Pod Save America - "Trump Loses Georgia Again?"

Episode Date: May 24, 2022

 Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Minnesota, and Georgia hold primaries this week, including the biggest race with possibly the most predictable outcome: Georgia Governor Brian Kemp versus Senator David Perdue, and Representative Karen Bass stops by the studio to talk about how she'll tackle crime and housing as mayor of Los Angeles. 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.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. I don't know. We're all back together in the studio again. It's nice. Oh, yeah. Not for a while because we had COVID and I wasn't allowed in. I wasn't allowed in the studio once because I was dancing between the raindrops. Right. Right.

We're all here. Tommy and I with our super immunity. Amelia had COVID. Oh, yeah. Amelia's here. We're all super immune. Sort of tore through the office. Yeah, it's been a lot. Anyway, you guys don't need to hear this. On today's show, Trump is headed for a big loss in Georgia, but Trumpism may still prevail on Tuesday.

New data offers some hopeful signs about Democratic enthusiasm and voting. And later, Congresswoman Karen Bass stops by Crooked HQ to talk about her campaign to be the next mayor of Los Angeles. Lovett just recorded the interview. It's a good conversation. Fantastic. We even managed to get to the CIA in crack. See, even if you're not a Los Angeles resident, this is an interview you want to hear. I was surprised we got there.

Cool. Before we start, check out the Crooked store. Our Memorial Day weekend sale is here. Did you guys know we were having a Memorial Day weekend sale well it looks like we are so you just said this tuesday may 24th through tuesday may 31st you can get 15 off site wide and up to 80 off new sale items it's our biggest sale ever it's our biggest sale five years biggest sale ever also we have a very exciting launch coming up that our marketing department has asked us to tease in a vague but clever and entertaining way. Mission accomplished.

Love it. I think you got it. That was it. That was it. That's a good tease. I think for a Memorial Day sale, you technically need one of those things that kind of inflates and dances. Yeah, like an Uncle Sam. Is that what they're called?

No, no, no. Like an Uncle Sam version of Memorial Day. Oh, sure. What are those things called? I just equate Memorial it's Memorial Day. What are those things called? I just equate Memorial Day with car dealers. What are those things called? People are probably tweeting at us right now like, you idiots, you couldn't think of that. Anyway.

Well, understood. You all know what we're talking about. And anyway, just think about the T's, though. Something's coming. Something's coming. D from Always Sunny acts like one in an episode. It's very funny. All right.

Let's get to the news. We got another big set of primaries this week in Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Minnesota, and Georgia, which features maybe the biggest race with possibly the most predictable outcome. The polls show incumbent Governor Brian Kemp leading former Senator David Perdue by an average of 23 points. In every single poll in Georgia since April has Kemp over 50 percent, which would allow him to clinch the nomination without a runoff. Kemp is, of course, at the very top of Donald Trump's enemies list for refusing to overturn the 2020 election, which is why the former president has spent a couple million dollars to help Perdue. But the Republican Governors Association has spent

five million dollars of their own to help Kemp uh and they have been somewhat fairly bragging uh that they've already protected incumbent governors from trump endorsed challengers in nebraska and idaho uh and just to twist the knife mike pence campaigned with brian kemp on monday which led to trump's spokesman accusing the former vice president of being quote desperate to chase his lost relevance if some of those trump supporters had gotten their way they'd have twisted the knife and mike pence would be dead because they wanted to kill him they wanted to kill him at the capitol i mean but like desperate to chase his last relevance like did my first question is like can you lose something that you never really had? Yeah. How much relevance does a community theater

Reagan impersonator start with? Hey, you guys want to hear every Pence voter in the world screaming all at the same time? Was that it? That's it. Mike Pence kind of lives in the uncanny valley of humanity. He's just some dignity and emotion and a little bit of courage away from

being a human just for pure political analysis here like mike you know because like right mike pence did the right thing by not overturning the election even though he had a ceremonial only role in counting the electoral votes good for mike pence. But the idea that Mike Pence is going to run for president in 2024 is so laughable to me. Where is... I love it. We've talked for so long. I love it.

Is there a space for a non-Trump candidate in 2024? Good debate to have. Is that non-Trump candidate Mike Pence? Who can make an argument for Mike Pence in that role? Anyone? Can you guys make an argument? I remember a couple months ago, he did his first little rebuke of Trump. And I took that as a sign that, of course, he can't be running because you can't just beat Trump except on the three things his voters care most about.

Doesn't make any sense. Even if the concern about 2020 like fades from, you know, the top spot and Trump voter concerns, like you can't be all, I was part of the Trump administration and I loved everything we did except that little thing at the end there. No one likes Mike Pence when he was chosen for the job, except for a small subset of evangelicals somewhere in Indianapolis. He took it to get out of losing an election in Indiana. He is the lucky. Which is what Trump said. Yes. Trump's spokesman says. And it's absolutely true. He took it to get out of losing an election in Indiana. He is the lucky. Which is what Trump said. Yes. That's what Trump's spokesman said. And it's absolutely true.

He had no constituency. The job went to him because he was one of the people that would say yes at a time in which everyone assumed Donald Trump was going to lose because people didn't understand that we lived in hell. All right. You know what? We probably just talked about Mike Pence more than America will over the next four years. More than Karen Pence has talked about him. Why do you guys think Brian Kemp is on his way to such a big victory in the Georgia primary, Tommy? First of all, Trump told the Washington Post that he heard that Purdue is surging.

So I just think we need to have some balance here. From Trafalgar or whatever? He did an interview. So everyone's like, well, what does this mean for Trump's endorsement? We'll get to that later. But I do think that endorsements matter most when it's sort of an open field or less well-known candidates. Incumbency is powerful. These voters know Kemp. Trump endorsed Kemp back in the day. Trump fights every culture war battle he can find, but he also has an actual record as a governor that he talks about all the time.

So he talks about education. He talks about inflation. If you're mad about the 2020 election being stolen, even though Trump is pissed at him about that, Kemp says, well, I passed the Election Integrity Act of 2021, which made Democrats really, really mad, which is all you need to know about it. And so- Triangulating on democracy. Yeah. And so look, Kemp's not out there criticizing Trump ever. You can be pro-Trump and pro-Kemp and vote for them. And so ultimately, I think that Georgia voters are the most nervous about beating Stacey Abrams. And David Perdue is just an absolute loser. He sucks at politics. He's bad at debates. He can't raise money. He's running an ineffective campaign.

Yeah. I mean, you mentioned Nebraska, Idaho, and Georgia as places where Trump's endorsement isn't getting him very far. There also are three candidates who were terrible in different ways. There was McGeehan in Idaho who was most famous for... No, it's pronounced McGeehan. I believe it's pronounced McGeehan. There's McGeehan in Idaho. You got a name off. Don't fix it. Don't fix it. I believe it's pronounced McGeehan.

In Idaho, who's most famous for pretending to be governor when the governor tried to go on vacation. Oh, that was hilarious. Less funny was her posing with some white nationalists in a picture. for pretending to be governor when the governor tried to go on vacation. Oh, that was hilarious. So she's a loon. Less funny was her posing with some white nationalists in a picture. And then refusing to apologize.

And then the militia. No, she spoke at a white national event. She posed with the militia. It's tough to keep track of it all. Why do all the militias end up out there? They're in Oregon. Kind of a space, I guess. Anyway, love what you're saying.

And then Nebraska was a groper who didn't have the endorsement of the current governor. And then Purdue, man, this guy seems to have no interest in politics. Nebraska, like Ricketts, Governor Ricketts has kind of a machine up there that Trump went against and didn't work. But also, Kemp is doing Trumpism without Trump, right? So in addition to signing the voter suppression bill, which he brags about, Tommy just mentioned, this year alone, he signed bills that let you carry a gun without a license, criminalize most abortions, and prevent teachers from talking about race or LGBT issues. your point love it too like part of it is the bad candidates that trump is endorsing in these specific races but also in none of these races where trump uh trump's candidates are losing like you don't see the candidate who's winning opposing trump in any way it's not susan collins and mitt romney they're not they're not criticizing trump they're just

trying to ignore trump i mean and kemp himself apparently said to reporters recently about trump he's like i'm not mad at him he's just mad at me it's very sad that rules i'm not mad at him he's just mad at me and there's nothing i can do but honestly i think that is that is it's if he wins today which it seems like he's going to like that's the model for them right like you don't have to necessarily you can win by not criticizing trump but be as trumpy as possible no one out there is like you said no one out there is winning by being susan collins or or mitt romney or adam kinzinger or liz cheney no one's winning like that um do you think that brian kemp saying i can't control how trump feels i can only control how i feel means that he's one of the therapy boys that's's a good question. Do you think Brian Kent may be a therapy boy? I don't know.

Could be. I hope so. Maybe it's a secret weapon. But yeah, I mean, I think it's not. This isn't about like an anti-Trump thing. This is about Republicans trying to go beyond Trump. This is what they're all trying to do. And look, it's a hard space. It's a difficult

space to occupy because Trump's always out there about to attack you. But if you just tell people that you think the 2020 election was bullshit, but you don't want to focus on it, and then you do a bunch of other extremely right-wing things, you could probably survive without Trump's endorsement. Yeah. And you look at DeSantis as well, and there's so much power in the perch of being a governor that you can kind of shape your own narrative. You can control media cycles. You can demonstrate. You can pick fights with the left.

You can pick fights with the media in a way that's pretty effective. Again, I just want to stress it once again that David Perdue absolutely sucks. No, that's very important. It's a weekend at Bernie's campaign. He can't raise money. He doesn't work hard trump complains at all what are you doing if you if i was a rich guy i would just

go be a rich guy go be a rich guy and don't you're a loser who lost that's everyone that's what the voters think just go have fun now that we've now that we've said all this uh when kemp wins can we still say like the narrative is about trump as a loser well i flagged that he was surging pretty much because i still want to how much is this race about trump i mean we can do whatever we want it is 2022 you tell whatever story makes you feel good just in the next five seconds just change like that but here's the key i mean i think georgia primary voters will probably tell you that this race is about beating stacy abrams donald trump makes everything about himself so that's what the media narrative is going to be he dumped 2.64 million dollars of his own pack money into the state he recruited purdue to run

he's done rallies in the state he's doing a teletown hall tonight like it's such a half-assed thing a teletown what he did with yunkin at the end too yep yeah yeah he should he should have he should have gone there with yunkin that was the yeah he was a little worried yunkin was gonna lose but chris christie's out there you know doing a weird victory lap on on all this stuff for the rga and talking about how they're defending incumbents and they spent five million dollars they should have spent against democrats but christie was quoted somewhere saying that this was the number one most important race for trump and like he's a guy who would know and the most and the good thing about all of this is uh in a race against stacey Abrams, this could be decided by a very, very small margin.

And at those small margins, as we learned when Warnock and Ossoff wins, enough demoralization, enough Trump nonsense and noise and distraction can make a difference. Yeah, that's true. The other important Republican primary in Georgia where Trump may prevail is the very close secretary of state race between Brad Raffensperger, who famously certified Biden's win in Georgia after rejecting Trump's attempt to overturn the election, and state representative Jody Heiss, who will have the power to certify or decertify future elections in Georgia. Heiss is just one of many state-level candidates Trump has endorsed because he hopes they'll help him steal the 2024 election if necessary. Here's a quote from a New York Times piece over the weekend, quote, in an interview with the Times, Mr. Trump acknowledged that in deciding whom to endorse

in state legislative races, he's looking for candidates who want state legislatures to have a say in naming presidential electors, a position that could let politicians, I like laughing at this line, a position that could let politicians short circuit the democratic process and override the popular vote. Yeah, you think overturning the election would be short-circuiting the democratic process? Yeah. Yeah, that could happen. Democracies hate this one weird trick.

Find out what it is. The Times piece also analyzed just how many Republican state legislators were willing to discredit or overturn the 2020 election. Anything surprise you guys or stay with you from that analysis, Tommy? I mean, there's just a lot of them. 357 sitting Republican legislators in battleground states only have tried to overturn or talked about overturning the election. 44% of lawmakers in nine states, 22% actively tried to delay the vote or overturn the election.

11% wanted to send an alternate slate of electors so you know pretty bad pretty fucking pretty deep infection here's what stuck out with me like you hear 44 of republican legislators in the battleground states voted to either overturn or discredit the election and you're like that's a lot but that number actually sort of undercounts how many did because it takes into account te, Florida and North Carolina where Trump won. So in those states, there wasn't a lot of Republicans who did it just because they didn't have to. They didn't have to. If you look at I didn't realize how Pennsylvania is actually the most dangerous state of all this, because it was basically almost 100 percent of Republican legislators in the state of Pennsylvaniasylvania uh were in this category i think

arizona is the same arizona was close yeah arizona comes in second but pennsylvania was like very fucking alarming just a brief aside uh sort of separate news cycle today was that callie ann conway has a book coming out who gives a shit no one's gonna read it apparently just sort of you know dan's in stiff competition with her oh don't buy it um but it's me to jared kushner so point for going on but he's gonna buy it. But it's mean to Jared Kushner, so point for Kellyanne. I don't know. Kelly's going to buy it. Apparently the book starts with an anecdote

where Kellyanne Conway takes a call from now anti-Trump, whatever, anti-MAGA guy Michael Cohen, where they're trying to fix the Iowa straw poll and trying to get Kellyanne Conway to do it for them. So, you know, election rigging has been part of their DNA.

Hey, I'll take straw poll rigging any day. That's fine. I mean, look, it's it's it's such a joke. I mean, the it took him a day to accuse his former aide's husband of rigging the vote because because Oz was behind a bit in early counts in Pennsylvania. He accused Ted Cruz of fixing a vote in Iowa. Like, it's not partisan. It's whoever. I mean, it is partisan because he's. Did he? But did fixing a vote in Iowa. Like it's not partisan. It's whoever, I mean, it is partisan because he's- But did he?

But did he? But he did he. Yeah. There's only two kinds of elections. There's legitimate ones, Republicans won, and illegitimate ones that Democrats won. That's right. I will say that the Times piece and the Secretary of State race in Georgia and some of what's been written about it just made me realize how like i think that people i think most voters don't understand how critical these state-level elections are and there were some focus groups that people did in georgia where everyone of course heard of kemp versus purdue and everyone knows stacy abrams but a lot of voters just hadn't heard of raffensperger and jody heist no one was paying attention and so like this is what happens is you sort of sleepwalk into these state legislative candidates that trump endorsed winning who have now promised to overturn an election and it's really fucking scary and in

states like pennsylvania and arizona it's actually really close to them having a majority of people who would actually do something bad now the only good news in this piece, I counted this for good news, is so they have like voted, they have either tried to discredit or overturn. Only 11% supported sending alternate slates of electors, which is, of course, the nightmare scenario. But that's still, again, in Pennsylvania, it was getting up. In Pennsylvania and Arizona, two states where there's a lot of Republicans in the legislature, it's getting up there.

It's getting close to a moment where, so this this is it's not even a question of like if at this point it's it's it's when republicans have critical mass in these legislatures to actually send a different slate of electors and cause a constitutional crisis yeah it's a huge problem and it's why and it's why people need to pay attention to state elections so much you you know? Yeah. And I do think our hope now has to be to figure out how to tell a story that ties their delegitimizing of democracy and their refusal to allow people to make their voices heard to what's happening on abortion, because they are connected. It's only a group of people that believe they won't be held accountable by voters that believes they can slowly unravel basic rights, which they're doing in schools, which they're doing to trans kids, which they're doing to teachers, which they're

now going to do to women. And we have been talking about our inability to convince people to focus on the threats to our democracy. And this Purell debate we have over and over again about we need to talk about kitchen table issues, but we also need to talk about democracy. Why don't people care? How do we make them care? But I do think choice and abortion is the issue that has unlocked this broader debate about freedom and democracy. And if we can tie those things together, we can hopefully prevent them from picking up the seats that they otherwise were on track to get in November. I also think on the threat to democracy, we have to talk about it as a future threat and not past. Because, you know, Greg Sargent just had a piece about this today in The Washington Post.

David Binder, who worked for Obama, did a bunch of focus groups. And the more you talk to voters about January 6th and what happened in 2020 and the big lie, people just see it as something that happened in the past. And they think that you're partisan talking about it. When you start talking about we need to make sure in the future that people do not have the power to overturn the will of the voters, then people's that that's what they care about. Even Republican primaries don't really want to talk about the past election. I mean, the CBS national poll of Republicans found that 52% of Republicans

want nominees to focus on loyalty to Trump. 44% want them to focus on discussing the 2020 election. Like they're not even that jazzed up about relitigating the past. You know, that's one thing, you know, we'll talk plenty about the January 6th hearings, but they really have to make sure those hearings are framed as we are here today

to talk about future threats of democracy and how to prevent them and not to like relive January 6th over and over again. Yeah. In the same way, you know, in the same way, you know, Tommy, I know you're just like beating the drum about Jared Kushner's just rampant corruption. And there's this, there's this always this refrain about not looking backwards, but no, we are trying to figure out how to prevent our government from being co-opted in the future. And the way we do that is by having absolutely, you know, proctology level invasive interrogations of Jared Kushner's finances. You know what I mean? Jared did a bunch of favors for the Saudis and got $2 billion. But the other part of the quid pro quo for Jared is like, hey, give me this money now because, you

know, my dad might be back in there, so I'll take care of you later. It's ongoing. But it's hard to understate the madness that's happening in state capitals. Look at Massachusetts. Back to the point about how there's not a bunch of Bill Welds running around winning primaries. In Massachusetts, the governor is Charlie Baker, the most popular governor in America, 74% approval rating. He's not running for a third term because he could not get his own nomination. Really? At the party convention this weekend, it went to a guy named Jeffrey Deal, who's a Trump person. Corey Lewandowski works for him, like typical Fox News MAGA guy. He wants to deploy the National Guard to the border, because that's what we do in Massachusetts. Border of New Hampshire?

deploy the National Guard to the border, because that's what we do in Massachusetts. The border of New Hampshire? The Republican Secretary of State candidate said the following at the party's convention. This is a quote from the Boston Globe. This is her. I don't think it's nice when they're telling your five-year-old that he can, parens, perform a sex act on another five-year-old, she said, drawing gas from the audience. Do you? This person is trying to distort all these sort of conversation we've been having about curriculum and sex ed in school in Florida to suggesting that teachers are teaching kids to have sex with each other.

This is the Secretary of State candidate in Massachusetts. Seems like she's not going to win. I don't know, man. Well, it's Massachusetts. Charlie Baker, though, didn't even go to the party convention. You put her in Arizona or Michigan. Who's the name of the person? I have a joke win. I don't know, man. Well, it's Massachusetts. Charlie Baker, though, didn't even go to the party convention. You put her in Arizona or Michigan. Who's the name of the person? I have a joke, but I can't remember.

Who's the name of the person? Martha Coakley? Yeah, hold on. Oh, no, she's running against Martha Coakley. That still stings. But it's just like, you know, Charlie Baker, 74% approval rating. Can't get the nomination to run for a third term in Massachusetts. Yeah.

Because he's a Trump critic. Let's talk about the Democratic side in Georgia. Thanks to Republican gerrymandering, there's a competitive primary between representatives Lucy McBath and Carolyn Bordeaux, who've been drawn into the same district. Other than that, Stacey Abrams will once again be the Democratic nominee for governor, and Senator Raphael Warnock will try to hold his seat against a challenge from Herschel Walker. And even though they will be facing a brutal political environment, here is a hopeful piece of data from a Washington Post story about how early voting in Georgia is surging despite Kemp's voter suppression law. Quote,

By the end of Friday, the final day of early in-person voting, nearly 800,000 Georgians had cast ballots, more than three times the number in 2018 and higher even than in 2020, a presidential primary. So the piece also, of course, has Republicans accusing Democrats of, quote, hyping accusations of voter suppression and saying that these turnout numbers prove that the rhetoric around the law was false. What do you guys think? Tommy, was it false? I just don't think we know yet. You know, we're not going to know the real impact of these laws until after the primary election day when we have, you know, like precinct level data and absentee ballot rejection rates. And then again, we'll have another look after the general election. But I mean, you know, the Abrams campaign put out a memo, Lauren Grohwargo, her campaign manager, said that 45% of total Democratic primary turnout to date didn't vote in 2018. 11% of the vote

didn't vote in the general election in 18. So they're bringing in a bunch of new voters. That's amazing. That's exciting. But she pointed out that, you know, there is a lot of like seemingly efforts to scold democrats for raising awareness about this law first of all the voter suppression law changed because we all screamed about it that's like the key point that seems to be getting lost they stripped out the worst provisions and they didn't strip them up out of the goodness of their heart no right because of political pressure and fear of corporations yeah and like losing the all-star game and everything else um she also mentioned that we with la Gowargo, Abrams' campaign manager, said,

we already know that mail ballot rejection rates are higher than they were in previous elections. So that's worrisome. And then there's a voter in Forsyth County who has challenged the eligibility of 13,000 other voters in one county. So there's a lot of weird stuff happening that has to play out. So here's the, I think this is simpler than it's made out to be like two things can be true. Like Trumpy Republicans tried to make it harder for people to vote with this law. That was their intention, but because they're getting out organized, it's not working and people are voting anyway. Like both of those things can be true. Yeah again like creating a bunch of barriers to voting based

on a entirely manufactured claim of electoral fraud can be overcome by people who know the barriers are there and so come with ladders and uh come with galoshes and other shoes to get over the moat but like you still dug a moat for no fucking reason to make it harder to vote yeah and look in out organized like i do think they're getting out organized. I think like Democrats on the ground in Georgia are doing amazing work. But there's a less complimentary version of it where, you know, voters are just really worried that if they mail in their ballot or they wait, that it'll get struck or thrown out. Or if they try to vote absentee. So they're voting in person early.

Yeah. Well, also out of fear of this law. Mail-in voting has plummeted since 2020 in Georgia. Yeah. Well, also, I mean, fear of this law, mail in voting has plummeted since 2020 in Georgia, but it's still higher than what it was in 2018, which strongly suggests it's just because people weren't comfortable voting at the height of the pandemic. And so even the mail stuff is just it's just it's actually not going back to what it was before the pandemic. It's still higher than what it was. It's just people don't want to people don't want to mail in their ballot. They want to show up in person because that's what Georgians have always done. That's what most people have always done. People don't want to mail in their ballot. They want to show up in person because that's what Georgians have always done.

That's what most people have always done. And I do think even the Forsyth County example is basically what I was saying with keeping these two truths in mind at once, which is like this fucking person challenged 13,000 voter registrations in Forsyth County. But because of organizers and the hard work they've done, only a handful of those challenges of 13,000 were successful. and the hard work they've done, only a handful of those challenges of 13,000 were successful. So it's like, now, should a whole bunch of organizers have to do all this extra fucking work and put more money and time into fighting this voter suppression law? No, it's outrageous that they did.

But I think the only point that people should keep in mind is, this isn't the end. You should not be discouraged by these voter suppression laws into saying, I might as well not try anymore. Because in Georgia, where 95% of eligible voters are now registered, thanks in part to Stacey Abrams and all of these groups on the ground, like people can out-organize these laws. It is possible. I do think the one big flag though is primary voters in both Democratic and Republican primaries always tend to be the most engaged.

Yes. And therefore the most likely to vote no matter what obstacle you throw in their way. And I think the key is what happens in the general. And that's where a lot of these groups in the ground have their work cut out for them. But just don't ever let yourself think that because a voter suppression law was passed in a state that that's it and it's not worth trying because clearly in Georgia they're showing that they can overcome. The reason to not try is because the legislature will invalidate the election entirely. Okay, no, no, no.

Oh, that wasn't the point? That's not the point. Now I'm sad. All right. If you squint really hard at some new polls from CBS and Marist. Yeah, you put the screen on the other side of the room. You squint, you put on a strobe light,

and then what do you see? Well, you see some glimmers of hope for Democrats. So even though Joe Biden's approval is at 39% in the mayor's poll, that ain't great. The survey also shows the Democrats are up 47 to 42% of the generic ballot, an increase in eight points from last month's poll. It also shows that 66% of Democrats say the draft Supreme Court decision overturning Roe makes them more likely to vote in November compared to just 40% of Republicans. The CBS poll shows that only 35% of voters want Roe overturned.

And in that poll, more voters have an unfavorable view of the Republican Party than the Democratic Party. 54% of voters in that poll describe Republicans as extreme, the word extreme, more than any other word given to them. And 51 percent described the party as hateful. That was the second most common word to describe the Republican Party. For Democrats, of course, the top word was weak. Kim and Kamala Kennedy, 51 percent. So forget about what these polls may predict or not predict. We're not going to do that. Do these numbers tell you guys anything about what Democratic candidates should be talking about in their ads and on the campaign trail? worrisome and it's nerve wracking. I think one of the numbers that really popped out from, I believe the CBS poll was that I think 89 or 90% of voters in both parties are most concerned about inflation. So I do think that will be, you know, the driving issue for a lot of voters. There is increasing evidence that the Republican party's incredibly extreme position on eliminating abortion rights

and this potential ruling from the Supreme court could be the type of issue that clarifies the contrast between Republicans and Democrats in a way that really turns out voters. There's the Marist poll you mentioned, there's the CBS poll you mentioned, but then the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy Center did an op-ed a couple weeks back in the New York Times where he talked about how in focus groups with young voters, back in the New York Times, where he talked about how in focus groups of young voters, this draft opinion from the Supreme Court on abortion rights has the potential to motivate younger voters the way Parkland did in 18 and the way George Floyd's murder did in 2020. So there is some hope here that there are some issues on the table that could really fire Democrats up. I do think it's challenging with the economic news really dominating what

people are hearing. I remember when we were in the run-up to 2020, we talked a lot about the coalition of basically pro-science people that wanted a better response to the pandemic, that was pro-vaccine, that was pro-public health measures, that was against the chaos they were seeing coming out of the Trump administration. And that was a coalition that was pro-vaccine, that was pro-public health measures, that was against the chaos that we're seeing coming out of the Trump administration. And that was a coalition that was broader than Democrats and broader than the kind of independence we need and the moderates we need without us giving up anything. And I do think that choice is that issue now, that abortion access is that issue now. There is a very, very big coalition of people. There is no state in the country that wants Roe overturned. And if we can make everything seen through the lens of reproductive health care, of access to abortion,

of choice, I think that that is something that can... I mean, look, we needed something to change everything. This is something that changes everything. I don't tell everyone, you know, vote pro-choice, up and down the ballot, vote for the candidates that are in favor of Roe. That's it. And then everything can flow into that. Well, that's the part that I think is important because I think that Roe is probably the central issue that is salient enough for people and that people know the most about because everyone's heard about the draft, let alone what happens when the Supreme Court actually hands down the decision. But I think there is increasing evidence in all these polls that Republican extremism is the one thing that could keep the Democratic coalition that turned out in 2018 and 2020 together. I am now doing a bunch of interviews and focus groups for the next

season of The Wilderness, which we just announced will be out in September. But I was struck by, I talked to a Democratic strategist who was maybe the one strategist in 2020 that when all the polls were showing that Democrats were comfortably ahead, kept sending out these updates that said it was going to be much closer. The polls were on, he was like very dark about it. And I asked him about 2022 and he was actually more optimistic about 2022 only because he said, if the Democrats do this, he's like, there's, there's a coalition of Democrats that turned out in 2018 that sort of like shattered all midterm turnout records. And what happened was there's people who usually only vote in a presidential race, but they showed up in 2018 to vote in the midterms. Those people, if you can bring them out

in 2022, the people who usually just vote in presidentials, but voted in 2018, then Democrats can keep it much closer than it. We think it's going to be right now. And the way to turn them out is to make sure they know that the threat from Trumpism is not over and that Republicans are coming after Roe. They are coming after, some of them are coming after gay marriage. Some of them are coming after fucking birth control. A Trump-endorsed candidate in Michigan says she would vote to ban all birth control all comes off her vote they're already quote sex ought to be between one man and one woman in the confines of marriage there is a fuck off there is a sitting

united states senator from indiana who is on video saying that the supreme court should leave the decision about interracial marriage to the states. What are we doing? Half the Republican caucus in the House just voted against funding to help with the baby formula shortage. Melissa Murray in The Times today talked about how quickly this can lead to bans on contraception. And it isn't even perspective to a lot of these right wingers who are extreme on abortion. They consider contraception like IUDs to be abortion and they are already banning it or trying to ban it or making it impossible for people to get access to the care that they need. So it's already happening. They've already moved on to trying to ban contraception. House Republicans in Louisiana made an effort at drafting a law that would have made abortion homicide.

drafting a law that would have made abortion homicide. The Marist poll shows that two-thirds of Americans do not support overturning Roe and that Democrats are more likely to turn out in the election because of what they learned about that draft opinion. But there are even more extreme cases that we can lift up and highlight as a party the way Republicans lift up every extreme case on the left all the time, always, and act like that is representative. And all I can say is our job and our work is to never forget to lift up the specific examples. Do not take the shortcut because we're all in our echo chamber. We all talk to each other of just saying that Republicans are extreme and leaving it at

that. Find the stories in the states where you have all of these extreme Republican candidates proposing these very, very extreme policies. Because if you just say they're far to the right of their extreme, people aren't going to know what you're talking about. And they're not just going to assume that you're correct. Like, Democrats just have to do a better job of lifting up these examples. All right.

When we come back, John Lovett interviews L.A. mayoral candidate Karen Bass. Grills Karen Bass. Yeah. Yeah. Then we're going to head down to the Grove for some cheesecake factory. We didn't. Joining us in studio, the representative from the 37th District of California and a candidate for mayor of the city of Los Angeles, Congresswoman Karen Bass. Welcome back to the pod. Thank you. Thanks for having me on again. So you want to be mayor of the city? Yeah. You can't even get a decent slice of pizza. I know. It'll all be fixed.

It'll all be fixed. Wait, so why are you running for mayor? Really on the serious side, because Los Angeles is really in a terrible crisis. A lot of different cities are dealing with homelessness. They're unhoused. But in Los Angeles, when the count comes back, we anticipate it being more than 50,000 people on the streets, in tents, in cars, in RVs. And I believe it is a public health and a public safety emergency

and needs to be treated as such. So we're in this home stretch. And a lot, as you said, a lot of the dynamics playing out in the race are being experienced by cities across the country, questions around crime and the housing crisis. Your opponent is a wealthy business person. He was Republican who registered as a Democrat to run. He's dropped a million dollars before two weeks before. It was a very important two weeks for him. He learned a lot. Exactly. Changed all the values. He also dropped a million dollars to support a pro-choice initiative to make up for having been donating.

He committed a million. He committed a million. He dropped 100,000. Okay. Okay. See, this is why. This is good. This is good.

This is good. But he's been a Republican his whole life. He's been a Republican his whole life. At the same time, he spent tens of millions of dollars blanketing the airwaves in L.A. with advertisements to frame the choice in the race a certain going to reach back into the past with old, tired policies that do not solve problems, or whether we're going to continue moving in the direction of an inclusive city, of a liberal city, of a city that embraces everyone, and a city that comes together to address the problems. I'm very concerned, and one of the big reasons why I made the decision not to run for Congress again. You know, after experiencing four years of the Trump administration and the way Trump tore this country apart, we're still suffering from it. I think if we learned anything in those four years, we better learn that we can't take anything for granted.

And just because this is an overwhelmingly Democratic city, it doesn't mean we can't slip and make a turn to the right. I don't want to see that happen. So there's two pieces of this. One is just making sure everybody turns out. Right. And nobody takes this for granted. But there's also a city that is seeing tons of these ads that is worried about crime, that is worried about unhoused people, both because they view it as a public safety issue for their families, and also plenty of people want this to be a just and safe place. They want there to be enough

housing. What do you say to people who still feel undecided right now, because they're progressive, they're Democrats, but they're seeing these ads and they're just thinking, well, this is a person who says they're just going to fix it. I'm going to hand them the keys and they're going to fix it. thinking, well, this is a person who says they're just going to fix it. I'm going to hand them the keys and they're going to fix it. Well, we have been there before. We've been there, done that. And a strong man is not going to solve the problems.

One who has never been in the public sector. He has been a wealthy businessman his entire life. He inherited wealth. And I think you have to look at it from the perspective of he has run a company, never had a board of directors, never had shareholders. This is not an autocracy. This is a democracy. And I don't believe that a person coming in like that can solve our problems. Now, the whole world watched us experiment with this.

Do we really want to do this again? And in California, you know, as well as around the country, there have been numerous attempts where billionaires and millionaires run. I think there's somebody who's not in the White House right now who spent $1 billion in 30 days. So yes, of course, the ads are troubling, but I would just ask people to look below the surface. Where has this person been? If you're worth $4.3 billion, why is it that you never have built one unit of affordable housing in all that time? How is it that you've paid $1.6 million in taxes over five years, but yet you won't show your taxes? So this is a movie we've seen before. I don't want to see it happen again in our city. You have to admit, it's pretty smart to inherit money. That's a good idea. Oh, hey, I'm not mad at him. I'm not mad at him.

I just think it's like, I think it'd be cool. Well, I hope I have some money to leave my kids. So that is around how people who have run as business people have defined what it means to be a leader. But I want to hear from, rather than defined against what kind of he's offering, what is your view on the role of the mayor, someone who's been in public service for decades, who kind of sees this from the not from a kind of business angle, but from like how you bring people together? How do you view the role of mayor in terms of not just being one person solving problems, but getting getting coalitions together? Well, you know, first of all, I've spent most of my life not in public office. I've spent most of my life as a social justice activist, building organizations,

building coalitions. That's one of the things that I have done for decades, bringing people together across geography, ideology, race, class. And that is what is needed to solve the problems. I do not believe that politicians alone can solve problems. To make our democracy really work, we need people to participate. That's what an organizer does. I served as Speaker of the House in Sacramento for two years during the worst recession since the Great Depression. And the only way California got through that was by bringing the entire legislature together to the table to say, you know what, we all have to make these bad decisions, but that's what we need to do in order to prevent the state from defaulting. Do you think the LA mayor should be more powerful? Like, I hear

what you're saying that we need, you know, this idea of one person can fix a problem that's been tried, doesn't work. But at the same time, you know, I see Nithya talking about the fact that taking a citywide crisis like homelessness and dividing it up by district sometimes doesn't work. You know, there have been confusion and COVID protocols between the county and the city. Sometimes it's felt like Barbara Ferrer is more powerful than elected officials. The mayor isn't in charge of the schools. Do you think that the LA, that LA's mayor should have more power to solve some of these problems? Well, you know, I'm not sure if the mayor needs

more power, but what I do know is that you can use the power you have, and then you can take power. You can take charge. It's a question as to how you lead. And you know, the job is what you make it. And so you just touched on one of the fundamental areas of dysfunction in this region, and that is the gap between the city and the county. We will not solve the problem of the unhoused if the city and the county cannot work together hand in glove. I have worked with the county for a number of years on the issues I've worked on. The five supervisors, I know each of them personally very well. So one thing that I bring to the table that I don't believe my opponent does are deep relationships on every level of government. And it's going to take a whole of government, federal, state, county, and city to work together to address this emergency.

And on this question of the homelessness crisis being addressed district by district, what would change if more of that, if that power wasn't devolved to the city council members? I actually think that the problem is not going to be addressed until we address it countywide. So I just was speaking to the function between the city and the county, but we have to take a regional approach. So when I said over 50,000 people who are unhoused, I was just referring to the city. If we talk about the county, it's probably another 20. But, you know, we're all waiting for the count since it hasn't been done for two years. The numbers should be coming out in the next month or so.

And that would – but then so, okay, there's the difference between addressing at the county level and at the city level. But then there's also this, you know, you read between the lines and you feel like certain city council members take a different kind of approach than others. Some push the problem around, some try to just get them out of their area. That can't be solved at the county level. Well, no, but that's why I say we need a county-wide strategy and a city-wide strategy as well. I don't like the council by council approach at all, because you know what's going to happen? It's pretty easy. The people that are unhoused in the affluent areas are going to be moved into the low income areas if we don't solve the problem. And if we take the tack of, look, just get it out of my sight, I don't really care what happens. But again, that's why we have

to have an entirely different approach. We have to get people off the streets immediately, but we also have to address why were they on the streets to begin with. And if you don't mind, can I just take one second to describe the population? Because right now people are being viewed all the same. They're all drug addicts who don't want to come inside. And you have multiple categories of folks there. people who are just economically unhoused, people who are working full time, living in their cars or their RVs or in tents. You have former foster youth who turn 18 or 21. And we as a society just kick them to the curb because we cut them off of everything.

You have veterans. You have people who were formerly incarcerated. When we downsized the prison system, we didn't think about where people were going to go. And then you have people who are suffering from chronic diseases like substance abuse and mental illness or other diseases. We have to have strategies to address each and every category of person that is unhoused. And until we have a comprehensive approach like that, we're just going to be dabbling at the problem. So we talk about two aspects of that. I think one is just access to housing. It's not enough. Not enough. So there's both. You just talk a little bit about what you view your role as mayor would be both in terms of just building a ton more housing and then

also targeted affordable housing for people even at moments of crisis. Well, let me just say, yes, building the housing, but working hand in glove with the county so that the people, the minute they get the key to the door, they're also getting services. If we just put people in the house without addressing what drove them outside to begin with, they're not going to stay in the house very long. So I think that that's critical. Now, overall, we have a problem, I believe. The root problem in L.A. is profound income inequality. The gap between the rich and the poor is massive and the middle class disappearing. The city has become unaffordable. So we have to build 500,000 units of housing and a significant percentage of those need to be

affordable. But I would really question when people say affordable, affordable to who? Right. So that's going to be really important. We just, but we need tons of it. We need like a- 500,000. And then one other piece of this is what happens when people are on the precipice of homelessness? Thank you.

Thank you. They're living in their cars. I mean, sometimes the government is not only not helping them, government is part of the problem, right? Absolutely. It is people being ticketed, cars being impounded, right? At the moment of crisis, right when they could be helped, they're sort of punished for their economic situation. What can the mayor do, you know, day one, what could you do to help those people that are right on the edge?

Well, one is that you stop ticketing cars when you, or obvious people are living in them, because then you're going to wind up towing that car. And that's ridiculous. What I would do on day one, though, is declare a state of emergency and push the governor to declare a federal state of emergency. The bottom line is, is that you are absolutely right. We're not going to solve this problem if we do not address the thousands of people that could become homeless any day. We have to make sure that those people that are still housed, I'm not talking about in cars, those people that are still housed stay there. And so that's going to need rental assistance right now because we're still not out of the consequences of this pandemic. So one thing you've talked about is bringing mayors from other cities together because this is a problem that is sort of growing in a lot of different cities. What would that do?

And how do you think about, like, on the one hand, people just want the mayor to solve this problem and they don't want to hear excuses that, oh, this is happening everywhere. But on the other hand, this is a city dealing with a national trend. How do you think about that? Well, the point of bringing the other mayors together

is to go to Washington to say that this is a emergency. This is the richest country in the history of the world. How can we have people sleeping on the street? I mean, we've grown to accept this. And there is an entire generation that has grown up thinking this is normal. I remember when we didn't use the term homelessness. That's new. That's new meaning from like the 80s, which is when this problem actually started. Now, there's always been a handful of people, okay, who were unhoused, but extremely rare. This problem took off in the mid 80s. And even if you build 500,000, you're not going to be able to build 500,000 units overnight. We are making up for decades of a failure to build. More broadly, one criticism of the way Democrats have governed in California is we've just made it really hard to build. We've made it hard to build schools,

made it hard to build parks, made it hard to build infrastructure. We can't get a train from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Are there ways in which you would want to cut red tape and just make it easier to build in the city? Yeah, you just said it right there. I would cut red tape and make it easier to build. But you know, the way that I would do that, though, is by centralizing a lot of the functions and fast forwarding it. So for example, you know, there's 88 cities, by the way, in LA County, and you can go to an adjacent city and have no problem building. It's LA that is the problem. And it is the problem because of the massive bureaucracy. And because there's so many departments you have to go through

if you want to build something. To me, anybody that comes to me and says that they want to build housing to address the unhoused, or they want to build affordable housing, I don't want them to go to the front of the line. I want them to have their own line. And I want the departments to be centralized. I want them to have access to bridge funding because that's one of the problems too. The financing takes so long that it winds up increasing the costs. And so the way that you can deal with that is dealing with the red tape and also providing people loans so that while they're going through the process, they can build quicker and then pay it back when the public money finally kicks in. Do you think it's crazy that we can't build a train from San Francisco to Los Angeles? Oh, let me just tell you something about that. I don't get it.

When I was speaker, one of the things I was very proud of was getting the high-speed rail on the ballot. That was legislation that put it on the ballot, and was so excited we're so behind the world france japan i mean everybody has high speed around but like the the state voted to do it we passed it right public voted the public the public voted to pass it voted for this to happen yes and uh jerry brown wanted it to happen it's supposed to go from san francisco to los angeles the next thing we know now i'm building a train from from merced Bakersfield. I mean, that's a great route. In the middle of nowhere. What are we doing there?

Who needs high-speed rail from Merced to Bakersfield? Look, when I got the legislation on the ballot, that was 14 years ago. 14 years ago. And the first leg was supposed to be L.A. Orange County.

All right. Well, why can't we build that? Can you build that as mayor? Who's going to build it? No, I can't. Well, what are we going to do? Why can't Gavin build it? Well, we'll have to call him up. You'll have to have him on the show. This is frustrating to me. I wanted to sort of step back because I think a lot of people

are hearing this. They're not in Los Angeles, but this is something that in terms of the story that is being told about our politics right now, you are running in a city that is worried about crime and worried about unhoused people at a time in which the right wing has villainized Democrats, blamed progressive politics, blamed progressive DAs, blamed liberals for creating this crisis. And I think sometimes even in Los Angeles, that narrative has a lot of power for people. So how do you talk about the progressive vision for addressing these issues in a way that's humane and just without giving into some of these sort of right-wing stories? So I couldn't have said it better. You just explained every reason why I'm running.

Because to me, I could see the writing on the wall. I was flashing back to the 1990s when we went through, we were exasperated then too, because it was the Crips and the Bloods, thousand homicides, crack cocaine, AIDS. All of these problems converged, not everywhere in the city like the Unhoused, but in certain areas like South L.A. At the time, I was on the faculty at USC Medical School. I walked away from that job to go to the heart of South Central to start an organization to address these problems, because the only solution politicians had were to pass sentencing laws. And so my concern is, is that to where we are right now, the stage is set to repeat that. And because we basically, as Americans, we have an ahistorical culture, we don't look to history as a guide. When I see what is happening right now, I think the stage

is set for us to move in that punitive direction, which might make people feel good because those homeless folks will be off their block. But if we just lock them up, they're going to be out in three days and they'll just move to another area. And so what I'm doing in terms of my vision is to fight for the problem to be addressed in a comprehensive manner, to talk about the root causes, the reasons why people are unhoused, to fight for those services that we stripped away in the 90s while we were locking everybody up, and to understand from history that we really should not repeat this. Now, we do have a problem with crime. We have to address crime, and progressives can't run from that. If we say, well, it's not as bad as it was in the 1990s, but if your house was broken into, you have a crime crisis. We have to face it, and we have to say that if somebody commits a crime, they have to be held accountable. Now, at the same time, I'm going to invest time, money, and resources in crime prevention strategies that we pioneered back in the 90s when I was running community coalitions.

Those strategies were professionalized, researched, and replicated. We know how to prevent these problems. We just never invest in it. So what you're going to find from my administration is I'm going to address crime head on, but I'm going to dive into addressing the crime, stopping the crimes of today, but preventing the crimes of tomorrow by addressing those communities and dealing with the problems before they reach the point of criminal activity. Do you feel like there's been, obviously there's this fight between you and Rick Caruso, but there's also this intra left debate about how to answer what Republicans are saying. And I think you're offering one vision for how to respond. Right. It's acknowledging, recognizing the fear people have and talking about some of the ways you'd address it, both in terms of policing and also in terms of broader reforms.

Do you worry at all about the critique you're getting from the left for what you said about police, about hiring police officers? Well, I mean, you know, no one wants, everybody wants a kumbaya, but I understand that criticism. But I will tell you, it's the same criticism I received in 1990 when I said to the left at the time, crack cocaine is a problem. It's not okay. We can't just look away. This is having devastating impact in communities. And what people wanted to talk about then was the CIA's involvement in bringing cocaine into the country. Now, we knew that was factual. Senator Kerry at the time did a congressional commission looking at

the CIA's involvement in that. You know what I'm talking about? Okay, but people were dying in South Central. I understand they were involved in CIA, but I think that our side sometimes has a hard time dealing with some of the social problems. And you can talk about root causes of which I believe in fighting and pursuing, you can talk about root causes of which I believe in fighting and pursuing, but if somebody's being shot at, what's your answer? So I think you have to address crime because let me just tell you this, if we don't address crime, if we don't have a response, then we've conciliated it to the left, I mean to the right. We've just handed it to them. We don't have a response, so you do it. And what happens when we hand it over to them? We got mass

incarceration. I mean, I watched this happen in the 90s, and it was so frustrating because during that time, you know, I had no power, no position, no agency. We didn't even have social justice nonprofits, okay? That was a new phenomenon that started in the 90s. We had to create all of that. And so here I am, fast forward to now. Now I'm in this whole different position. That's why I had to come to this decision. I wasn't ready to leave Congress. I mean, what I will really miss about Congress the most is that I was able to do international work and domestic work at the same time. My focus was Africa, actually. And so, but I walked away from that. And if this was about my quote unquote career, I would have stayed in Congress and run for a leadership position. It's never been about that. That's not how I've made decisions.

When I walked away in 1990, I had a cush teaching job on the faculty at the medical school. I could have stayed there. But what drove me to walk away from that and go to the heart of South Central was that I felt like black folks were going by the wayside. I mean, we didn't use the term mass incarceration at the time, but we saw it happening. We saw the laws changing and we didn't have the power to stop it. Now I'm in an entirely different position. So that's what compelled me to come back.

Congresswoman Karen Bass, thank you so much for being here. We're recording this Monday, which we may put out a clip saying this is your last day to register, but otherwise, everybody got a ballot in the mail. The election, the last day to vote is June 7th. You need to vote now. You can go to karenbass.com. We need volunteers. We're having people phone banking, walking precincts. Do it the grassroots way, because the way I want to win is by building a grassroots coalition that all around the city, with all of the rainbows that are reflected in our city, all of the diversity to build a movement that says it's not enough just to get elected to some someone to get elected to office. Then we have to help them govern, help them lead. Should we go canvas at the Grove?

No. No, we can't? Hand out some food from the Cheesecake Factory? I think it's a good idea. I don't think that would be a good idea. Make some trouble, no? All right.

Good trouble. It's my idea. It wasn't your idea. I can still do it. You can canvas. Thank you so much for being here. All right. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you to Karen Bass for joining us today. And we'll talk to you later. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our associate producer.

It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineer the show. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerard, Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montouf. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.