Pod Save America - "Two Truths & the Big Lie." (with Jen Psaki!)

Episode Date: October 14, 2021

White House press secretary Jen Psaki joins Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer to chat about all of the challenges in front of the Biden administration. Then Jon and Dan examine the debate over popularism and the direction of the Democratic Party and a new investigative report about AT&T’s role in propping up the right-wing propaganda network OAN.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, please visit crooked.com/podsaveamerica. 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 Dan Pfeiffer. On today's pod, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki is here to talk about how the president intends to get his agenda through Congress. Dan and I dive into the roiling debate over popularism and the future of the Democratic Party. And we react to the news that AT&T funded the right-wing propaganda network OAN with a game we're calling Two Truths and a Big Lie. There you go, Dan. That's for you. But first, two quick notes before we start. Philip McCarty's podcast Unholier Than Thou is back.

Season two is all about the wisdom of people falling down, getting up, and trying new things as they navigate reentry into a newish world. Catch up on the first episode with Samita Mukhopadhyay, former editor of Teen Vogue, as she and Phil dive deep into the lessons of grief and how to build relationships over time. Also, check out Jason Concepcion's new fan culture podcast, X-Ray Vision, if you haven't already. Each week, Jason is joined by panelists and guests for deep dives into your favorite films, TV shows, and comics,

including the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, and so much more. Follow Unholier Than Thou and X-Ray Vision wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's get to the news. President Biden is dealing with a delightful set of challenges right now, a pandemic, an economy that hasn't fully recovered from the pandemic, an ongoing assault on democracy by the other major political party, and two extremely annoying Democratic senators who continue to stand in the way of his agenda passing Congress. Here to talk with us about how much fun she's having answering only the most thoughtful questions from reporters about all of this every day of the week, White House

Press Secretary Jen Psaki. Jen, welcome back. Great to be here. Thanks for having me. So I know we've been friends for a long time, but i have to be a serious journalist right now and ask you some pretty hard-hitting questions about which tweets ron klain has been liking that what is it like to have a politico reporter whose entire beat is uh ron's tweet likes it's a little mysterious i mean there's a few things going on in the world so you do have to find yourself kind of giving the context of the tweet that was retweeted and what the retweet may or may not mean. Sometimes what we're doing here, sometimes what we're doing here. So yes, it's quality. It's quality journalism, Jen. So the three of us were all at the White House together through the 2009

financial crisis, Tea Party protests, 2010 midterms, government shutdown, debt ceiling crisis. How does what you guys are dealing with right now compare to all those other shit sandwiches that we had to eat? Well, I wish I could sugar honey iced tea. That's what I'm going to say as a government official these days, John. Oh, that's sugar honey iced tea. Episode title. One day, you know, I just have to keep it PG, keep it PG. So, look, I mean, I think having been here before and a lot of us have helps because

you having lived through some of these journeys before, especially in the legislative front means that you don't really freak out. Right. And none of us are freaking out here. And you guys remember and lived through and hopefully you don't have PTSD, but the Affordable Care Act journey and battle and the battle to get Dodd-Frank passed and all of these pieces that had so many ups and downs. And we were never hiding under our desks or laying under our desk in the fetal position. We're not now. But, yeah, look, I mean, we always knew that at this point in the administration, it would be hard. And it is hard because there are things we control. There are things we don't control. Getting legislation done takes some time. It turns out democracy means people have a lot of

opinions and different points of view, and they're going to argue them and voice them. And that's what's happening now. You know, Jen, one of the things you have to deal with every day is sort of a lemming-like herding towards a particular narrative, right? So earlier, which seems maybe like 100 years ago to you, the narrative was Joe Biden is the next FDR and LBJ all wrapped in one, passing everything. Everything's great. And then for the last few months, it's been the exact opposite of that. Dems in disarray.

The whales are coming off the bus, et cetera, et cetera. What is the actual correct narrative about where you guys are in the presidency right now? Well, since you asked me, I mean, a lot of that is around what he's proposed legislatively, right? So having these big, bold proposals, the Build Back Better agenda, these huge packages. And there's no question that the fact that this has become a focus around numbers has not been helpful. We can't entirely control that. We obviously want to talk about the substantive pieces. But right now, I mean, the thing that's challenging with the daily lemmings, as you said, about the line of questioning is that it's not really a cut if it's a package

that doesn't exist, right? I mean, essentially, if you don't get a package passed or there isn't enough support in Congress to pass a $3.5 trillion package, the alternative is not something bigger. It's nothing, right? So right now where things sit, we're trying to piece together what we still think is going to be a hugely historic package that's going to do a lot of really, really good things that haven't been done in the past, including making universal pre-K a reality, something that we know statistically will help more people go to college, investing in climate change, something that we know is long overdue, and the U.S. is one of the worst emitters in the world, making college a reality for people, investing in paid leave.

So sometimes we get a little, you know, there's a shorthanding or we focus on the process, the legislative process. Hugely important, I guess, for reporters to ask about it. But we missed the point. Right. And the point right now is we're trying to put together a historic package that will be bigger investments in a lot of these key things. put together a historic package that will be bigger investments in a lot of these key things, climate, universal pre-K, paid leave, you know, making clean water a reality than has ever happened in the past. And we get mired in, is it 3.2? Is it 2.7? What did Senator Manchin have for lunch? I mean, which we're kind of missing the point. So, you know, that's the reality of what we're trying to do now. We think we're going to get there, but it's sometimes hard to break through the noise of the game of where the numbers are and what the emotions are of different members of Congress. I will not ask you what Joe Manchin had for lunch.

I don't know. If it's something that's going to lead toward a package passing, I will get that lunch tomorrow. Whatever you want. Whatever it is. I know you can't divulge almost any details. I mean, you can. Not to reporters, but to us. You probably won't.

No one's listening. No one listens to you guys. No one stops me on the street and says, I heard you on Pod Save America. That happens all the time. There's some reports that Mansion andema themselves are disagreeing with each other so much that it's nearly impossible to square the circle, right? There's like people close to the White House saying this. Is there any truth to that? Or are you more optimistic than

these reports? Yeah. Don't feel that bad, everyone. Here's the thing. People negotiate a lot in public, privately, of course, but a lot in public. And sometimes that's their job to do that. People want more of something. They want something to be smaller because they want to go run for office and say, I'm very fiscally conservative or I want more. And I fought for more years of a program. That's democracy working. Ultimately, when it comes down to it, no bill is perfect. It's not going to be everything that Joe Biden wants. It's not going to be everything Joe Manchin wants or Kyrsten Sinema wants or or Pramil Jayapal or any member of Congress. It's ultimately a compromise. And you try to get to the best package possible. But ultimately, we can't do this forever. We're not doing this forever.

Time is running short here. We've got to come to a time where we figure out what's the best version we can get enough votes for that is still going to have a historic impact. So people should not feel glum out there. We're going to get this done. It's still going to be historic in all these areas. It's going to be a bigger investment in climate and childcare and paid leave than anything ever in the history before. And right now we're just in kind of the messy, messy phase where people are, you know, doing their peacocks, a little peacock feathers, you know what I mean? In public and arguing for what they think is most important. Well, I want to give you guys an opportunity to peacock feathers. So everyone seems to have red lines here, right? Where it's like.

I had a little, it was like jazz hands peacocks. I don't know what's happening there, but it just came out. Yeah, it worked for... It sold me. Everyone has red lines in this debate. There are certain things that Manchin won't do, certain things he demands, means testing, et cetera. Certain things that at least through the vague smoke signals coming from the winery or the Boston Marathon, we know what Kirsten Cinemas are. The progressives have been very specific about a set of things in there. Are there any red lines that you guys have? It must have those things you said,

it has to be this much climate or these things have to be included? What ultimately we want to get done is to ease the burden on families, especially in areas like care. That's a big category, but childcare, elder care, you know, those are things that impact people like us, right? You have parents, not that all of our parents are that old, but you know, you have parents, you have kids, you're trying to balance all these things. That's one area that's absolutely going to be in there. What the machinations of it are, you know, that's what's being litigated now. Climate will absolutely be in there. That's important and that's vital. So the key, but it's

a little different from when we had this debate about the American rescue plan, where there were basic things that we were demanding and red lines, the only red line, uh, that still gives me a little bit of like agita that phrase, but, um, the only red line, um, that the president has is that it cannot raise taxes for people making less than $400,000 a year. That's important because for a lot, a lot of times in this debate, the issue has been about what the pay-fors were going to be. Now, ultimately the tax system is so unfair and people should pay more taxes to, you know, companies who weren't paying any taxes in the last year, 50 of them, 50 of the top companies didn't. They should pay more taxes. High-income people should pay more taxes. That's important too. That's not just to pay for, but now that's the major bottom line.

But there was a kind of a little focus a couple of days ago about what Speaker Pelosi said about how she wanted either to do some things well, right? There were a lot of people who were saying they wanted to do some things well in the package. We can do all of those things. The fact is this package has so much stuff in it. What they're really talking about in Congress and in committees is that they're going to pair out some of the smaller programs. And that's what we're working through. But the core things of what we're trying to get done are going to be in this package. And do you guys have a time? I'm not going to actually make predictions. We are very against the prediction game here. But is there a timeline you guys are pushing for? Do you want this done by Thanksgiving? Does it have to be done before the debt ceiling comes up again? Or is there something that you're pushing

for knowing that you don't control how this will actually go? Well, we're nearing the end of the time of negotiations here. So right now, we're at the phase where we're basically conveying, we need to know the bottom lines. We need to know what's hugely important to you, what your priorities are, so we can move toward a unified package. Now, as you guys know, this process takes some time. And there are some timeline things that we don't see as deadlines, but are marking points, right? October 31st, I know that's sort of a weird timeline, but that is the date the surface transportation bill expires. We don't see that as a deadline, but there has to be a vote to extend that. So that's just for something, you know, something for people to be aware of. And after that,

as you touched on in early December, is the deadline or the timeline for when we need to vote again on a debt limit and keeping the government open. So there's going to be these set periods of time where there are other votes, but ultimately we're at the end of the period of negotiating soon. And that's going to mean there's going to be a vote soon on a bill because we just, we're at that point in the process. You hear that Joe Manchin? You hear that Kyrsten Sinema? Talking to you there. I know they're listening. I know they're big Planned P they're listening. Time is not open-ended. Time is not open-ended. We mentioned the debt limit. It's obviously incredibly dangerous and irresponsible that Senate Republicans and McConnell are filibustering any debt ceiling increase, though McConnell has basically promised to do that next time it comes up. What I haven't been able to figure out is

what's so bad about Senate Democrats, including a debt limit increase in reconciliation, maybe even including a number that takes it off the table as a weapons for Republicans to use for the rest of Joe Biden's time in office. What do you what does the White House think about that? Yeah, I mean, the debt limit and the political games around it have become a little tiresome. I think that's the gentlest way to say it. And so there are good discussions about what the future of it looks like. I mean, ultimately, we know this is a bit of a political game saying something you guys already know on on Senator McConnell's part and trying to make it sound like this means the Democrats are voting for a massive debt, right? Or an increase in debt, which is not what it is. It's paying bills that

we've owed. There's still politics around that. That still impacts people, including Democrats, in terms of what they want to vote for, what kind of package or where they want it to live and be a part of. The easiest thing, which I understand what you're saying is it's hard. We just nearly came to the brink. We did is for them to go through the regular order process and just to vote to increase the debt limit or to allow Democrats to just do it themselves. That's the fastest way, the easiest way to do it. And ultimately, we need the majority of Democrats to support that. And they don't always support every other option that you just outlined. So that's our challenge. I get it. Message delivered. That's our challenge that we're trying to work through. Right. Yeah. Look, ultimately, you know, there's there's something you guys already know and you've talked about probably in the past is that

sometimes people make it sound like Senator McConnell is some sort of three-dimensional chess player, right, who is just, you know, conveying, playing this game that none of us can play. I mean, ultimately, the debt limit was raised through regular order and Republicans voted, you know, allowed it to move forward and they're allowed to have a vote. That's really what we need to do. The problem with, and there's been a lot of talk about a separate reconciliation process on this, is that that's never been done before. It takes time. And when we're talking about trying to get the rest of the agenda passed, climate, childcare, all these things, you don't want to take up weeks of time on the floor doing that because we need to get the other stuff done. So when this process was coming to a head a few weeks ago, one of the ideas that was raised was an exception to the filibuster for the debt limit. President Biden called that a real possibility. That is, to my knowledge at least, the first time he has publicly been open to some sort of filibuster reform.

Does he have that openness to other areas, most notably voting rights, something that he has said is absolutely essential getting done, but has no realistic chance of getting done in a world where the filibuster exists? Well, I mean, first you need 50 votes in the Senate to change the filibuster. And what we know from that period of time is that there were not 50 votes in the Senate to have an exemption on the filibuster for raising the debt limit. That remains the case today. I think there's no question that voting rights, getting voting rights done, has to happen. There's no other option. We need to do this. It is one of the greatest threats to our democracy. It is, so that's something the president believes, the vice president believes, we have to get it done. But when we talk about the filibuster and how it works, it is not the president just saying I'm for changes. He is for going back and just abiding by it. So that's just something for people to be aware of. But I can assure you and all the people who

loyally listen that voting rights is something we have to do, we're going to do. And some of this is a necessary sequencing of getting different pieces of a legislative agenda done. Not because one's more important, just because it's how to process it to get them all done. We can love democracy and the climate at the same time. That is fair. We love the climate. We love democracy. We love pre-K. We love kids in pre-K. We love them too. We love clean drinking water. We love broadband. We love all the things. So Jen, President ran on a unity message. He talked about working with Republicans, has had actually a lot more success doing that in the first nine months of his presidency than I think he gets a lot of credit for. But sort of below the surface,

there's something very different and dangerous happening with Republicans. You have a pretty open plan to try to steal the 2024 election from him. You have Republicans trying to turn the January 6th insurrectionists into martyrs. And then in Virginia, last night, there was a very disturbing incident at a rally for Glenn Youngkin. Do we have the clip here? I also want to invite Kim from Chesapeake. invite Kim from Chesapeake. She's carrying an American flag that was carried at the peaceful rally with Donald J. Trump on January 6th. I ask you all, I ask you all to rise and join us as Mark Lloyd leads us in the pledge. Cool. Really cool. And so I know, Jen, I know the president has talked a lot about the challenges of our democracy. I'm just curious sort of what his reaction is to some of these things that are happening

out there that are threats to the democracy and whether, you know, we're going to sort of that's something you expect to have him talk about more, obviously, as you get through the many sugar, honey, iced tea sandwiches on the current menu. But that's for my mother-in-law. It's very good. sugar, honey, iced tea sandwiches on the current menu, but. That's for my mother-in-law. It's very good. We're bringing it to the Pfeiffer household right now. Bring it, bring it, bring it. It's lengthy, but you can feel free to steal it. Yes. I mean, look, I think one thing, yes, people will hear the president talk about this more. And I think just because we have a lot going on in the agenda right now that's consuming a lot of the oxygen, it shouldn't lessen anyone's understanding

of the focus on some of these key pieces. I mean, look at the January 6th commission and the work that they're doing. And as we've approached that, not only has the president spoken out about how this was the darkest day in democracy, but as we've considered, and we'll consider them case by case, we have not granted executive privilege to the request from the Trump administration on documents or on individuals to date. We'll keep considering because we need to get to the bottom of what happened that day

and we can't stand for it. I mean, the Virginia race is really, I mean, I'm a Virginia resident, so this is like a little close to home here. It's a little scary. As a progressive woman in the suburbs, we need to pay attention to what's going on here because this could really change things for us. And, you know, I think what is happening a little bit, or this is, I guess, my assessment is we're kind of normalizing people who are not Trump, but are Republicans as if they're fine. And, and some we

can work with on certain things that is part of the unifying message. There are roads are not a partisan issue, right? Even child universal childcare is not a partisan issue, clean drinking water. But ultimately, when you have people who are denying climate change exists, not allowing women to make choices about their own healthcare, that's not moderate. That is not normal. And that should not be normalized. And so some of it, I think, is needing to identify, needing to make clear that being unified does not mean every Republican in Congress is agreeing with us on everything. They're not. There are going to be things we can work with some Republicans on to move them forward. And by necessity, we have to do that to get some things passed.

But it also means calling out when things are are not mainstream, are not even moderate and are not and shouldn't be considered that way. And there's a lot of things that fall into that category that kind of wash through and they really shouldn't. Is the president going to go back to Virginia to campaign with Terry McAuliffe again before the race? I suspect he will. All right. Yeah. I was just wondering, has working in the White House started to feel a little more normal than when you guys first got there or has Delta kept it pretty weird? It's still a little weird. I mean, because we do all of our, not all, but we still do a lot of meetings in our offices on Zoom. And so what's missing, which is just sad,

is that moment where you're in a meeting and there's 40 people in there and you say, oh, look, there's the science advisor. I'm going to go ask him about Mars. I don't know. I mean, you know, there's all these experts in here and you just run into them in meetings and sometimes you didn't even realize you had a follow-up question and that doesn't exist. And so I have a bit of a sadness for this amazing group of people who work as a part of the press team who haven't experienced that, right? Where you're just in and out of these meetings and you look over and you're

like, wow, there's a world renowned economist. I mean, we're all nerdy here. Right. So we all think this is cool. You know, that's a cool thing. Right. It's cool. There's Gina, there's Gina McCarthy, you know, there's Susan Rice and that doesn't exist as much. And so, you know, and I think that's part of the white house experience. So a lot of people, I mean, you guys know this because you've been in here, you know, and I think that's part of the White House experience. So a lot of people, I mean, you guys know this because you've been in here, you know, I wouldn't be able to do my job if I didn't have the team that works for me. Right. And they, they are embedded with these policy folks, but they don't get to experience things in the same way. There's no South Lawn events. There's

no events in the East room the same way. Now the side benefit, there is one benefit is I hate heels. I like really hate shoes. And I was telling you guys when I came on, I wear sneakers basically all day under my desk. And I got up to go check on something like, you know, somebody else's office. And I was wearing a black shoe and a cream and a cream colored shoe and the Kenya delegation is here. And they kind of looked at me oddly. It kind of looked at me oddly. So there are things like, you know, you can get some things done while you're in your office, but there is an element of it that's missing that makes me a little sad for the people who haven't experienced working here before. Yeah, not sitting at my desk all day in a tie every single moment would be kind of sad. That was the only upside to the various government shutouts. You could wear sneakers in this way.

Oh, still, there you go, Joe Biden. That's change you can believe in. All right, Jen, I did something that I didn't even do when I worked in the White House, which was in preparation for this interview, I watched the briefing yesterday. So I just have a very... So many supply chain questions. I felt so bad for you. I was like, leave her alone.

Enough of the supply chain questions. She answered it. You're not going to like this question, John, because Jen... Important issue. Important issue. I'm deeply intrigued. Dan knows. I was going to say, as our friend and a high government official, I need to know whether

you can personally guarantee that my children's Christmas presents will arrive on time. Look, can you do that? I'm going to give you a little preview of how I'm going to approach this in the briefing, which I have not yet done. And I will inevitably to approach this in the briefing, which I have not yet done. And I will inevitably be asked this question. Dan, can you point out to me a past president who has ever guaranteed the timing of packages arriving at people's homes? Chester A. Arthur.

Right. Even the Biden-Harris administration cannot guarantee the arrival of the timing of packages um yeah look look this is actually i mean all joking aside uh it's actually a hugely important issue it is an example of how we sometimes dumb things down not you guys thank thank you for what you're doing and i try not to, but of what's happening for the American people, right? This is not an issue of like Joe Biden ruins packages that won't arrive at your home. I mean, this is crazy. This is an issue of the fact that demand for goods is way up. It has been through the pandemic. And when we were in the pandemic, manufacturing facilities shut down because of the pandemic. They weren't producing as much supply.

And these goods that are going to ports around the country, including the ports of Los Angeles, they never got they never had this many goods coming through them. It's up massively, almost 20 percent. And so we have to try to fix it. That's what we're trying to do in government. Right. It's not but it's not, you know, it's been kind of shorthanded into we're ruining Christmas, which is why you asked me. We're not. You may be too gracious to point this out in the briefing room, but last year during Christmas when someone else was president, there were a few delayed packages. Just a few. If I recall.

Just a few. Yes, that is certainly the case. Jen, I'm sure after a decade you are sick of having me offer you ideas, but one possible answer to that question is Santa is magic. Right. Or, or as the onion did yesterday, I'm, we're going to educate people on the true meaning of this, which we could also do. Last question. Do you still plan to leave next year or could they convince you to stay? Well, since my husband is a listener of Pods of America

and I'm not sure my children are yet, you know, look, I think when I came into this job, I knew I would be here for not an unlimited period of time. So sometime next year, it'll probably be time for a new person, a new face. That is not because I don't love government.

I do. I don't love doing this job. This job is amazing. It's an honor to do it every single day, even when there's questions about the dog in the briefing room or whatever crazy thing comes out of nowhere. I love working for Joe Biden.

And actually at this time in history um post uh trump but you know as you guys well know i have two little kids um they're very tiring as i can confirm from you know i think i built like a small rocket ship this morning and colored before i came to work um wow and well you know that sounds very dramatic but you know those little kits that they sent you so um and you know it just, it's also sometimes it's time for, for, for, for kind of new, new fresh face perspective and all of that as well. So sometime next year, I don't know exactly when yet, but I'll be there till here till then.

Greg, I hope that was a satisfactory. I know it's really careful. I have an audience, as some have once said, that's an audience of one for that answer. Jen, Saki, thank you so much for joining us. As always, good luck out there in the briefing room and come back again. Bye, buddy. Thank you, guys. Great talking to you. Bye. All right. You know how much I dislike extremely online debates, but I am making an exception for one that Ezra Klein kicked off this week about the future of the Democratic Party. Because, Dan, it's a debate that you and I have talked about on the show, a debate that I basically turned into two seasons of the wilderness and one that you wrote about in the message box this week.

I know you've written about it a bunch before as well. At the heart of this debate is a diagnosis and a prescription from Obama 2012 data guru David Shore. as Ezra explains it, is that with each passing election, Democrats are winning more college educated white voters and fewer non-college educated white voters. Then in 2020, Democrats also lost ground among black and Latino voters with the sharpest drops coming among non-college educated black and Latino voters. So this increase in educational polarization disadvantages Democrats, both in the electoral college and especially in the Senate, because college educated voters live mostly in bigger cities and surrounding suburbs, while non-college educated voters are mostly rural. All this means that it will be almost impossible for Democrats to keep winning 51 Senate seats, let alone 60, without winning some Republican-leaning states that have

more non-college-educated voters than college-educated voters. I will stop there just to see if you have anything to add to this diagnosis of the problem, which I will also add that most people on all sides of this debate generally agree with the diagnosis. But what do you think about it? I think that's an excellent and very thorough summary. You had me at an Ezra Klein column about a really democratic online debate. Like that's really our sweet spot. Then I really get you going talking about educational polarization, right? That's right. A bunch of people turned it up in their cars.

But I would encourage people to go to the Ezra Klein column about this that was online this weekend because in it, they have a very interesting little widget, I guess you'd call it, where you can play around with polarization and Democratic popular vote margin to see how Democrats would do in the Senate. And I think there's one prediction that David Shore has in the Ezra Klein column that I think speaks to the tremendous challenge that Democrats have. So 2024, according to his Shore's calculations, if Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee, wins 51% of the popular vote, something that happens not that often, but if he were to do that, Democrats would lose seven Senate seats. progressive majority and a Republican power in the Senate is so great that Joe Biden could get reelected, he could win a majority of voters, he'd get 51%, and we would lose seven Senate seats. And that is a number that would take us potentially decades to get back.

And just to give people an idea why this is happening geographically, think about states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, the Democrats have won forever. They are states that tend to have more non-college educated voters than college educated voters, particularly non-college educated white voters. And they have actually moved in that direction. So as those voters tend to support Republicans more and more over the years, that means Republicans are having an easier time winning those states than they did before. Also, a lot of those states in the Midwest and a lot of rural states are sort of losing population to some states with a lot of bigger cities. But the problem is, as the college educated voters are moving to those states with the bigger cities, those states are already blue.

And so adding a whole bunch more college educated voters, it is we're seeing it's helping in states like Georgia, in states like Arizona, in states like Texas. But there are not enough Georgias, Texases and Arizonas to counter what's going on in the rest of the country. That's basically the heart of the geographic problem the Democrats face. And it's a problem in the electoral college, but it's an even bigger problem in the Senate. And this is, you know, this is aside from the gerrymandering we always talk about that screws up the House. This is like if there were no gerrymandering at all, this would still be a gigantic problem for Democrats. It is. Just to give you an example of how anti-democratic institution the Senate is, it is now, right

now, technically possible for 18% of the U.S. population to represent a Senate majority. Yeah. Not good. Not good. Not good. So that's Shor's diagnosis. His prescription is where things get controversial, even though it sounds pretty simple. To win back non-college educated voters of all races, Democrats should talk a lot more

about popular stuff and talk a lot less about unpopular stuff. Sounds easy. It's become known as popularism. And the basic reason it's controversial, though, is that the policies that tend to poll well are economically populist in nature, like letting Medicare negotiate for lower prescription drug costs or taxing the richest 1%. The policies that tend to poll poorly, especially among non-college educated voters, are often around the issues of race and immigration, like defunding the police or abolishing ICE. To add fuel to the fire, Schor also believes that a big part of the problem is that the Democratic Party is largely run by young, progressive, highly educated, very online activists and donors who don't have any connection to the less educated voters of all races that Democrats need to win. races that Democrats need to win. As you might imagine, there were quite a few dissenting views here, including from good friends of the pod, Anat Shankar Osorio and Carlos Odio. There was also a great rebuttal from Jamel Bowie of the New York Times. Dan, do you want to summarize some of the dissenting views here? Yes, I think they all center around the feasibility of this strategy.

So point one that Anant Shankarasuri has made many times, including on this podcast, is voters do not hear what Democrats say in a vacuum, right? It is influenced by all the conversation around them, how the news media covers it, what they see on Facebook, what Republicans say. And so if you were to just say, we are going to raise the salience of popular things and reduce the salience of unpopular things, Democrats simply just talking about popular things isn't going to solve that problem or even go pretty far solving it. The second point is one that Ian Haney Lopez, who worked with and Heather McGee on the race class

narrative, has made, which is we are probably past the point where it is even possible in American politics to, even if you were to agree with David that it would be in Democrats' interest to talk less about race and immigration, to have them be less prominent in voters' minds when they're making decisions, we're probably well past that, right? It is for – Republicans have a – it's really a life or death issue for them as to whether they like politically is to keep that front of mind. So that's going to happen. Think of all the things that have happened in recent years, everything that happened last year, Black Lives Matter, Ferguson, the raising of immigration, Congress's failure to do anything about immigration for all this time, the challenges at the border, everything, it's always going to be present.

So you can't ignore it. You're going to have to figure out how to address it. And then there's another point that, or I'd say two other points that people made. One is there's sort of a test case here, which is Joe Biden has overwhelmingly done really popular things. He passed really popular legislation, incredibly popular. He is working to pass even more popular legislation, and his approval rating is underwater. So either people are not hearing about the popular things he's doing, or they are not influenced by them. And that is something that I think everyone who's on the popular side really has to reckon with. And the other one is something that a really smart political operative

mentioned to you and I the other day, which is is how do you know what's going to be popular? The Obama – the auto bailout is the example everyone uses. It was the – we're going to talk about the 2012 campaign, but that was sort of the tip of the spear in that campaign. And when Obama did it, it was incredibly unpopular. It turned out to be popular, right? Yeah. So it's pretty hard to reverse engineer your governing strategy or policy agenda from what's going to be popular the next time you run. So you wrote about this in the message box, uh, this week, what's your view on, um, a

good prescription here? This is a really hard, uh, it's a really, it is a really hard issue, but I would just start out by saying i do agree that talking about popular things is better than talking about unpopular things what yeah you know look if any of you out there are thinking of opening a restaurant my recommendation would be serve good food not bad food yeah that there you go yeah there you go here here at crooked media we like to make good content not bad content yeah I mean like just if you just did that

Elijah sometimes believes that bad content gets just as much engagement right so maybe maybe there's a a wrinkle to that but generally

we believe good content is better than bad content yes liberal Benny Johnson over here you guys got working for you poor Elijah's gonna have a vacation

he's gonna hear that well he also doesn't listen to the podcast so it's gonna be weeks before someone tells him about this. Anywho, but I think the debate misses a much bigger problem that Anat really hit at in this article and in sort of my summary of what I think she believes is. in our time in politics, I would say 90% of the time, energy, intellectual capital, and money on messaging has been spent on figuring out what Democrats should say, right? What's our version of make America great again? What should the bumper sticker say? What's our

slogan? What's our narrative? And 10% was spent on figuring out how to get people to hear what we're saying. And that was true in the year 2000. That was true 2004, 2008, and it is still true now. And the problem is, no one is hearing what we're saying. Our message is getting drowned out by a massive right-wing media infrastructure that is sort of embodied by Fox and powered by Facebook. And if we don't solve that problem or focus on that problem, whether we're talking about popular things or unpopular things, we're still going to live in a world where Republicans define the political conversation. So we're constantly going to be responding to them because we as a party, there are some changes and some exceptions and Crooked Media obviously is at the forefront of that. But for the most part, Democrats still depend on the mainstream traditional media to carry their message to voters, who then take

that message and filter it through their own biases, their own interests. And that is a absolutely doomed to fail strategy. And I think all the energy focused on populism, which is just that online debate can continue to happen. And it's a proxy for a much bigger and important conversation. But we have to focus on how we solve our messaging distribution problem. And I will say that Democrats right now, or at least Democratic strategists, usually turn to advertising as the way to solve this problem. Now, I think that's a problem because I think in a fractured media environment where we're just like battered with all kinds of content all the time ads tend to fade into the background a little bit more they tend to just be noise they tend to not be authentic most of them haven't been updated in decades I mean you talk about

this all the time on campaign experts react but like advertising is not the answer I continue to think about the conversation I had with Stephanie Valencia at Equis Research, former colleague of ours who talks a lot about figuring out how to reach the Latino community. something like 13 million dollars worth of ads republicans uh bought our radio station for 350 thousand dollars and they had some uh conservative radio down in south florida that did a lot more for them people listening to an actual radio show than just a bunch of ads that sound like noise and for some reason we can't get fucking progressive uh donors the the real rich ones the grassroots donors to understand that their money would be better spent building out a progressive media infrastructure than it would be to just dump more money into consultants who are running ads. Do you know where that money went? To Ozzy.

I'm not even joking about that. I'm not even joking about that. That's exactly the problem is wealthy progressives who have an interest in media want to invest in traditional media properties. They want to buy The Atlantic or Time Magazine or create some fake pyramid scream Aussie thing. Instead of, I have these policy beliefs. How do we get those policy beliefs turned into actual policy? And part of that is stop, is helping Democrats to stop getting their ass kicked in the information war. One more thing I want to hit on, you know, Shore talks a lot about the Obama 2012 campaign as a model for what Democrats need to do since Obama in that campaign ran up huge margins with black and Latino voters and won a hell of a lot more non-college educated white voters than either Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden.

What do you think about that? I mean, like the 2012 campaign is something that you and I have argued should be the model for lots of things. It was that's the coalition that Obama won with. It's the coalition that Democrats need to reconstitute in order to have a chance at having the Senate majority for longer than the next year to having a electoral college coalition that's more in accordance with the size of our majority. That is what you need. That's not what the math demands if you want to keep winning Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. Let's not forget, Obama won Iowa and Ohio in that election, right? And almost won North Carolina. It came about as close as Hillary and Joe Biden did. And won Florida. Can't forget that. He won Florida. And so when you can win, if you can make

Ohio, Iowa, Florida competitive along with the states that Joe Biden made competitive, then you have a lot of paths to 270 and you're not living in a world where you're just like 10,000 votes away from Donald Trump stealing the presidency again. The problem with that as an example is twofold. And I'm very curious to hear your take on how the messaging of that campaign would apply now. But it's just a very – it was operating in a very different media environment. The mainstream media was stronger. Facebook was weaker. Fox was evil but less evil. There was no OAN.

Breitbart barely existed. It was just very – we were on par messaging and ads mattered more. And so you had greater control of your narrative. The other thing is there's just a lot that's happened since then. And so the big thing is Shor narrative. The other thing is, is just a lot's happened since then. And so, you know, the big thing is, Shor's point, a lot of people said is that campaign was all about the economy. That wasn't a situation where we wanted to talk about the economy and Romney wanted to talk about cancel culture or immigration or anything like that. Everyone wanted to talk about the economy. So that's a much easier thing. And like, you know, like I said earlier, I don't, I think I think a lot – so much happens then that it just seems impossible that you're going to have a situation where the Democrat and the Republican are both going to want to run a campaign on the economy.

2020 was the opponent. And this goes to a nuts point, right? No matter what you say, your opponent has a say too. The other party has a say in what gets talked about on a campaign, no matter how disciplined your message is. And Barack Obama had an opponent in Mitt Romney who wanted to basically play on our field, right? Like wanted to talk about the economy, even though it wasn't, he thought it was a strength for him. It was not. It could have been. I mean, unemployment was 8% or something or 7%. But I also always remember, you know, Stuart Stevens, who was Romney's chief strategist, said this after the campaign, that he really blanched when Romney started hitting the Benghazi stuff hard because, you know, he thought it was it was bad. But clearly in some polling and, you know, it was basically a it was a foreshadowing of the type of attack that Donald Trump and the Republican Party of today would run like on a daily basis. about culture wars, make it about identity, make it about something that's not just economic policy, because Democrats tend to hold more popular positions on economic policy than Republicans.

And so I do think we benefited a lot from Romney being our opponent. I don't know how Obama Trump would have gone in 2012. I think the other points you mentioned about how things have changed since then and how the media environment in particular has changed since then and demographics – demographically the country has changed since then all probably play a role in what would have been different. But I do think the opponent mattered a lot. But I think there's a couple of things about that race that are I think really worth like honing in on that I think are instructive going forward, which is on the surface, that was a debate about economic policy. Trickle down versus middle out, tax cuts for corporations and the rich versus investing in the middle class and the working class. But that's not really what it was.

It was about identity. Yeah. The great success of that campaign was it turned the economy into an identity appeal, which is, I, Barack Obama, and even to you, your voters with less than ideal racial views living in rural areas, even though I am Barack Hussein Obama from Indonesia and Hawaii and Harvard and everything else, I understand you. I'm the son of a single mother who was on government assistance. Michelle and I just paid off our student loans a while ago. And I am on your side. And you see that guy over there, the one with the car elevator who made millions of dollars selling companies and firing you and your family? I'm on your side.

And he's there to fight for them. And that appeal was incredibly important, especially in the context of the recession, which is Mitt Romney, he's with the guys who fucked up the economy and then got rich on the solution while you all got left behind. And what Democrats, those cults, all politics is identity politics, right? Policy-based appeals. Especially today. Yeah.

Do you know? Always have been, I think. Always, always have been. It's just we funneled that terminology into race and gender and sexuality, but that's not really what it is. Right. Uh, it is, we're just getting this like basically an Ezra Klein podcast, but in Ezra Klein's book, why we're polarized, he talks about how the, remember those Buzzfeed quizzes that are like 37 ways you're from Ohio or 37 ways you went to high school in the mid nineties. Those were the most popular things on the internet because we are looking for where we fit in this very crazy world.

And politics is that it's not just where you're from or who you are or the color of your skin or anything else. Identity-based appeals matter and are important. And just think about, and this goes to the popular versus unpopular sort of thing, is if the Republicans are making a cultural grievance identity appeal and we're making a policy-based appeal, we're going to lose. The Republicans are saying, you see those people over there, immigrants, elitist, people in Washington, Hollywood types, gay people, trans people, they are changing America. And that change is going to hurt you. And we're going to save your way of life. And Democrats are like, we're going to mail you a $300 check once a month. You in?

Well, and you know, this is why in the Biden campaign, you saw them do this in the debate. the Biden campaign, you saw them do this in the debate. They revived it recently that the fight over build back better. And a lot of these proposals is Scranton versus Park Ave, right? This is this, it was more of an identity based appeal that Joe Biden is the working class guy from Scranton and Donald Trump is the rich asshole from Park Avenue. Trump over the years successfully, asshole from Park Avenue. Trump over the years successfully, even though he's a rich asshole, made himself seem like some fucking working class populist, which was quite a feat. But you saw Biden's attempt to do that was trying to change that and to have an identity based appeal that wasn't just about economic policy. I think there was something else to Obama in 2012 that Ezra and I were tweeting about about this. And, you know, Ezra was tweeting, I think the truly underplayed part of Obama's politics is his level of rhetorical patriotism and his genius at wrapping his candidacy in a highly pro-American story. I think that more than moderation is what liberals and leftists underestimate in his success.

I completely agree with this as someone who helped him write a lot of these speeches. I thought his rhetorical patriotism was also about was also more honest about America's faults than a lot of politicians are, which is why it worked for both folks on the left and folks in the center and center right, maybe. And then, you know, as we pointed out, that the right correctly understood that Obama was doing something very dangerous for them, constructing a patriotic story identity in which the real Americans are the ones who recognize and work to overcome our flaws. That is what I have been looking for in Democratic candidates since then, is who can tell that kind of story. I think that with his message about the soul of America being at stake, like Biden did get close to that. I also think for Obama, that message was wrapped up in his identity as a biracial guy with the middle name Hussein,

who came from the south side of Chicago, but, you know, grew up for a time in Indonesia and then Hawaii and had a foot in many different worlds, his identity and the story he told at the 2004 convention about himself and his family were part of his message and part of his appeal. And I say that because, and I saw Amanda Lippman made this point during this debate, is that you cannot always separate message from the messenger. In fact, you can never separate it, right? You can't. No, you can't. Yeah, you can't separate the message from the messenger. In fact, you can never separate it, right? You can't. No,

you can't. Yeah, you can't separate the message from the messenger. And that part of the story you tell and the identity you convey has to do with who you are, not just what you say. And that's something that we need to keep in mind with candidates as well. I do think in terms of like other things that strategists and organizers can take away from this debate? Do you have any other last takeaways for folks? Just I think we have to think about, we have to understand why the Republican message has been so powerful in this media environment and understand all of the incentives that ensure that identity-based cultural appeals travel so far in this media environment and think about how we take our message and our agenda and package it in ways that can actually move in this media environment. Because we should, you know, your point about ads is really important. Like ads certainly matter. We need to spend more money as a party and more

creative ways to get our message in front of voters. But Donald Trump almost won in the middle of a pandemic that he had absolutely screwed up against a great candidate running a better campaign. And Joe Biden had tons more money. That's because Republicans dominated the organic media space, right? The quote unquote earned media space. And we're going to have to figure out to make our message travel that way because our policy based message ain't breaking through. Like we've seen in the polls that show the only thing people know about Biden's agenda is the price tag. And that's suboptimal. And I will say that, you know, even though I used to write speeches for a living, I'm not someone who thinks that like a good message

can fix everything. But one of the only things a campaign can control is what they say, what the candidate says, what the field organizers say, what the volunteers say, what the ads say. Like you can't control what your opponent says. You can't control what the activists in your party are saying. You can't control what the press is saying. You can only control what you say. And I do think that's why it's really important to come up with a message that's appealing. I also think, look, the idea that we can afford to keep losing non-college educated voters of all races because there's some bigger pool of college educated voters just waiting for us to knock on their doors is a fallacy. And I do think that like sometimes and by the way, that is back to the diagnosis that the diagnosis part most people agree with. is back to the diagnosis that the diagnosis part most people agree with. And I do think sometimes we lull ourselves into a complacency that like, oh, there are a whole bunch of progressives who

think just like us out there and they're just not voting that often. And if we just go knock on their door and tell them our message, they're going to come vote. Because the truth is like even mobilizing younger, more diverse people who don't usually vote requires them, requires persuading them to understand that casting a ballot is worth it. And that takes work. And I don't usually vote requires persuading them to understand that casting a ballot is worth it. And that takes work. And I don't think that we do the work of persuasion well enough. Like Anat has said this on our pod, she said this many times, the job of a good message isn't to say what's popular, but to make popular what needs to be said. And I don't think that we've thought enough about the work of making popular what needs to be said

because I think we are in a lot of Twitter echo chambers and sometimes we just say what we believe and say what we think is right and it is the right thing to believe but we have to figure out how to say it in a way that is appealing to the most voters possible. And Ian Haney Lopez had a great point on this as he was writing about this. Again, Ian Haney Lopez worked with Anat, worked with Heather McGee, all of them on the race class narrative that we've talked about a lot on this pod, a lot on the wilderness. He said, or he wrote, democratic messages alienate voters when they are predicated on a sense of identity that voters do not share. For instance, defund the police and abolish ICE are deeply connected to a story of the police and ICE as white supremacist institutions that oppress communities of color. In turn,

this story depicts the country as locked into a historic conflict between white people and people of color. It thus asks white voters to see themselves as members of an oppressive group they must help to disempower, and it asks voters of color to see themselves as members of an oppressive group they must help to disempower and it asks voters of color to see themselves as members of widely hated groups that they must rally to defend this framing is acceptable to many who are college educated white and of color alike but not to majorities of voters and that's a problem you know and i don't think and i don't know that we have taken that problem seriously enough. And that is not to say that we should not be talking about police reform and reform of ICE and reform of our immigration system, which I think is Shor's point. And I don't think it's it's it's not Heather's and Anat's and Ian's. It's not our point. Like, I think we need to figure out how to talk about them better, right? Yeah, I think that's right. There are a couple other things that I think are, I've sort of thought of as we've been really pouring through the immense literature on the popularism debate, which I commit. We're just doing the third season of The Wilderness now.

Well, you know, it's like, this is the quippy version of The Wilderness. So, but I, RIP. It's funny because I feel like we also have to apologize to Tommy since on Sunday morning, uh, Tommy texted that he was so sick of the data nerd fights. I was like, I'm going to be so pissed about that.

He's skipping right through this section. I had to tell him that was 1500 words into a 3000 word essay on it. But anywho, I think there were two things that I think we can, that would help us as a party sort of address the things that everyone has brought up. One is the language we use and how we talk about our strategies is we should use persuade for every conversation with a voter. We have persuasion universe and GOTV universe, get out the vote universe. And that is a really bad way of thinking about it. It's a poor understanding of how voters actually think.

And it seems like a small thing to use the word persuade, but it actually, I think, affects how we think about the messaging, right? GOTV is, the election's on this day. You can go vote here. And persuade is raising the stakes of it, right? And I think the Biden campaign did a lot of really smart things on this, as I understand it. But as a party, I should think about that. The other thing that's in the Ian Haney Lopez media post, which I highly recommend to everyone, is he uses the term conflicted voter instead of swing voter or moderate voter.

voters have very orthodox, liberal views on economic issues, $15 minimum wage, universal health care, protect Social Security and Medicare. These are the ones who are agreeing in all these polls with the Build Back Better agenda. But they have conservative views on race, culture, religion, immigration. And so they're pulled constantly in different directions. And we have to think of them that way, as opposed to just a bunch bunch of Joe mansions in exurban Milwaukee, right? And I think thinking about it in that way and how you appeal to them and how do you get to this side of the conflict as opposed to that side of the conflict is really important. Well, and where the race class narrative came from is that Haney and McGee and Anat and all those folks who've worked on it say that like the way to avoid having the debate be framed as white voters versus non-white voters which does not help

democrats win is to basically shift it so you say you you make the argument that a powerful few are using racism and xenophobia and misogynism to pit all of us against each other, to pit white and black and brown and men. That is the message that they suggest, which is to not avoid talking about race, to not avoid talking about immigration, but talk about these attacks as tools of Republicans to divide us against each other so that they can profit at the expense of the rest of us. And that, that to me, I found that more persuasive in a very difficult debate than just about anything else that I've read in terms of message. And I don't think that's like, I don't think it's a silver bullet and there's like research on it both ways, but I do think

that's, you know, that's the most think that's the most I've been persuaded. Okay, before we go, we wanted to talk about the recent Reuters investigation that revealed Donald Trump's favorite propaganda network, One America News, has been funded by none other than AT&T. The reporting is based in part on sworn testimony from OAN founder and CEO Robert Herring, who told the court that AT&T executives actually came up with the idea for OAN. Quote, from his sworn testimony, they told us they wanted a conservative network. They only had one, which was Fox News, and they had seven others on the other side. When they said that, I jumped to it and built one. Thank you, AT&T.

OAN hasn't just been promoted by Trump. 500,000 people downloaded the news site to their phones after the January 6th insurrection, where pictures show one rioter carrying an OAN flag. Here's a clip of some of what you can hear if you tune into OAN. If gender is destroyed, doesn't that destroy traditional gender roles? And if gender roles are destroyed, doesn't that destroy gendered relationships? And if gendered relationships are destroyed, doesn't that destroy traditional marriage? And if traditional marriage is destroyed, doesn't that destroy the family unit? And if people aren't dependent on their families, then who do they depend on? That's right,

the government, which is the goal of liberals in the first place don't let transgender penguins fool you didn't expect that at the end that is quite the twist yes what a payoff what a payoff you go through that whole thing you're like oh it's typical right-wing bullshit where's that boom transgendered penguins gotcha so good so first of all fuck at&t especially like the the conversation we just had about the need for progressive media institutions and we have the fucking one of the largest telecom companies in the world funding a pro-fucking insurrection right-wing network and what's even more frustrating to me than that is the reason why they did it which is just yet another piece of evidence that the republicans have so overwhelmingly won the war on media that

when the head of at&t or the folks at at&t tell robert harry and they have seven networks on their side are they talking about the crooked media channel on AT&T? No, they're talking about CNN, right? They have convinced the world and a lot of social media beliefs, which is they are inherently liberal. And the only way to have balance is to add a right-wing propaganda network. So for every CNN, you need an OAN. For the- I guarantee you that the people that run AT&T also believe that when they bought Warner, that HBO was part of that too. Yeah. Oh, being the host of the –

And you know what? And by the way, good for John Oliver who works for a show at HBO for like tearing into AT&T over this on this week's show who were his corporate bosses. Well, were. Yeah, right. Were. That's right. Yeah. But so it is like – it's insane. on this week's show who were his corporate bosses well were yeah right worth that's yeah yeah but so it is like it's insane it's the same reason why the sunday show panels often have a democrat or a reporter from like the new york times and two republicans because even they like these are people in media who believe are so in their own head about their quote unquote liberal bias that they have to put two Republicans on to balance out. You know, Peter Baker is one instance. So since our listeners might not be familiar with everything that's going on over there at OAN,

we thought we'd play a little game where I read three statements about the network. And Dan, you tell me which one is actually not true. The game is called, of course, Two Truths and a Big Lie. Can I tell you that we play this game, not the OAN version, but the actual version at the dinner table many nights in our house? Oh, wow. Yeah, we used to play I Spy, then we added this wrinkle. I wasn't sure that a game that rewarded dishonesty was a good thing to bring to the dinner table, but...

Yeah, how did Kyla do? She's really, she's alarmingly good at it. Uh-oh. Yes, we're going to regret it when she's like 14, for sure. All right, first round. One, Rudy Giuliani claimed in a deposition that OAN reporter Christina Bob would run her articles past the Trump campaign while volunteering on Trump's legal team. Two, OAN host Dan Ball did an entire segment about the COVID vaccine making your arm magnetic,

including an interview with someone who now claims to be magnetic and have a metal taste in her mouth. Three, OAN host Dan Ball did a segment where he pretended to sleep on a MyPillow pillow while sleep talking about how the 2020 election was rigged. Let me think. This is really hard to figure out i'm really trying to use some some it's time for some game theory here um the pillow thing seems too ridiculous to be true which means it probably is so i'm gonna go with the magnetic metallic mouth thing incorrect it was the pillow it was gone with your gut on that man god travis never would have written I'm going to go with the magnetic metallic mouth thing. Incorrect.

It was the pillow. It was gone with your gut on that, man. God, Travis never would have written the game like that. Believe it or not, the magnetic thing. Very true. That happened. Second round. Number one OAN reporter Chanel Rion pushed a conspiracy that COVID was developed in a lab in North Carolina and was a plot by the deep state to destroy the Trump economy.

Homegrown in North Carolina, who knew? Number two, OAN reporter Christina Bobb sold, quote, facial diapers before they cut his mic. The facial diaper thing has to be true. I think it's the Sleepy Joe sleeping supplements is my guess. You are correct. You are correct. Facial diapers is way too crazy to make up. But I will be saying that from now on.

I will be calling them facial diapers. Final round. Number one, OAN ran a segment last month that ended with a guest alleging that Democrats, George Soros, Barack Obama, and the Chinese Communist Party are planning a civil war, saying, quote, I promise you it's coming. We've got to fight if we're going to survive. That last part, not as funny as the first part. Number two, OAN reporter Dan Ball praised Nicki Minaj for not trying to please Democrats, saying she refuses to act like a, quote, house N-word.

Only he actually said the N-word. OAN reporter, number three, OAN reporter Christina Bob said in a segment that Donda is Kanye's greatest album. Huh. Bob said in a segment that Donda is Kanye's greatest album. This is a very hip hop centric set of questions here. I'm going to say this is a trick question and they're all true. No, no. The number three was not true. She did not say that Donda is Kanye's greatest album.

That's just you and Tommy who believe that. That is not my position. i have been distorted by you i think we both said it was better than we thought it was going to be you know i have i have only listened to your spotify list that is just the tracks that you thought were good because he just did so much on that album there's just too many fucking tracks it was very self-indulgent. Yeah, no one... Kanye West, get out of here. No one has time for the whole thing. I know, what a surprise.

I thought the Donda thing might be true because it's his first real post-MAGA moment album. So I thought maybe there was a chance. Of course, they want to own that, right? MAGA Nation would rally to support Kanye West. That's what I thought might be a possibility. But in reality, I was wrong.

They probably have not listened to Donda. I'm sure. All right. Well, look, you, you got one out of three, so that's not bad.

You know what? You're not an OAN fan. What can we say? I have to watch more OAN. Let's spin it positively. Yes. That's all we have for today. Thanks to our pal, Jen Psaki,

for joining us. And everyone, have a great weekend and don't watch OAN. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.

Our senior producer is Flavia Casas. Our producer is Haley Muse. And Olivia Martinez is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin

is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Brian Semmel, Caroline Reston, Madison Hallman, and Justine Howe

for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos at youtube.com

slash crookedmedia.