't know how a ban on partisan gerrymandering could even be implemented at this point. I think when we talked to some folks much earlier this year, it was around August or September was the view in which you had to get that passed. And it's not August or September. It does seem like they're talking about some modifications to the filibuster, like the, it's got to be a standing filibuster. It's got to be a talking filibuster. You need 41 on the floor, right? Like there's all these other reforms. And the other thing that Kane said to Politico was we're trying to put ourselves in the shoes

of the minority party and saying, if we were, if we ourselves in the shoes of the minority party and saying, if we were in the minority, what changes to the Senate would we want to the filibuster or to the rules of the Senate that we could still live with if Democrats were in the minority? Which, again, doesn't seem like it's going to be anything major. And I don't know exactly how it facilitates the passage of voting rights, but I guess it's all they got at this point. I mean, remember, you only need 50 votes to change a Senate rule. So you could, And I don't know exactly how it facilitates the passage of voting rights, but I guess it's all they got at this point. I mean, remember, you only need 50 votes to change a Senate rule. So you could this is not a situation where we need all 50 Republicans to agree or even 10 Republicans. You could theoretically do it with a small.

And you just need Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to say, yeah, this preserves the filibuster. But it's also a rule change that I could live with. Yeah, I like I think this is interesting. We should watch it. Tim Kaine is a serious. Oh with yeah i like i think this is interesting we should watch it tim kane is a serious oh yeah he's not popping off yeah and but i was joking about the edibles yeah to be clear he who knows he could do what he wants virginia is it i don't know it doesn't it doesn't matter but point being like i think it's it's fair to have uh some healthy skepticism yeah about this. Okay.

When we come back, we will talk to former Obama pollster Cornell Belcher about strategy for the midterms. This week, we got a preview of what we can expect if Republicans win back the House from human frat paddle Matt Gaetz, who said this week that he will move to install Donald Trump as speaker and make sure that this crew is in charge of investigating people they don't like. Let's hear it. We are going to take power after this next election. And when we do, it's not going to be the days of Paul Ryan and Trey Gowdy and no real oversight and no real subpoenas. and Trey Gowdy and no real oversight and no real subpoenas. It's going to be the days of Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Dr. Gosar and myself doing everything to get the answers to these questions. Joining us to talk about what message and strategy might give the Democrats the best chance to stop this from happening, former Obama pollster Cornell Belcher. Cornell,

welcome back. Thanks for having me. Glad to be here. How do you think that an ad would do that warn voters about putting those yahoos in charge of the House with Donald Trump as speaker? I think for our already likely Democrat midterm voter, I think it will juice them. The problem is we're going to get our asses handed to us because if we only have our likely Democratic midterm voter. and look, you all are students of political history the way I am students of political history. There is a pattern here,

right? And people want to beat up on Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden all they want. As if so, Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden are actually the key variables here. And I know this is tough for people, but history tells us they're actually not. Because we've seen this happen to Clinton.

We've seen this happen to Obama. Hell, we saw it happen to George Bush. So how do you break that dynamic of the midterm? And what we know historically from a midterm standpoint, again, I'm going to be a data nerd here, is there's an ebb and a flow, right? We get a flow on on-term, sort of on presidential year left, and we get an ebb back. In 2010, that new huge majority of Americans who said, yes, we can, and voted for Barack Obama, gave Barack Obama a majority victory, didn't say, you know what, damn it, that was a mistake. I was wrong. I'm going to go vote the

other way now. That's not what's happening. You have two electorates. You have one electorate that's older, more conservative, and less diverse versus a more younger, more diverse, and more progressive audience fighting for the control of this country. And we saw, we've seen in 2010, and now, you know, history is lining up, history is lining up just the way 2010 lined up. And the question is, how do we get in the way of that? And we can't get in the way of that if we don't have an electorate that looks more like the 2020 electorate and the 2018 electorate. I think that is a fundamental problem. I think we can sort of give it we can sort of scare them with Matt Gaetz, but I think

You know, and it's because I'm an Obama Dean guy But I think fundamentally for for for that younger more diverse electorate that we need We got to give them something to vote for and I think if you look at qualitative research that I think Sort of folks are doing all around the country right now, look, infrastructure and Build Back Better are really great pieces of legislation. But no one knows what the hell's in them and no one knows, you know, how it benefits, how it benefits them. that Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Leader Reid literally saved America from the chaos, you know, economic calamity in 2008, then we got our asses kicked in the midterm election. I don't want to see history repeat itself, but it's on track to repeat itself.

So I want to talk a little bit later about sort of the positive message, because I do think, Cornell, as you mentioned, that's incredibly important to give people something to vote for. Obviously, in every campaign, there is a positive message and a negative message about the other party. Dan, what are your thoughts on the message about Republicans? And do you think there's any fodder there from Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene and those folks? Well, I can see the ad, right? And there's ominous music and then someone superimposes Donald Trump sitting behind Joe Biden at the 2023 State of the Union and he's sweating and scowling. And then you see these videos of Marjorie Taylor green and all this, and, and I can see it trending on Twitter. I can already identify the people who are going to say

it would really upset TFG if this trended and everyone retweets it. And like many ads that trended in 2020, it's going to fall on deaf ears. Cause I do think the speak, I think the speaker, Donald Trump, a speaker means nothing to anyone because even some of the most politically engaged people have no idea that the speaker of the house is enough to be a member of Congress. So I think that specific thing is going to fall on deaf ears. I think that there is a case that can be made about Republican extremism. Republicans as a, as a danger, because we have to give people something to vote for, but I think we also have to give them something to vote against. A reason to believe correctly that the crisis that got them engaged in politics post-2016 still exists, even though

Donald Trump's out of the White House. But I think that message has to be credible, and it has to be something that is not easily sort of evaded by candidates who are less crazy than Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, Matt Gaetz, if that makes sense. That makes sense. Well, Cornell, you know, in every campaign, right, if you're the challenger, you want to make it a referendum on the incumbent. If you're an incumbent, you want to make it a choice between two visions. How would you, what do you think the choice would be in the midterms that democrats should lay at i want i want to underline so what john was saying i think i mean it's just uh spot on but i but i also think there are bigger things at stake all right and i think we got to get to

what's the bigger right it's not donald trump right? You're spot on. It's like Donald Trump being the speaker is crazy shit that I think sort of makes people like us crazy. But I think we got to, what's the bigger thing? And I've said this before is, you know, all those young people, you know, black, white, brown, who were marching in the streets, millions of young people marching in the streets before the last election, they weren't, and then marched to the polls and gave Biden the majority and flipped states that we hadn't flipped before, especially if you look at Georgia. They weren't marching for bridges, roads, and broadband. And I think bridges, roads, and broadband are fantastic, but they're not mobilized. You can't mobilize someone for a bridge, right? That's good government,

but people aren't mobilizing for bridges. So what's the big thing here? And I think there is something to be said about, I don't know, guys, call me crazy, but maybe saving our fucking democracy. You know? And Perdue was, came out of the bag the other day talking about, yeah, I would have been for the coup, right? I'm all in for the coup. These people are literally trying to overthrow our democracy.

I don't know about you, but I think that's a pretty scary thing, the idea that democracy is going to end, especially for people who look like me. You know, I don't think I like my chances if we're not a democracy. How do I have a hard enough time in a democracy? I don't like our chances at all if we're no longer a democracy, but I do think we can make the case. And actually, this is one of the things I've been so fucking frustrated about progressives inside Washington about is, you know, if progressives had stormed the Capitol and tried to overthrow the government, every day we would be hearing about it. It would lead every day on Fox because it would be a mobilizing thing for them. It is almost like it's not even a big deal. Let's just move on. But I think there

is something bigger in a conversation about democracy and the chaos, right? I think there is a thing here about, especially with middle-of-the-road voters, is to your point about giving, you know, is giving them something to vote against. It is, if you look at what Republicans are doing in state legislative bodies, if you look at what they're doing around choice, they're seeding chaos, and they're making America a more dangerous place, right? Chaos around, you know, chaos in our classrooms, school boards, chaos around, they're trying to take away your rights. They're talking about, you know, they're trying to overthrow our government. overthrow our government. I think there is a fear piece here that Democrats can make an argument against Republicans and chaos and them being dangerous for the country and dangerous for our future that I'd like to see us unpack a little bit more. That's interesting too, because you do see, and I wonder if you see this in your polling, in a lot of the public polls. You find more Republicans saying that democracy is in danger than Democratic voters.

And I think partially that's a function, like you said, Cornell, of maybe Democrats aren't talking about it enough. I also wonder, too, where, you know, the threat to democracy animates us, animates a lot of activists, Democracy animates us, animates a lot of activists, probably animates a lot of young people and people of color who marched in the streets and who volunteered and organized in 2020. I wonder about some of the less engaged voters, the voters who are sporadic voters and specifically voters who tend to be young and communities of color and who come out sort of in the presidential elections and not necessarily in the midterms. Do you think that the threat of democracy is understood enough or is animating enough to those groups of voters? I think we've got to have the conversation because the truth of the matter is democracy is being threatened. Right. And I think if you I think you've got to have the conversation with with that that younger, that younger, more diverse electorate and about the real threats to democracy. Look, we're you know, we're in we're in political communications business to find the debate, win the debate. So if we're not defining the debate as democracy being under threat, quite frankly, Republicans are defining the debate as democracy being under threat to sort of gin up their voters. And again, I've said this before, when Donald Trump says, I'm going to give you back your country, he's having a conversation about the future. He's having a conversation, a different conversation than we are having,

but I do think we can have a conversation about the real threats to democracy that we face and how we have the power to save democracy, right? One of the things that we see among young voters is there's a correlation between them participating and they think they have, in fact, the power to bring about change, if they think their vote matters. I think there's a conversation with young voters about that democracy is literally being threatened by these people that you don't like, that people don't even believe in climate change and want to take away your right to choose and don't want you to vote. Your democracy is being threatened and your rights are going to be pulled back away from you. You have the power to change that. I think there's a

conversation there that we can have with young people that I think is different and I think is important. I think we've got to give our voters something to mobilize around. Again, I'll start where I start, I'll circle back around here. I love broadband. I love more bridges, but they're not mobilizing issues. democracy is a good frame here. And also, one of the challenges with what Cornell is talking about is Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema could stand in the way of passing voting rights and democracy reform. And if that happens, how do you instill a belief in the young people that Cornell's talking about that what they do actually matters? Because the risk here is a lot of people say, okay, I went out and voted. And I thought that that would protect voting rights and protect our democracy and yet it didn't. So now what's the point?

You know, our friend and not Shankar, sorry, I always says that the job of the politician is not to tell people it's popular. It's to make the things they say popular. Yeah. it and Republicans will say they care more about democracy. Now, what they mean is they have either through some sort of motivated reasoning or Fox News or Facebook come to the belief that some unknown forces stole the election from Donald Trump and are going to steal future elections, preventing them from having this largely white party, the political power they see as their birthright. That is not democracy being... that is them believing that the shift to democracy is bad for them,

not that democracy is at stake. But we have not, as Cornell points out, made the case yet. Like, obviously, with, I'm very sympathetic to the fact that

in a, there's a different world where the Build Back Better bill was passed six months ago and we've moved on to other things and people have the space to make that case.

But ultimately, we have to. I and people have the space to make that case. But ultimately we have to. I think the question here for us to figure out is how we define them in a way that is credible. And I think your point about, and I think it's one of the hesitancies among Democrats is they say democracy is a threat and then very engaged and completely correct people say, well, what the F are you doing about it? And then the, you know, whether it's Biden or the white house would, would say to you quietly, uh, but what do you want me to do about Joe Manchin? Right. I can't make him do this. I can't make Kirsten Sima do that. Are you not

reading the things they're saying? But one of the things I think we have to do here is to shift the locus of the threat from voter suppression to election subversion and focus more on stolen elections, on what they are trying to do. Whether you read that very long Atlantic piece or whatever, it's like the plan is happening all out in the open. They're being very specific about what they are planning on doing. It's not a mystery. They are normalizing the country in the party to the idea that they will, are willing to install someone who lost not just the popular vote, but the electoral college as president of the United States. And we have, I think if we focus on that threat, we shift some of our legislative actions, which may still fail to like the electoral counts act and other things to deal with election subversion. We might have more success,

uh, in that area. Yeah. Well, you know, Cornell mentioned, um, David Perdue saying, you know, he wouldn't have certified the election, uh, in Georgia. And I saw a lot of people tweeting about that last night and they're like, this is why Manchin and Sinema have failed us and we should pass voting rights and democracy reforms. Like even if we passed the best voting rights legislation that we have, you know, without even all the compromises that we've thrown in, that wouldn't prevent David Perdue from running and saying that he wouldn't have certified the last election and that he might not certify the next one. You know what we do? We don't elect David Perdue governor. We elect Stacey Abrams. Well, that's what I'm getting to the point. Yeah, the point I'm trying to make is it always comes back to trying to persuade the electorate in some way that Republicans are a threat to democracy and we are not. No matter how much legislation we pass, no matter how much we protect democracy, we're always going to have to do that work of persuasion.

Cornell, what are you hearing from voters about Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress right now? What's the, what's the mood out there? Uh, here's the problem. They don't know, they don't, they don't know what, they don't know what Joe Biden, uh, and Democrats in Congress have been doing. Um, and you see that, you see that in public polling, right? Where, yeah, when you test the infrastructure and build back better, when you actually tell them what it is, yeah, they're all for it, like 60% are for it. But they don't know.

They don't know what's happening at all. They don't know what's in the infrastructure plan and they don't know what's in Build Back Better either. I mean, some of them have heard, you know, maybe a child tax credit. And quite frankly, some of them are saying in folks groups, well, you know, I think our roads and bridges in Build Back Better. So it is a classic. So, you know, Democrats are very good at legislating, right? They're very good at governing and legislating. We have beating up on them at all, because because this is this is a larger problem with with with with progressives and Democratic side is that. Guys, there's over 200 million people in vaccine in this country, right? Unemployment is at what, four point two, four point three percent.

Yeah, this, you know, under the Biden administration has been more jobs created in the first nine months than anyone in history. There's stimulus checks been sent all over to millions of Americans. There is so much good sort of legislation, and this infrastructure bill is transformative. And the Build Back Better, which they're now calling – what have they changed it to, Dan? Was it Build America Better or something? On this podcast, it's called the Jobs and Climate Bill. That's all we're going to call it. Or just – I've been just trying Joe Biden's economic plan.

As a general rule, you should not name your signature legislative agenda a tongue twister. But yesterday, i think they rolled out some different language around it but anyway god i missed that but there are transformative um uh you know pieces of legislation and policies in in there and and a lot of stuff around the climate um you know and the president did another executive order around climate the other day. And then you look at, and this is the real, this is actually what's so bothersome to me, but it also connects to my point about midterm election. If you look at where the president's numbers have taken sort of a notable nosedive, it's among self-identified Democrats, right? He's lost 11

or 12 points among self-identified Democrats. He, you know, a couple of weeks back, he was, I think, I think he was below 7% approval among African-Americans. You know, I never had Barack Obama below 7% approval among African-Americans, right? You know, there's, we are failing to disconnect, to connect with our, with our own base of voters, with the voters who are actually for us. Hell, if you didn't see a 12-point drop in his job approval among self-ID Democrats, he'd be at a 50% job approval. Yeah. So there's something to be said here about we're not connecting with our own base of voters and mobilizing them and preparing them to come out for the midterm elections.

Which provisions in Build Back Better, or whatever the fuck it's called now, do you think are especially mobilizing for our voters? Because I know you rightly said that a bridge is tough to get people mobilized around. But are there Build Back Better provisions that you think are particularly helpful? Well, let me be me not be it. Let me be really clear here about something. I think Build Back Better is great government and there's a lot of great programs in there that are about investing in people. If it looks like Democrats and the Biden administration are not fighting fucking tooth and nail for voting rights and for police reform, we got no chance. Now, I'm just going to be really clear about that.

Those young people, not just black young people, but white young people, brown young people, AAPI young people, they took to the streets about injustice. And if we're not, I mean, look, and they don't understand filibuster. They don't understand the structural issues. But they also want to see that Democrats and Joe Biden are fighting for this, that they're fighters, that they're standing up and they're fighting for what they want them to fight for. I don't know if we can change the filibuster or not, but I damn sure believe we better go down in fucking flames fighting to get voting rights passed if we want to have a chance of mobilizing our base going into this midterm. Dan, what should that look like, barring, you know, persuading Manchin or Sinema to get rid of the filibuster? Like, what does going down fighting look like from the Biden

administration? I mean, it's very, very hard, right? Because the Senate process, you always hear this all the time, we're like, they should hold votes on these things. And that will be dramatic. And no one covers it. It takes like 36 hours and boring people speak a lot. Republicans have the capacity to delay the vote into the middle of the night. But I think it is like, it is everyone in the party using what limited microphone they have to talk about, to raise concerns about. And that, that frankly starts with the White House. Now, I understand this is my assumption. No one in the White House. Now, I understand. This is my assumption. No one in the White House has told me this.

The reason that they are quieter about this than we think they should is they still need Joe Manchin to vote for Build Back Better. So if they start hammering around on the need for voting rights and everything else, they put that at risk. And there's a sequencing issue here. The problem, of course, is part one of the sequence is taking forever and makes it harder to get to part two. But I think you have to raise the concern. You have to speak with the alarm that a lot of people feel in this country about democracy and other people who don't feel it should feel.

Cornell, do you agree? I do. But let me say this. And that's spot on. I do. But I also think this. There's going to come a moment, probably in early next year, where Democrats are going to have to cut bait or fish or cut bait here. We're going to come to a head about the filibuster. It is not tenable for us to allow these states to remove our, to disenfranchise people and rig the system so that they can overthrow the system. With, you know, and not have to do a super majority to do that, to allow us to lose democracy because of a Senate rule. I think there is enough Democrats in Congress right now who are going to say,

I really wouldn't push on the shelf. Am I going to allow us to lose democracy because of a Senate rule? I have faith that, and I know I'm in the minority on this, but I have faith that sometime next year we're going to come to heads with this filibuster thing. And don't be surprised if the administration isn't also leaning on Democrat, to carve out an exception for voting rights. Yeah, no, I mean, look, I think that Biden sort of, um, leaked out his position in the middle of a town hall with Anderson Cooper. Probably that wasn't the planned way to do it, but I think, I think maybe a big speech, maybe during the state of the union, maybe some big push, maybe he has a bunch of senators behind him. I don't know what it is, but I agree. I think, I think there needs to be a bigger moment on this. And every Democrat, as you both have said, needs to use their megaphone to talk about this all the time.

Cornell Belcher, thank you, as always, for joining us here on Pod Save America and be well and come back soon. It's always a pleasure. Folks, get out. We got to save democracy. That's right. All right. Take care, my friend. Thank you. All right. Before we go, we have a very important update from the front lines of the War on Christmas, which has now tragically become the War on Christmas trees, Dan. of the war on Christmas, which has now tragically become the war on Christmas trees, Dan. The 50-foot pine, adorned with 10,000 ornaments and 100,000 lights that stands proudly outside of Fox News headquarters, was set ablaze by an arsonist late Tuesday evening. Fortunately, no one was hurt, and the culprit, a homeless man with addiction and mental health issues,

was quickly arrested. But the patriots who work at Fox will never be the same. CEO Suzanne Scott called the incident a deliberate and brazen act of cowardice. Tucker Carlson decried it as an attack on Christianity. And Fox and friends had wall-to-wall coverage of the fire. Take a listen. It's beginning to look a lot like arson. Who sets a Christmas tree? Well, I mean, it's just part of the rampage. No city is safe. No person is safe. It's a tree that unites us, that brings us together. It's about the Christmas spirit. It is about the holiday season.

It's about Jesus. It's about Hanukkah. The DOJ can tell you precisely how many Korans were burned last year in the United States, but they don't keep track of Christmas trees. Why is that? Well, because they could care less. This is personal to you two at home now. The Fox Christmas tree vandalized.

Arson. Arson. And that's personal to you. It's personal to us. This is an American icon. This is our Christmas tree. Right. Don't worry.

Do not be deterred. We will not be. We're going to rebuild it. Absolutely. We're going to rebuild it, and we're going to build it back better. We're going to rebuild it. Absolutely. We're going to rebuild it and we're going to build it back better.

I don't even know where to start. There's so much good stuff in that supercut. I think the most important place to start is we do not support arson. No, we do not support arson. We are strongly anti-arson. Well, that's why I said we're very happy that no one was hurt. I'm glad someone was arrested for trying to burn down a fucking tree. No one should burn down a Christmas tree or any other sort of tree.

No. You burn down a tree, you get arrested, of course. And generally, I think, in this day and age, it's a bad idea to make arson jokes. But. But. But. The reaction. It's less about the incident and more about the way it was covered.

Yes. When the people who invented the war on Christmas for profit and partisan gain become so. Chickens have come home to roost. They have become so high on their own supply that they actually believe they were at Pearl Harbor. Well, I was just going to say, the attack took place late on December 7th. Do you think that this will also be a day that lives in infamy? I mean, all of this was good. I do think Tucker Carlson wanting Merrick Garland to spend resources to go after people.

The rash of Christmas tree burnings that are apparently now out there. Who knows? There's others. I like that. It's about Christmas. It's about Hanukkah. That's important. Yeah, of course it is.

It's personal to you. It's personal to you, right? But I still think, and of course, build back better. I still think nothing beats the now deleted tweet from Meghan McCain. Quote, I don't want to hear anything

about how radical some of you believe Republicans to be when there are lunatics running around New York City setting Fox News Christmas tree on fire. McCain, quote, I don't want to hear anything about how radical some of you believe Republicans to be when there are lunatics running around New York City setting Fox News Christmas tree on fire. Yes, Trump supporters are famously tamer than this one guy who burned down a tree. Let's take a listen. Same thing, right? Exactly.

Same thing. January 6th, December 7th. You think storming the Capitol, like a mob of angry people who are violent that stormed the Capitol is radical? What about this guy who burned down a fucking Christmas tree? Not any tree. What about him? The national monument. An American icon. Just to inject a small note of seriousness here.

Do you think Fox's reaction reveals anything about how, anything larger about how Fox or right-wing media operates? It is the, I mean, they could teach this in a class about right-wing media. It is find a grievance, turn it into a cultural war about themselves, become the victims, be completely full of shit through the whole thing. I mean, it's... And as you become a victim, try to make the rest of America a victim too, right? There's like a patriotism thing at play here, right? That it is, you know,

America's a Christian country and there's an attack on religion, an attack on Christmas, and there's also an attack on this symbol that we all love, and it's an attack on you, right? Like, it can't just be fox news is pissed about this no it's all this is an attack on you and your value and now all of your christmas trees are at risk i mean like we're this is a wall to i mean they did not talk they talked more about this than they talked about the uh

horrific school shooting in michigan they never talk about the insurrection like this i mean it's just it was amazing it was so amazing to see how wall-to-wall coverage this was i mean i don't want a tree a christmas tree i don't fire for a little bit i don't want to go on all q anon but how do we know this was not a false flag you think brian kilmeade was out there he's was the guy? Yeah. You think he lit the tree on fire and then handed the gasoline to some guy that he saw just to frame him? Exactly.

That's the conspiracy theory that I'm starting right now. Get that shit on Facebook right now. It'll be trending. Let's get it going. Yeah, I don't have anything more to say about that. I just want to see it. Do we need a moment of silence to end with? We do.

Well, this wasn't because this is an audio medium. We didn't do this, but there was this great moment on Fox and Friends where they were like, we're now going to play a montage of Christmas trees for you because we don't have ours anymore. Was it great? There was like an in memoriam of Christmas trees. Was it great Christmas trees in American history? I don't know. I think it was just a bunch of Christmas trees.

Was Charlie Brown's Christmas tree in it? Anyway, look, we feel for you, everyone at Fox. Maybe we should send them a Christmas tree. No, we're not. All right. That's all the time we have. Dan, thanks for being here. I mean.

Come down again. Anytime. Perfect. And thanks to Cornell Belcher for joining us. Everyone have a great weekend, and we'll see you next week. Bye, everyone. Ronel Belcher for joining us. Everyone have a great weekend and we'll see you next week.

Bye everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producer is Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Sandy Gerard, Hallie Kiefer, Madison Hallman, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montu.

Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.