Pod Save America - “Trump’s Recovery Summer.”

Episode Date: July 2, 2020

Trump celebrates another month of double-digit unemployment and rising Covid infections, and Dan and Jon answer your questions about reopening schools, the Lincoln Project, DC statehood, Supreme Court vacancies, Pod Save America dance-offs, and more. Then political message guru Anat Shenker-Osorio talks to Dan about 2020 campaign ads and the race-class narrative.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's pod, Dan's conversation with political message guru Anat Shankar Osorio about 2020 campaign ads and the race class narrative. This is part of his Campaign Experts React series, which you can find, of course, on YouTube.com slash Crooked Media. Smash that subscribe button, right, Dan? That is correct. And you missed one thing, which is when you do campaign experts react, you need air quotes around experts. It's a very important part of this.

No one can see that I wasn't making them. Before that, we'll talk about today's jobs report, what it means for the 2020 campaign, and then we'll answer some of the questions you all sent in over the last few days. But first, check out Pod Save the World this week. Tommy and Ben unpack all the details about the explosive reports that Russia paid Taliban-linked militants to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan. They try to understand why Putin would do this, how the U.S. should respond, and the latest on the intel with Congressman Adam Schiff. If you haven't already, check out That's the Ticket, the new Pod Save America bonus series where Dan and Alyssa Mastromonaco break down the vice presidential selection process.

Episode one is out now. New episodes drop on Fridays. Dan, what are you guys talking about this week? This week, we are talking about how Joe Biden's decision to select a woman, how that's going to affect the process. And we dig deep into the two previous times a woman has been on the ticket. Obviously, Sarah Palin in 2008, but also Geraldine Ferraro in 1984. And what lessons can be learned from how those played out? And Alyssa talks to Rebecca Traister about Joe Biden's selection and what challenges the eventual nominee will face in the media.

Can't wait. Great. Check it out, guys. Tomorrow, Friday. All right, let's get to the news. So neither of us knew it was Jobs Day, Dan, because we forgot tomorrow was a holiday and because we've lost all conception of time and space here in Donald Trump's pandemic-ridden hellscape. I was surprised this morning. Nonetheless, the Labor Department announced this morning that employers added 4.8 million jobs in June, and the unemployment rate fell to 11.1%. But we're still 15 million jobs short of where we were in February. And there are signs that the job situation is actually deteriorating now that a spike in COVID cases is causing businesses to close again. 1.4 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week, and more than 800,000 filed for benefits under the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program.

And the number of permanent job losses actually rose this month to 2.9 million. Dan, I'm sure you reacted to this news the same way that Donald Trump did this morning, who said the following at a brief press conference where he took no questions. It's all coming back. It's coming back faster, bigger, and better than we ever thought possible. These are the numbers. These are not numbers made up by me. These are numbers.

Your thoughts. I mean, you, what I, I turned it on this morning. As you mentioned, we didn't know it was jobs day. The reason the jobs numbers are coming out on a Thursday instead of a Friday is because apparently tomorrow was a holiday, which I forgot, I forgot that there were distinctions between working from home and just being at home. I didn't know holidays were still a thing, um, which is weird. Cause I had huge plans for fourth of July weekend, uh, per usual, um, huge. So I watched him this morning at 6.30 AM our time, which is how I like

to start all of my days. And when I turned it on, still a little bleary eyed from waking up too early again this morning, it felt almost like I was watching C-SPAN classic. Like what he was saying was so disconnected from the reality. Like if you just were to like parachute in and watch that press conference, you would not realize that we were in the middle of a historic recession. You would not realize that coronavirus cases were surging all across the country and businesses were shutting down again. He clearly is trying to hang on to the thinnest reed possible of good news, but I think that press conference is part of what has been hit a large part of his political problem over the last several months, which is he is not operating in the same reality

in which the majority of Americans are. Not at all. I thought I thought there was an interesting difference between the last month's jobs report when he came out and he sounded fairly triumphant. when he came out and he sounded fairly triumphant. And I think some of the media coverage of last month's was like, oh, this is a surprise. Maybe the recovery is going to go faster than we thought. Maybe this is like a boon for Trump. And this month it felt a lot different, partly because we just hit 50,000 fucking cases per day yesterday,

the highest spike in COVID cases since the pandemic began, even at the height in March and April when New York was getting hit really hard. And as businesses start closing again because of what's happening across the South and the West, I think like Donald Trump, like you said, Donald Trump coming out there and saying, oh, these numbers are great. We're on our way. And at one point he said, he talked about the virus. He said,

we're getting it under control. It's got a life and we're putting out that life because that's a bad life we're talking about. Like he had nothing to fucking really say about the virus

that is causing the recession, that is continuing to deepen the recession. And as you saw, like some of these basically the job gains are all concentrated in some of these temporary layoffs that happen as sectors closed and then started opening back up again. But permanent job losses started rising again. So it does not seem like this is anything for us to cheer about, for the country to cheer about, and certainly not anything for Donald Trump to brag about. What's also the reality is worse than these numbers, most likely, because for folks who don't know, the jobs numbers derive from a survey that's done one week of the month. And that week is usually in the middle of the month. derived from a survey that's done one week of the month. And that week is usually in the middle of the month. So what the quote unquote survey week for this jobs report was more than two weeks ago. So it does not reflect what has been happening in Texas, Florida, California over the last seven to 10 days where businesses are starting to shut down again. And this, it's just-

Pretty big states. Yes, they are large states. Pretty big states that, yeah, that represent a large share of the economic activity in the country. Like it's just it is bad messaging for sure. Right. Like if you like this is something that we obviously dealt with a lot in 2009, 2010, which is you have to be very careful in how you tout something that sounds like good news when that good news is separated from what the vast majority of American families are feeling on a daily basis, right? It is very clear, anecdotally, based on research, that people are very scared for their health and for their economic situation.

And so when you go out and tout numbers like this that people may see on the news but not feel in their homes, you're going to lose people in that way. And that is, I think, Donald Trump has been totally off from the situation from the very beginning of this pandemic. And that continues. I was trying to imagine what Obama would have said if he was in this position and these numbers came out, I mean, or any normal president, but just because we worked for him, like he would have walked out and said, you know, yes, these numbers are are slightly better than expected but none of us should be satisfied until every american has a job again and these numbers

only remind us that the most important thing we can do to get the economy moving again is to defeat this virus here's how we're going to do that and these numbers remind us that we need more help for people who are hurting in this economy that's why I want Congress to pass the Heroes Act and more stimulus. You could come out and be determined about how these numbers make you want to fight harder to put people back to work and get the economy going again. And then at least you look to people like someone who is fighting for them and not someone who is on another fucking planet like Donald Trump seemed today. I mean, I think I even think that Obama would handle it even less triumphantly than you suggested. It was not very triumphant at all, because my guess is that Obama will look at numbers like this. He would know. And I know what his economic advisers say is they would say these numbers are not reflective of reality because of when the survey week is. And our big concern about this is it's going to give people, and particularly members

of Congress, a reason to not pass the large economic recovery package we need. So I think he would actually come out and say, these numbers are good, but we know what is happening as more and more businesses are doing and states are doing the right thing to shut down. And that is why it is, he'd almost say, ignore these numbers because, I mean, obviously that doing the right thing to shut down. And that is why it is – he'd almost say ignore these numbers because – I mean, obviously, that's the right thing from a substantive point of view. the president will be up for reelection and therefore have the greatest individual interest in a good economy would be to first get the virus under control, but also to ensure that we pass a large economic stimulus. And if you tout these numbers too much, you're going to undermine the political will for that in Congress. And so that's why I say it's both a message mistake and a strategic mistake, because he made it much more likely. Jeff Stein from The Washington Post reports today that based on conversations with people familiar with White House economic

officials, you're looking at a much smaller recovery package, if another one, and hardened opposition to extension of the unemployment benefits, which would be devastating to the economy if that's the case. Well, let's talk about that. That was actually our first question from listeners. Juliet Hope asks, can you discuss the upcoming time bomb that is the extra $600 unemployment insurance payment running out and people maxing out on regular unemployment insurance and school not going back full time or at all? It's about to be a giant fucking catastrophe. So Dan, you started talking about this with the extra $600 unemployment insurance payment. I believe this runs out at the end of July. I think that's correct. Yes. So basically Republicans, their position now, and it seems

like Donald Trump's position in an interview, I believe this week, is that they don't want to re-up the $600 extra benefit that comes with unemployment insurance to people who are, by the way, staying home through no fault of their own because their businesses are closed or they were furloughed or they were laid off because of the fucking pandemic. And the idea behind this program was, and this was Democrats who pushed this, Democrats in Congress, unemployment insurance gives you a certain percentage of your income. They wanted to make sure that people who are home through no fault of their own were getting 100% of their income. The easiest way to do this is to average it out across different salaries. And it basically came to if you do everyone's unemployment insurance benefits plus about $600 a week, you'll get close to people making 100% of what they made when they were at work.

That's how that program came to be. Republicans and Donald Trump are now saying we don't want to do that again because that is incentivizing people to stay home and not go back to work. They can't work because their businesses are shut down because our president was too stupid to contain the virus. That is why. I mean, it is morally offensive, right? Like at the bare fucking minimum that we should do as a country is to make sure that people have enough money to live in their homes, have food, right? Be able to put gas in their car. All of those things like that is the bare minimum we should do under the best of times, let alone the worst of times. But if you want a strong economy, you want the economy to come back, then the people have to have money to buy goods. So let's say you don't extend the $600.

Let's say you are just some rapacious Republican asshole who does not care about unemployed people. When they don't have money, they are not going to pay their rent. When they do not pay their rent, they will be evicted. Therefore, the landlords will not get money. The stores will have less revenue and less profit because people are not able to buy things. It is a recessionary spiral. The reason the economy is not much, much worse than it could be is because we gave people something to help them get through this time. The time is still happening, right?

The coronavirus is getting worse, not better. And the idea that we would cut people off in the middle of it when they cannot go to work is insane. Yeah, that's the thing, too. Like, you know, a lot of small business owners and people and restaurant owners and everyone else is like saying to people, well, we're not getting employees. They don't want to come back because they're making as much or more money at home. They don't want to come back because they're afraid to get the virus because we haven't controlled it. Like that's a legitimate reason to not want to go back to work. More than

legitimate reason. And if you work in a restaurant, because we have such, in large parts of this country, still an incredibly outdated, cruel minimum wage, you work on tips. And when restaurants are at 25% or 50% capacity, then you're not getting enough money to get, like, it's just pay people and get the virus under control. It's not, like, we do not have to choose. It is so stupid. It is a policy choice to have a shitty economy right now. It is a policy choice to force people to choose between paying their rent and potentially dying of a virus. And so I think where this is going to go is Republicans are basically saying we want to do another stimulus and extend unemployment insurance. But what we want to do is give people like a one time back to work bonus, which basically incentivizes people to go risk their lives at their workplace if their workplace is open.

And then Democrats are hopefully going to fight for the extra six hundred dollars plus an extension of unemployment insurance. And I guess we'll see how that battle goes in late in late July. But I think politically it is a good battle for Democrats to fight and also the morally correct battle for Democrats to fight as well. And I think some Democrats, including Schumer, I believe, introduced a bill that would make the expanded unemployment benefits extended and only turned off by the situation in your state, on the virus, on the economy, which is, I think, a really smart way to do it. And if Donald Trump is so confident that this virus is going to disappear,

he should have no problem supporting a bill like that because that would be over very quickly. Do you want to talk about the impending disaster of school not going back full time or at all? I mean, we obviously have a child care crisis in this country at the best of times because we are incapable of having universal pre-K and other things that most of the normal world thinks is an important part of having a functioning society. But how are parents supposed to work, right, when you have your kids at home? Like, there are two parts of this. One is my family is very fortunate in the sense that Kyla is only two. And therefore, we are not for – like, it is easier for us to sort of play with her. Someone works.

We don't have this obligation to like do four hours of Zoom social studies every day, right? But like a lot of my friends have kids who are of school age. And it is impossible for single parents, two family parents to work or two working parent families to do this all the time. And so what is going to happen there? And then what is going to happen to all of the teachers and all the people who work in schools who will not have jobs come the fall if we can't get this right? And it's really – I mean, and the problem is because we don't know what's happening with the virus. I mean, and the problem is, is because we don't know what's happening with the virus, no one can give people any ability to plan because they do not know what is going to happen in school. And look, like there's and the reasons that schools are, gloves, sanitation, all this kind of stuff, which,

by the way, is already hard for public schools to spend money on and do, it's always going to be true that if your school is in an area of the country where there's more virus there is more danger there and so the best thing we can do to help schools open again is to tamp down the virus and to defeat the virus right and it's clear that donald trump the federal government uh and a lot of state governments have prioritized opening up fucking bars and restaurants over schools which is? Like, because now they've opened up bars, they've opened up like, you know, big gathering places, stuff like that. And now we have virus spikes in places like Florida

and Texas and Georgia and Arizona and California. And now there's so much virus that like, no matter how many precautions you take at public schools, it's still gonna be dangerous. So it's like, again, just like the economy, whether it's the economy, whether it's public schools, whether it's education, whatever it may be, like the number one economic plan, the number one education plan is beat the virus. That's it. That's the that's the most important priority. And the federal government has just decided not to do it because Donald Trump's in charge.

Juliet also ended her question by asking, where's my Dan Ben all rant crossover episode? I love that. I love you and Rhodes to get together and just start. I don't know what you'd rant about, but something. I got to be honest about something. Sometimes I rant and sometimes I enjoy ranting. I do not enjoy being known as a ranter. Now that's no one's fault, but my own, I recognize that, but it is, I'm very uncomfortable with it. And sometimes like when I, back when I was allowed to leave my home and I would travel and I was doing like book events, you know, you get a question from the audience. They would say, can, can you give me a Paul Ryan rant? And it's like, I wrote a book. I mean, I recognize I put a Paul Ryan rant in the book, but it's like, I wrote a book. I'd like to talk about the book. Yeah, whose fault is that?

Can you just yell on any topic as long as it involves Paul Ryan? We don't care. Just yell for us. And like, look, as I said, this is my fault. Not happy about it. I would love to talk to Ben Rhodes on a podcast, off a podcast. I might end up ranting, but I don't, I wouldn't want to be part of some sort of rant special.

I will say our friend Ben Rhodes, when he started Pod Save the World, you know, he still had his sort of, I go on cable TV. I'm very, you know, I'm polite. I, you know, and as he got into Pod Save the World and the rants began, that really is the real Ben Rhodes that we know. It has been enjoyable hearing Ben go on a few rants on Pod Save the World, really find his voice. All right, well, we'll try to schedule that sometime in the future. OK, so possibly related question on the unemployment benefits from someone calling themselves Kitchen Witch.

What is the number one thing that the Biden campaign needs to do that you haven't seen them do yet? I mean, the context of this is that Joe Biden is in a better political position than anyone ever possibly could have imagined. And just last night, it was reported that he outraised Trump, both the campaign and the combination of the campaign and the DNC outraised Trump, both the campaign and the combination of the campaign and the DNC outraised Trump, the RNC. So that is a huge deal and it involved a very enjoyable dunking on Brad Parscale. So they're in a very good place. So don't file this under the unsolicited advice for Joe Biden tab on the New York Times op-ed page. Get out of the basement, which is right next to the racist authoritarian rant tab.

Look, I think that the next step for the Biden campaign is to undermine what remains Trump's last remaining strength in this race, which is even despite everything we just said about his about the state of the economy and his response to it. He is still better trusted on the economy. And voters, including a number of voters who are supporting Joe Biden, believe the economy would be better if Donald Trump was reelected than if Joe Biden was elected. And so I think what comes from that is fleshing out what he would do, right? You don't need an entire book full of policy papers, but you need a pretty quick rundown of things that make sense. I think they are things that need to be consistent with what he has been supported before and what he worked on with Barack Obama, but also adjusted for the current reality we live in, which I think calls for bigger and bolder economic solutions than you would have expected when he started this race. Yeah, I mean, when I talked to Ron Klain last episode, he said that in the next couple of weeks, Biden will be coming out with a more detailed economic plan, particularly a jobs plan. I would imagine that like, you know, first point of any five point economic plan for Joe Biden is leading significantly in the polls right now, even as Donald Trump retains this economic advantage, is, and you saw this in the New York Times-Siena College polling, like large majorities of Americans thinks it's more important to contain the virus, even if it hurts the economy in the short term, than reopen the economy if it means the virus might spread. So while a slight majority might still trust Trump on the economy,

that's not the overriding issue of concern for them right now. It is controlling the virus. And so like Joe Biden may win this race, even with people trusting Trump more on the economy. That's very possible. But you're running a campaign. You've got advantages on Donald Trump everywhere else. This is the one place he has an advantage. You might as well work pretty hard to mitigate that advantage. Biden super PAC that's out there, Unite the Country, that actually went through and did focus groups with a lot of these swing voters. And, you know, they found that when you talk about what Joe Biden did on the Recovery Act with Barack Obama when he was vice president,

when you talk about Joe Biden's middle class roots, when you talk about what he plans to do in the future and what his vision is and how he wants to fight for middle class people and fight for you, as opposed to rich people like Donald Trump, that actually gives some of these swing voters some confidence that Joe Biden will do as well, if not better than Donald Trump on managing the economy. Yeah, this is all about the continuing effort to define for Biden to define himself before Trump defines Biden. And all of these and policy is a proxy for character and values. Right. And so Trump wants to paint a certain picture of Biden.

And the more Biden fills in the blanks before Trump does that and policy helps do that and probably helps do it in a way that the press will cover. It makes the Trump campaigns pretty tough task, even tougher. All right. Next question is from Mark Collius. What do you guys think about the Lincoln Project crew? Are they effectively moving Republicans away from Trump or is it not as effective as it seems to be on the surface? This is just one of many questions that we received on the Lincoln Project. To me, the Lincoln Project ads and their effectiveness make me think about the focus group I sat down with in Arizona for the wilderness. That was the Romney Clinton voters. People voted for Romney and then voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. And most of them were former Republicans. And their problem with Trump is all of the things that the Lincoln Project ads depict, right? That he's chaotic, that he's out of control, that he has like betrayed us in a million different ways. Like all the great ads that they have are like definitely designed to move Republicans, independent leaning Republicans, and probably like undecided voters who are like maybe college-educated white men, right? That seems like the target for the Lincolnites. Now,

are those the only undecided voters? Are those the only group of swing voters? Absolutely not. They are one slice of voters. So, you know, non-college-educated white voters who voted for Trump who may be upset about the economy or upset about their own financial situation. Will the Lincoln Project ads move them? Maybe not. People who aren't decided whether they're going to vote at all, who tend to be people who are younger and voters of color who come in and out of the electorate. Like, are the Lincoln Project ads for them? Also, probably not.

But in this one small slice of the electorate, I do the Lincoln Project ads for them? Also probably not. But in this one small slice of the electorate, I do think they could be effective. And we don't know that for sure yet. But what we can tell in a lot of this polling, especially some of that New York Times polling, and they went and interviewed these voters, when they talked to people who voted for Trump in 2016 or former Republicans or Republicans who said they're going to vote for Joe Biden this time. What you hear from these voters reflects what you see in a lot of these Lincoln Project ads. So I do think they have some effect there. I don't know. What do you think? I mean, people, because of campaign experts react, the YouTube series that Elijah makes me do, people ask me about the Lincoln Project all the time.

They're constantly tweeting every Lincoln Project ad at me. And it's always in this context of why can't Democrats be this good? And so I think a couple of things about this. One, I think some of their ads are excellent. What they are very good at, in addition to just being fast, which I think is impressive, but is they're very good at generating viral content that shapes media narratives. And that is an important function in any campaign. Like, we need that. Republicans have a lot of that on their side. Democrats have limited.

And because they are Republicans, that gets more attention, right? It has this sort of impromontable legitimacy that it's a bunch of people who tried to get Mitt Romney and John McCain elected and someone who has breakfast with Kellyanne Conway putting these ads out, right? And but I think it is easy to confuse, particularly for political junkies like us, virality and efficacy, right? An ad that, you know, sort of titillates everyone on Twitter is unlikely to be a piece of content that is particularly persuasive to voters who do not feel strongly about Trump, who have mixed feelings about him, who are skeptical of politicians generally and Democrats specifically. And so I think it's just like, I think they're serving a very useful function. A lot of times they put

these ads up. They usually run, they often run them in DC on the hopes that Trump will see them and react to them. I think that was the purpose of this ad they put out in Russian last night. I just saw they bought ads in South Dakota because Trump is doing an insane virus fire rally for the 4th of July. And they're trying to, you know, because they know all the reporters will be watching that and will react to it. I think that's all very clever. But there are a bunch of Democratic super PACs who were just out there doing the work. Right. They are running ads that are effective. They are not as sexy.

You know, they are unlikely to get a thousand retweets or not get a bunch of like Hollywood celebrities tweeting them out and praising them like they're not racist celebrities. Like it's sort of it's a little like Mark Wahlberg in The Departed. Right. You know, a lot of these Democratic super PACs are the ones doing their jobs and uh link project maybe the other guys and so like they have some very good ads and we discuss one of them on next week's episode of campaign experts react but i just i think that we just have to recognize that sometimes very, very effective ads are boring to political junkies. Oh, most of the time they are.

Most of the time they are. Because and partly because political junkies. Look, I think part of it is there's a class and education divide here. Right. Like the when we poll the ads that are most effective tend to be ads about like economic populism. Trump taking away your health care, Trump's trade deals hurting farmers, the fact that, you know, like other kind of economic issues. And they're targeted at voters who are particularly cynical and frustrated with government and sometimes both parties because they haven't delivered for them because their financial situation is very tough and it doesn't seem like anyone in Washington is doing anything for them.

Those ads tend to be effective among large groups of swing voters that we're trying to get. Those ads don't tend to be very sexy to people who are in media, in Republican consultant circles, in punditry circles, Hollywood circles, all the people on Twitter who are retweeting all the time. But again, like, I think it is very valuable to try to shape the news cycle because people make up their minds about elections, not just through ads, but through media coverage. And to the extent that the Lincoln Project people can have figured out how to game media coverage and help shape the media narrative. I think that's very useful. And we could probably learn to do that as well with some of our ads, even if they're not like directly targeted to the voters that we

need. And there are some people like the new PAC Midas Touch who have got who are doing that. And yeah, similar, similar effectiveness. The other thing I think to the credit of the Lincoln project, like there's a lot of grifting going on in never Trump circles, you know, a bunch of people who've decided that the way to get attention is to be a Republican against Trump. You know, this sort of the Scaramucci Omarosa world or John Bolton, an instance, right? There's a way to, you can get some pretty big checks being, you know, being one of those lonely few, if you will. But the Lincoln Project folks are doing something that is not getting a lot of attention, which is they are actually running ads to help the Democrats take the Senate back. They have an ad up in Montana that is a mostly positive spot about Steve Bullock that takes

a shot at Steve Daines. And it's one thing if they were like, they obviously have a lot of enmity towards like Lindsey Graham and McConnell and the people who have facilitated Trump and they think are sinking their party. But when you take on Steve Daines, like that's a sign that you think the way to solve the problem in the party is to give Democrats full control and make the Republicans have a reckoning. And I think they should get credit for that. This is not just a bunch of viral anti-Trump videos followed by some

book contracts. Like if you're going to help Steve Bullock get elected, I'm, you know, I applaud that. And look, you don't have to love all of the policy positions or political positions of the people in the Lincoln Project. Like politics is about building alliances towards shared goals. And when our goals sort of separate from theirs, then we don't need the Lincoln Project anymore. We can go back to fighting each other, right? Like it doesn't mean like because you like a Lincoln Project ad that you like have to say, oh, they had a great position on the Iraq war. None of them did. But right now, Donald Trump is an immediate and urgent threat to democracy. And it's like, let's take all the help we can get from all across the political spectrum to beat him.

And then once he's gone, we can all go back to fighting over other issues. All right. Safi Khalil asks, does Dan think there's a contradiction between believing the tipping point states and the Electoral College will be very close, but also advocating for more reach Senate candidates? If you believe we're winning Wisconsin by no more than two to three points, we're probably losing Iowa by more than five. And Teresa Greenfield, she's the Democratic Senate candidate in Iowa, is a solid candidate, but unlikely to win in that environment. Great question. What do you think? It is a great question. It made me really reconsider a lot of the things I've been doing recently. So thank you. I mean, I certainly understand the question. I understand if you're one individual and you're like, I have one day to canvas, right? Does it make more sense to canvas in Wisconsin or in Iowa? And I would say wrong answer, campus in North Carolina, duh.

But so yes, like everyone should prioritize what states or races they care about most. And I don't know that Joe Biden is only winning Wisconsin by two to three. I mean, the most likely scenario three months ago was he's winning by one or losing by one, right? And maybe he wins by two or three, maybe he wins by nine, right? I mean, Obama won it by seven, not that many years ago. But just like Joe Biden and the Democrats need to create as many paths as possible to 270, the Senate Democrats need to create as many paths possible to 50, right? Because you don't know what's going to happen, right? Like right now, Mark Kelly and John Hickenlooper look very strong, but who knows what will happen in those states, right?

Particularly in a situation with a pandemic. So like if we can invest in Theresa Greenfield and build the opportunity and sort of, you know, build a surfboard so if a wave comes, she can catch it, we should do it. And the other part about that I think is important is every well-funded organized race, whether you win or lose, makes the next one easier, right? Like maybe Theresa Greenfield wins. Then we get an extra center. If not, but if she runs a close race against Joni Ernst, we're going to walk out of that race with a stronger Democratic organization. And Iowa, more volunteers, better data that can be applied to the next time there's a statewide candidate in that race.

I think the national political environment contributes to about, I don't know, 90 plus percent of the final outcome in a lot of these statewide races. And I think the partisan makeup of that state, the partisan makeup of the state plus the national political environment gets you about like 90% there, maybe even more at this point because we're like more polarized than ever. But candidate quality, individual races, individual messages between both of the candidates, those things matter.

They still do matter. And that's why you get results like John Tester winning in Montana in 2018, even though it's a state that Trump won by double digits. We still had a Democratic senator hang on in that state. Now, we had a bunch of other Democratic senators in states that Trump won who lost because they just couldn't hang on and they couldn't beat sort of like the national sort of political environment and the partisan makeup of the state. But every once in a while, you have candidates who sort of who beat that. And I think it usually happens every cycle. So will it be Teresa Greenfield? Will it be Steve Bullock? Will it be Doug Jones? Will it be, you know, like we don't know who that candidate is going to be that sort

of beats the partisan makeup of their state in the national public environment. But like you said, you might as well bet on a whole bunch of candidates to see which one of them is going to do it. Shane Smith asks, can Washington, D.C. achieve statehood with a simple majority vote in the House and Senate and the president signing the bill? Or is there more to the process? Also, how close is Puerto Rico to becoming a state? process. Also, how close is Puerto Rico to becoming a state? Ostensibly, this is someone named Shane Smith, but I do believe it was actually a question sent in by our producer, Michael Martinez, longtime resident of D.C., longtime advocate of D.C. statehood. So, Michael, we'll just answer your question, which you could have just asked us on Slack, but we'll answer it here. So I think if we have a Democratic House and Senate and we have Joe Biden as president and notably we remove the filibuster, then yes, that's how that they can make Washington, D.C. a state.

That simply. Right. Yes. I mean, you're ignoring the obvious need for a very expensive process to redesign the flag. That's that's true. You know, we can we can worry about that. And we also have to name Washington, flag. That's true. You know, we can worry about that. And we also have to name Washington, D.C. something. Oh, that's right.

That's actually in the House bill, I think. Don't they rename it the Commonwealth of Douglas? Yeah, I was just going to say, I think Douglas is in there after Frederick Douglass. That's just wonderful. I love that. Let's just start. I think we should just, like, don't even have to keep Washington. Having Washington and Washington, Washington State and Washington Frederick Douglas. That's just wonderful. I love that. Let's just start. I think we should just like,

you don't even have to keep Washington. Having Washington and Washington, Washington State and Washington DC is confusing. Let's just. Right. That's a good point. Yeah, we can do anything. It's a blank canvas, people.

Let the people of DC decide. I will say the last time they voted on something like this, they ended up renaming the Washington Bulls, the Washington Wizards. So maybe this could go very poorly. Yeah, that's true. And on your question on Puerto Rico, in May, Puerto Rico's governor announced a non-binding referendum that will be on November 3rd, 2020, that will ask voters in Puerto Rico if Puerto Rico should be admitted as a U.S. state. And look, we do not want these

to become states just so that we can have a couple of Democratic senators from D.C. and Puerto Rico. It's important for the people, the Americans who live in Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., to be able to determine whether they're admitted as states and to be able to get representation in the United States Congress, real representation. That's why this is important right now. But yeah, I think, you know, because Republicans have decided that they don't give a shit about this, about having people who are Americans who are not represented in the U.S. Congress by any representatives who actually have real voting power, it's going to be up to Democrats to do that. And so, but yeah, if we have a Democratic Senate, Democratic House and Joe Biden, be up to Democrats to do that. And so but yeah, if we have a Democratic Senate, Democratic House and Joe Biden, we could we could do that in the first couple of weeks. Great. Amy Hendrickson

asks if there's a retirement on the Supreme Court. I just got a bad feeling in my stomach just reading that either Alito, Samuel Alito or Justice Thomas, Clarence Thomas or both. Oh, is there any way the Democrats can prevent McConnell and the Republicans from rushing a confirmation before the election? Yes, there is. And I will talk. Oh, but I think I was going to I wasn't sure about this one, Dan. I mean, oftentimes I've brought this up a few weeks ago to you and you, as you often incorrectly do, accuse me of doomsaying. I mean, I was having a good day until you sent me that story.

I'm just, I'm just, I'm, I'm trying to give you the information you need to make the appropriate decisions about your moods, right? How you choose these information is up to you, but there are the, there are a decent amount of rumors flying around Washington that either Alito or Thomas is going to retire in part because Trump's political position is so terrible that they feel like they would be locking – if they do not retire now, these independent Supreme Court justices would never retire under a Democrat. So they're locking themselves into four or eight more years of being on the court. that Donald Trump would like a Supreme Court vacancy because he thinks it would help him politically because he has convinced himself of his own narrative that Brett Kavanaugh helped him by giving Democrats the largest popular vote margin in House races in history. So I think

this is not something we should discount as a possibility. But in order to get that done, Mitch McConnell is going to need the votes of Susan Collins, Cory Gardner, Martha McSally. And so we do have the ability to put tremendous pressure on them to not violate the standard that they themselves set four years prior, right? They would be forced to violate the quote unquote McConnell rule. And frankly, add Mitch McConnell to that list of people you need to put real political pressure on in their states. Yeah, now I'm going to be the pessimist. That's still a,

I guess it's a possibility we could stop that, but that still requires Susan Collins to do something courageous or independent or even in her own political interest, which I'm not sure that she knows what that is anymore. So anyway, but yeah, I guess I guess Democrats could do everything possible to gum up the work, slow things down, and then just it would be a tremendous pressure campaign on the Republicans who are up in 2020. And, you know, the window is closing, right? Like

they have to nominate someone. There have to be hearings. It's now July. I guess the retirement would be announced sometime this month or maybe even in August. I think we've had August retirement announcements too. So then it would be, man, then the fall campaign, September, October would be like a campaign in the middle of a pandemic and a recession against Donald Trump and Joe Biden with a Supreme Court nomination happening in the background. Jesus. It doesn't sound great, Dan. It's basically the kavanaugh schedule all over again right yeah except

with the presidential instead of a midterm and a pandemic and a pandemic yeah wonderful steve garrison asks i've always wondered when a campaign loses like all the other candidates in the primary did what happens to the money they raised do they keep keep it? What is the answer to this, Dan? I know they don't get to like pocket the cash. Well, they, most cases campaigns end with close to zero money and oftentimes negative money. Right. So it's pretty rare that a campaign ends in the black. But when that does happen, they can keep it in their campaign account, which could be used for future campaigns for federal office, presuming we're obviously talking about presidential campaigns right now. Or they can make unlimited contributions to party committees.

So Michael Bloomberg ended his campaign with, I think, $18 million in his campaign account. Now, it was his money to begin with, but he had donated to the campaign. And he gave all of that money to the DNC. Like, that was his money to begin with, but he had donated it to the campaign. And he gave all of that money to the DNC. Like that was his big contribution. Let's just say hypothetically, Bernie Sanders ended with $7 million as account. He could give that money to other campaigns in line with federal limits, which I think maybe, I think it's a PAC limit, but it's in the thousands of dollars. Or he could give all of that money to the DSCC to help take the Senate or something like that.

Yeah. But also campaigns often, there is a huge and very long audit and shutdown process at the end of campaigns. I think it's very possible that certainly our 2012 campaign, our 2008 campaign are still open for the shutdown process. Like that's how long it is. And so a lot of that money is spent on, you know, filing reports and complying with the audit. So it's not, they don't get to like go buy a second home with it. Right. Or anything like that. That's good. We got two questions on our adopt a state program. Hasitha Sridharan asks, I'm a Canadian living in America. Can I adopt a state or is that some FEC violation? Quick answer.

If you're a foreign citizen, you can't donate. You can't vote, but you can do everything else. You can volunteer. You can contact voters. You can, when we used to knock on doors, you can do that. You can phone bank. You can sign people. You can do everything but those two things,

donating money and voting. So please adopt a state. Help us out here in America. We're now calling on adopt a state help us out here in america um we're now we're now calling on the world to help us because we're we're in dire straits here with donald trump um related question matt mojica asks is it possible to make up those trainings for vote save america that happen every thursday haven't been able to make a training but would love to make them up p.s go team michigan i think he meant arizona um yes they're all online youtube.com slash cricket media smash that subscribe button if you go to youtube.com slash cricket media all of the trainings are right there we had just an

amazing group of people sign up i think there were like 16,000 people on a Thursday night, four Thursdays in a row to do these trainings. It was very inspiring to see everyone show up to these and learn how to organize better. So thank you for everyone who participated and everyone go to youtube.com slash Crooked Media and check it out. A few more fun ones. Hey guys, this is Mash from Toronto. My question for both Dan and John, what novels are you currently reading? So I just finished the vanishing half by Brit Bennett, which is a truly,

I just, okay. I just started it. Yeah. It's great. Like last week. And I just started a death in her hands by a Tessa. I think I might pronounce mispronounce her name.

But she is an American author who wrote a book called Eileen that won a lot of awards a few years ago. And this is a bit of a sort of a literary murder mystery. And I'm only 10% in, which I know that because I read on a Kindle. But it's superb. I want you to know what I did the other night, Dan. I was so stressed out by the news and especially like all the pandemic news. I finally just looked at my phone and I said, I'm done. I deleted the Twitter app from my phone.

Whoa. Is it back? I did not. No, it's not back. Because what I said to myself is when I sit down at my laptop like I am now or on my my iPad which are all in my office I kept the Twitter apps there especially on my iPad so I can scroll there but at least it makes me go into my office and sit there and scroll and so like when I'm walking around the house when I'm in bed especially no more scrolling through Twitter and instead you know I started

reading The Vanishing Half and uh before bed and it has put me at ease a bit more to just not have the news scrolling in my mind. This was my post-White House changed my life, which is no phone in bed at night. It's plugged into the wall where I can't really reach it. Better. And reading books. Now, the morning's not so great,

but the night, that has been my plan. I'm not saying that I am the picture where I can't really reach it and and like reading books now the morning's not so great but the night that has been my plan it's been I'm not saying that I am the picture of fucking mental health these days but uh it's better than the alternative I guess follow up from Brady Minter what are some of your favorite book recommendations on American political history any era um I know Dan you and Tommy both read this which why I am. Nixonland by Rick Perlstein. I've been reading. I've been trudging my way through. Long book. And long book.

Long book for me. And also These Truths by Jill Lepore is an outstanding history of America that I would recommend to anyone. I've been reading that as well. What about you? So it kind of depends on – I have a long answer to this because really all I want to do in life is find a way that I could just like read and talk about books for a living. And so like, it's kind of depends what you want. If you want to learn about politics and campaigns, there are sort of like three books that have been read by every person

who writes about American politics, who covers American politics, every politician has read. who writes about American politics, who covers American politics. Every politician has read. Richard Ben Kramer's What It Takes, which is the sort of the first, all of the inside the room, like glorification of strategists,

like campaign trail books that are, you know, we now know about, like all came from that book. And it's an amazing book. Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, Hunter S. Thompson's book about the 1972 presidential campaign is the book that every political reporter has read, and they have all styled their lives after, you know, at least the most recent, not the current generation, most recent generation of political reporters where they're out there, they're at the campaign, they're at the bar at night, the hard drinking, hard living political reporter all

comes from that. And then, you know, Timothy Krause's Boys on the Bus about the reporters covering the 1972 election, it sort of helps you understand the modern, how we got to the place where we've been covering campaigns like sports for decades now. You know, there's like a gazillion biographies that you can recommend to people, whether it's Robert Karras' books about LBJ or everything Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote about Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt. But I sort of think the most interesting books to read are the ones that are not about sort of the great man theory of history, these people who are bending the world to their

will. And these books are almost invariably about men, which is why I said it that way. But there are two books that I think are about sort of the country and the forces that shape the men and women who lead the country that are incredibly important to read. One is The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson, which is about the Great Migration. And the other one is Republic of Suffering, which is by Drew Gilpin Faust, that is about the effect the Civil War had on the country because of the tremendous trauma. Like everyone who died was an American. And it helps explain, it sets the context for the conversation we're having right now about the Confederacy and statues and all of that. And it's a, I mean, it's a dark read, obviously, but I think a really powerful one

of understanding the impact of war in general and that war in particular on American people. A few fun ones. Eileen Krynoch asks, Dan, is that Bigfoot on your wall? I am not sure what they're referring to, but I think they're referring to it is an artistic rendering of Allen Iverson stepping over Tyronn Lue in the 2001 NBA finals that my book publisher gave me to congratulate me on the publication of my first book. And so the fact that he knew that that is a gift that I would A, love and B, put on my wall is why we've worked together for many years now. Good publisher. Yes.

Yeah. Ashley Voss asks, when is Alyssa Mastromonaco going to get a podcast with you guys? She's a gem. Of course she's a gem. First of all, that's why she's doing, that's the ticket with you, Dan, because she's the country. Of course she's a gem. First of all, that's why she's doing that's the ticket with you, Dan, because she's the country's foremost expert in the vice presidential process and a gem and a pleasure to listen to. She's also a co-host on Crooked Media's Hysteria podcast, which is celebrating its 100th episode today. Happy 100th episode to Aaron and Alyssa and the whole crew at Hysteria. But yeah, the more Alyssa, the better is really our theory here at Crooked Media. I mean, that's been our theory for the last 13 years.

Yeah, that predates Crooked Media. Yeah, that's basically been your plan for the 21st century is more or less. Literally since the day I graduated college. Crystal asked Dan, I got a new job and I'm moving to Delaware. What's the best thing about the state? Best Delaware food. I can't wait for this one do you remember that restaurant in union station in dc called america yeah and it's shtick was they had food from all 50 states so new york is pizza and california something mexican and texas is barbecue and i'm sure

maybe ohio's chili or something and delaware was a chicken salad sandwich is pizza and California is something Mexican and Texas is barbecue. And I'm sure maybe Ohio's chili or something. And Delaware was a chicken salad sandwich. Now, to be fair to the state of Delaware, it is, that is not like I lived there for many, many years. And, uh, I've never known that to be the food of Delaware. Um, Delaware has a lot of really great restaurants, you know, because it is adjacent to Philadelphia. It is a place of really great restaurants, you know, because it is adjacent to Philadelphia. It is a place where cheesesteaks and hoagies predominate and subs. Delaware is a great state. I don't know what sort of case I can make for it, but it gave us Joe Biden. So that's good. It did. Delaware did give us Joe Biden. So there's that.

Forget about the food. Dan, the last question I'm just going to go ahead and answer. It's from Lisa from Facebook. And she asks, who would win in a dance-off between me and you? And the answer is everyone who didn't have to watch. I mean, I don't know that I have a great, like we've been to a lot of weddings together. I was at your wedding. You were at mine. I don't know. I think it speaks to how fun those weddings were that I don't really remember your dancing, but I'm relatively confident I would lose.

There would be no winners, but I would definitely be the loser. Like I said, it's just a dance off between. I don't think anyone would want to watch that, but thank you for the question. All right.

When we come back, we will have Dan's conversation on Campaign Experts React with political message guru Anat Shanker. Osorio, it's going to be about campaign 2020 ads and the race class narrative.

I've been doing a video series that breaks down ads in the 2020 election called Campaign Experts React. We're going to play our most recent episode now. The first ad we break down is very visual. If you would like to watch the ads, you can find the series at youtube.com slash Crooked Media. I have been hoping for and yearning for and tweeting

about and screaming into a microphone about the need for there to be more positive ads about Joe Biden. Trump is the protagonist of our ads? I mean, honestly, are you kidding me? is the protagonist of our ads? I mean, honestly, are you kidding me? Welcome to another episode of Campaign Experts React, where we break down 2020 ads and political media, explain what the people behind them are trying to accomplish, and decide whether or not they did a good job. I'm Dan Pfeiffer, former communications director for Barack Obama. Joining me today is messaging and communications expert, Anat Shankar-Osorio, the founder of ASO Communications and host of the podcast, Words to Win By.

Anat, thank you for joining us. You are actually an expert. So we are very excited to have an actual expert on Campaign Experts React. So thank you for joining us. And I was wondering, before we got into these ads, you could tell our viewers what the race class narrative is and what drove you to do that work. Yeah. And first of all, thank you for having me. That's an all too kind introduction. And

basically what the race class narrative is, is it's a three part structure and the order really matters. Every winning race class narrative message begins in a shared value. That could sound like no matter what we look like or where we come from, most of us believe that people who work for a living ought to earn a living if you're going into a union message. Or whether we're white, black, or brown, all of us want to move through our communities without fearing for our lives or our loved ones, if you are obviously about to talk about what's happening presently with the protests. And then it moves second to a statement of the problem. And the way that we state the problem is by talking about deliberate division. What that

sounds like in language could be, but today, a wealthy and powerful few divide us from each other based on what we look like or where we live. So we don't join together to demand the health care all our families need, if that's what you're talking about. And then thirdly, it comes to a full circle with an insistence on cross-racial solidarity. So that could sound like by joining together across race and across place, we can make this a place where freedom is for everyone. Keith Ellison certainly uses this message. Elizabeth Warren notably would use it. AOC does versions of it. And I'm proud to have been fighting for systemic solutions like Medicare for all, a federal jobs guarantee,

and the end to mass incarceration. Today is a big day for people who have been left behind. One of the ads we're going to be talking about is the first time I've seen Biden do it, at least in a sort of marquee ad kind of way. That is a professional segue right there. Let's start with our first ad, which is from Black Visions Collective. Where it showed significant inroads was in terms of changing people's perceptions about the protests and specifically mobilizing Black voters and other people of color. That is where it really shined across all the ads that we tested. What that ad is, is it narrates Black excellence, and it narrates Black

joy, and it narrates Black life. Other than the one image of the woman receiving the respirator, it is not a harms and horrors ad. And one of the most important findings that I've hammered through my career, I first saw this with work that I did in Australia on people seeking asylum in 2015, is that when we depict harms and horrors, so specifically in that case, when we showed images of people seeking asylum behind bars, it actually reinforced the opposition story that immigrants were animals. You can get people maybe to feel sorry for those people, which is by definition still otherizing. If you're feeling sorry for those people, that's not you. And so what showing Black joy and Black excellence, you know, Simone Biles, people throughout a life cycle, children, babies, et cetera,

woman in labor, it actually creates that bridge to empathy. That ad blew me away for all the reasons you said, but also it is so important to get people's attention in this day and age because if it's a digital ad, they're scrolling through their phone quickly or it's a television ad, they may be about to fast forward or doing a two screen experience where you look at Instagram

while the commercials come on. And so you have to get people's attention. And that one doesn't in so many, you know, quote unquote political ads look exactly the same and they sound exactly the same. And they sort of like announce at the beginning, don't believe what you're about to hear. This is coming from people you do not trust.

It's the equivalent of when your romantic partner says to you, we need to talk. And so as soon as they say to you, we need to talk, whatever it is they were going to say, you're already like, like, I hate whatever it is you're going to say. So ads that look like political ads are essentially that equivalent. We are signaling to people, I'm going to talk to you about a political issue, which we know famously people abhor, right? People are like, I hate politics. I don't like politics. I don't like talking about politics. So we tip our hand and then we start talking to them. You are not going to believe what the producers have put on my script. And in fact, this is so stupid, I can't even read it, but it's so bad. They want me to say, quote, the data is in. And that when I say, quote, smash that subscribe button, people are more likely to subscribe to this channel.

Subscribe to smash something, subscribe to something, I don't know. The next ad we're going to look at, as you previewed, is an ad from Joe Biden's campaign. The country is crying out for leadership. Leadership that can unite us. Leadership that brings us together. I look at the presidency as a very big job. And nobody will get it right every time. And I won't either.

But I promise you this. I won't traffic in fear and division. I won't fan the flames of hate. I'll seek to heal the racial wounds that have long plagued our country. Not use them for political gain. I'll do my job and I will take responsibility. I won't blame others. I promise you, this job is not about me.

It's about you. It's about us. To build a better future, that's what America does. We build the future. It may, in fact, be the most American thing to do. This is the United States of America. There's never been anything we've been unable to do. We set our mind to do it and we've done it together.

I'm Joe Biden. And I approve this message. So what was your reaction to how Biden used the race class narrative in that ad? And why do you think it works? Yeah, I don't just think it works. I actually just completed a test of it. It's one of the most effective ads in terms of a high degree of statistical significance across a broad swath of the electorate, especially moderates, at moving people away from Trump and toward Biden. One of the most interesting things about it is that it doesn't name Trump. It does actually show images of Trump. But if you follow the script, Trump is never named.

And the way that it narrates the evil that he does is fanning the flames of hatred is deliberate division. The other thing that it does really fascinatingly, it actually says almost nothing about Joe Biden's resume. It is a pro-Biden ad that doesn't present us with, you know, I did this and I accomplished that, nor does it really say much about his personal characteristics. What it does is it focuses in on the job of the presidency itself. So interestingly, the discourse isn't so much about who Biden is. It's about what the task at hand is. I have been hoping for and yearning for and tweeting about and screaming into a microphone about the need for there to be more positive ads about Joe Biden. This isn't really about the Biden campaign, but just progressive generally need to help define Biden before Trump

defines Biden. And so this is a positive Biden ad. Second, the best positive ads are implicit, if not nearly explicit contrast with the opponent. This is an ad that is positive for Biden, but it's really about Trump and why Biden is his solution to that. And the third reason why I love this ad is I remember when Biden announced his campaign, he talked about healing the soul of the country. And that felt to me a little off the moment when it happened, right? Where it's sort of like we were going to bring Republicans and Democrats together and Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell and everything would be better post-Trump. And that's just not my view of politics and not my view of the Republican Party. But when healing the soul of the country is actually about

the soul of a divided country in this moment, as an antidote to Trumpism and what Trumpism has wrought, I think it works. And so I thought it was an excellent ad that was authentic to what is best about Biden. It offers an encapsulating metaphor at the end. So this build a better future. I think that claiming this future, even in this tenuous time where people are feeling rightly really, really anxious and scared scared is incredibly important, especially when you consider that held up in contrast to Make America Great Again. The beautiful tomorrow that Republicans present, that Trump represents, is nostalgia, which requires

no imagination. All you have to do is think, oh, I've seen that before on a poster, or I've seen that before in a TV show. Absolute bullshit, but easy to conjure in your mind. One of the hardest things about progressive messaging is it needs to provide a sense of that beautiful tomorrow. And that is where being on the left is just really, really hard. We've never lived in an America with racial equality. We've never lived in an America where working people actually had a fair return on their work. But we have to manufacture that out of pure imagination. The last thing we're gonna look at is from Republican voters against Trump, which is yet another super PAC started by never Trump Republican consultants. Watching his shows, afraid, alone. Not a leader. Supposing you brought the light inside the body.

Not a president. Just a scared, incompetent. Within a couple of days, it's going to be down to close to zero. Embarrassment. You know that. Those who have worked with him know that. The former defense secretary, James Mattis, accusing President Trump of being a threat to the Constitution. Our allies know that. The former defense secretary, James Mattis, accusing President Trump of being a threat to the Constitution.

Our allies know that. And our enemies know that. Everyone knows that. It's time for a competent president. Let's elect one. We picked this ad for a couple of reasons. One is that it is different than a lot of the ads we've seen recently. There's been this trend, particularly since the Trump administration ordered the violent

clearing of peaceful protests from Lafayette Square for that photo op, like a real sort of resurgence in ads and political videos that depict Trump as an authoritarian. And this one takes the opposite. And it, I think, does it in a relatively clever way. But I'm curious to get your take on the ad. So if you actually look into soft Trump supporters, people are on the fence, people are still with him, but not sure, etc. When you look at what is that source of attraction, it pretty much boils down to he's not politic. He's not PC. He makes decisive decisions. He's strong. If you understand that that's the Gordian knot you need to untie for the people who are still movable, then why? for the people who are still movable, then why? Why would you attempt to attack Trump by calling him an authoritarian strongman? You are actually feeding into the source of attraction, which,

you know, you don't understand, I don't understand, but some people hold. Instead, what we see is that the mode of attacking Trump that actually is most effective is through this lens of a weak loser. This idea that he is afraid, he is weak, he has no power. When I first saw that ad, my initial take was that one, the best Republican ad makers are working to defeat Trump because those ads are better just from a pure craftsmanship point than any of the pro-Trump ads I've seen. designed almost entirely to get Trump to react so that he tweets and then they raise a bunch more money and they throw like, and they throw him off his game, which I think has some modicum amount of value. The way you say it, it actually serves probably two purposes. It probably drives Trump insane because he obviously knows he's weak and a loser and does not like to be called a weak loser, but is influential with voters. Now, when you sort of think about

the task for defeating Trump, it involves two things, right? There's some group of voters who are soft Trump that we need to get. And then there's some group of people who did not vote in 2016 that Biden needs to persuade to get to him. Do you think the weak loser message works best with both of those compared to the authoritarian message? Yeah. If you've decided you're going to talk about Trump, what I actually think works best is that you not talk about Trump. I think that endless discourse about Trump is how we got Trump. I need to mention that to our podcast producers. That's a large part of what we do every week. We've rendered this person the storyline. We've rendered this person the main character. And that is bullshit.

I mean, we are living in a moment in which an incredible organized group of black leaders across key states are literally risking their lives to go and confront a brutal police state. And Trump is the protagonist of our ads. I mean, honestly, are you fucking kidding me? Like, there are actual heroes doing work to make America what it pretends to be and what it wants to be and what I have to believe, perhaps because I'm pathologically optimistic, it has the opportunity to be. And we're not talking about them. We're not putting them at the forefront of our ads. As many people have remarked, right, Martin Luther King did not get famous for saying, I have a complaint, nor did he get famous for saying, I have a multi bulleted list of policy proposals. There has to actually be a dream. You have to turn people out for something.

That is a very, very powerful message that I hope all of our candidates, our campaigns here. Anat, thank you so much for joining us. It was so much fun to talk to you. And hopefully we can talk again before this election's over. Awesome. Thank you. you thanks to a not for uh joining dan and uh i hope everyone has a happy and safe uh july 4th wear that mask stay home you know and we'll talk to you next week bye everyone bye Bye. Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos every week.