Pod Save America - "We always loved Joe Manchin!"

Episode Date: July 28, 2022

Democrats find a reason to believe again after Joe Manchin announces a surprise climate and tax deal. Donald Trump returns to DC as his support in the Republican party wanes. And Democratic strategist and author Heather McGhee joins the pod to talk about her new podcast "The Sum of Us" and why we should remain hopeful about the future of America.Sunday marks 100 days out from Election Day which means we have 3 more months to go above and beyond ahead of November. We only need 1,800 more volunteer sign ups this week to hit our goal. Head to votesaveamerica.com/100days to be one of them. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.  

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Tommy Vitor. I am Adisu Demesi. John Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer, they're on vacation this week. So I invited two of the smartest people I know to join me on this episode. Adisu, you are co-hosting. It is so great to see you. And later, Heather McGee is going to join as our special guest. This is an honor. It truly is an honor. You guys have built something special here. I feel like I'm in the presence of greatness. Oh my God. Filling big shoes, all that stuff. I won't guess you guys or John and Dan too much. That is insulting to them. No, I'm just kidding. I'm saying this sincerely, Adiso. I couldn't be more excited to talk with you about Joe Manchin. I can't believe

that was a sincere statement. So listeners, you guys have heard Adiso on the show before. You know him, you love him. He ran Cory Booker's 2020 presidential campaign. He ran Governor Gavin Newsom's 2018 campaign. We're for Clinton, Obama, John Kerry, LeBron James, like all the biggest candidates and organizations. He's a great guy and currently the founding principal of 50 plus one strategy. So we're going to cover a lot today. We're going to start with the news that broke last night that Joe Manchin apparently has

agreed to a deal on legislation that would address climate change, reduce the price of prescription drugs, extend Obamacare subsidies, and reduce the deficit. I'm genuinely still in shock that I said that out loud. I skip breakfast this morning because I'm going to be eating some old takes. Yeah, exactly. Lordy, I hope there are no tapes. Jesus Christ. Because, yeah, it is a, it is a little bit of whiplash. Yeah.

You know, but you know what? That's, that's Capitol Hill for you. That's the sausage making of, of lawmaking sometimes. That's right. That's right.

We're also going to talk about the midterms because they're fast approaching the focus on abortion rights, the controversy over Democrats interfering in these primaries, by the way, listeners, if you want to get involved in the midterms, you want to volunteer, you want to donate, go to votesaveamerica.com slash 100 days, take the pledge. We will make it easy for you to get involved. We're actually seeing really excitingly high levels of signups. We're going to beat our 2018 number by a lot. So that's

cool. Lastly, Adiso and I are going to cover reports that the Justice Department is investigating Trump's actions as part of the January 6th probe and that Pence aides are cooperating in this sort of sense that Trump's standing is waning. And then lastly, in the show, you'll hear Heather. She's the host of a fantastic new podcast called The Sum of Us, which you can find on Spotify. It is great. She wrote a book by the same name. We're going to talk about the pod, political movements, organizing and what she learned. So great stuff. So real quick before

we get to the news, if you love great coffee and you want to get it at a discount and you want to buy coffee that delivers a portion of the proceeds to an amazing organization called Register Her, which helps register women across the country, go to crooked.com slash coffee. You'll get 25% off a subscription today. Also, we have an amazing new podcast out. It's called Another Russia. In 2015, Putin's number one public enemy and relentless critic, Boris Nemtsov, was shot and killed in front of the Kremlin. In Another Russia, you will hear from his daughter, journalist Zhanna Nemtsova, and

co-host Ben Rhodes. I know that guy. You will hear them tell Boris Nemtsov's story and answer the question or explore the question, is Another Russia possible? Has another outcome been possible? You will hear them tell Boris Nemtsov's story and answer the question or explore the question, is another Russia possible? Has another outcome been possible? Listen to new episodes of Another Russia each Monday, wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Adisu.

Again, whoever thought we'd get this fired up about the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. There we go. But don't let that fire it. Let's go, baby. Don't let that name fool you. It does a lot of good stuff. This is the bill that Schumer and Manchin announced on Wednesday night. So here's the gist of it. Huge investment in climate change spending, $369 billion into energy security, climate provisions. The goal is reducing carbon emissions by an estimated 40% from 2005 levels

by 2030. Medicare will be able to negotiate the cost of certain prescription drugs, which would save the government like $300 billion over a decade. It caps the cost of prescription drugs to $2,000 a year for a lot of seniors, extends Obamacare subsidies, and raises a ton of money by imposing a 15% minimum tax on big corporations, closes the carry interest loophole, and gives the IRS more resources so they can do their job. So I'll stop there. I'm shocked. I'm thrilled. What do you make of this bill? I know last night you were like texting all your climate expert friends and trying to figure this thing out. That's exactly what I was doing.

The deal was announced and suddenly you're like, what's in it it and you get the list and you just read it it took like a minute um which yeah you know is pretty impressive it um look i think first of all i spike no footballs until the president signs it uh i'm sure we'll talk about that right still has to pass the house still has to actually pass the senate um and obviously the president has to sign it but it's historic it actually is historic historic. It's something, you know, the prescription drug pieces of this bill alone is something that Democrats have been fighting for for decades. The, you know, climate provisions have been on again, off again, on again, part of the BBB negotiations and what have you. You know, it's certainly not everything that anybody would have wanted, but that's what

compromise is. Like we said before, but that's what compromise is. Like we said before, that's what legislating is. So I'm just, honestly, I'm still in awe. It's like, I'm a little bit speechless. I'm praying that it's gonna happen. It's a monumental feat. It's a monumental feat to do this with a zero seat majority in the Senate

and a four seat majority in the House if we get it done. But here we are, you know? It took a long time, but here we are. Here we are. I mean, yeah, and look, we will offer all the sufficient caveats later in the show. It is a, a massive lesson in expectations management because, you know, this bill was like 3 trillion, 4 trillion at the beginning, and then that got whittled down and it was, and then we thought it was nothing. And now we're all thrilled again at what seems like we'll get past. But, you know, a lot of people, myself very much included have been trying to figure out what

the hell happened, what changed because the bill, the bill, it's not as expansive as those early sketches of Build Back Better, but it's pretty similar to recent proposals that Manchin had rejected because he said, oh, this will lead to more inflation. So based on some of the reporting we've seen so far, it sounds like this is what changed. A bunch of outlets today say that former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers called Joe Manchin and convinced him that the bill would not lead to inflation. So I guess it's now a liberal hero, liberal icon, Larry Summers. Like, thank you, Larry. Thank you.

Democrats. Sure. Democrats also have to pass a separate bill that's going to ease permitting for pipelines and other energy infrastructure. So that will be, I'm sure, controversial. That will piss off a lot of people. pipelines and other energy infrastructure. So that will be, I'm sure, controversial. That will piss off a lot of people. But the energy experts I see quoted say that short-term pain will be well worth the long-term impact of the climate pieces of the bill. And then finally, Mitch McConnell had threatened to tank something called the CHIPS Act if Democrats passed anything through

reconciliation, which is how this Manchin bill would pass. The CHIPS Act is this massive China competitiveness bill that passed earlier this week. That bill passed yesterday, and then Manchin makes this announcement. So, Adisu, do we think, like, did Schumer and Manchin do something pretty gangster here and bluff Mitch McConnell into letting this thing pass? I am not sitting in rooms on Capitol Hill, so I don't know, but it looks pretty gangster. rooms on Capitol Hill. So I don't know, but it looks pretty gangster. And, you know, the timing is, if nothing else, somewhat coincidental. Let's say that an hour after Chips passes the Senate, I think maybe even less than that, this bill gets announced. But, you know, that's that's Chuck Schumer has taken a lot of shit, I think, for on again, off again, a BBB. President Biden has taken

some of it as well. But this is not a linear process, man. If there's anything I learned in 09 and 10, you were there too during the ACA negotiations and everything else that happened in the first two years of the Obama presidency. This is not linear. This is not something where it's like you start here and you end at point B. It is two steps forward, six steps back, around in a circle, around the corner and back again. And I think you got to give the leader credit and you got to give Manchin credit for even if he had some issues with the way it happened and he got pissed off at various times. And I'm sure that the White House and all of us got pissed off as well, like came back to the table and did it. And that is just the ugly reality of making laws and especially

making laws when you have a zero seat majority in the Senate. That's exactly right. Yeah. A big bill like this is going to die a thousand deaths before it becomes law. Hopefully it becomes law. So yeah, look, hand up. I was wrong about Joe Manchin. I thought he never wanted these climate revisions to pass at all. I mean, to be fair, he kind of said it publicly on many, many occasions, right? He's changed his tune publicly, but some of that is posturing, right? But so you're not sure you have to eat some crow, but it was fairly served at the time, I guess. process. This negotiation benefited one Democrat and one Democrat alone politically, and his name is Joe Manchin. But again, I spent most of Tuesday researching what would happen to the planet if there's drilling in the Congo, what that would do to the climate change. So I'm happy. Thank you, Joe Manchin. Thank you. You're the best senator ever. I love you. I'm grateful to you. Okay. Clip and save that one for a future episode of Potsdam. episode of oh shit so before we get too excited

let's throw some cold water on this whole thing and talk about all the ways that it could unravel so like you just mentioned manchin could change his mind he's done that before um the parliamentarian is back the parliamentarian will need to review the bill make sure a vote gets scheduled make sure that it's kosher through that uh through the that process um and no democrats can die between now and then that's important joking and not joking i mean yeah fair yeah yeah that makes you think doesn't it um kirsten cinema is not a yes yet yes uh and she is the biggest i think question mark still not a huge fan uh so tax measures we don't think don't you think i mean look she's opposed to the carried interest closing the carried interest loophole in the past. That's a pay for that I think would get

the government like $14 billion over the decade. Don't you think she must be just under overwhelming political pressure to support this? I mean, Arizona is not West Virginia, right? Yeah, exactly. And I think the answer is yes. And I think it's one thing when you've got Manchin over here talking about inflation and the spending side and you have Sinema on the other side talking about the revenue side. But when one of those legs of the stool is cut out, suddenly it becomes a little harder to stand on an island. So my guess, and again, just a guess, is that there were conversations before the deal was announced with Senator Sinema's office. is that there were conversations before the deal was announced with Senator Sinema's office, but we'll see, you know, the, the, again, I am not, I'm counting nothing, no chickens, right. And until, until it's public and until the vote is taken all bets are off, but but yeah,

I think she is under a tremendous pressure and, and, you know, she doesn't want to be the 51st vote against this thing. No, no Senator does. It was one thing to be 52. It's another thing to be 51. I mean, I'll never forget my couple of years on Capitol Hill. You would see votes held open for hours and hours and hours because no one wanted to be the final vote passing something controversial or the final vote that killed something controversial. And you're right. Manchin has no longer given her any cover. We also need Democrats in the house to stick together and pass the CHIPS Act, the China competition bill, or things to get a little funky because Pelosi initially was planning to pass it with Democratic and Republican votes. Some liberals don't love the bill. They say it's corporate welfare. And I think there's fair arguments there. But now Kevin McCarthy and the

Republican leadership, they're whipping Republicans to vote against the bill. They are throwing a hissy fit is what they're doing. Okay. So Adisu, imagine you're a moderate Republican. You probably said that this bill is important. You've talked about it, the importance of standing up to China, you're on the record. And then all of a sudden you vote against it because Democrats were mean and they passed a bill that cut prescription drug costs. like that's the fight they want to pick? Yeah, it's totally, it's a tantrum. It really is. It's a tantrum.

It's a political tantrum. And like you said, I think this is one of those rare issues where you can have your cake and eat it too politically, meaning you get the policy. If and when the speaker can hold the caucus together, this thing passes and the president signs it. And you get the politics, which is every Republican voting against something that is good politics, right? The China competitiveness pieces of it are great politics looking ahead to the midterms. So

it is, I don't know if this hissy fit is going to sustain through the vote. Maybe it is, but maybe it's posturing. But yeah, bring it on is what I say. If this is what they want to do, if they want to vote against a China competitiveness bill three months before an election because they're mad about Chuck Schumer outmaneuvering them, like be my guest. Sure, sure. Yeah. Look, I will say something stupid is in the water over there on the Republican side because a bunch of Republicans. It's Donald Trump. That is very true. But a bunch of Republicans just voted against a bill that would help millions of veterans exposed to toxic burn pits while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They just switched their votes. This thing passed 84-14 in June and then 25 Republicans switched their votes to vote against it. It's nuts. So, Adisu, like well before this Manchin News, you and I were talking about how there have been some more hopeful signs out there for Democrats and how we might fare in the midterms. A bunch of polls have found Democrats doing well in the generic congressional ballot. There was a poll this morning, USA Today Suffolk, that has Democrats leading 44-40 on the generic ballot. Democrats are understandably furious and fired up about the Supreme Court overturning Roe versus Wade. Vice President Kamala Harris is out on the road meeting with governors, state legislators, candidates, and pressing the case about Republican extremism. So look, again, we don't do predictions on the show because we suck at it, and we don't want to sound too hopeful, right? Because there's still inflation and GDP came in this morning and shrank in the second quarter. We might be in a recession. But what do you think is happening do you think is happening here? Like, why are these generic numbers going up in your mind? I think, yeah, Democrats are in array for, you know, the first time in a little bit of

a little bit of time, it does feel good. And like you said, whether it's enough to withstand the headwinds that are first presidential midterms is an open question, but I think it's a couple of things. I think some of it is just about candidates, right? We have really good candidates and we are nominating really good candidates across the board. We have strong incumbents in the Senate, at governor's races, secretary of state's races, Whitmer, Warnock. I mean, you name it. Good fits for their state, good fits for their districts, you name it. And on the flip side, Republicans are not everywhere, but generally speaking, nominating their least electable. I think we're going to talk more about this coming up,

but their least electable candidates because they're nominating far right crazy people. And so that is affecting, I think, this generic ballot in the national conversation because it's reasonable Democrat or good Democrat up against lunatic fringe Republican. And then I think you hit the nail on the head. The other thing is galvanizing events. It is Dobbs and the fall of Roe is at the top of that list, but you've got Uvalde and Buffalo, the, you know, the KBJ confirmation. It's actually, with the glaring exception of the pandemic war and inflation, it has actually been, you know, Democrats are doing pretty, have done some good things over the last couple of months. And the things that have happened to us have been, we have taken advantage of politically speaking in showing people exactly what the stakes are in the election. So you put those things together, good Democratic candidates, bad Republican candidates or unelectable ones or crazy ones with sort of just a change in circumstance. And

you've got a pretty, you know, a decent chance to have a better midterm than we would have thought even two or three months ago. Yeah, look, I agree. I mean, money can't buy you a win necessarily. But I mean, I do think it's an indication of enthusiasm. And ActBlue said small dollar donors gave 20.6 million on the day Roe was overturned. The DLCC said their two best online fundraising days were in the 48 hours after the decision. We at Vote Safe America saw a big spike in signups. So it really does matter. I mean, you kind of hit on a big strategic question that is out there. And it's a constant debate for Democrats of like, should we focus on kitchen table issues, jobs, healthcare,

all the things that we're hoping will pass into law through this Manchin compromise? Or should we be talking more about January 6th, the ongoing threat to democracy and these extreme candidates you mentioned? Do you have a take on that? I definitely do. Because I think it's a bit of a false choice. I think it's about the framing on the whole. And so if I had to pick one, I think it's the latter, because I think what we have to do is define the threat. This election, you know, midterm elections are generally a referendum on the state of the country and the party in power. And the more we can do to turn this into a choice election, the better. And, you know, the reality is I want to run on kitchen table issues and, you know, jobs and all of those things. And I think the Biden administration and Democrats have a good case to make. I just talked about the things that we've done just in

the last couple of months, not to mention ARP and infrastructure and what happened last year. But let's be real about the state of the country. Gas is $4.50 a gallon. Milk is $3 a gallon. People are getting COVID again. There's a hot land war in Europe. Voters are just not going to believe that things are good because they're not, even though we're making them better. The long track's pretty high at the moment. Yeah, it just is, right? And so live in the world as it is. And so you have to meet the voters where they are. And that means you got to define the threat, define the enemy. And so whether that's about January 6th or about, you know, you've seen the work that's being done out there to frame MAGA Republicans. I think it's very good. I'm sure we'll talk about that a 6th, defining the enemy and lifting them up and turning this into a choice election instead of a referendum election, I think is job number one. That's what

allows you to talk about kitchen table issues. Otherwise, folks aren't going to listen to us. Yeah, they'll tune you out. I mean, so Dan isn't here today, which is tough for me because I like to take things he says on the Thursday pod and then steal them and pass them off as my own ideas. But you mentioned that you're a reader of Dan's Substack message box. And in that Substack, Dan pitched the idea of Democrats running on the American freedom agenda, which is basically like, okay, let's say you take a bunch of economic proposals that give you financial freedom, like a $15 minimum wage, the child tax credit, et cetera. You have a bunch of personal freedoms like abortion rights, marriage equality, gun safety

laws, and then democratic freedoms like voting rights, ending dark money in politics, ethics reform. You like that pitch? You like that framing? You're a subscriber? I am. You should read Message Box. Maybe that'll get me invited back when Dan gets on vacation.

But no, I love it. I love it for a lot of reasons. And I'm glad Dan and I know there are folks like Way2Win and Anat Shankarasario on Twitter and others who've done a lot of work pushing this freedom frame, which I think it works. I think it works for a lot of reasons. So first off, I know it works with voters. I've seen polling and data that suggests that this is actually something that moves voters in sort of a mobisuasion way, right? Both mobilization and persuasion. Mobisuasion, I like that term. Mobisuasion, you like that? Yeah. That is good. Um, second, I think it co-ops a GOP frame, which I always love doing.

Um, you know, freedom is generally seen as a Republican issue, but it shouldn't be right. Right. It's invading Iraq. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I think we can actually co-opt it. Maybe if I have a little tweak to Dan's message, it's about freedoms, right? The, the, our freedoms are under attack, the freedom to and

the freedom from, but I like the idea of co-opting a GOP message and not just have it be about liberty, being able to do whatever the hell you want, whenever the hell you want with your AK-47. The third I think is actually really important is in this window that we're in right now, post Dobbs and post Roe, it feels salient, right? Like we're in a persuasion window about freedom, right? Freedoms are under attack. And we have a very specific example of that that is mobilizing, as you said before, our base and also persuadable voters to be like, wait a second, what's on the ballot this fall? But maybe most importantly, the freedom agenda or however, freedom's agenda, however we want to talk about it, it can fit into anything, right? You can talk about freedom from, you can talk

about freedom to, you can talk about the economy to your earlier question, you can talk about freedom from gun violence, freedom to vote, freedom to choose, freedom to marry. It's universal. It can be used by progressives and moderates alike. It can, you know, it can push us to talk about what we're for and what we're against. And that look, that's what a message is. Like you want the flexibility to have everybody in your big tent, use it, use it for their purposes, but something that appeals broadly. So I'm in if it's, if it's not clear, I think there's something to be done there. I like it. We're all in on Dan. We're all in on message box. So put Dan in charge of democratic messaging. And honestly, look, don't tell him I said this.

We got to fire him from this podcast. So he goes and works on campaigns. He's the smartest person I know on this stuff. So last midterm issue, like we talked on this pod a couple of times about the consternation over the Democratic Party boosting the more extreme candidates in Republican primaries in the hopes of running against them. I would say the controversy, the anger was measured until this week when it was reported that the DCCC spent a bunch of money boosting a far right Trump loving candidate named John

Gibbs, who's running against a Republican incumbent in Michigan, Michigan's third congressional district named Peter Meyer. Meyer voted to impeach Trump after January 6. He's called out other Republicans who pushed the election lie. And people are saying, you know, hey, DCCC, you are saying there's this massive threat to democracy, that there's this crisis, and that you're boosting this Looney Tunes guy who might get elected, who was tweeting John Podesta had taken part in a satanic ritual previously. What do you think here about this controversy and this strategy? I'm curious what you think because look, I'm a practitioner of politics. So I get the strategy. I'm sure everybody here does too. You're making it more likely for you to win in the general. And I think the

folks at the DTRIP or the DGA or wherever, the campaigns themselves who are looking at data, I am certain they have data that shows that John Gibbs is a weaker opponent than Peter Meyer in November. But weaker doesn't mean can't win, right? And that's where the consternation is. And so, I'm not clutching my pearls about it personally. Frankly, I ran this strategy in 2018 for Newsom, right? Like Trump endorsed one of our Republican opponents. California has a top two primary where you could have two Democrats move or whoever, top two, whatever the party. move or whoever, top two, whatever the party. And when Trump endorsed one of our opponents, we started attacking that opponent for having Trump's endorsement, which happened to elevate him into second. We beat his ass in November. But California is not Western Michigan, right? And so I don't know. I'm curious what you think because I don't clutch my pearls about it because ultimately, if it works, it is maybe in some of these districts, the only way we're going to win these districts in this kind of environment, but it's a high risk,

high reward thing. And people willing to risk having John Gibbs in Congress. I get why you might not want to do that. I get why you might not want to do that too. I'm kind of with you in that, like to me, it's case by case. I was not too worried about, you know, Larry Hogan's handpicked successor in Maryland losing that primary to a kookier opponent that the Democrats think we can beat. Because as Larry Hogan himself said, governor, the Republican governor of Maryland was like, well, this campaign is now over, which is, you know, it's nice to hear for us. I do worry a little bit in a more swingy district like Michigan's third. I also do worry about the broader message and the hypocrisy that you could take away from boosting someone like John Gibbs, as we are,

I think, sincerely talking about this massive threat to democracy. And Peter Meyer has tried to do the right thing. And that is hard for me emotionally, intellectually to kind of wrap my head around. But I actually agree with that last part that Peter Meyer, who I don't think should be a congressman, I want his democratic opponent to beat him. Whoever, if he wins the primary next week, but as Republicans go, there are other Republicans who way worse on issues of democracy and these, these issues. Right. And so, um, you know, maybe an open seats or in places where you have a, uh, uh, a less palatable Republican, it feels like a more palatable strategy, but that's not politics, man. Politics ain't being bag. And if, you know,

if we want a Democrat to win that seat, yeah. Yeah. You play to win the game as Edward's one set. OK, let's talk more about the the kooky Republicans that are out there because there's been a lot of news on the MAGA side. So on Tuesday, The Washington Post broke the news that the Justice Department is investigating Donald Trump's actions as part of its criminal probe into efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Trump's actions as part of its criminal probe into efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Witnesses before the grand jury, including, deliciously, Mike Pence's aides, have been asked about their conversations with Trump, his lawyers, their inner circle, and the degree to which Trump himself was involved in the fake elector scheme. DOJ is also looking at phone records of top Trump officials. This is another hands up moment for me, Adisu. Like I vented a little bit of frustration about the speeder Lector of DOJ's investigation and Merrick

Garland's work here. So it's good to see they're on it. But what do you make of the timing of these reports coming out right as Pence and Trump seem to kind of go head to head on some, you know, at some events? I mean, look, you're the press guy, like who is leaking this? Where is it? Which side has the, has the incentive to, to put this out there or get this out there? Because it does seem pencey, but I can't give a profile and courage award to these people for doing this. Right. And even, even if the outcome is, uh, you know, something that we both want, um, they spent five years ass kissing an authoritarian to get close to power. So like, great. Now that you want to be president or, uh, you're, you're doing the right thing. Great.

I guess the enemy, uh, you know, the enemy is your friend or whatever. Um, so I got to enemy is your friend or whatever. So I got to tip my hat and then hold my nose. You don't get a cookie for telling the truth in front of a great jury. Yeah, exactly. Great. And I think DOJ, I will say DOJ, I think I similarly as a partisan Democrat, have those same frustrations, but I do think deliberateness will win out here. I do. I really believe that. I think you got to have it airtight and you know, this is part, it's a process. I'm a lawyer. Like you don't come out until, until you, you have it lock, stock and barrel. Um, so that's, well, this is part of that process. Okay. That's good legal advice. I did love the New York times. Also I got the great story. Uh, Maggie Haberman had a bunch of Trump campaign emails, including messages from a different

lawyer in Arizona who was helping the campaign with their effort to send a fake slate of electors to Washington for their little coup attempt. And in one of the emails, this lawyer in Arizona literally wrote, quote, we would just be sending fake, put that in quotes too, electoral votes to Penn so that someone, again in quotes, in Congress can make an objection when they're counting votes and start arguing that the fake votes be counted. Wait, a lawyer sent that? Yeah, Jack Willenschick. Wow.

This was this guy Boris Epstein. Don't hire Jack Willenschick. Okay, it gets better at DCO. In a follow-up, he wrote, alternative votes is probably a better term than fake votes and included a smiley face so i think that absolves him of your previous legal criticism yeah it's true he he tempered it oh my god i missed that that is that is insane the e and email stands for evidence willie brown said that once uh like what are you doing man these folks are the keystone cops if

there ever was a. Truly, truly. Boris Epstein, the guy who got the email, is Steve Bannon's Marble Mouth podcast co-host. So he's quite a goober. But so back to this Pence-Trump thing. I have been surprised at how fast the rhetoric has dialed up. Here's a clip for everybody to hear. This is former Pence chief of staff, Mark Short. He's on CNN. He gets played a

clip from Trump superfan creep Matt Gaetz, and then Short is asked to respond to it. Let's listen. Well, I don't know if Mike Pence will run for president 2024, but I don't think Matt Gaetz will have an impact on that. In fact, I'd be surprised if he was still voting. It's more likely he'll be in prison for child sex trafficking by 2024 and i'm actually surprised that florida law enforcement still allows him to speak to teenage conferences like that so i'm not too worried about matt gates thanks okay thanks did he drop a thanks at the end uh or did he say thanks i don't know whatever that was that was a quality uh outro by That was a broad side. That was a broad.

Look, I mean, that's fun to hear. I don't think for a second that Pence is going to be president or that Pence could could beat Trump in a head to head contest. But the fact that Pence thinks there's an opening to go after Trump does suggest they think he's weakened maybe by time, maybe by January 6th. Who knows? There's also the fact that Rupert Murdoch's media empire has turned on Trump. You got the Wall Street Journal attacking him in editorials. The New York Post editorial page wrote, as a matter of principle, as a matter of character, Trump has proven himself unworthy to

be this country's chief executive again. I mean, do you buy this growing sort of consensus that he's been weakened? I do. I think the January 6th hearings have done work on him, not with the voters necessarily, but with political elites in the Republican party. You know, I think January 6th itself did at the time, you know, not Kevin McCarthy or people who are sycophants who just want to be close to power and have no moral compass whatsoever. Not that Rupert Murdoch does either. But yeah, I think things have changed. But I think there is a divide between the voters and the elites, as I said, the folks who are the donors, the chattering class, et cetera. The voters, I think, are still with him,

the base of the Republican Party, right? But the donors and the elites realize that he is weak with basically everybody else. Not basically everybody else. He is weak with everybody else. He is weak with, you know, he motivates Democrats to turn out. Independents still hate him. And even though things are, you know, tough in this country right now with pandemic and inflation and war, they don't want him back. They may want to change, but they don't want him back.

So it's an interesting dichotomy that we keep seeing in these primaries where the MAGA candidates are winning primaries and MAGA Republicans still running the party from the grassroots. But the elites are trying to push back. And I think that's only going to get nastier as we get closer to 2024 and God, the 2024 Republican presidential primaries. I do think there will be a competitive primary and I think it's going to be just a bloodbath. I mean, if the 2022 cable hits are Mark Short saying what he just said, yeah, it's going to be a bloodbath. I mean, I agree with you that the Wall Street Journal editorial page, that is the donor class talking to the donor class and saying, yo, Ron DeSantis does not bring all this baggage. The other story, though, that I think will hit like the MAGA base that I've been tracking kind of closely is the families of the victims of the 9-11 attacks are furious at Trump because his Bedminster course is hosting the Saudi-owned Live Golf Tour this weekend. And he's getting a huge bag for this thing, like probably tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in Trump's pocket from the Saudis.

But these 9-11 families, they're furious. They released a TV ad attacking Trump and the players. And I think this is a tough one for Trump because this is his city. You know, New Yorkers, this is his hometown. And the people this will piss off are like NYPD, you know, New York firefighters. You know, yeah. Staten Island people. Absolutely.

So, yeah, I agree. I think that one of the biggest myths of politics of the last five years is that Trump is Teflon. He's not Teflon. He's Teflon with base mega Republican voters, which is not even close to a majority of voters in this country. and not even an overwhelming majority of Republicans, right? So there is, he is, it's not that the emperor has no clothes, but he has a lot fewer clothes than people make it out to be. And one of his biggest strengths, honestly, is they can get people like us and Maggie and everybody else to keep talking about him, even as his power wanes, which I think it is. For sure. One other weird story, the emperor might be kind of a wimp. So Trump's son-in-law slash former top advisor Jared Kushner has a book coming out. It's leaking. The Washington Post got a copy. And Jared in this book goes hard at the former White House chief of staff, John Kelly, and even says that after a contentious Oval Office meeting, Kelly like storms out of the Oval and was walking down the hallway and Ivanka Trump says hi to him and he shoves her out of the way, like hip checks her. I don't know. I imagined it, her like bouncing off the wall. According to this book, Trump does nothing about this. Like your chief of staff shoves your daughter in the office and you do nothing. You confirm

it in a book three years later. Like that's your tough guy president. Yeah. I mean, they're serial liars, first of all. So like, yeah, I don't think it happened. That's not a defense of John Kelly or anything. It's just that it's like I would call it a Bravo reality show, but that's like an insult to Bravo. Sorry, Bravo. Don't sue me for defamation. But what the Trump orbit, Jared Kushner included, is good at is manufacturing drama for clicks and sales and not even good at

sales. Cause like these books aren't selling very well, but, but this is, this is straight out of the Trump playbook, which is say something inflammatory to get attention. Um, and I just don't buy it. If I'm being honest, I'm taking, Let's just say I'm taking it with a shaker of salt that it happened. I mean, the leakiest White House in history, the sort of juiciest story you could imagine, and this just comes out now, that does seem sort of hard to believe. Last thing along these lines. So Politico reported out that there's a big fight between these former Trump aides who landed at competing think tanks that are supposed to be like the government and waiting for the MAGA types. One is called the America First Policy Institute or AFPI. It's like Rick

Perry, former Homeland Security Secretary, who Ben Rhodes likes to call frat paddle Chad, which I love. Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz is part of it for some reason. Is part of a policy effort? I'm sure he's cranking out white papers. Right. 100%. Unlike the nickel package or something. But there's also like the Conservative Policy Institute, the Heritage Foundation. They all think they're the MAGA movement.

And so Trump spoke at AFPI on Tuesday, but it only came after Peter Navarro, that former trade advisor, batshit crazy guy, begged him not to and accused the think tank of plotting to a coup, Trumpism without Trump coup. So it's impossible to like follow these ins and outs. But again, it's just like chaos has followed this guy everywhere he's gone politically since the very beginning. But it's just not a great setup to have your staff like crucifying each other. Yeah, exactly. Well, first of all, give me a fucking break that Trump has a policy agenda. I know. Come on. And what these folks are really jockeying for is proximity to somebody who is probably at this moment the most likely Republican to be president

if a Democrat doesn't win next time. So it's all about jockeying for proximity to power, not about policy, period. And so what they're jockeying over is what is, in my mind, Trump's core governing philosophy, which is the last person who got to talk to him wins. Wins is mine, wins the opinion. And it's a mess, just like everything else, just like his White House was a mess, just like his campaign was a mess, just like his administration was a mess. And so it's one of the reasons he should never be allowed anywhere close to anything resembling power over policy in this country is because, I mean, look, he's a wannabe authoritarian lunatic, but he also can't run like a dishwasher, let alone a country. And this is yet another, yet another proof point of that. So his, his aides tried to call it like the state of the union 5.0. I don't, I don't know why they

did the.0, sort of a weird techie thing, but like to suggest that like, this is what the speech he would have delivered. Here's a quick, you know, super cut of, of some of the Trump message from this hefty policy speech, like the state of the Union. Millions of illegal aliens are stampeding across our wide open borders. Our streets are riddled with needles and soaked with the blood of innocent victims. Stabbings, rapes, murders, bloody turf wars, rage without mercy. Sadists who prey on children, drugged out lunatics, roving mobs of thieves, and the dangerously deranged Romar streets with impunity. Blood, death, and suffering beat him like you've never seen anyone beaten before.

Laughing as they bludgeoned a life dead. Stabbed her repeatedly as she screamed for help and left her bleeding to death. And he was bludgeoned, absolutely bludgeoned and shot, burglarized, raped, murdered, and set on fire, viciously stabbed to death. Okay. Okay. That's good. That's enough. We actually, we had to call it before the clip was over.

That's a, look, that's a hopeful, optimistic vision for a second term, right? Sounds like, sounds like the first inaugural, honestly. And hopefully the last inaugural. Yeah, I mean, it's the only playbook they got, man. It's the only playbook they got. Scare, scare, scare. Fear, fear, fear. Everything is terrible.

Everything is awful. It will appeal to some people, right? It will. But is that... First of all, it's not a policy agenda. And second of all, it is certainly not a hopeful message that I think inspires the people who already hate him to suddenly want him back in the White House. or the mass shootings that are happening all over the country. Yeah, it is.

You know, look, I think that Pence is a... Look, Mark Short obviously brought his baseball bat to a TV interview, and that was interesting. But Mike Pence's critique of Trump is like, we're going to look toward the future, not the past. And that's his way of saying, shut up about 2020. And I don't know. I don't know that it's pointed enough to really work. I'm hoping some folks will lean a little harder into this and be like,

you lost. You're a loser. You say that Joe Biden has dementia. You lost to him. You know, like that would to me is what we need to hear. I agree. We have to be less outraged at some level and more mocking in a humor is and and derision, I think, is a underused tactic when it comes to Trump. It's not like we don't have to get in the locker room with him.

But but yeah, he's a loser and he lost. And, you know, I do think the president, you know, whenever he refers to him now, he refers to him as the defeated former president, which I know has got to get under his skin at Bedminster Mar-a-Lago. And I love it. I love it too. Yeah. We definitely need like the John Fetterman tone against Dr. That's exactly right. It's a a I think it's a brilliant strategy. I think we were we have been outraged, rightly so for seven years, longer than that, but certainly for seven years since Donald Trump came on the scene. But you know what, as a political strategy,

it may be worn out right now, especially with the, you know, persuadable voters. And we may need to need to switch tactics. Yeah, especially when it's so clear that these guys just trot out to whatever event they're going to say something they know will outrage us like Matt Gates, uh, you know, suggesting that, you know, unattractive women don't need like, it's just not even worth repeating, but it's like he wanted liberal clicks in rage, clickbait, and we do have to discipline ourselves. We can't fall for it. Yeah. We can't fall for it every single time. It is, It is warranted sometimes. It certainly was warranted a lot more when Trump was in office and had power over the administration, but now it is a political strategy that they're running. They don't have any power within the government, but they're

trying to provoke us and we have to be better than that. Yeah. They got money in the media and our attention and we got to steal it back. Adisu, it was absolutely fantastic having you on for the news today. I really appreciate it. You are, you know, you've won some big races, which is not something I've done in like a decade. So it's really good to hear your experience. I appreciate it. It's so much fun to be here. Thanks for inviting me, man. We are going to take a quick break. And when we come back, you will hear my interview with Heather McGee about her fantastic new podcast, The Sum of Us.

So stick around. Heather McGee is a policy expert and the host of the fantastic new podcast, The Sum of Us, which is available on Spotify. You can also buy her book by the same name, The Sum of Us Anywhere Books Are Sold. Heather, it's great to see you again. Great to see you too, Tommy. So we've known each other for years, for decades, really. You've done all this amazing policy development work in DC. You wrote this amazing book., come on the show, you geeked out about it. You decided to get into the podcast game and you were like, higher ground. I assume Obama and Springsteen are on episode three, which is not out yet.

Is that what's going on here? Oh my gosh. I should have known. I should have been prepared for the dig at not going with Crooked for this podcast. Listen, Tommy, this podcast, The Sum of Us, is about the possibility of hope and people coming together across race to build solidarity and win change. It is a hope and change podcast. I hope Obama gave you good notes and that it was worth it.

I'm totally kidding. I'm totally kidding. You also got to work with a woman we love at Crooked Media, Mukta Mohan, who got poached by higher ground. But anyway, I'll move on. So I love the podcast. The first two episodes are out now on Spotify. I love talking with you generally because you are a hopeful person. I feel like hope has kind of fallen out of fashion these days. Lots to be cynical about in the world, but sometimes the internet treats the most cynical takes as kind of gospel. I think we end up demoralizing ourselves, suppressing our own votes. So starting with a little hope here, what did you make of this big announcement today that Manchin and Schumer have come together on a

compromise bill that does a lot on climate change, prescription drug costs, et cetera, et cetera. What do you make of this thing? Taxes. Yeah. I mean, listen, the conventional wisdom had been that this was dead, that the democracy of one of a senator in West Virginia had basically killed our hope at saving life as we know it on the planet. And, you know, although it's easy to feel like in a really distorted democracy, something like that can happen. There was always a part of me that said, like, no, that is not the way this story is going to end. And the people of West Virginia, activists that I've been speaking to throughout the past two years, never gave up. They never let down on the pressure on Joe Manchin. His colleagues in the Senate never let down on the pressure. And I think that the reality of our climate situation with

record temperatures across the globe, with wildfires and storms, made it clear that he was not going to be the one to stand alone against the future of life as we know it on the planet. And so this is the largest investment in climate action that the U.S. government has ever taken. It looks like it's going to hit about four fifths of the target of the original Build Back Better proposal. And, you know, it's a huge first start. And if we can get it signed into law, obviously, right? That's until we're sitting in the Rose Garden celebrating. I don't want to count our chickens. But I think it is, for me, a reminder that change is harder than we often like to imagine.

And therefore, we need to have a lot more persistence. Speaking of persistence, I listened to episode two of the podcast this morning. And it is this fascinating story about environmental justice in Memphis, Tennessee. Can you give us just the backstory and kind of the lesson from your time there? Because you hit the road and you were going to states, meeting with real people, and it sounded pretty inspiring. Yeah. So the whole idea of the Some of Us, the podcast is to kind of pick up where the book left off. The book left off with this idea that because racism in our politics and our policymaking

has a cost for everyone, that people coming together across race to actually put aside our divisions and gain from the collective power that comes with collective action is going to be the ticket to us winning big things. And in fact, it's the only way we can push back against the powerful forces that want to keep us divided. And so I wanted to go around the country, particularly in this moment, when frankly, all of us feel somewhere between frustration and despair about the fact that getting a trifecta wasn't the end of, and despair about the fact that getting a trifecta wasn't the end of, wasn't the last fight we would have to fight, right? And I just found all of these stories of ordinary people. I mean, really like the protagonist in the story in Memphis is an executive assistant at a nonprofit,

a retired social worker. You know, like, it's just ordinary people who see an injustice and take a small risk, and then take a bigger risk, and then encourage other people to take risks, and they do it together. So in Memphis, still one of the most segregated cities in the country, there was a case of real environmental injustice. The Black neighborhoods, namely this neighborhood called Boxtown, was, you know, polluted around all sides. And there was a new pipeline that came to town. The pipeline company said, we're going to build a pipeline and we're going to cite it through what one of the contract agents accidentally let slip. He said, we're going to cite it through this neighborhood because it's the path of least resistance.

Yikes. this neighborhood because it's the path of least resistance. Yikes. Right. So that's, it's true, right? Historically, right? It has been the easiest way to get a toxin placed somewhere is to do it in a neighborhood with low political capital. And those neighborhoods exist because of long histories of segregation.

But this community decided to fight back. And then on the white part of town, which frankly was not going to have a pipeline running through their backyards, there were people who woke up to the fact that it could threaten the water system of the city there's this huge natural resource called an aquifer under memphis that gives it some of the sweetest water in the world they love their water they love their water they're about the water is this whiskey what are you people talking about? It's water. I tasted it. It is really good water right out of the tap. And so there was really this unprecedented black Memphis, white Memphis coming together to build this cross-racial coalition called Memphis Community Against the Pipeline. And they won. And as one of the

characters says, you don't fight oil and gas. You don't beat oil and gas. And yet they did. They won. They stopped the pipeline. And I love how there's a young activist named Justin Pearson you spend a lot of time with. And it was fascinating to hear him talk about how his activism was inspired during the mid of 2020 when the George Floyd protests were happening. It just shows how these movements can become a spark that ignite in all these different places across the country.

It was really inspiring to hear him talk. And look, a big lesson from your work, you know, the podcast, the book, you know, a lot of the writing you've done is that racism hurts everyone, right? And an oil pipeline goes through a black community. In Memphis, it could poison the well, literally, figuratively for everyone in the city.

And so the solution to stopping it is this multiracial coalition. And I thought it was just so poignant and fitting that you start the episode by talking about Dr. Martin Luther King, because the last big movement he was leading was called the Poor People's Campaign, which was this effort to bring together a multiracial group of low-income people to pass anti-poverty legislation. And then obviously he was murdered. I think it just sort of spoke to the fact that racism is this individual evil and feeling people have, but also it can be a tool used by these powerful interests to preserve the status quo by dividing us. And it was just an amazing story, I thought. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Memphis is where Dr. King was assassinated. And so when I think of Memphis, that's what I think of. I think of April 4th, the day he was taken from us. And it was amazing to hear, you know, not all of it made it into the tape, right?

where they were during the sanitation worker strike, which was the final sort of set of protests that Dr. King was there to participate in and where those characters were when he died. And, you know, the Poor People's Campaign, to me, is emblematic of the promise of American movement building. building. Throughout our history, the elite has used racist beliefs, us versus them, zero-sum scapegoating in order to convince white people that they have more in common with the wealthy class of mostly white folks than they do with other people who are also struggling, who happen to be people of color. That is a theme that is more prevalent now in our politics in the era of Trumpism and the swing of white working class voters away from the party of the New Deal than it has been in my lifetime. That is sort of, in my mind, the sort of single most defining feature of our politics today. And so throughout the podcast, as some of us, I do go mostly actually to red and purple states and talk to people who are trying to

cross those divides and trying to build a sense of collective action on the things that matter to everybody, black, white, or brown, clean water, higher pay at low-paid jobs, better-funded schools. Yeah. I mean, I'm curious what you learned about what you think the most effective activism is or the most effective strategies, because there historically are a lot of groups that focus on one issue, and that's great, and they've done amazing work, but you also see this growing trend of making issues as broad and intersectional as possible. And so what that means is some people might say, well, like gun control is

really a healthcare issue or, you know, like X ostensibly controversial social issue is actually about Y ostensibly controversial social issue. And, you know, I often substantively agree, but I can't decide if that is confusing framing, if it is bringing groups together or has the potential of shrinking your possible base of support because you're saying this thing is also that thing and you have to agree with this and that to fight for this. I hope I'm not saying specifics. I don't want to like single out any movements, but I'm curious what your take is there. but I'm curious what your take is there. So my take is this,

the single most powerful force in changing someone's consciousness is person to person relational organizing. And, you know, what I'm an example I'm thinking of right now is a woman named Bridget Hughes, who is in an episode that's coming up, a Kansas City episode about poverty work, about she's a fast food worker. And she had the kind of like conservative white

working class consciousness blaming, you know, immigrants for taking good jobs and thinking that Black people were lazy and yet herself working for her lifetime in low paid minimum wage fast food work. And when she first got approached about the fight for 15, she was like, there's no way they're ever going to pay people like me $15 an hour. And she's a character in the book. And I went back to Kansas City to spend more time for the episode in the podcast. And I really got to understand how it actually was seeing another worker from another fast food company, but across town, who was Black, take a risk. Because he had the same life as her, you know, for all intents and purposes, the same economic

struggles. And he took this risk to organize and he was just as afraid as she was to go out on strike. And it was in seeing him do that, that gave her courage. And I just really feel like in some ways, activism about the things that really matter the most. Like there was nothing more important to her as a mom than being able to keep the lights on and put food on the table. And that's what really mattered. And sure, once she was in the movement and organizing all the time and volunteering, you know, she could think about other issues, but But you do have to actually get at, if you really want to organize, not people who have a lot of leisure time, but people who are really busy and struggling, then you have to go at what is the source of the pain?

What is the thing that can totally transform their lives if you fix it? And you don't do it online. And you don't do it online and you don't do it through politician speaking. You really do it through one-to-one relational organizing and movement building. It's funny how that is still the most effective way, despite all the tools, despite all the promises of online this and digital that. So I teed you up at the beginning as a hopeful person. We're about a hundred days out from the midterms. By the way, go to votesaveamerica.com slash 100 days if you want to get involved. Are you feeling hopeful about these midterms?

What are you thinking? How are we going to do? Because you worked on a bunch of campaigns too. Yeah. So I'm feeling more hopeful than I was 30 days ago, 60 days ago, 90 days ago. I think that the more time passes, the better the polling is going to be. And the more likely it is that it's going to not be the kind of blowout that a lot of the indicators, you know, like inflation and a top of the ticket or top of the party approval numbers would suggest. We can all prognosticate, but what it comes down to is, are we volunteering? Are we working as hard as we did in 2020? And it feels impossible to ask people and ourselves to do that again, because it feels like we left it all out on the field. But there is no reason that this

radical fringe Republican party should capture any form of governing power at the national level ever again in our society, except if we let them, basically. Yeah, no, I totally agree. I mean, I think the biggest challenge is not necessarily like inflation or Joe Biden's approval. It's like, okay, so we hope that this huge bill will be passed in a week or two by the Senate. We then have to communicate with people in the country about what's in it, what the Democratic Party has been doing, the choice, the extremity of the MAGA movement, the extremity of Trump judges overturning Roe versus Wade and ripping away abortion rights from women in all these states. And there's just no guarantee these days,

I think, that people hear that information, right? I mean, some of them go to like Breitbart for their news. Some of them don't watch news, you know, and like reaching those people, it might just be through knocking on their doors or this relational organizing. They get a text from their cousin, like whatever it might be. And that's where the hard work comes in. That's right. And the piece that's missing in that is that means that the Democratic Party activists, the progressive activists, have to be active again because we're the ones doing the door knocking. We're the ones sending those texts, right? We're the ones signing up for those volunteer shifts. And what I think that the potential breakthrough

on the climate tax, on the Biden agenda, basically, on the Democratic agenda, could do is help to give us that crucial piece, which is make us feel like the Democratic Party is worth fighting for. Yeah, that's right. Because they fought for us. Yeah, we're the ones we've been waiting for, as someone once said. Yeah, Barack Obama once said. Heather, the podcast is fantastic.

It's The Sum of Us. It's available now on Spotify. Great to see you again. Thank you for doing the show. And congratulations. Thank you. Thank you so you so much labor of love you can tell absolutely thank you again heather mcgee for joining the show uh thank you adisu who's still here and sometimes we just leave little easter eggs of bullshit in the outro you know it's where here here's what topic um i'm I'm a Celtics fan.

You're a warriors fan. And that's champions, the champions, uh, the four time champion, Golden State Warriors. In fact, I don't know if we're going to be able to put this on,

uh, on camera, but I just put on my, uh, warriors championship hat that I bought at the finals. That's actually, you guys have cool gear too. That's one of the annoying things about it.

It's like good color. It's a good logo. Have you been to the new stadium i did i went so i got covid uh at the end of april during the playoffs and i was being rightly i think was being pretty cautious with my young son and uh once i recovered from covid i was like okay i gotta take advantage of these antibodies so i went to a couple going out playoffs. So I did. And then by the way, I got COVID again a couple of weeks ago. So stay masked. This BA5 has not taken any prisoners. Yeah. Twice in the last couple of months. But yes,

I went to like three or four playoff games and it was awesome. It was awesome, honestly, to be back in the crowd with folks. I think we all missed that, but awesome to see my team win a championship again and beat yours and to see Draymond troll the shit out of the Celtics afterwards. He was very mean.

DC tried to send me a nice note checking in on other things in life, and I was like, before you say something about that series, I don't want to fucking hear it. Okay, well, that's a sufficiently painful outro. So thanks everyone for listening, and we'll be back on Monday. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.

The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner-Bernstein. Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineer the show. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerard, Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft,

and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.