Pod Save America - Trump Calls for Democrats' Executions

Episode Date: November 21, 2025

Trump calls for six congressional Democrats to be executed for treason because the group—all military and intelligence vets—dared to post a video reminding troops that they shouldn't follow illegal orders. The dangerous outburst wraps up a bad week for the Commander in Chief: Republican defections forcing him to sign the Epstein files bill, incompetence by his own lackeys in the prosecution of James Comey, a big legal loss for Texas gerrymandering, and economic polling numbers going from bad to worse. Jon and Dan react to Trump and Republicans' freakout over the video and discuss the latest on the Epstein files, why we still need to worry about Trump's DOJ, why he'll never be a good economic messenger, and how the Republican redistricting effort backfired. Then, Tommy talks with Swing Left's Yasmin Radjy about a better way to contact, engage, and organize voters and volunteers.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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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I'm John Faber. On today's show, Trump caps off a rough week and the worst polls of the year by calling for Democrats' execution. Sure, that'll help. We'll also talk about how his attempts to prosecute people he doesn't like and his plan to rig the midterm map may have hit a few snags.

Meanwhile, the House has come back to D.C. after a month off, just in time to embarrass itself. with a fresh spate of scandals, but don't worry, they're bipartisan in nature, Dan, so that's good. Oh, fun. Reaching across the aisle. Also, Zoran Mamdani dares to visit the White House on Friday for a chat with fellow New Yorker Donald Trump. And then Tommy talks to Yasmin, Raji, of Swing Left, about a new way of thinking about

contacting and organizing voters. But let's start with the latest reason that the president of the United States should be committed to a mental institution. This morning, he repeatedly called for six. six Democratic members of Congress to be put to death by hanging in a series of about 20 posts on Truth Social. Trump was responding to a video posted by the six Democrats, all of whom either served in the military or intel community, reminding Americans currently serving that they're not obligated to follow unlawful orders. Here's a clip.

Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren't just coming from abroad, but from right here at home. Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution. Look, I think the music was a little much, but I wouldn't call for them to be hung over it. So that video set off a wave of hysteria among Republican politicians and Fox hosts, which eventually made its way to Trump, who called the Democrats, quote, traitors who should be, quote, arrested, locked up and tried for, quote, seditious behavior punishable by death, all caps, mentioned seditious behavior in three

separate posts, wanted to make sure everyone also knew that it was punishable by death, and then for good measure, he reposted someone else saying, all caps, hang them. George Washington would, George Washington catching strays here.

It all sounded quite similar to the reaction from Trump's second in command, Stephen Miller, who appeared on Fox a day before and said this. It is insurrection, plainly, directly, without question. It's a general call for rebellion from the CIA and the armed services of the United States by Democrat lawmakers. These lawmakers should honestly resign in disgrace and never return to public office again. So when we say that Democrats are communists, we don't just mean that, well, they believe in the state.

state control of property. We mean they've adopted a method of thinking in which any use of force is justified for their end state of power and control. It's pretty bad when Stephen Miller sounds like the calmer one between him and Donald Trump. Gee Dan, I wonder why those Democrats thought it was a good idea to remind the military that they aren't obligated to follow unlawful orders from the guy who then called on them to be hanged. Why would they do? such a thing. You raise an important point, John. You raise an important point. I got a couple of thoughts here. First, this is beyond the point. It's not really what we're here for, but Stephen Miller, obviously, a very dangerous human being, but it's impossible to take a word he says

seriously in the way he speaks. Yeah. It's just like, it's so, like he is the Saturday Night Live skit of himself, I guess, but just. It's a, it's a very, yeah, it's like a, like an angry, like fascist tone. But it's like also with a weird accent and like with a staccato, like, it's just, it's, it's, it's from Santa Monica. You're from fucking Santa Monica, dude. Yeah, you should say dude is what I think you're supposed to do in that case. Yeah, very, very strange.

But let's be, let's, there's a lot to unpack here. So one, there's, why did these members of Congress do this? And it's because, oh, I don't know. The administration is bombing boats in the, in the, in the, without any real explanation of what legal basis by which they are doing it is there is no there's no authorization for use of military force for it there is no it's not clear who the enemy is it's not clear what the evidence is to support this when as elissa slacken has pointed out in the wake of all of this uh furor is they've asked repeatedly for what the legal basis is and they basically get

like the shrug emoji it's like we don't have to really tell you and third point these people are all fucking snowflakes trump miller the rest of the Republicans. These people, all these members did in this video with the dramatic music and vertical videos was to remind members of the military and the intelligence community not to do illegal things. That's all it said. Didn't say, don't follow legal orders. It didn't say, don't listen to the commander of chief. It said, we are reminding you as the co-equal branch of government who is part of the system of checks and balances put forward in the Constitution, reminding you that if you get an illegal order, you do not have to follow it and you come to us

and we will protect you. Like, that is the point here. And you do protest too much, because if you're not giving legal orders, why do you care? If you are giving legal orders, you care passionately. Yeah, I mean, you mentioned Venezuela

just as one example, or the extrajudicial killings off the coast of Venezuela and in the Caribbean that have so far no legal basis that at least the administration can provide. I don't know if you saw in the news, the Attorney General

in the UK has told the government in the UK that they maybe they should stop sharing intelligence with us because we as the United States are carrying out illegal killings based on no legal justification. The top lawyer at Southcom which is the part of the military that's overseeing the strikes has resigned reportedly because this lawyer was telling people like there's there's no legal justification. And like you said, every letter that Democrats in Congress have sent to the administration asking for some evidence that these are combatants, some kind of legal justification, some kind of evidence that they're a threat to us, the people that they're killing in these boats, some kind of evidence of legal justification for this. They won't provide

it. And in the New York Times story about this video, both Alyssa Slokin, Mark Kelly, and others tell the times that the genesis of this was like some folks in the military and the national security apparatus were coming to them and saying like I'm concerned that we are killing civilians and could someday be held legally liable for that. The uniform code for military justice lays out very clearly that you should not obey unlawful orders. Now the standard here is like if it's clear that it's unlawful to you like if someone says go kill that civilian or go take that non-combatant prisoner or torture that person right but um still we're in quite a gray area right now and all they said was a reminder of what the law already states that's it they're not trying to say

anything else but the lot with the law states so anyway that's that because it caused a whole if if trump never did any of this today it would still be a story just because of the fucking hysteria it caused on Fox News yesterday. And, you know, Jason Crow, who also served in the military, he did an interview with Martha McCallum of Fox News, very contentious. He did a really good job, pushback so hard that by the end she was on the defensive. But then, you know, we saw Stephen Miller with Will Kane. They were talking about it all day. And Republican, like Lindsey Graham is all upset about, so they're all upset. But again, say you didn't like the video, say you disagree with the video. Say you thought the video was inappropriate.

All things that you can just say if you're a Republican don't have to necessarily call these people traitors that should be hung. The six Dems released a statement saying that they're not backing down, calling on all Americans to unite and condemn the president's call for their murder. Jeffries and Schumer both asked the Capitol Police for special protection for these members in anticipation of the death threats that are probably already coming or worse targeted at those members. Caroline Leavitt at the White House briefing. She did say, no, the president does not actually want to execute Democrats. Few. Thank you. Thank you for clarifying. Yeah, which led to a Reuters headline, in all caps, Reuters headline that's been sort of bouncing around the internet. White House says president does not want to execute Democrats, which is a real headline for the ages.

And she also said, of course, that Democrats, she also falsely claimed the Democrats in the video, urged the military to disobey legal orders. The opposite. And the opposite, which, you know, Caitlin Collins yelled to her as she left the briefing room, like you misquoted Democrats, Nancy Cordes in the briefing room, tried to push back and say like, well, they were trying to say if they were illegal orders. And Levitt's like, well, all of our orders are legal. Oh, okay. Which actually does fit with their mindset, right? That is the point. If Trump says it, it's legal.

This is why they don't have to revive. They don't need a authorization for use of military force from Congress. They don't need a declaration of war. They don't need any. They don't even need some of the very sketchy legal rationales that administrations of both parties, including RSUs, to justify all kinds of things post-9-11. They don't even need that. If it comes out of Trump's mouth, it is therefore a valid order.

And that is the exact point that these members of Congress are making. Yes. And I do think it's interesting what gets the administration really angry. And it is when either courts or now down. Democratic members of Congress or the press push back against grave abuses of power and executive overreach because they really do believe, particularly around immigration and national security, that literally anything the president does goes. And when you challenge that, when a judge challenges that, when a Democratic member of Congress challenges that,

they can't take it and they go berserk because they want to have this power. That's core to the rationale for this presidency. Do you think that Trump, like I believe Stephen Miller is genuinely upset about this because any questioning of Trump's power causes him to do it. And any, honestly, excuse to threaten Democrats with death is high on his list of things to do. Do you think that this is something they're legitimately worked up about or a fight they're looking for to kind of change the subjects in the midst of this very, very bad week that they're having

that we're about to talk about? Could be both. I could see, I mean, I could definitely see Stephen, Stephen Miller's obviously worked up about it. I could see Stephen Miller spinning up the president about it because I do think he's a, one of his main primary sources of information, which is partly why we're in such trouble. And then I could imagine, if I had to bet, the next time we see Trump and he speaks about it, he doesn't sound as crazy as the posts because sometimes he does that. He's, he, in real life, he sounds a little, I mean, he sounds crazy, but he sounds less. bellicose than some of his posts. Well, I mean, imagine

what sounding in real life as bellicose as these posts would be. It would be to stand in front of the nation and threaten Democratic members of Congress with state-sponsored execution. So that would be notable, I would say. I will say, as I was prepping

for the pod and right after this happened, like, I was looking around for the story. It was all over Twitter, of course, and it was on cable. We were watching Fox. Fox did mention it, though, the way that Fox framed the whole thing was that, you know, Trump lashes back at Democrats for urging military to disobey orders, you know. But it wasn't like leading the New York Times or the Post, and I've long stopped my media criticism because I think a lot of journalists work, and, you know, tomorrow's headlines may be different, but I don't know if it's just a reflection of how much news there is or how inert we are to Trump saying crazy shit like this. I don't know. The President of the United States calling for Democrats to be hanging seems like should be the top story everywhere. Yeah, I mean, you're right. I think this is as much a media

problem as a cultural problem where we just have gotten, we are sort of uncomfortably numb to Trump. And this is not, this really is not 2017 stuff where he would say, you know, he called people like he would just say back then guilty of treason. And then we would say, treason is a crime punishable by death. He's calling for the execution of this person. Because back then, as much as we worried about it. There was no follow-through. There actually were people trying to prevent him from following through by just distracting him like a small child or a bird with a shiny object. But just we are like 72 hours away from the president telling the Attorney General to investigate a bunch of Democrats for no reason as a distraction ploy from the Epstein files in the Attorney General doing

that. So like these words should carry more weight in how they're thought about and how we worry about them. And I'm not saying that these people are going to be executed. But the president's words matter. And they matter when we know for a fact that the Justice Department will do what the president wants, no matter how ridiculous, how illegal, how unconstitutional, how unethical. And so, yeah, it should be a big, huge, important topic of conversation, which is why we're leading the podcast with this. Well, and... Not going to criticize us out there, people. Right. Like, just to be clear, even if he, even if the Justice Department says tomorrow, they're just opening an inquiry, an investigation into these

Democrats for that video. It's fucking constitutionally protected free speech that is, again, them restating what the law says. In vertical video. In vertical video with unfortunate music. Again, but like other than that, totally legitimate. Legal, legitimate, totally fine. Now, there's some poor Senate digital person who put together a video that was so newsworthy that it has caused a major news cycle. And you have two assholes like us criticizing the music. You know what? I'm proud of you all for doing the video. I just, we need some levity here. You need levity? You need some levity in the illegal orders video? Oh, we need levity. I thought you wanted to put some jokes in the video. I'm not looking for a fucking punchline in the video. No, no, don't worry about that.

All right. So even before Trump called for executing members of Congress, pretty clear he's been going through something this week. Wait, before we move on, I think we can't leave this without pointing out that it was only a few months ago that the entire country led by the Republican Party had a massive conversation about how rhetoric could lead to political violence and how Democrats saying things like Trump is an authoritarian or Trump is a fascist has led to violence against Republicans. and now you have the President of the United States calling for the hanging of members of Congress and all these same people, J.D. Vance, most prominently among all of them, has been quite quiet about this. Now, not that we are going to be surprised by hypocrisy from these people, but I just think you can't leave the subject without pointing out just how short the Republican concern with political violence actually was. And that's why, like, again, I don't really care about pointing out the hypocrisy at this point. I hope that all of these Republicans, media figures, politicians

who said that political rhetoric can incite violence, who wanted to, wanted everyone to condemn violence, condemn calls for violence, condemn language that could incite violence, will now condemn this. This is their chance to show that it was not just a partisan motivation to saying that, but that it was genuine. And so if it is genuine, then you should call it. that out. I think, for example, that Jay Jones's texts were fucking gross. Yes, absolutely. And crazy and bad. And I would like to hear, I don't know, a handful of Republicans say this about Donald Trump. I heard John Thune say that it was over the top. His response, I'm paraphrasing response, was basically like, I agree with this criticism. I disagree with how he

handled it or disagree with his solution to the problem. I think Lindsey Graham also said he was a little over the top, but he was, he's never been more upset by anything than the video. So they're all, you know, they're all pivoting to the video. But I would like like a real condemnation. I guess like Don Bacon said the video was bad. And then he said what Trump did was worse. That's like the, that's the right. That's good. Yeah. That's the right zone. I would say, in fairness, it's 321 on the West Coast as we're recording this right now. Not very many people have done it. It is possible that they all have an epiphany between the ending of this recording and when you all hear it on Friday morning, and this will look foolish.

But if not, but if not, hypocrisy noted. Pod Save America is brought to you by a chili pad by Sleep Me. Are you sweating through the winter while your furnace is set to sauna even worse, your significant other loves a toasty bed, but you're roasting alive under a pile of blankets. And let's be honest, if your sleep sucks, everything else sucks a little bit more. It's not just about how long you sleep, it's about how well and surprise science tells us temperature plays a huge role. That's where chili pad by sleep me comes in. The luxury temperature regulating mattress tomber that keeps you perfectly cool, even when the heat's on full blast.

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mad king when he feels politically cornered which is why he spent the week lashing out at reporters and selling the rest of us extra hard on his demented version of reality Here's a sample. Mr. President, why wait for Congress to release the Epstein files? Why not just do it now? It's not the question that I mind. It's your attitude. I think you are a terrible reporter.

It's the way you ask these questions. You start off with a man who's highly respected asking him a horrible, insubordinate, and just a terrible question. They came up with the new word, affordability. affordability and they look at the we are all about affordability and everyone assumes that that meant that no their prices were high they said sir if george washington and abraham lincoln came back from the dead and they aligned and they went for the president vice president as a combination you'd be beating them by 25 points so true so true lots to unpack there um for those who couldn't hear the the first clip That was Trump on Air Force One telling a female reporter, quiet piggy. So that was, that's something that happened this week. Then he was in the Oval, yelling at another female reporter for asking a very respected man, a tough question. That would be the Saudi Royal Prince, who had Washington Post columnists brutally killed and dismembered.

you're just you're not supposed to you're not supposed to ask someone with that kind of reputation yeah such a such a bad question in that question the most honorable word is he calls her question insubordinate which is very telling about how he thinks about the power dynamics here yes and like the irony is not lost that he's sitting next to the guy who ordered the killing of a journalist and trump is the one who really can't fucking handle uh journalist questions because you know what Trump, and then, and then we haven't even talked about this, you know Tommy and Ben Covey on Pazade of the World, but just the fucking disgusting way that Trump handled the question about Jamal Khashoggi that came to him in that, in that meeting, in that pool spray with NBS. And he said, well, he's a controversial. He was a controversial guy and things, things happen. Things happen. Do you do any other controversial people, Donald Trump? And if so, might you be careful about suggesting that that would be just a justification for, I don't know, being bone salt? Like, what, just, I mean, it was, honestly, the whole, there's not the topic here again, but the entire MBS celebration in the White House, all the business leaders and tech billionaires who went and tote the fucking Fox News anchors like Brett Bear and Maria Bartaroma, who toasted with MBS after this is just, the whole thing is so gross. It is so gross.

All of them. Some of them were not capable of shame. And Brett Bair may be one of those people's not capable of shame, but the rest of them, Tim Cook, et cetera. should absolutely be embarrassed by the way they handle themselves in the situation. You don't have to toast a murderous dictator. That is not a required part of your job. He respects power and money and nothing else. And people with power and money, no matter how they behave, no matter how disgusting they may be, no matter what crimes they commit, you have the respect of Donald Trump if you are powerful and rich. And if you are not, it doesn't matter how you're treated.

So clearly this is him. He's lashing out everywhere. He's pissed. Let's talk about all the things that are causing him to lose his shit. And then we can talk about how bad the polls have gotten for him at his party. First up is the Epstein Files, the release of which is now required by law, thanks to a bill passed by both houses of Congress, in a near unanimous vote and signed by Trump himself. He wasn't happy about it, though, and promised in a very long and rambling post that the Epstein Files would backfire on the Democrats who were just using the issue to distract from all of Trump's incredible victories on things like bringing down costs and inflation. The question now is which files Trump's Department of Justice will actually

release and when Pam Bondi was asked about this and would only offer variations on we will follow the law, we will follow the law. How do you think Bondi and crew are going to handle this? I think you have to go back to the fundamental premise here, which is that Donald Trump is deathly afraid of something in the Epstein files. Now, whether he knows what that thing is, or he just generally has a vague recollection of his conduct in the Palm Beach in the 90s, I don't know, but he thinks there is something very bad and very embarrassing in there. And we know that Pambani will do anything she possibly can to protect Donald Trump from things that are bad and embarrassing. And so my suspicion is that she will use the very understandable provision in the

disclosure law, which says the Justice Department does not have to release files that are related to an ongoing investigation as a way to not release some files. Notably, as we mentioned earlier, she started a bunch of new Epstein investigations over the weekend, which could be a way in which a putative reason to prevent disclosure of some of these files. And I have to imagine that if she just does that for too long, there's got to be a chance for a lawsuit there for Justice Department or for someone to say like, hey, this is the law. We don't know.

There's no proof that you're engaging in any kind of investigation. You already said that you investigated everything and there was no reason for any additional charges. Now, she's saying, oh, new information came to light. Okay, what's the new information? I guess potentially the emails from the estate that we have all been pouring over the last couple weeks, but I don't fucking know. And I think those would be in the files too. Yeah, maybe, though. Why weren't they released?

Because they didn't release the files. That's the thing. Well, they're, I mean, they released thousands of pages to the overstate. committee, but not the ones that had Donald Trump's name in them. These are the difference here is these had Donald Trump's name in them and a bunch of other people. Maybe they have made they don't. It would seem like... It's just weird that they came from the estate and not the files. Well, the estate complied with the subpoena from Congress and the Department of Justice did not, which is, which has got lost in this. Yeah, I don't like, and there will be political

pressure here because the Republicans now have all voted for this and it and they are, they've broken with Donald Trump on their Epstein files once. They think this matters to their base. And if he really drags his feet in a way that is, like, embarrassing to them, I think you will see bipartisan political pressure be put on him. Believe it or not, there is reason to doubt the basic competence of a justice department. No, not this Justice Department. I mean, I know, Pam Bondi. It's, you know, she's considered the news this week that the DOJ's transparently political

prosecution of James Comey may be falling apart, surprise, surprise. Not exactly shocking when you remember that to get the indictment, Trump had to fire the Trump appointed U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and install one of his lackeys, Lindsey Halligan, who had never previously ever tried a case in front of a judge, which shows. And she had to bring the case against Comey because no other prosecutor in the office out of a couple hundred employees would sign the indictment. So she had to do it herself. then in a hearing this week on Comey's motion to dismiss the case as politically motivated Halligan admitted to the judge that she never showed the full grand jury the updated version of the indictment after they had to toss one of the counts. Then her second in command admitted that his predecessors had drafted a memo outlining

why they didn't bring charges against Comey when Trump ordered them to do so the first time. He admitted on top of that that the Deputy Attorney General's office had told him not to acknowledge the existence of that memo in open court. Right before we recorded, these two morons were filing some paperwork to clean up the indictment issue, but all of these disclosures make it seem much more likely,

and the judge made it seem much more likely in his comments that the case could be thrown out altogether. You know, for a team just dedicated solely to retribution, does it surprise you? They just couldn't even pull that off?

Yeah, no. No, it doesn't actually, because this is one of those things where the job to be the Patsy who is supposed to engage in this prosecution that every career attorney already said there was no evidence for, anyone who would accept that job is obviously someone so lacking in competence, skill, intelligence, and dignity to actually execute the job well, even as hard as well. So the fact that Lindsay Halligan was willing to accept this offer is proof that she was going to fuck this up. Like, that's, like, it is that. So, yeah, I mean, could they have, I guess maybe

it is surprising that they were unable to find a person in the entire Trump administration who had actually presented evidence in a court of law before to take this job. Like, I mean, I assume there are just attorneys running around everywhere, like there is in every government, but instead they end up with this person who had even less experience, basically was that they took a person off the street to do this. And that person failed. And I guess that should be encouraging to everyone who's spending a lot of money and going into debt to go to law school. I mean, I think even if they, it's all, I think even if they got the most skilled attorney you could find on this case, maybe it doesn't get thrown out at this stage and, you know,

you don't, you don't forget to show the grand jury, the updated indictment, but it seems like the facts of the case are the real problem here. Yeah, it's just, it's the, it's the embarrassing way in which this happened. There's a world in which you truly get the best prosecutor alive. Send them in there. They take the bad evidence and present it, but they dot all the eyes and cross all the teas, and then it just gets tossed or you lose a jury trial. But the fact that you've failed to show them the indictment that you had to admit basically lying or lying by omission to the court about a piece of exculpatory evidence is just so embarrassing. It makes this whole thing look even dumber than I already was. And that is frankly enjoyable to me personally.

It is enjoyable. And it's not to say that like people shouldn't be worried and that this all isn't dangerous because I do think there are plenty of examples of cases that are borderline. You know, should they be charged? Should they not be charged? And then the desire to prosecute your perceived enemies is what puts it over the line. I think like the John Bolton case. Let's just pretend. Let's imagine because we actually don't know all the facts we haven't seen the case yet. But you could imagine a case where the Biden administration looked into this. They decided not to prosecute, not to bring an indictment against John Bolton. Now the Trump team is maybe there is enough evidence there to convict John Bolton. And it would be because, you know,

it wouldn't have happened without a push to politically prosecute his enemy for Trump's enemy. You know, and so there is a lot of danger there. But I do think when some of these cases like Akomi, Letitia James, where we're starting. starting to see more and more of the facts of the case. And it's just like, there is just no wrong. There's not even any illegality. There's just like not even wrongdoing. There's not even like ethical gray areas here. It's just, it's just nothing. There is a difference when it is someone as prominent and powerful and presumably well off as like a Jim Comey or has the resources of a Letitia James or as a United States senator. Where it gets scarier is when it's people further down the food chain,

right, like La Monica McIver, who is a member of Congress, but is, you know, not as well-known and is in a very precarious position where it, when it starts being, you know, immigration. Cat, Abu, who's running for, running for Congress. You know, people who have been, who have just simply protested or argued against or defended immigrants or done something to upset the ICE people. Like, there is a, the political prosecutions, because even if you don't get the conviction, you can do tremendous reputational financial damage to someone just by pursuing the case to begin with. And some of the people who were going to get off of the front are the people who had the

best opportunity to survive that, even if they had not fucked up the indictment and possibly ended the case, you know, sort of at the outset. Yeah, like Michael Driban is James, as Jim Comey's lawyer, who's like one of the best lawyers, like, practiced before the Supreme, you know, tried cases before the Supreme Court and everything. So, so related story about the goobers at the DOJ, a federal grand jury in Maryland appears to be looking into whether Trump's mortgage fraud czar, Bill Pulte, and his retribution czar, Ed Martin, may have brought in unauthorized people to go after Adam Schiff for mortgage fraud, potentially Tish James as well. It's very confusing what they're looking into here because it seems really hard to believe

that Trump or Bondi would let a federal grand jury investigate Pulte or Ed Martin. But what do you think is going on here? It's also possible that they may be looking into people who, um, tried to say they were Pulte or Ed Martin or worked for them who were unauthorized. So, because I can't imagine the government going after the government. Yeah, well, it's... I mean, I can in a normal administration, but not this one. So I think there are a couple of different things, sir.

One, as you say, we don't really know. All we know is that we've, is the press have seen subpoenas that have been issued to some conservative activists and congressional candidate, which includes Pulte, Martin, and some other names of people who may or may not have claimed to have been part of, They seem to want to know if there are certain people who would not be involved in investigation who may be claiming to have had authority to be involved in it. Yes. In terms of how this could happen, I think there are two ways it can happen.

One is it just slipped through the system, right? Just, you know, like this is not the crackerjack team over here at Department of Justice. And so it just sort of happened. Pam Bondi didn't read email and went forward. Or the other way is there's a fair amount of reporting that various members of the Department of Justice leadership. really hate Bill Pulte. It's like the one thing we all have in common and Ed Martin.

And so it's sort of you could see it may be also also soybean farmer Scott Bessent who's almost punched him in the face. Yes, lots of people are, you know, you can sort of see a world where maybe this came and like the one time Pam Bondi was like, I don't know, just proceed. Do as you would do as you would do. I'll stay out of this and let that go. So I'll be interested to see where this goes. But either way, it seems quite enjoyable and fun.

And like we're having kind of a, we started off with potential execution of Democratic members of Congress, but the rest of this podcast is pretty light and fun. And this is light and fun. I will say I did look at, um, they named the, the U.S. attorney who signed the subpoena in panel of the grand jury from the, from the Eastern District of Maryland, um, did get that job in 2022. So I'm sort of wondering now, like that's to maybe it didn't get to Pam Bondi's desk and it was actually someone working in the justice department who's not. not a Trump lackey, but I don't know. That person might be finding a new job soon. Yeah, no, exactly. We shall see. Then we'll really know. You know what's going to happen to that person? They're going to get investigated for mortgage fraud. Yeah. Yeah, hope you'll know. Hope that guy only has one house. That's right. So anyway, in the midst of all the chaos we just talked about, one thing seems crystal clear. The president is focused like a laser on affordability, Dan. And guess what? The American people have started to notice. Allow me to read you a Fox

News headline about their newest poll. Hot off the presses. Poll was out Wednesday. Quote, voters say White House is doing more harm than good on economy. That is on Fox News.com. 76% of voters have a negative view of the economy in the Fox poll. Worse than the 70% who said the same at the end of Biden's term. Twice as many voters blame Trump instead of Biden for the current state of the economy. Three times as many voters say Trump's economic policies have hurt them versus help them, and the president's approval rating is 41%, 58% disapprove, and it is record high disapproval among men, white voters, and those without a college degree, obviously Trump's core demographics.

It is just one poll, but most of them are saying the same thing. I could have read any of them. Nate Silver's average has Trump sitting at 41.5% approval, easily the lowest approval of his second term and close to the lowest of his first term. In fairness, Anne, these polls were taken before Trump spent the week glazing the Saudi royals who've made his family billions of dollars richer and the tech billionaires who were building him a $300 million ballroom. You think that'll move the numbers once that information is absorbed? I think that was an excellent use of glazing Curtis Lee-Wa. Good job. It's for Elijah.

That's a very, yes. That's, you, you are, if you know that joke, you're trembling online. That's right. No, I don't think that's going to help, John. I do not. I think he is in a very, very, very precarious place politically. And the fact that he is a lame duck president makes it that much harder to get out of this place. Because when you get to this place, and Obama got in his first term, not this far down, but he got into the low 40s, you can come back when it becomes, as your reelection camp,

as the re-election race ramps up as the primary on the other side gets up and you start doing to quote Joe Biden, the voters compare you to the alternative, not the almighty. But when you're a lame duck, this is why you're a lame duck. You very rarely come back from that, right? This is like you were in George W. Bush territory here. You were on the precipice of the bottom falling out. And maybe he can come back. Trump has come back from the political graveyard many, many times. But he's in a very, very bad place. And he doesn't have a lot of good solutions to get out of this. And I will say, I think the bulk of the disapproval is around just the state of the economy and how people are feeling about the economy, right?

And I think, you know, Joe Biden was not doing all the corruption that Donald Trump is doing and was not, you know, building the ballroom and taking Katari jets and all that shit. And he still had a very high disapproval around the economy because people, whatever they thought about Joe Biden, they were just pissed that he didn't bring cost down, right? Trump is adding to people's anger over high prices by every time people look at the news or even casual news observers, what are they seeing? They see. And it's very funny that after the off-year elections, they were like, well, you know,

even the White House political advisors were acknowledging, like, you know, he's just so focused on foreign policy. And every time there's an event at the White House, he's with all these like foreign leaders, Or, you know, he's talking about these deals with, like, CEOs. So what does he do this week of all the foreign leaders? He's got the Saudi royal family who has just made his family so much money. He's talking about deals with him. He's got fucking, he's got Elon and the besties and the fucking AI guys at the White House with the Saudis.

And they're all fucking taking pictures together and there's the gold everywhere. Like, what are you doing? I will say this one small thing in defense of the White House staff, which is, I'm sure the MBS state dinner or whatever you call it in meeting was planned far in advance. Because I would say many times in my life in the White House, I'd be like, man, we are in a tough place. We've got to focus on the economy. Let me break out the old week ahead block schedule and see what's happened the next couple weeks. Motherfucker. What has Ben Rhodes put on the schedule this week?

True, true, but guess who shouldn't have planned to fucking state? dinner for Mr. Bonesaw. Well, yeah, that, that, yes, that, that is nothing, that is a different question. But the problem here is they can say that they want affordability to their message. Affordability can never be their message because Donald Trump, somewhat like Joe Biden, is chemically incapable of saying the things you need to say to appeal to people in affordability because to say, to say, for different reasons. No, it's for the same.

I think it's for the same reason. It's pride. because to say that costs are too high is to admit you have failed and that this is this was Biden's part with the economy always as he was all even it was the White House talking about to say the right thing the written statements who say the right thing the parts on the teleprompter would say the right things and then Joe Biden would start saying how great the economy was and Trump is the same way and it's it's actually magnified with Trump because they put in place a policy Biden just kind of lived failed to solve a problem he probably couldn't solve anyway Trump has taken a problem

he can't solve and made it much worse. And you saw this with, you guys talked about this on the Tuesday pie, but when Kevin Hassett was on the shows, they was like, I mean, just truly one of the worst messengers in the history of messaging.

But they were like, he's like, I got good news for people. We're eliminating the tariffs on groceries and food and all of this. And they're like, oh, so you're saying the tariffs raise the prices.

And he's like, no, I'm not saying that at all. It's like, no, but if the prices are coming down, down. That's not going to help. He's like, prices are down. I don't know what you're talking about, you know, John, Carl, or whoever he was doing the interview with. It's like you can't do.

Trump cannot be a good message on affordability. It is impossible for him to do. Even J.D. Vance, who's supposed to be the smarter one, I guess it, between him and Trump. Yeah, well, congratulations. He tried out a version of a better message at an event on Thursday with Breitbart's Matt Boyle where he was like, look, you know, we've made some progress, but there's a lot more to do and we really think the economic boom is coming and we're going to work harder for that

and then he's like, what I would ask of the American people right now is patience. Matt, I was like, what is that? You're asking people patience? Yeah. People have been, you have been in the White House for a year.

You have raised prices based on your own tariff policy while you're asking everyone else to be patient the president and his family have made billions of dollars flaunting it in front of everyone accepting gold bars literal gold bars from the Swiss

That's the other thing here And other gold-plated things From fucking Tim Apple and all the rest of it I mean it's just like Anytime you look at Donald Trump In the White House You are seeing gold You are hearing about deals

You were reading stories about his family Making money He's fucking focused on renovations at the White House That's his, like, main focus so he can build, like, a $300 million ballroom paid for by the oligarchs. And then they're telling everyone else who is struggling to just, like, make ends meet to be patient. Yes. And this is the – you hit on the exact other point why he cannot succeed with an affordability message is because voter – like, people are mad about the economy. Absolutely.

And they were probably willing to give Trump a little bit of that patience that J.D. Vance is out. asking for, except for two things. One, he keeps saying he already solved the problem. And we know from focus groups in circa 2009, that will cause people to flip the fucking table over when you tell them you solve the problem and they're still upset. Because in that fox poll, majorities of Republicans, majorities of Republicans believe that the costs of groceries, health care, housing, all of these things are up over last year, not up over Trump 2017 or 2020 pre-COVID, since Trump got into office, these things are up. Majorities of Republicans believe that. Then the other issues is they turn and they turn on the TV or they open up to their phone and Trump's doing

everything but solve this problem. You're right. He's paling around these rich people. He's given $20 billion to Argentina. He's building the ballroom. He's doing all this. He's doing it. He's like, he is rubbing it in people's faces at the exact moment. Like it is, he's doing everything you possibly can. They're talking about how people on food, they're going to cut food stamps and people on food stamps are lazy and, uh, and Russ Vote is talking about how he's like, he's just delighting. And here comes the Reaper, remember? And he's like delighting and cut and fucking cutting jobs and firing people and laying people off. I mean, it's just, it's wild how little they fucking care. That's why I drink pre-alcohol.

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Everyone had them. It saved a lot of people. A lot of folks have been worthless the next day, myself included, if not for Z-biotics. I'm going to load up before the holidays this year. You know how it is. A lot of folks going out, a lot of folks at the house, you're going to need that Z-biotics. Do not regret running out. Make the most of every toast tailgate and touchdown this holiday season.

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A national poll from Marquette has Democrats up five. I think the overall average right now is about Democrats plus six, which is still pretty significant lead this far out and larger than it has been over the last several months or last year even. Trump and Republicans have been hoping to hang on to their majority through some last-minute gerrymandering, though that scheme also hit a roadblock this week when federal judges throughout Texas's new map which was intended to deliver

five extra Republican seats in a two to one decision in which a Trump appointee joined an Obama appointee the panel said the new district lines constituted an illegal racial gerrymander. Trump has appealed to the Supreme Court but Trump's redistricting

blitz already wasn't going well a judge in Utah ruled against Republicans and implemented a map that could give Democrats another seat probably it will give Democrats another seat if it stands you'd absolutely so well. Yeah it's like a It's like a Harris, I think, plus three or 24 district. 23, 24, yeah.

And Republican holdouts in the Indiana state legislature appear to have sunk redistricting there, even though Trump has been going after them by name and threatening to fund primaries against them. Meanwhile, here in California, we passed Prop 50 in response. And Democrats in Virginia are now attempting new maps that could add two to three Democratic seats there. It looks like in total Democrats could pick up as many as nine seats, while Republicans' best case scenario in places like Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio, would give them about four. If Ron DeSantis succeeds in Florida,

it could give them another two to five. Yeah, it's probably three. Two to three, maybe. And then we'll see what the Supreme Court says about Texas and whether or not they overturn a key part of the Voting Rights Act in time for the midterms, which could net Republicans even more seats throughout the South, particularly if it happens

and they're allowed to change the maps before the midterms. What is your take on this Texas situation and overall thoughts about how the math is netting out right now or could net out? The Texas thing is legitimately funny. Like, I'm going to stipulate that I'm going to presume the Supreme Court's going to come to Trump's rescue here in some way, shape, or form. They are pretty, even before Trump, the Roberts Court has been very anti-voting rights

act. And so you could just, I have, I'm operating the assumption that they will get there are five seats. But the thing that's funny about it is, we had Gavin Newsom on the podcast right after he announced this thing. One of the big arguments was we're putting in a provision that says, if our maps only go into effect if Texas does it. Well, then Texas did it like a week later. So they took that provision out of the law.

And so the California maps stay no matter what Texas does. And it just will be, it would be just so goddamn funny. If after all of this, everything Trump did, they fall, they come out of this down a few seats. Very amusing. On the math, on the math. Wait, before we get off that, because I thought you were going to say something else is amusing about it, which is how fucking. stupid Texas was in giving the reason for the gerrymanders. Yes. Because Trump also, like, told them to do it. And like, it's not a good fact pattern for

them. So just so people know, partisan redistricting is allowed because the Supreme Court has said that. What they haven't done yet is overturn redistricting because of race. So if Texas had merely said, we are redrawing the maps because we want to help Donald Trump get five seats, the map would be legal right now. Yes. But instead, Trump's Department of Justice, again, a real theme today. Yes. The Department of Justice sent a fucking letter to Texas that was like, hey, we want you to racially gerrymander, basically. And then when they had the case, they kept saying, no.

No, no, no, we didn't. And they're like, what about the letter? Like, it's, the fact pattern is clear that you did racially gerrymander. And I think the, I agree that, like, I would not be surprised if the Supreme Court stepped in here to save them. But remember, in the Voting Rights Act case, what the Supreme Court, or at least what the majority could argue is by drawing majority minority districts, it is ensuring in the South that black voters have representation, that by drawing districts, that are heavily filled with black voters that that is racial gerrymandering and that you can't be doing that so that's that's what rob i mean we disagree but that's what roberts and and cavan on them potentially could be arguing here or could decide in texas there and i think this is why you had a trump appointee say that this was illegal and in texas they are basically saying we did this to for racial reasons yes which i think even if the roberts court strikes down the Voting Rights Act would say is wrong. Yes. As I understand it with my non-law school basis, the issue in the case is not the, that you're, in the Supreme Court case, is not that you're

allowed to racially gerrymander. It's that majority minority districts are not a constitutional solution to racial gerrymandering. Yes. And so you would, now, to be clear, you would still people with racial gerrymander out the wazoo if this, if it struck down. They just would not put it in a letter. That's the difference. Right. You can easily try to, you can easily gerrymander say that it's for partisan reasons, and it could be very racial in nature. Yes, it would have to be, like that's, like given the demographics would have to be. So, all right, let's talk, considering the direction the polls are headed, how are you feeling about the House in general in a scenario where Republicans do pick up a bunch of seats, but maybe not as many seats as we thought they would? Right.

Let's take striking down section two of the Voting Rights Act happening on a schedule, which would really have to be in the first couple months of next year. Because South has primaries in like March and April. To make this really work, you kind of have to do it before the primaries because you have to redraw the maps and all of that. So let's just pretend like that's not going to happen before the 2020s elections. The, you know, Nate Cohn went through and did this math about like all the different paths of what could happen is.

And let's say everything goes the way. we thought Texas maps come back, Democrats get some seats in Virginia, Republicans in Florida. We really only have to win the popular vote by like three points, I think, to very likely take the House. We'll win the generic ballot by three points. I think we're well positioned either way, but obviously we want to build as big a majority as possible. And so you need, you know, to use the phrase we've used before, too big to rig. Like you want to get to a bigger number. Republicans are not, I do not think, absent the Voting Rights Act, able to rig this in a way in which it is out of reach for Democrats. Like, we are in a political situation where

a majority is very, very viable. It's, you know, harder than it should be because of some of these gerrymandering, but it is, you know, we can win it. And even if the Texas map goes into effect, we've said this before, but if there is a large democratic wave, it also, though gerrymander may have backfired in that they may have drawn districts where they think that they are going to be safe Republican, but in a way of election, they are not Republican. Yes, and this is like, there might be some Republicans in Texas who are actually quietly grateful about these maps being struck down because they really drew these maps based on Donald Trump's 2024 performance with Texas Latinos. And as I pointed out on this podcast

before, if you look at the 20 at Beto O'Rourke's 2022 performance with Texas Latinos, he actually won Latinos in a race he lost by a lot. And then that's in the past, look at, sorry, in Beddow's 2022 governor's race. But then if you look at what happened in New Jersey in particular where the two most Latino heavy cities moved 50 points in Michael Schill's direction compared to where they were in 2024, that should really scare the shit out of Republicans. Like they might have built, you're really building levies when you build a, when you do district. you draw districts, and the more you dilute your base by trying to pick up more seats,

you lower the levy. So you don't need as big a wave to go over them and win. So it's like they're at risk here if we have a big enough wave. It doesn't have to be 14 points, which would be a net gain of about 65 to 70 seats, I think. But something that looks like 2018 would be very worrisome for Republicans. And things, at least at this point, are kind of heading in that direction. So reasons for hope, reasons for hope. One of the many reasons Congress is about as popular as herpes right now might have to do with... Did you look up herpes pulling numbers?

Yes, yeah. Okay, you did. It's confirmed it. It's definitely, it's like right around chlamydia, but definitely, but better off than syphilis. Okay. Siphilis, never a favorite. Might have to do with the recent string of scandals in the house

this week that range from embarrassing to corrupt to allegedly criminal. First, there was the revelation that. a Democrat Chui Garcia of Illinois hid his last-minute retirement announcement from everyone except his chief of staff so that she'd be the only candidate who could get the required 2,000 signatures in time to meet the filing deadline, a move that led Democratic Congresswoman Marie-Glusing Camp Perez of Washington to force a vote rebuking Garcia that passed the House on Tuesday. Then there was a talk of a central resolution against Democrat Stacey Plaskett, the non-voting delegate for the Virgin Islands, for texting with Jeffrey Epstein during a House Oversight Committee hearing with Michael Cohen in 2019 which she claims was about

getting information from one of her constituents Jeffrey Epstein because Epstein Island is in the Virgin Islands and a retaliatory move from Democrats condemning Florida Republican Corey Mills for sexual misconduct

and threatening violence among many other things that continue to come out even as we record. The Plaskett measure failed on the floor with some Republican defections, and the Mills measure essentially just went away, leading some Republicans to accuse their leadership of cutting a backroom deal, saying, like, we won't censure or rebuke Plaskett if you let the Mills thing go. On top of all that, Florida Democrat Sheila Cherfellus McCormick has been charged in federal court with stealing $5 million in FEMA disaster relief funding awarded to her family's health care company. to register people for COVID vaccines, of all things,

and funneling that money to her congressional campaign. Chirfellis McCormick says she's innocent, but House Republicans are pursuing an immediate expulsion vote anyway. Let's start with MGP going after Chewy Garcia. What do you think of that? We can have a debate about whether censure was the right way to do it, but I think she did the exact right thing to be critical of him for it. I am pretty disgusted by the Democrats who were flexibly defended what happened here.

We cannot be the party who is talking about democracy all of the time and how corrupt Donald Trump is and then turn a blind eye to what is a very obvious infringement on democracy and a bit of political corruption. Like he rigged the system for his chosen successor. And the other thing is just about this that upsets me is that one of the things that separates us from the Republicans of the Trump era, and really the Republicans even before the Trump era, and really the Republicans even before the Trump. Trump era, is that Democrats had been willing to criticize other Democrats for doing wrong things. And if all of a sudden we're going to turn a blind eye to obvious wrongdoing, just because the person who did the wrongdoing is on our side, is we are becoming more like the Republicans than I am comfortable with. And now, that's not a majority of our party.

A lot of people did speak up. But there really was this reflexive defense of Garcia that I thought was just really unfortunate. The defense to me was really troubling and kind of surprising, especially from some members that I wouldn't have expected to do that. And the first defense that everyone said was, okay, well, this was, you know, he announced his retirement last minute because he has health problems and his doctor, his cardiologist told him that he couldn't do it. And also he's just dealing with like the recent death of his daughter and he's raising the grandkids.

And I'm like, understood, that's horrible. And like, announcing that you're retiring last minute in itself is not the problem. The problem is when he decided he was going to retire, even if it was last minute, he needed to tell everyone at the same time and not just his chief of staff. Because she clearly then had time to get a couple thousand signatures to file, which means that other candidates who were interested. could have had that time to file. And then they were like, well, he didn't really know and he didn't have anything to do with it. And then you look at the petition and the Chicago Tribune found the petition. And he's the first signature on her filing deadline petition.

So I'm like, and then, so then that was the first thing. And then the next defense was, well, Gluson Camp Perez, you know, she was grandstanding. And it shouldn't have been a resolution. And why are we doing it? It could have gone to the ethics committee. and it's like, okay, if you want to say, as a Democratic member or Democratic staff or strategies for all these people who are defending Garcia, if you want to say what he did was wrong and it discussed me that there's this kind of corruption, blah, blah, also,

I think it shouldn't have been a resolution and it should have gone to the Ethics Committee. Fine. Yeah. But most of the people that were complaining about MGP introducing this resolution, didn't even say that what Garcia did was wrong. And I don't understand why you just can't say the words it was wrong. Like if you, because otherwise, if you're just making excuses and you're talking about process, we think you think it's right.

Yeah. At the exact, like that, like there's obviously a moral component to this. And there's also just like political malpractice here, which is. Yes. Just the people think with some good reason that the political system is broken. and corrupt. And then when there is an example of corruption in a broken system and we turn a blind eye simply because that person's on our team, we validate everything they think. And if we are going to actually not just take the House by a few seats, but if we're going to

take the Senate, when the White House and actually rebuild the coalition that can govern this country, the people, the American people have to believe that Democrats have the courage and the integrity to change the broken political system. And when we do things like this, it causes people to think, A, we don't, we will not do that. And B, maybe just to throw up their hands and say, fuck this. I'm not even going to get involved in politics. And that is a loss for us. That's a loss for democracy. It's just, this just doesn't seem that complicated to me. And just some of the conversations were happening about this on the floor of the house on Twitter were so mind-boggling. Like, yes, I'm sure, like, he is in a, Chewy Garcia is going

through a tough period in his life. You are colleagues with him. I understand that. But this is not high school. He's not the guy who just sits at your lunch table. You have to call fucking Biden. It's the Biden shit all over again, right? It's like these people have spent so long in Washington and know all of their colleagues and are friends with them and I get it. I'm like, you know, still friends with all of my friends from Washington, right? But like, if you are a public servant, you have to put the country first and your constituents first. And if that means a tough conversation with your friend because you have to criticize them, even if you admire their lifetime of service, which clearly a lot of people do with Garcia and good for them, then you have to

do that. Like, that's just not. And the other defense that didn't, I didn't really buy at all was like, well, no one said anything when a Republican House member did this last in 2024. I forget the guy's name. And I'm like, okay. We should have said something then too. But this is also the problem with taking, we got to fight fire with fire to like the

logical extreme because it's like they do they don't play by the rule so we shouldn't play by the rules kind of thing and it's like there are times when that's true in the in the redistricting fight that is true because they are making a power grab and it means that like we might not you know they might take over the house unfairly and so like we got to fight back but with something like this it goes back to your political point like even if even if even if you put aside the moral and ethical case for it at least think that if you're a voter and you have to choose between Okay. Well, the Republicans did this in 24 and then the Democrats did this in 26. Don't we want to contrast? Yeah. Don't we want to show people that there's actually a real choice between the two parties? Isn't that how you win?

Like, progressives are always saying that on ideas and on policy. Why are we going to just be Republican light with some policy? So why would we think that isn't the case when we're talking about corruption? Yeah. It's so dumb. It's crazy. It's crazy. What do you think about this whole, so now everyone's like, censuring, expulsions, rebukes. Two Democrat, I think it's Don Bacon and Don Byer. Don Byers' Democrat, Don Bacon's Republican, are now trying to raise the threshold for a censure because they feel like it's like a race to the bottom with like both parties censuring each other. I wouldn't be opposed to that necessarily. But I also really, like, it's such a, again, such a fucking Washington inside thing.

It's like, you are censured. It's like, yeah. So, sure, raise a threshold. Don't raise the threshold. Who really cares? So, like, this is a little out of control. I'm just via tweets I'm learning about new censures and, honestly, new members of Congress. I didn't know existed before this all at the same time.

So that's exciting. Yeah, the member who got indicted for that awful FEMA thing for stealing $5 million, never, never heard of her before. Like, if you told, if we were playing like two truths and a lie with a member of Congress with three names, I would say that was the lie, like, for sure. But the thing you have to do here is you need the ethics committee to work. like there needs to be an actual process of adjudication that is viewed to be bipartisan and independent of the leadership. We haven't been in that place for a very long time, but that for this to really work you up to the other. Because the censure thing is fake. I mean, like, I guess it matters.

It obviously matters, but there's no consequences to come with it. Do you wear a scarlet sea to the house floor for a while? I don't really know. So it's like we're sort of, it looks, it just seems ridiculous. And so raised threshold don't, but we need an actual process that hold these people. accountable that you can members and the public can trust. Yeah. One last thing before

we turn over to Tommy and Yasmin from Swing Left. On Friday, Trump is set to meet at the White House with his new arch nemesis, Zoran Mamdani, who he referred to as communist mayor, Zoran Kwame Mamdani, when announcing the meeting. We don't have a lot of details, though we'll probably know more by the time you're listening to this,

but Mamdani said in an interview on Wednesday night, quote, I want to just speak plainly to the president about what it means to actually stand up for New Yorkers and the way in which New Yorkers are struggling to afford the city. Both men love going after each other, but Mamdani has a lot on the line. The administration froze, or at least claim to freeze, $18 billion in federal funding for New York City infrastructure projects during the shutdown. And Trump said before the election that he'd be, quote, highly unlikely to contribute more federal funds beyond the absolute minimum if Mamdani won.

Asked about this in the briefing on Thursday, Caroline Levitt said, we'll see how the meeting goes. All right, you're Zoranamani. You're going to the White House to meet Donald Trump. How would you advise him to handle that meeting? Would I accept an invitation from Donald Trump to go to the White House right after he spent several days with MBS? Probably not. It seems. No, in all seriousness.

If we can decide whether we want to cut that joke or not. Maybe live stream it, so we're all there with you. Everyone knows, yes. I think the way for Mondani to think about this is you have to go. But you want to put yourself somewhere between, like one of these leaders like Kirstarmer who comes in, like, burying letters of congratulations from kings or gold bars or Tim Cook. Yeah, no, that's, thank you. Thank you.

No glazing. Do not glaze, but also you don't want Be Zelensky. Right. I think you want to come in and you want to, you want to be an advocate for New York and for all New Yorkers. And that's what you're there to do. And we're going to disagree on things. and where we can work together to help New York, we will, be very tough and strong about no national guard, about ice raids, about if there are areas we can work together to lower

prices, we should do that. And you have to come off as tough because if you cannot be, you're not like so tough that you seem like you're performative, but Trump only respects strength. And so if you go in there and you see, which is why I think some of the mistakes these leaders are making, like it's short-term gains by getting through the meeting without getting yelled at, by being so obsequious. the meeting, but you want to seem like you're not a punk. And so, and you should have, and Zoran should have confidence in this because the meeting's going to happen. Everyone, like, I assume

part of it will be, there will be a pool spray or whatever else, but also after the meeting, when it comes time to spin everything that happened, he can dominate the media space in a way that honestly Trump can't. Like he can go out, he can do every podcast, every interview, all the social media, and put his spin on events in a way that Trump really will not have the time or energy to do. And Trump certainly won't get out of his bubble to do it. I think the most important thing for him is to be tough and strong on behalf of the people. Yeah, it's all about New York. It's all about New York. Do not get into a personality fight with Donald Trump.

Do not like get into the mud with him on that. You can be tough and strong on like, hey, I'm representing a city where people can't afford to live and need help with costs and, you know, like I'm going to fight for New Yorkers. City of immigrants. Yes, yes. Like he was on election night about. about, you know, the city is now run by an immigrant. You're going to have to come through us. And so I do think he can be tough on behalf of the people in New York and should be.

But, like, Trump will try to draw him into just a personal back and forth. And I don't think that helps him. I don't think performative toughness so it can go viral online is. I don't think that's Zoran's style anyway. So, like, I don't, I actually don't think that will happen. But I do think that's, you know, you can imagine that happening. Or at least that's what Trump wants to happen. Yeah. Your, like, his goal is to be an advocate for New York. He is the, he's about to be the sworn as New York mayor. He's going to run for election as New York mayor. He wants people to think he's fighting for New York and not trying to fight some national political battle. Yep. All right. One quick thing before we go to break. If you love our shows or even if you just really like them, but aren't ready to call it love yet, please consider subscribing to Friends of the Pod to support our work directly. Your subscription helps us keep making the shows, newsletters, and deep dives you enjoy. It also unlocks perks like ad-free episodes and exclusive.

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Give and get timeless holiday staples that last this season with Quince. go to quince.com slash crooked for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash crooked, free shipping and 365-day returns, quince.com slash crooked. I am so excited to be joined by Yasmin Raji. She is the executive director of Swing Left, an organization I'm sure lots of listeners know about. But Swing Left has recently launched something called Ground Truth, which is this. new nationwide program aimed at fundamentally changing how Democrats connect with voters.

And we wanted to talk all about it. Yasmin, thanks for being here. Thank you so much for having me, Tommy. I'm excited. I'm really excited to talk with you because, look, we spent a bunch of time off mic now, too, together. And what's cool about what you guys are doing is you are experimenting, you're testing and evolving the way we do voter contact and reach voters.

But unlike many other organizations in this space, you're actually willing to talk about it publicly, which is so great because how else are we going to learn about it? And I think it's especially important now after the 2024 cycle when a lot of people feel like we spent all this time, we spent all this money, and then we lost. Like, what was the point? You guys are actually iterating and trying to make it better. And I think that's just great. So thank you for being here. Well, thank you. It feels really obvious. And you and I have talked about this before, but it feels obvious in a moment of such consequence when the stakes are so high. And we obviously know that things didn't work, not just because we lost. And the losses have been incredibly painful

for so many of us, for all of us as a country. But it's also like we're losing, not just elections, we're losing so many of the voters that we used to have trust with. And so I think from our perspective, it feels like a no-brainer to try to do things differently. And I think what's been jarring is just how how little of that is happening. And so excited to talk more with you, but we really believe that we're in a moment of if we're not taking big swings, we're not taking some real risks and we're not trying, well, trying new things and then also just being brutally honest about things that might not make us look good, but at least are truthful about what we need to do differently, then we're not taking this moment as seriously as we ought to. Yeah. No, I want to get into some of those things that, as you said, might not make, you know, previous efforts look good. But I think when you're asking your most committed volunteers and donors to give you their time, they need to believe that it's worth it. So that's why this is important. So tell me about ground truth. What is it? And what did you guys learn from this initial pilot program that I think just wrapped up, right? Yeah. So ground truth is our big swing in this moment. And I think just a little bit of kind of background. Swing left. We were founded right around the same time. as you all at Crooked, in response to the election of Donald Trump, we have always been about making sure that volunteers and donors are pointing their time and money toward the most competitive elections because our overall way of seeing things is that we cannot have progress without power.

So that is a constant. That's been constant from 2017 until now. But so many of the things that we've done, whether that's sending, you know, thousands of volunteers to go knock on doors in competitive swing districts near them, you know, directing dollars, et cetera. So many of the things that we've done have been downstream of bad decisions and broken infrastructure. And so, you know, with this moment of really high stakes, one of the things that we have felt really strongly about in the kind of post-2020 election period is even with the wins that we just had a couple weeks ago in the 2025 elections, we can't take anything for granted. And we can't take those wins as an erasure of a real trust problem that Democrats have all across the country. And so

we think that until we work really hard to rebuild that trust, we are not going to win in the meaningful ways that we need to. And the first step of building trust is listening. And so ground truth is our effort to reimagine voter contact, as you said rightly in the framing, really anchoring on deeper listening, more time with voters, not two weeks, before the election in a sort of handing a pamphlet and keeping it moving every 90 seconds, but starting well over a year before the election, our volunteers started going out and talking to voters September 6th, way earlier than they ever have in a competitive House district. And they're having deep, open-ended conversations where they're talking not just to ride or die

Democrats, they're talking to everybody. So they're knocking on every door because, again, baked into some of the assumptions that we've made election after election after election are that we know everything about voters and we can predict their behaviors and we know exactly who's someone who's always on our side and we just need to get them out and, you know, who do we need to persuade? And those assumptions have not been right, right? Or else we would be better at predicting elections. So we're talking to everybody and what our volunteers are doing is opening with a question of, you know, saying, I'm a volunteer with Ground Truth, which is a program to help Democrats do a better job of listening. And then they just ask, how do you feel about

the direction of our country? And I'm excited to get into what we, you know, have learned in our pilot, what we've heard. But I think the biggest surprise from our volunteers is just how hungry people are to talk, including people who really disagree with us on policies and on issues. And we can get into the sort of, you know, what that tells us about where we are as a country and the social isolation and so on. But people want to be heard. And people have a lot to share. and our volunteers are not policy experts. They're great listeners. So I'll pause there and excited to share more about some of the substance of what we've learned as well. Yeah, no, I do want to dig into the willingness to have conversations because I think it's a bit counterintuitive,

at least for me. But also, I just want to start with saying, like, look, anyone who's canvassed before has probably had a very different experience than what you're describing, like a few weeks before the election, you go to some office, you go to some staging location, you get like a clipboard with some houses or dresses on it or you download an app you get your turf and then you knock until you run out of houses most of the time no one's home you'll put a little leaflet in the door and then you kind of leave thinking like was that valuable like did I did I do something there maybe you have a conversation or two where you feel great about that person what do you think Democrats are missing when they just sort of execute that traditional kind of field program so much

I mean first of all I think we are not being honest about just how broken we all know that is and we keep telling volunteers, trust me, trust me, this is the most important thing that you can do. And we're pointing to real research, but not the research that we are following in those canvases, right? And so, you know, I heard from a state party leader as we were coming up with this program who said, you know, Yasmin, I think voter contact is going to be done in two election cycles in the ways that we've done it. And so there is quiet behind the scenes recognition of the problem. And the problems are intuitive, right? We're talking to people too late. The conversations are too superficial. And again, we are talking to the same voters over

and over and over. Something you didn't mention, but I know we hear from almost everybody who's canvassed is, man, I was just talking to someone for the seventh, eighth, ninth time. And they're really frustrated, right? And so, you know, for us, what ground truth, the kind of ingredients of what we need to do differently is, first of all, we can talk to people who are very different from us and we disagree with if we have more time, right? And so that's why we've got to start early. Number two is we have to listen. We can't just say, you know, I'm here with this campaign and I need you to do something. That is not how humans do anything effectively, right?

And we just keep doing that over and over again. And then importantly, something that we've heard for years from our volunteers and maybe you've experienced this too is sometimes rarely, but sometimes they have a really deep meaningful conversation with a voter and that person really opens up to them. And they talk about how they feel about our country, how they feel about their community, et cetera. And those volunteers painstakingly write in the margins of their clipboard or in the note section of their canvassing app, all of the things that they heard, all of the things that that voter needs to be convinced to vote at all or to vote for the Democrat. And then they walk back to the field office and they hand it over to a well-meaning organizer who has nowhere to put that information. And so all that organizer is incentivized to care about is how many doors did you knock, how many people were home? and then the sort of very superficial data there of how many people talked about abortion or the economy or whatever. And what we are, what our volunteers are experiencing and what our program does

is when that volunteer has that deep, meaningful conversation, which is, by the way, two thirds of the people who are answering the doors are having conversations of over 10 minutes. So that's just like way outside of the imagination of how we're used to this stuff. when they have that deep and meaningful conversation, the volunteer hits the record after the conversation is done, they've taken notes on paper, they hit record on their canvassing app, and they repeat back everything that they just talked about. We give them the guidance of it's like a doctor would repeat back what they just talked about with a patient during a patient visit.

So it's non-judgmental. You're not editorializing. If there's direct quotes that you wrote down in your scribbles, you repeat back those direct quotes so that we're really able to understand that vote. And then all those notes that usually just get thrown out, what happens on the back end is we run AI, not on replacing the human conversation, but on making sense of as people are talking, as they're sharing really personal things about their families. And when we hear about voters crying on the doors in these conversations, these are really like real and raw conversations that people are having, all of that on the back end, we are not just aggregating to say, you know, how many people are talking about X and Y issues. what are the feelings behind those things? And importantly, those don't live and die in a swing left database. We share all of that data, thanks to a new law that passed in the, or a new federal

election rule. We share that all back with the campaigns so that we are not ourselves just sort of analyzing what does the voter care about. How should we follow up with them on maybe some material needs, like if they can't afford diapers or whatever the case may be? But also, how do we make sure that the candidate who structurally, most of our candidates are spending way too little time actually going out and talking to voters, not because they don't want to, but because that's not what they're incentivized to do. They're incentivized to spend most of their time fundraising. We get all that back to them so that they have a picture, not just through a poll, not just through a focus group that usually they can't even afford until very late in a cycle of week to week. Here's what voters are

saying. Here's what they need. And here's where your trust deficit is that may not even be about the candidate, but more broadly about the Democratic Party and Democratic brand. Yeah, but look, it just strikes me as a really smart and additive use of AI technology to, in service of a real problem, which, as you described, which is a lot of members of Congress, you get elected, you go to Washington, you aren't home in the district much when you are, you're fundraising or you're going on trips. Like, you just don't have, you lose touch with the people who voted for you and you could see it happening. You talk to a freshman member, they are on it. They are like locked in. Yes. Talk to someone who's been there for 20

years, different story. So, you know, this might surprise listeners a little bit because I talk about politics for a living, but canvassing is not my comfort zone. I don't, like, it takes me like 10 minutes to get warmed up. I'll get there, but I don't love it. Mostly because when I knock on someone's door, I assume that they feel about me the way I feel about people who knock on my door, which is I tend to hate them and I want them to go away. The baby's crying and my dog starts barking and I'm just like, what is happening here? But one of the big takeaways, ground truth was voters really want these deeper conversations. I think you said like two thirds of the people you connected with wanted to talk for up to 10 or 15 minutes. Why is that,

what's the best way to use that time? Is it just listening? Is there some persuasion? Like, what did you guys learn? Yeah, you know, one of our volunteers wrote to us yesterday. We launched a bunch of the results of our pilot. And she wrote back, you know, something that really strikes me is every time people talk about listening, they usually mean listen to me. me more, not I want to listen to you more, right? It actually is like a very countercultural thing to demonstrate authentic, open curiosity. And so I think how countercultural that feels in a moment of real social isolation, real sense that the problems before us are so overwhelming and so challenging that nobody can fix them, right? And the system is totally broken, which I want to

talk more to you about, but that's the top issue that we're hearing on the door. from folks far and above affordability, when all those things combine and someone comes to your door who is not running for office, you know, they're not running for office. They don't come with a fancy, glossy, you know, paper to drop, and they really are open to hearing your perspectives, and they are promising, not that they can solve them, right? These are volunteers. They're not magicians, but that they are going to communicate them back because they want to make sure that the party is shaped by that voter, that's something that it just feels very different from what people have imagined, what they expect. That's certainly what the voter that I talked to the longest

this past weekend. I was out in Pennsylvania's eighth congressional district, one of the most competitive in the country. And one guy literally was running away from me. He went, he had a wraparound porch and he was running to the other side. And I just went, you know, and I gave my little pitch and he was hysterical. He said, Democrats, you're here to help Democrats do a better job of listening, have you heard the story of Sisyphus? And I cracked up. And it was just like the whole thing was nothing was computing with what he expected I was there to do. We ended up talking for 20 minutes and having a really meaningful, substantive, and quite personal conversation. That's great. I mean, it's funny, this, what you're describing just so perfectly jives with the sort of my personal

experience canvassing. Like when I was in Iowa, I've told the story in the pub before. But my boss used to like to haze us a bit. And so one day, you know, Saturday. morning we all have a meeting he tells all the senior staff i was like a press guy like okay you're all canvassing this weekend i put a bunch of names of counties in a hat reach your hand in and pull one out and slowly we realized that he'd only done like the border counties so i got worth county i basically drove two hours in minnesota uh i knocked on doors in this town literally no one was home i swear to god not a single person answered the door and then finally there's like i see a lady on a right on mower like mown or lawn i was like you know what i'm just going to talk to her because like who cares

maybe I'll talk to one human being today and she turned the thing off. We talked for 10, 15 minutes. By the end of it, she signed a supporter car, which means like she was a one, said she caucus for Obama. It was never on anyone's lists, was not on my knock list. It was just sort of a new name that we had started into the system. But it was like one of the more meaningful experiences I had doing field work. And it was because I just in that moment, talk to everyone and didn't get stuck on this stupid list. So what you're describing, like the reason campaigns usually don't do. that is because, as you said, you have limited time, you have limited volunteers. If everyone is talking for 20 minutes, you're just going to hit in aggregate fewer houses. But there's a real quality over quantity thing that I think you're getting at that will resonate with most people

that have done field work. That's exactly right. And you know, something that John Tester has talked about is in his very first run for, I forget if he ran for the state house or Senate in Montana, but a state seat. And he was handed sort of an analysis of the voter. is that he ought to talk to. And he was, he was just like, I'm going to throw this out. I don't think this targeting understands my people. And he went, he knocked every door. And he attributes that of trusting his intuition about his district. And sometimes candidates shouldn't trust their intuition. Sometimes there is really good research. So we've got to back everything up, right? But I think we have sort of, we're overthinking some things that we have to do when, as you said,

we have limited time. If we don't have the money for field staff until two months before the election, then you better be targeting and you better be using a pretty smart and very limited lists. But, you know, I think going back to the gravity of this moment, something that we hear a lot from volunteers is they feel like they're in a moment of, you know, whether our country is going to be able to get back on track is up to what happens in the next couple of years, not in the next decade, right? It's really like we're in an urgent moment that is going to take us on some very different paths. And they keep reflecting, all they're being asked to do is to donate $5 by midnight by, you know, a whole host of organizations, sign this petition, maybe come join a protest. And then they're looking around and they're like, okay, but what's next? Like, what's the strategy? What do I do? And so a part of this is also inviting people in. Our volunteers are intelligent adults. Folks who listen to this podcast are following the news, care a lot. They're not listening to podcasts like. this because they don't care about our country on the contrary, because they deeply care. Let's invite

them to be not just sort of people that we say, go do this, click here, click that, but come be a part of reimagining something together and learning together. And every week in our pilot, our volunteers have given us feedback on the tech, on the scripts, et cetera, to help make it better and better every week. And that iteration is only possible in an all-hands-on-deck moment. Yeah, our voter contact can't just be like an increasingly hysterical series of text messages like we got to get past this stuff um so vote forward which an organization that's affiliated with swing left uh did another really interesting experiment where you guys were sending letters to voters in key states you did this over the course of several years and then you rolled out some of the

findings i think it was in the atlantic a couple months back so we're talking old school snail mail none of this fancy AI crap you got in this new program can you tell us about the big send program how it evolved over time and like what that program taught you about about voter contact generally. Yeah. So vote forward, as you said, swing left's nonpartisan affiliate started as a randomized control trial, which, as you know, is the sort of gold standard in really researching whether an intervention, in this case, a letter written by a volunteer to a voter, does it actually

move the needle or does it just feel good to write? And the very first letters that were written were for the Alabama special election way back in the before times. And the effect of those letters in turning out voters, voters who, you know, based off of their how frequently or infrequently they vote, their demographics, their age and so on are likely to be, you know, Democrats, but may not know that an election is happening in a special, et cetera. We had a very significant measurable effect in the multiple percentage points, which in nerd speak is sort of like mind blowing. It's a, a me. A me. Massive, massive moving of the needle.

Like unheard of. Our founder, Scott Foreman called the folks at the Analyst Institute that runs a lot of these experiments around voter contact and was like, can you double check my work? It was just really amazing. And so swing left and vote forward ended up moving under one umbrella in 2019. And in the 2020 cycle, going back to a time where we couldn't really knock on doors in many parts of the country, we wrote about 10 million letters to voters to again turn them out across the country. And again, we had an incredible effect size. We turned people out. We could measure it. It wasn't a feeling. It was real science. And so we've kept on doing it, right? It's something that works. People love writing letters. You can do it from anywhere. And every year,

every election cycle, our impact has just been getting a little smaller. So we've tried different ways. Okay, well, what happens if you put a post-it in the letter? The effect size is bigger than if you didn't. All these kinds of ways of, let's not just trust what's worked before. Let's keep tweaking it. Fast forward to 2024, all these letter writers came in, wrote, we hit all our goals for, you know, millions of letters all across the country. We felt great about it. We go back, we run the randomized control trial. There's some impact, but it's kind of, it's within the margin of error.

It's not something that we should brag about. We could package it up and brag about it just to look good on the internet. But the truth is, the efficacy of this tactic that for years and years has been incredibly effective, in the same ways that we've been doing it is not working as well as it used to. Same thing happened with text messages. I remember in 2018, I thought text messages it was the most amazing thing in the world.

They were moving voters. We could measure it. Now, I don't read a single text message on my phone if it's not from a number that I don't know, right? And so what we did that you referred to is rather than just share with our hardcore volunteers, hey, this is what we learn, we're going to sugarcoat it a little bit, we'll do things differently, trust us.

We said, let's be brutally honest. honest about what we saw, which is that this thing that we invested tons of money, tons of not just our staff time, but volunteers all across the country who painstakingly every night, and we'd hear from people would say, every night when I put my kids down, I'd make sure I wrote at least one letter. This is really like meaningful stuff for them. We shared the results that we knew would break some hearts to say, we can't measure that we had any impact with those millions of letters. And the reason that we did that is because not only do we think that's the right. right thing to do. But if we are serious that we are in a moment of tremendous, again, tremendous

gravity and we just pretend like everything's fine and that the things that we did were effective, which is unfortunately what a lot of the ecosystem is doing, then we either are lying that we think this moment is really serious or we are going to keep losing, right? And so rather than just put a sort of buried page on our website, we pitched to the Atlantic, can you cover a thing that didn't go well for us. And the feedback that we got from folks who, honestly, the advice we got is, don't do this. You're never going to raise any money. People are never going to volunteer for you again. The feedback that we got was, thank you for your honesty. It is so refreshing and count me in for whatever is next, right? And so I think that to us, that is not just a fuf moment.

It is a confirmation of what we know, which is that volunteers and donors are adults who really, really give a shit about this country. And if we infantilize them by not being honest with them about what works and what doesn't, by just asking them, click $5 by midnight, then again, we're either not serious about the gravity of this moment or we don't think that they're serious people. And I think either of those is a total misunderstanding of the all hands on deck moment that we're in. Totally agree. And this is honestly why I love your approach. And like just for listeners, like, this is actually the second time I've interviewed you on Mike the first time I was trying to put together an entire Sunday episode about like learnings like this and experimentation that's

happening. And like, you were one of only two people that was willing to talk to me. Everyone else says like, oh, no, we can't, we can't disclose our research because we don't want to give that secret sauce to the Republicans. And I guess, look, I mean, I take them, like, these are good people doing hard work. Like, I'm not trying to like minimize it. But like, why, why isn't that a concern for you that you're somehow, you know, giving up the code for winning elections or the formula for winning elections to Republicans? I mean, I think our customer at Swing Left is the volunteer and the donor. And so they are who we care about, who we wake up every day thinking about everybody who is

listening to shows like this, who's reading the news, who, you know, cares a lot and isn't sure what they can do to help. If we take seriously that our job is to help bring them on the journey of using their time and dollars in an effective way, we cannot lie to them. and we also can't steer them towards ineffective tactics or ineffective programs. And so, again, going back to not just on the vote forward side with our sort of honesty about what didn't work, but with ground truth, we were like, okay, we could just keep having people canvass the same ways we've always been doing, even though we know it doesn't work,

but that's lying to them when we say we're directing you to the highest impact actions. So again, I think this stuff is, it is actually quite intuitive. it feels countercultural because the incentives of our world are the way that they are. It's not bad people. It's bad incentives. And not to sort of leap back to the voter side, but I do think there's some important connective tissue, which is, you know, as I mentioned to you a little bit earlier, the top issue that we heard in our Ground Truth pilot canvases, which was in 25, it was 25 canvases in congressional districts across the country, I expected the top issue would be affordability. It was not the top issue.

The top issue with Republicans, with independents, with Democrats, every district that we were in was a feeling that the system is broken, that both parties suck and that nobody actually gives a damn about that person, that community, their district, their town, whatever the case may be. And, you know, that is not a reaction to a specific news story. It's not a reaction to, like, a specific moment. But people do read the news, you know, swing voters may be a little less than your listeners. But when they see story after story, like I was just, as I mentioned in Pennsylvania's eighth congressional district, the Republican representing that district, Rob Breschenahan, he's someone who ran his campaign last cycle on an end corruption, you know, members of Congress shouldn't do stock trading platform, which resonated with people who were upset about the system. Turns out he is one of the top stock traders in Congress. Turns out he used his winnings to buy a helicopter in a district where people can afford grocery prices, right? So crazy to buy a helicopter.

It is banana. It's also like, are you not aware that people are looking at you and can see what you're doing? But whatever, don't get me started. The Republicans are not really caring about the hypocrisy that they embody. So of course we need to talk about that. And of course we will attack that. But we also need to have a mirror to ourselves too, which is it's not like Democrats have perfectly clean hands either. Right. It's not like there's not, I can't think of a Democrat who has bought a helicopter with insider stock trading. But, you know, I mean, just this week, a story that's been looming large in my imagination. is this Chui Garcia story of, you know, Chui Garcia is someone who, for Swing Left members, he's a champion on the issues that they care about. He is centering working people. He's done incredible work in Congress. And for listeners who are not dorks like you and me who've followed this story very closely, you know, he, he, on the very last day of the filing deadline for his district, years and years representing this district, he suddenly bows out and turns out only his chief of staff had filed. And the kicker was, as you all know, Tommy, she had filed days earlier with a document showing that Chui Garcia had been the first person to sign her

nominating petition. So I say that because, you know, it is, I think, the contrast of buying a helicopter and doing some sort of funny business of maybe it's not insider trading, but it's like some kind of inside maneuvering. There's some contrast there. But when voters say the system is broken. Both parties suck. And what we hear over and over again is voters, even Dems, really strong Dems will say, I'm sorry, what do Democrats stand for besides being anti-Trump? We've got to do a much better job of re-anchoring candidates on those feelings, because even if they talk about grocery prices all day and night, if they don't get, first of all, that voters feel like the system is broken. And second of all, that even strong Dems do not feel like the Democratic Party has clean hands, then they are not going

to be able to be effective at making the case for winning. And by the way, I don't think that we're going to have the most amazing, talented, magical communicators in every single frontline and red to blue district in the country. And I think that's okay. With a program like Ground Truth, what volunteers can do is make sure that even a candidate who is not the best messenger, who is not amazing on TikTok, is able to be anchored in what people actually care about and just why they care about it. And I think that, again, feels really intuitive, but is a pretty dramatic culture shift and is pretty countercultural in a party that is increasingly, not just in a party, in a politic, across party lines that is more and more removed from the ground.

Agreed. Final question. If people want to be a part of this, how can they get involved in ground truth or swing left generally? What can they do? Yes. Well, we would love for them to go to swing left.org slash ground truth. They can get involved. You know, in most folks listening who don't live in a competitive congressional district might think this is not a program for me. I live in L.A. or in D.C., like me and Tommy. Every, almost every American lives within 90 minutes of a competitive congressional district. So starting in January, you'll be able to join us in the closest district to you. So again, swing left.org slash ground truth. And then coming up on December 9th, we are having a call for anybody, whether they are new to swing left, whether

they are longtime volunteers, first-time canvassers, never canvassers, whatever, or, you know, people who've been knocking doors forever and ever. They can come learn more about the program and also about our strategy and why we're prioritizing the districts that we are. And the last thing that I'll just say, that's on the kind of brass tacks, but I do want to kind of just like, not to be overly pessimistic, but to be sobering. I think a lot of the mood and seeing you at CrookedCon, I saw this a lot among the attendees there is, like, we won in 2025, we won back all the voters, everything's good, like we've got everything on lock. And so the blue way- Work ain't done, people. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, as someone who is very daily, I'm anxious daily about the stakes of this moment and are we doing everything that we can, we just have to remember what we remembered back in 2018 and in subsequent elections, which, which is blue waves do not happen on their own. And so if folks come and join us with

ground truth and come and knock on doors with us, we think that that is a way to not just do a one-click, but really sink their teeth into the project of reshaping our party, reshaping our politics. And whatever folks do, it's important that all of us do something and not wait too long because the clock is ticking. And we live in very unpredictable time. So we've got to control what we can control. No time like the president to get involved. Yasmin, thanks for the great work you're doing. Thanks for the great work Swing Left is doing

and for talking to me today. Appreciate it. Thank you so much, Tommy. That's our show for today. Thanks to Yasmin Raji for coming on. On Sunday, you'll get Alex's great CrookedCon panel with Ruben Gallego, Brian Schott, and Pramilla Jaya Paul

about what a Democratic Congress would deliver and Tommy's conversation with former FTC chair and current Mamdani transition advisor, Lena Khan. Talk to everybody then. Bye, everyone. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to cricket.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review that helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Cricket.

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