Pod Save America - “We won.”

Episode Date: November 8, 2018

Democrats flip the House, Republicans keep the Senate, and Donald Trump fires Jeff Sessions. Jon, Jon, Tommy, and Dan break down the results of the midterm elections, and talk about what they mean for the future.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Got the whole crew here today to talk about the election that happened last night. Old news, Jon. We're talking about Sessions. Yeah, we'll also be talking about Jeff Sessions, who was just fired, let's be honest. The president technically asked for his resignation, but he was fired.

What a dumb technicality. And the president installed a fucking Republican hack uh in his place and who knows what will happen to the muller investigation now so that's huge news which i'm sure he wanted because he wanted to step on the election results last night we're not gonna let that happen no we're gonna talk about those first and then we'll get to uh our friend jeff sessions can't kill this high quick programming note uh next week the pod will be out on tuesday evening because uh we're giving everyone a cricket media monday off all right democrats took control of the house of representatives last night winning 26 seats they are ahead in eight more plus a few more in california that

are too close to call we probably end up with 35 ish seats um democrats held all seven contested governorships where they had Democratic governors and flipped another seven, defeating a number of Republicans, including two of our favorite villains, Chris Kobach and Scott Walker. We flipped three hundred and thirty three state legislative seats, seven state houses and won three trifectas where Democrats now control the state houses and the governorships. Finally, we flipped one Senate seat, Jackie Rosen defeating dirty Dean Heller, but we lost four, Missouri, Indiana, North Dakota, and it looks like Florida, though it may be going into a recount.

Hey, John, how does Paul Bunyan's ox say hello? How? It's a blue wave. John, how does Paul Bunyan's ox say hello? How? It's a blue wave. Overall takeaway. Fine night, good night, fucking great night.

That was a question from Dan Pfeiffer. Dan, why don't you start since you asked the question? I think it's a good night. Good night? I should have put a fourth option somewhere between good and fucking great. That's kind of where i am yeah i think it it is great i think we can't say it's fucking great because we missed some opportunities in the senate we missed some governor's races but yeah we won the house which is everything and it changes everything in politics and as we're seeing today yes as we're seeing today as we soon shall see yeah i mean things i'm really happy about taking the house enormous we're in control of all the committees

now adam schiff is now in charge not devin nunes of the house intelligence committee we can investigate all the things we care about some really great people won like lucy mcbath in georgia's sixth district it out late last night amazing candidate like great human being exciting race who won governor's races in michigan wisconsin illinois kansas maine pennsylvania We're just six districts. Told it out late last night. Amazing candidate, great human being, exciting race. He won governor's races in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Pennsylvania, New Mexico. Huge deal for control of power in those states, for our ability to redistrict, for our ability to pass progressive legislation. The year of the woman is real. More than 100 women are on track to win in the House.

Things I'm sad about, I wanted a full rejection and repudiation of Trumpism, his racist, fear-mongering strategy. Maybe that's a little naive because it's hardly new to win based on anger and fear and racism, but I wanted it. I wanted Andrew Gillum to win. I wanted Beto O'Rourke to win, but I always knew those were more difficult races. So I would say very good night. B plus. Love it. Yeah. I mean, you know, I think about where we were two years ago and what we said to each other, what we said again and again was which was that we were heading into a really, really hard midterm that the Senate was nearly impossible and the House was tough but doable, and that winning the House was central not just for democratic politics and proving we can win, but central to taking our country back and

restoring checks and balances and standing up for the basic virtues of the country. We were afraid to exaggerate before the midterms because we weren't sure if we would win the House just how important winning the House would be. But I think if we were sitting here today, win the house, just how important winning the house would be. But I think if we were sitting here today, having not won the house, we would be looking at a demoralized majority of the country who feel like their voices don't matter. We would be looking at Donald Trump with total permission to be corrupt, to pursue a radical agenda, to go after immigrants, to go after people of color, to go after trans people. And I'm really, really glad we didn't wake up in that country. And I'm very glad that what we hoped would happen, which is that all the marching and the energy and the protest

and the paying attention would culminate in people actually turning out to vote. That was an open question. And it is undeniable that we answered that question with a yes, people turned out and Republicans turned out too. But we turned out more. And we did what we had to do. And we actually have power. And that changes everything. No, it was the highest turnout since I believe 1960 in a midterm broke all kinds of records. But of course, like you said, love it, Republicans turned out to know, look, a majority of americans voted for democrats and now democrats represent a majority of americans in the house of representatives there is a majoritarian representation for the first time in a while uh despite all the gerrymandering a majority of

americans are now governed by democratic governors which is also hugely important and we can talk about why the senate's fucked up and admit but but in those two, in the sense of governorships and the House, there's now, we are closer to a real democracy. Dan, what were you going to say? I would say we have, if you look at the difference between 2010, 2014, two midterms where Democrats did incredibly poorly. The reason we did well in 2018 is first-time voters. Yeah. It is people who do not know what to expect in midterms, people, some of them even sat out 2016, who decided to get engaged. And that was the big question that all the cynical pundits and political analysis was saying, will people actually turn out? Will young people turn out? Will people of color turn out in the midterm

when they don't normally do it? And they did. And Democrats now have the power to stop Trump's agenda for that very reason. Those new voters don't turn out and young people don't turn out. Young people, we'll get the final numbers, but it looks like they increased their share in the midterms. Certainly the margin among young people. And now when we say young people now, it's really two groups now. It's 18 to 29 and it's 30 to 39 because the 30 to 39 year olds, you know, we were the

Obama generation and now we're voting heavily Democrat. And they voted more heavily Democratic. The margin between Democrats and Republicans among those two age groups is if you look at this chart, it just sort of goes like off and off into different directions. It's the biggest margin it's ever been in a midterm. I would note that you put the cutoff at young people at 39, even though I'm the only one over 39 sitting here. Oh, sorry. I still think of you in your late 30s. Thank you.

Just one other thing, too. There were Republicans in the House, especially the House leadership, that made a devil's bargain with Donald Trump, which is they would capitulate to him. They would look past his abuses as long as they could cut taxes for the wealthy, as long as they could do the deregulation agenda they wanted to do. Some of them made their peace with it. Some of them issued, you know, tepid responses against it. Some of them used it like Paul Ryan in a super PAC. And it is really, really important that that strategy did not work for Paul Ryan. It sends a really powerful message to future Republicans that there was not a majority in race baiting and anti-immigration sentiment plus a deregulation, anti-healthcare, sort of anti-working person agenda. If they had been able to succeed in that,

it would have been incredibly dangerous and it is very exciting. And I've been waiting to say it on the podcast. I want to say at one time, we get to take that gavel from Paul Ryan's fucking hand. That's all I wanted to say. I have no faith that it sends that message to Republicans. I'm a little worried about that too. It is. You are right that it did not work. A hundred percent right. That's why we're all happy today. But they will continue. Well, I think two things will happen. Someone pointed that um mike murphy pointed this out today gop strategist that trump was talking today about in his press conference like maybe i'll work with democrats on infrastructure or drug prices and it's like yeah you know what uh nancy pelosi in the house probably would work

with donald trump on a big infrastructure package or a package or a bill to reduce drug prices and you know where it would die in the Senate, because you still have a bunch of Republican establishment hacks who are so bad at politics, misread politics, that they will be like, no, we don't want infrastructure or drug prices because those things aren't conservative economic policy. Also, his pledge to his offer to do that was caveated with the assumption that Democrats won't be thoroughly investigated. Oh, right. I mean, it's all bullshit. If you're to me if you're good to me i won't i won't shoot you don't uncover my crimes maybe we pave a fucking road what you still have is a bunch of establishment

republicans who still believe that somehow out there in the country there is a constituency for tax cuts and huge cuts to health care and small government, all that kind of shit. And so they will continue to push that. And then you have Donald Trump and a bunch of Trump Republicans, which is now the whole party, who believe that the road to power is race baiting and xenophobia. And they will continue down that route. Right. I mean, I think the truth is you can look at this election and draw both conclusions.

Certainly, it is better that the Republicans failed in their quest to use that strategy in the House. And maybe the lesson there is in the way the House works, it's more, it's less advantageous than it is in Senate races, where you can sort of run up the score in rural places, and you're trying to win across the whole state. So how big of a deal is taking the House? We talked about this a little last night on the live stream, but for those who didn't tune in, what changes now? What can the Democrats do? I mean, everything changes. It is, to quote Joe Biden, it's a big fucking deal.

Donald Trump can never pass another piece of legislation without Nancy Pelosi signing off on it. He can never pass an appropriations bill without Nancy Pelosi signing off on it. That's such a nice thing to hear. Tell me more, Dan. I like this.

And we, it is not all the power. It's not enough power. But we now have an actual lever of power to negotiate over things. We they need Democratic votes to do the very basic things of keeping the government open. And we can demand that some of these horrible regulations are go away. We can demand funding for our priorities. We can push back on some of the internal sabotage of the Affordable Care Act. It also means that they cannot, there's a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act will never be on the floor of the House again. And then as we pointed out, we now have the ability to issue subpoenas to look at what happened. We are living in a world, a swamp of Republican corruption. You have just the Secretary of the Interior, who has just been referred for a criminal investigation. You have the President of the United States, an unindicted co-conspirator to multiple crimes. You have a RICO investigation to the entire family of the president in his company.

Sasha, Malia, Michelle. Oh, wait, different president? Nancy, Ron Jr. And in all those cases, we now have the ability to provide a measure of checks and balances on this president. Yeah. Yeah. How big of a deal is winning all those governorships and state legislatures? What does that mean? It's a massive deal. I mean, I think, one, we just get to govern in a more progressive way in these states. One, we get to, two, we get to increase access for voting rights for people.

I mean, like think about, Dan, you've talked about this before. I mean, in Wisconsin, Scott Walker made it his lifelong ambition to prevent people who might vote Democratic, so young people, African-Americans, people of color, to prevent them from getting to the polls. We can now undo a lot of that work. You know, redistricting will be coming up so we can draw fairer maps in a lot of places, including in places like Maryland, where Democrats drew pretty unfair maps. And you might see some realignment. But generally speaking, like the democracy will be a lot healthier, I think, under the stewardship of these Democratic governors. Yeah, you'll see a lot of progressive legislation pass. And also, you've talked about this before, Dan, but in 2020, for the whoever the Democratic nominee is, it helps to have Democratic governors in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania. So that's really great, too. Kansas somehow. Kansas. Kansas is... It's so cool. Kansas is also a great example because

Kansas is where the supply side, tax-cutting, government-destroying Republicans were able to test their experiment, and it totally destroyed the Kansas economy. Kansas is Paul Ryan's America in a biodome. What's the matter with Kansas, Paul Ryan? This won't get enough attention, I think, because Trump went out there and he's going to talk about all the places he campaigned and take credit for everything he took credit for.

But Kansas is an example of him being a poison pill. He endorsed Chris Kobach, who lost the governorship in Kansas. And like he primarily, Congressman Mark Sanford in South Carolina, the person he endorsed then went on to lose. So Trump was actually a poison pill in a couple elections. Yeah, I was just saying about Kansas too, it's again, you see a test of this idea is can someone's anti-immigrant bona fides be enough to overcome the sense in the state that right wing Republican politics has been bad for business, bad for their bottom line, bad for people's sort of, you know, ability to pay for things in their

lives, their teachers, the teachers in their schools getting enough money. And here the answer was no, which is really exciting. And I think you can connect it and we're talking about it. I think you connect it to some of the ballot measures that passed that show you that inside of even deep Republican states, there is a resistance to right wing politics and there is an openness to Democratic ideas, whether it's a Medicaid expansion or electing a Democratic governor, even though you've been sending Republicans to the Senate for years and years. It doesn't get more conservative than Kansas to have Laura Kelly win that governorship. I still think she could have won even with another

Republican because you had this confluence of events where under the stewardship of Brownback, he destroyed the economy so badly that even Republicans' independents in Kansas were saying, oh, it's time for someone new. We'll try a Democrat. I remember our old friend Kathleen Sebelius, who was governor of Kansas and our health and human services secretary. Sebelius who was governor of Kansas and our health and human services secretary she reached out a couple months ago and was like you guys should come to a pod in Kansas because we have real races here we have a governor's race there's a couple house seats we could flip and Sebelius as she usually is was absolutely right about that we're like we're not sure if we help it's a little it's Kansas to me it's a little bit like uh Laura Kelly is showing up like midway through the game Bioshock after they've tried libertarian governance.

And that's it. That's for five of you. All right. Let's talk about why did Democrats win? What happened? Why did we net all those seats last night? What did we do right? We ran everywhere. Great candidates. Like you look at some of the seats we picked up, seat in Oklahoma,

seat in Utah, seats in Texas. These are seats that have gone uncontested in years past. And even if we did find a candidate, those races were not staffed, they weren't funded. And it really, like the DCCC deserves credit for the work they did. But a lot of the funding of these reach districts were funded at the grassroots level from people who believed. Like we've told this story before. But were we in Arizona or Colorado at a pod show last year? Yeah, Colorado and Denver. Colorado last year. And someone stood up.

A woman who was a dreamer. A dreamer. But then it told us that we could win that race. The Mia Love Race. The Mia Love Race in Utah. Yeah, she did. I i remember that i remember that last night when i saw it i was like oh this is what that was the first time i heard that we could win that race and and so we ran everywhere we ran and we ran hard everywhere and the grassroots drove what we did and that's incredibly important because the effort to take back the house the effort to take back our country came

from the bottom up it came from groups like run for Something, Swing Left, Indivisible. And to the credit of the more establishment groups, they did not act threatened most of the time by these groups and worked with them. And we ended up with really strong candidates running really strong campaigns up and down the ballot all across the country. And a slate of candidates that was more you know, more female. There were more candidates for people of color. There were so many firsts. First Native American going to Congress with Sharice Davids. First, I mean, we'll go through the first list later, but it's a very impressive slate of candidates. Tons of gays.

The gays are crushing it. I mean, it's funny. It's just not a traditional slate of candidates. It's not a whole bunch of state reps and state legislators who took the next step. It's like Chrissy Houlihan is an Air Force veteran and a businesswoman and educator. Colin Allred in Texas played in the NFL. I mean, these are exciting new types of candidates. They look different. They sound different. And I think that worked. And Congress will be the better for it. I guess. Can't get worse for it.

We ran a very focused campaign campaign every single one of those candidates ran on health care and we saw in the early exit polls last night health care 41 percent of voters said that was their top issue and democrats completely crushed and that's no easy thing because when donald trump's out there talking about caravans and mobs and all this other bullshit it's very easy to take the bait and just get in a fucking fight with donald trump when republicans over this and these candidates were laser-like focused on health care and specifically protecting pre-existing conditions in all these races and i think that is a lesson you know i also want to say like some how some

like how some of these candidates won too and sort of took back some some Trump areas like we did very well in the Midwest, although certain places in the Midwest. What do you think accounts for some of the Midwestern strength last night? I think we held on to Hillary Clinton's strength in the suburbs. And so these sort of Romney Clinton voters who who do like Donald Trump. And Donald Trump has sort of radicalized them against the Republican Party. And that was a question. Were we going to win these voters who voted for Romney and Clinton? Would they vote for a Democrat against a generic Republican, essentially? And yes. But we also did better in many places in the rule and ex-urban areas. We held down some of our losses in 2016. And that, to me, is like you see the path in 2020, which is if we can maintain our enthusiasm and turnout in the suburbs and urban areas and win back some of those Obama-Trump voters where we hold down the margins in the rural areas, then you can reconstitute the Obama coalition that

won so handily in 08 and 12. That's sort of the path. And the candidates who won, whether it's Gretchen Whitmer or Tony Evers, Sherrod Brown, they did that. And the candidates who lost in those states were unable to do that. I want to talk about Gretchen Whitmer for a second because she's a rising star in the party. And I want to talk about what she pulled off in Michigan. Whitmer for a second because she's a rising star in the party and I want to talk about what she pulled off in Michigan. In 2016, Trump won huge margins in working class areas in Michigan and then Hillary's margins in affluent areas and suburbs and urban areas were underwhelming. Last night, Whitmer narrowed the margins in working class areas, ran up huge margins in affluent and urban areas. So she took back the Obama-Trump counties that Hillary

lost. Whitmer took those back. And she matched Obama's margins in Detroit, where Hillary fell short by 10 points of Whitmer and Obama. So it just goes to show you that we had this election of 8 and 12, where Obama assembled this coalition in Michigan. Hillary lost a lot of it in 16. where Obama assembled this coalition in Michigan, Hillary lost a lot of it in 16. And last night, Whitmer put it back together. And she ran this very disciplined campaign focused on the economy, talked about infrastructure, she had been responsible for expanding Medicaid when she was in the Michigan legislature. So it just goes to show you like that is a path for Democrats in the Midwest. Yeah, I mean, another good example of that, I think is the Iowa First District. It was I remember when when when Hillary lost Iowa Iowa and we're looking at how we got kind of blown out in those northeastern Iowa districts that to me was always like a place of progressive democratic strength.

Um, Rod Blum won in 2016 with a 53% margin. And I just felt like, oh my God, like what happened to Iowa? We got blown out. But last night, Abby Finkenauer won, uh, 50.9% to 46%. I mean, she romped in that district and she is young and progressive and from a labor household and like an exciting, you know, she's what, 28, 29. It's's like incredibly it's a huge bounce back which i think you know tells you a story about what can happen when you put forward a really great slate of candidates and you run a smart campaign but it also i think tells you a story about why 2016 was unique uh and there was something that big that went on at the top of the ticket that i think we corrected a little bit last night yeah all right Let's get to why was the Senate so hard last night? That was obviously the big, well, I'd say we have a couple of disappointments. Let's start with the Senate. I think it's an easy, I think this is

actually easy. Look, America went to the polls and they came up with a split decision, right, Dan? Dan, what do you think about the split decision? I would like to thank everyone on Twitter who has decided to send me every tweet that says split decision. So every time my rage subsides for a second, I am reminded of it. Anyone on the Senate? I mean, look, I think if we really look at the map, like Trump won Missouri by double digits, Indiana by double digits, high double digits. Where else did we lose? North Dakota by double digits. Florida, we can fucking talk about in a second.

But I do think that some of the, like, we won, senators, Democratic senators won in a lot of Trump states last night. Sherrod Brown, Tammy Baldwin, Bob Casey. They did great. John Tester. John Tester just pulled it off, right? It was closer there, but he pulled it off. But in these other states where McCaskill, Lask, and Donnelly, and Heitkamp, those were just trumpier, redder states. And I don't know that we'll see Democratic senators in those states again.

No. It's scary. The country is polarizing. And the redder parts of the country are getting redder, and the bluer parts are getting bluer. And the question going into last night was, what was going to happen in the purple parts? Were these Midwestern states on a path to red because of demographic change, because of something Trump had done to shake up the political coalitions in this country? And the answer to that is, as of last night at least, no. I think we have to look at all of these Senate races because I think there are a lot of lessons to learn there. What did Jon Tester do to win

that Heidi Heitkamp, Joe Donnelly, and Claire McCaskill could not do? Great question. What did Sherrod Brown do to win that Richard Cordray, who's running for governor of Ohio, did not do? And I think we have to understand, because the purple Senate races are the most important thing, short of the presidential election race. We have to understand because we the the purple senate races are the most important thing short of the presidential election so we have to figure that out because we have zero margin for error in the senate we have to win every blue seat and every purple seat to even had a have a shot at 50 in a system that gives the same amount of political power to wyoming as it does to california new york

right we can i see we can all complain about. We can all say the Senate is undemocratic and it doesn't represent people. Yeah, we know. We can't change that. Yeah, I have a plan for that. Yeah, but we have to get to power first. What I'm saying is the only way to change it is to win. So we have to figure out a way to win these states,

just so people know. So we have, it looks like the Republicans are going to end up with 54 seats in the Senate when all is said and done, right? Or 53, 54. I don't do math so in 2020 the possible targets are cory gardner in colorado joni ernst in iowa tom tillis in north carolina we have mccain seat which is going to be up so another open seat in arizona and susan collins

in may we also are defending doug jones seat in in Alabama. So that's going to be really, really tough. So that means, like you said, we have to almost run the table in those seats. So we have to be very careful and think really hard about the candidates we put forth in those states. Because as we saw last night, candidate quality really matters. And it matters most in states that are on the razor's edge like that demographically. Right. I think we need to, so I think we, I think there's two questions. One is how do we have a chance in some of these red states? And the other is how do we field candidates that can win in Florida and Arizona? Because

there's a, there's a longer term challenge in places like Missouri. But there's a, we should really, I feel the longer term challenges. Well, no, but so that's the point. So I think we should ask the candidate question, right? A kind of tactical questions around what happened in Arizona? What happened in Florida? But one thing that I'm thinking about is the fact that in Missouri, Missouri came out really hard for a pro-union ballot initiative recently.

We have in very red states where we don't believe democratic senate candidates compete we are passing medicaid expansion we are passing liberal policy and so i think one thing that it is going to be that is a bigger harder question is how how can we get democratic politics to be as appealing to people as liberal politics once the democratic label has been removed and i don't think what the media will do because because this is what they do, they'll make it all ideological, right? It's the ideological part of the candidate. What do they believe? Are they too far to the left? Are they centrist? A whole bunch of true centrists lost in these races. Phil Bredesen was supposed to be the one in Tennessee who knows his state so well

because he was an absurdly popular governor in the 90s went down to an 11 point defeat. You can't get more centrist than Phil Bredesen unless you were Republican. Right. So I don't think the answer necessarily is ideological about who we nominate in these states. You get both answers out of this, right? You have Joe Manchin winning, you have Bredesen losing, you have John Tester winning, you have Claire McCaskill losing, right? So there's no one is going to be able to come up with a simple sentence to describe the ideological takeaway from this from this night. Yeah, I also think that, you know, Maryland and Massachusetts are interesting examples. In Maryland, you have Larry Hogan, who was reelected overwhelmingly as governor. Charlie Baker in Massachusetts is wildly popular. So in some of these liberal bastions, you do see they like Republican governors.

They like divided leadership for some reason. Massachusetts, we have forever. And so, I mean, maybe we can learn something from them. I do think when you look at your 2020 map, like Iowa feels doable to me again. It didn't before last night. Maine feels very doable. Arizona, with the right person, we can give it a shot. But you're right.

I mean, candidate quality is everything. Well, let's talk about it. Why do we think Kyrsten Sinema, she came really close. And of course, we should say Sinema has not conceded yet. I think Martha McSally was, the Republicans, probably going to establish when we tell you that she was like their favorite candidate. All the cucks. Cucks love Martha McSally. She's going to Washington.

She's going to be part of that club I thought she was pretty sloppy with the healthcare answer and the pre-existing conditions stuff I think that's probably why Kirsten Sinema kept it close but do we think there was a what do you think what do you think happened in Arizona I don't know I mean I think we have to we have to see more data

about that state but what I think the question around Kirsten Sinema was was she exciting enough data about that state. But what I think the question around Kyrsten Sinema was, was she exciting enough to turn out enough first-time voters or periodic voters in Arizona? Because Arizona has a large population of potential voters. And the only way that Democrats can win, it's a very polarized state demographically. You have a lot of older white voters. It's why Republicans have done so well there for so long. But it has been changing demographically over time. But we have not had

the success of taking the new residents, new people who've aged into the electorate and turn them into voters yet. Now, it is worth noting that even in our losses, Democrats did better in those races than they have in a very long time. Yeah. And there is something, if you're trying to just extract some silver lines from those dark clouds, we've been talking about Arizona moving blue for a while. You see some evidence that that is a possibility for us based on the results of last night. She's down by a point. Arizona is ground zero for the immigration battles in America. It is a place where Trump's caravan message, birthright citizen message, general race baiting, white people fear mongering works very, very well.

It is a place that Joe Arpaio was from. It is where some of the most hardline immigration politicians have been from. And so you're beginning to see the transition. It is where some of the most hardline immigration politicians have been from. And so you're beginning to see the transition. The difference in Arizona is the Green Party candidate actually got a larger margin than Sinema. 38,000 votes. Yeah. Thanks, Green Party.

Yeah. Who could have seen that coming? It's never happened before. As always. Appreciate you. All right. Now let's get to then the real heartbreakers. Our favorite three candidates, all four of us, I'd say. As always, appreciate you. All right, now let's get to, then, the real heartbreakers.

Our favorite three candidates, all four of us, I'd say. Andrew Gillum in Florida, Stacey Abrams in Georgia, and Beto O'Rourke in Texas all lost last night. I should say, actually, Stacey Abrams has not lost yet. She's not conceded because that could go to a runoff. Tommy told me Bredesen was his favorite. I'm a Bob Menendez guy. And I don't understand why we're not able to sit here, alright, and talk about the

fact that an inspirational young leader, the future of this party, Bob Menendez, won in New Jersey against the odds, despite a lot of people saying he's a criminal, alright? All morning, Lovitz has been saying, give me some Cuomo girl leadership. Cuomentum?

We've got Cuomentum. We've got Menendezmentum. The future of the party is in the mid-Atlantic. Cuomoney, less problems. We needed that. So I will say, when I was in my high anxiety for two weeks before the election, it was following the early vote in Florida and all of Steve Shale's tweets and everything, because I thought, I love Beto and I love Abrams, I'm inspired by them, but I know how demographics work and states work, and I'm like, they have an uphill climb. Gillum should have won Florida.

All the polls had him ahead. It was probably the biggest polling miss of last night is Gillum won Florida. All the polls had him ahead. It was probably the biggest polling miss of last night is Gillum in Florida where all the polls had him running ahead of Nelson and he ran probably slightly behind Nelson.

And I don't know what happened there, but I'm really fucking mad at Florida. Yeah. I don't know what happened either. I mean, I do think the more I read this morning is I think we all underestimated the drag of having

an FBI investigation on your campaign. Well, that's an unprecedented thing. It never happened before in the history of time. How could we have missed that? I mean, his former friends were dumping emails and there was all this talk of an FBI informant

and these tickets. Last night, we were all watching the results come in. We were like, how the hell is the governor's race lagging the Senate race? And maybe that's something you can point to. Yeah, I think we don't have enough information yet. We may never. That certainly could be a factor. race could certainly be a factor um in you know that's i mean if he if it's true that he ran slightly behind nelson you know why is that or

ideology he was further to the left than nelson we those are all three possible factors we don't know which one it is all i know is a combination or a combination yeah is i fucking love andrew gillum i still love Andrew Gillum. I still love Andrew Gillum. He is young. We are going to hear from him again. And we're just fortunate that we got to see him run. Like he is great.

And I think even though he lost, there are lessons to be learned for Democrats on how you run races. And also, we're about to watch Florida expand voting rights to over a million people, which is not only just a morally good thing, it is going to change the Florida electorate. I mean, these were really, really close. We hope so. Right. We don't know. But all those disenfranchised people having a chance to vote and probably participating might help tilt the balance in a state that will continue to be very close. And on Stacey Abrams, you know, we were here pretty late last night and watching her speech last night, it was maybe the most inspiring speech of the whole night. And people here at Crooked Media were cheering, clapping, getting out of their seats. It was fantastic. That race may be headed for a runoff. She has not conceded yet. There are something like 80,000 plus ballots out. If she reduces the margin by about 20,000 votes, Kemp goes under 50% and we're headed to a runoff in Georgia. And everyone gets to the important point, not a recount, a runoff. We're having

another election. A new race that Kemp can try to steal. Well, a new race in a new environment where courts have overruled some of Kemp's decision to purge voter rolls. So you're going to have another few weeks to get some of those people who were denied the right to vote the chance to show up at the polls. And we got to go all in on helping her if that happens. We'll see you in Atlanta if that happens. All right. And to the final candidate, let's talk about Beto. Beto.

Beto O'Rourke, who lost by 2.6 percentage points to Ted Cruz, something like 4,050,000 votes. Highest vote total of any Democrat in Texas statewide, and as long as we can remember, highest percentage in as long as we can remember. Organized the state, helped win some house races for us. Yep, lifted a lot of votes. Lizzie Fletcher, Colin Allred, fantastic candidates, both of them certainly lifted by better aurora 11 seats in the texas house 11 seats in the texas house in the judiciary they won some seats as well gina ortiz jones came like a couple hundred votes from beating will heard um and and he inspired you know just a whole bunch of people not just in texas but all over the country to get involved in politics. And that organization isn't going anywhere. That's still going to be there. And that's

really important. Unless it moves to Iowa. Beto O'Rourke ran the best race he could have possibly run. I mean, short of winning. He ran a hell of a good race. He inspired millions of people. He exceeded all turnout expectations. And I say that not because I give a shit about moral victories. I don't. I want wins and losses just like everybody else does. But there was this sneering bullshit conventional wisdom coming out of Washington embodied in a Politico story called Did Beto Blow It? That was released two days before the election day that seemed to suggest that because Beto didn't have a pollster, because he didn't poll test his position on the NFL kneeling question and all this nonsense, that he was somehow a bad candidate,

that what we needed to do was tack to the center like Phil Bredesen. Well, Phil Bredesen got his ass handed to him, and Beto O'Rourke kept it real tight in a very, very red state. So I want to see more Beto O'Rourke-like candidates out there who they don't have to be super liberal. That's not what I'm saying. I want you to say what you think and mean it and not worry about the politics of your statements in advance.

That's what we want. Beto O'Rourke in Texas came closer than Claire McCaskill, Joe Donnelly, Heidi Heitkamp, Phil Bredesen. Richard Cordray. Richard Cordray. And so did stacy abrams and so did andrew gillum just just so everyone knows um and look the the bedo the bedo mockery comes from the most obvious fucking suspects which are the most cynical reporters in dc who think they fucking know everything and don't and establishment republicans who are jealous that we have

inspiring candidates in our party and they do not, which is what they used to do to Barack Obama. We heard all the same stuff about Barack Obama in 07-08 from the same cynical DC reporters and the same establishment Republicans. And the reason they mock it is because they don't want us to have those candidates because they are afraid that they will win. That's why they mock it. Last night, in a lot of ways, went the expected route, right? You know, we thought maybe there's a chance we could win these Senate races. We thought maybe Stacey Abrams has a chance and maybe she still does. We thought maybe Beto has a chance. We were more hopeful about Gillum, but we won the House, which was what our focus was, which was what we

believe was the most important thing. I believed going into election night that Andrew Gillum, Beto O'Rourke, Stacey Abrams, that they represented the future of the Democratic Party. And that is true win or lose. Yeah. We have plenty of time to talk about 2020 in the coming weeks and months. But I will say, you watch Beto O'Rourke's speech last night, watch Stacey Abrams, you watch Andrew Gillum, and you see that the movement they've inspired and the people they've inspired. And then you tell me that that's not what we need in 2020, here's the deal. I hope all three of them run for president in 2020, all right? I really do. If they don't, other 2020 candidates, look at them. That is the bar, and you have to meet that bar. We are not accepting anything

less. We want inspiring candidates like that who can both excite the base and reach out to non-voters and build a movement and get people excited about politics again. And if you cannot get on that level, on Beto O'Rourke's level or Stacey Abrams' level or Andrew Gillum's level, you have to think twice about running for president. You have to think hard about your campaign. That's what I'll say about that. You have to think hard about your campaign. That's what I'll say about that. I would add a couple points on this.

One is that there was a lot of criticism from these cynical reporters saying, why did you nominate these liberals, these dyed-in-the-wool progressives in these conservative states? Those liberals did better than all of the centrist vanilla candidates we have run in those states in recent years. And they did better with independents. They were able to have the magic formula of exciting the base. Beto won independents 50 to 47 in Texas. Won them. And if, just to make a Beto for president point, which doing that well with independents

in Texas, if you were to model that performance, he would win 350 electoral votes. If you do that across the country. He won independence by three. He won 7% of Republicans. And there were 23% in Texas were new voters. And he won them by, you know, 30 points or something like that. And that's how you get to within two and a half points of Ted Cruz in Texas. But the way the Washington media judges it is you what you do is you live up the ass of Ted Cruz's main consultant for a month. And then you write a piece. It is just a warning to everyone. Like we're going to see more of this as we get closer to 2020.

There's going to be all this punditry. It's all, they all base it on ideology. All they can think about is someone centrist or someone left someone too in the middle or two. And it's all garbage. centrist or someone left, someone two in the middle or two. And it's all garbage. Like, look for the candidate who you, you're in your gut tells you will inspire a movement of Americans from all walks of life to get out there, work their asses off and go to the polls. Look for that candidate. I'd also say too, that one thing that Beto Gillum and Stacey Abrams have in common is they are inspirational. They are hopeful, they are positive sounding, yet their agenda is something that speaks to that kind of working class roots of the Democratic Party and the values of independent voters who have maybe gone to Bernie in the past,

who are the kind of people that are coming out in red states to vote for Medicaid expansion, to vote for pro-union. Stacey Abrams' whole campaign was about Medicaid expansion. She talked about it everywhere she went. So there is this interplay between the quality of the candidates and the authenticity they bring to the table and their ability to relate to a broad ideological spectrum of voters and their willingness to advocate for simple, working class politics. Everyone looked at Gillum's campaign and said, oh, he took on race really well. He handled it really well. Butilliam's message every single day was about the economy beto's message every single day was about the economy these people had a populist economic message and a

broad political appeal that was inspiring to people on from all walks of life that is the key All right. Now to bring us back down to earth, let's talk about Donald Trump's press conference today, which was followed by Donald Trump firing Jeff Sessions. First of all, let's talk about the press conference. Was he a little more unhinged than usual? He seemed a little sadder than usual. I thought he would pretend to be a little more upbeat than he was. Testy. Yeah, he came out really sad. And really, honestly, he only got excited when a bunch of reporters kind of got in his face.

And then he got all fired up. He took energy from them. He got excited. He got his groove back because CNN pissed him off. So maybe we shouldn't do that. Does that make Jim Acosta Taye Diggs? Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

He decided to dance on the graves of Republicans who had lost and who didn't show sufficient fealty to him, including Mia Love, congresswoman out of Utah, whose race hasn't been called yet, which is just so crazy. Yeah, he sounded like a mob boss up there. He started listing off Republican candidates who lost and said, didn't want to give me the embrace. Forget about it. Didn't want to embrace me. Didn't want to embrace. The way the press reacted to it, not in the room, the coverage of it, also sort of bespeaks their yearning for the normalcy of politics that left us two years ago. Where in the press conference, Trump, he just kind of threw out there, like, of course I'd work with the Democrats on things, and I called Nancy Pelosi last night.

But that came three minutes after he said that if they subpoena me, I'm going to sick the Senate to investigate them in vindictive witch hunts. And the New York Times news alert was, Trump pledges to work with Democrats. I know, I know, I know. Also, it was also a reminder of how many baked in lies they just accept. Like he's still saying two years later that he is under audit, that his taxes are being audited and thus he can't release them. One, how long do audits take? Two, you're the president of the United States. Could you not expedite them? Three, of course you can

release them. It's a lie, but they accept this. No one pushes back on the substance or asks for any commitment or anything else. They still, two two years in they have not figured out how to deal with him and i realize it is a very difficult task i don't know that i would be there's no perfect yeah there's no perfect question where the tax returns explode out of his pockets somehow they get it wrong on both sides where they um they're like baited into making this whole thing about a fight with donald trump reporters versus donald trump and then that becomes the headline, which is what he wants. And yet, when he lies and does his caravan shit,

then they all just sort of play it and just air it. It's a hard thing, right? It's a little bit like, you're pulling into a parking spot, and Donald Trump comes in and swings in and stops you from getting to the parking spot. And it's your fucking parking spot. And then he gets out of the car and he's like, you're in fucking spot get the fuck out of my parking spot i was

here first and you have a choice right you can either rise to his level to fight back or give in in some way and there's no good option there's no good option because because you know he he he drags you down to his level and it's happened happened to politicians. It's happened to the press. It's one of the great challenges to... Shopping at Wegmans. Shopping at Wegmans. Okay, so he, at the press conference, he's asked, is Jeff Sessions' job safe?

He says, I don't want to answer that right now. Maybe in a little bit. That's so funny. And then as soon as the press conference ends this is where the laughter stops because we uh get a news alert that he has asked jeff sessions to resign um matthew whittaker who was jeff sessions chief of staff now becomes the acting attorney general this also means that rod rosenstein is no longer in charge of the russia investigation the only reason he was is because Sessions recused himself. Now that Sessions is gone, Whitaker can take over. Who is Matthew Whitaker and what does this mean for the Russia investigation?

It's the end of the Russia investigation as we know it. Matthew Whitaker was a U.S. attorney in Iowa. He's a Republican political operative. He was a CNN commentator who wrote an op-ed basically giving Trump a playbook to end the Russia investigation before he became Jeff Sessions' chief of staff. The New York Times had an article a few months ago, which we should have seen this coming, about how Trump loved Whitaker and Whitaker had been hanging out in the Oval Office for months. And we worked in the White House. It is very, very strange for the president of the United States to be meeting with the chief of staff of any cabinet secretary, let alone the Department of Justice, of which you were supposed to have a hands-off relationship with. So the fix is in here. And what this means- Yeah, to say the least.

Yeah. What this means is that Bob Mueller needs Donald Trump's chosen political hack's permission to file an indictment of Donald Trump Jr. He needs to release his report to subpoena Roger Stone. Any move that he has to make, he has to ask that Trump's handpicked successor to Sessions. And this is a disaster. The only thing that the rule of law in this country has going for it right now is the Democrats took the House. And so Adam Schiff can reopen the Russia investigation. He can use the subpoena power he has to the ability to subpoena anyone involved in the quashing of the investigation. So you can also, it creates a little bit of a higher threshold for them to act because they know that anything they do will eventually end up in front of a Senate committee and probably a public Senate committee. The other thing we don't know is we don't know what Robert Mueller did or didn't do to protect himself and his investigation from this eventuality. We really just, we don't know what's already, we don't know.

We just, we know so little. And we've been months and months behind Mueller for basically the entire time he's been special counsel. If Robert Mueller has a draft of his report sitting in a desk drawer somewhere, I believe that Adam Schiff can subpoena that. Now, the Trump Justice Department can refuse to comply with that subpoena, and then that would go to a court. The court in which Brett Kavanaugh exacting his partisan revenge on America.

Which he promised to do in front of the entire country during his hearing. So, fuck you everyone who says Democrats overplayed their hands because that's the guy that's going to be on the Supreme Court. Here's what we need to do. Everyone that gave to the Peter Strzok GoFundMe, we set up a new GoFundMe. We're going to get Bob Mueller a photocopier and he's going to get going and print these fucking things and distribute them all over town. There's also one other there's one other defense, which is people inside the Justice Department. And our friend Matt Miller was saying that. People with integrity inside the Justice Department being willing to either friend Matt Miller was saying that. People with integrity inside the Justice Department

being willing to either leak or resign, tell their story. So, you know, this is a very, very bad turn. This is a precarious moment. It's a precarious moment. I think no one knows how it will turn out. But it would be a devastating moment had you all not worked so hard

to take the house back last night, because now we have the house, which is the which is a level of power that we did not have a couple of days ago. Yeah, it is a hell of a lot easier to shut down the Russian investigation of the Department of Justice if they don't have to worry about Devin Nunes. We're headed into some interesting times, people. All right. Well, anything else? Anyone got any closing thoughts on the election? We should say thank you. Yeah.

Yeah. I want to say thank you to all of you who have listened and decided to go out and knock on doors and volunteered and donated to candidates and run yourselves. I know there's a lot of candidates, you know, listening to who are for state legislatures and other places.

I'm just so proud of everyone. And it's the best part of our days is when you guys have tweeted pictures at us that you're knocking on doors. And it's great. Yeah. Also, just a quick thank you to our team here. I don't want to start naming names because you inevitably leave somebody out. But Crooked Media is about 25 people.

And people on our team built the Vote Save America website that serviced like half a million people used it to find a sample ballot. 200,000 people pledged to vote on the site. I think 20,000 volunteer shifts were signed up through the site. So like a very small handful of people were working their asses off, like presidential campaign hours because we thought, they thought that it was good for democracy and it would be useful for you guys.

So thank you to our team and thank you to you all for using it and getting out there. Tommy would regularly yell at our staff. Say, Tanya, go home. Tanya, Shaniqua, EJ, go home. Nikki. Nikki. It's also, we focused on the races in California because we're out here. And one thing we woke up to this morning was people like Katie Hill ahead by a tiny bit. People like Harley Ruda ahead by a tiny bit. A couple other

races. Mike Levin ahead by a little bit. Other races really, really close. We have a chance of eking out. Everybody who sort of got involved here in California and got involved in the Crooked Eight. You can really be proud that you helped win some races because without that energy, I think it's pretty clear that we would not have won those races. Lucy McBath is sitting there in Atlanta, just a couple hundred votes ahead of Karen Handel, a couple thousand votes. Tony Evers is governor of Wisconsin by, you know, these were, we had, we won so many races by the slimmest of margins. And in those races, you all made the difference. And now, you know, we wake up and we had some good wins and we had some tough losses and the fight continues. Everyone out there

who ran, who canvassed, who made phone calls, who gave five and $10 where they could save democracy. Like they're weird. It is not done yet, but this, we didn't get through Tuesday. We had a close call. Yeah. Tuesday, like, we have more work to do in 2020, take the weekend off. We got to go back and we got to win more Senate seats, win more governorships and take the White House back. But all of that, everything that we care about would be at risk had we not taken the House

back last night. This has been a really hard two years. And, you know, I say that a lot, but I think in all the frenetic coverage and all the angst and all the news and the endless Trump shit and the endless disappointments, you can lose sight of the fact that all of that noise beneath it

is just a real sense of fear and a sense that we didn't know our country, that we'd lost our ability to have a say in our democracy. And I'm just so proud that we were part of ability to have a say in our democracy. And I'm just so proud that we were part of taking that back. I'm proud of everybody that participated just because we woke up today with a win. And it's good to know what it feels like to win. And I know we needed it and we got it. And that's really exciting.

All right. Well, we'll talk to you next week. Go, everyone, take the weekend off. And then Monday, 2020 infighting, baby. Let's do this. No, on Monday, Stacey Abrams runoff. Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully. Hopefully, hopefully. Fingers crossed.

Tuesday, 2020. When does the infighting start, Tommy? I want to do some infighting. It's already begun. All right. We'll talk to you later. Bye, everyone. Bye, guys. Bye.