Pod Save America - Which Democrats Have What It Takes to Win the White House?

Episode Date: May 17, 2026

David Axelrod joins Dan to discuss the Democratic Party's best messengers and its likely 2028 contenders. Together, they break down standout moments from some of the party's rising voices, examine what it'll take for Democrats to win the House despite new gerrymandered maps, and walk through some of this year's most important Senate races.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, episode title, and episode date.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Joining me today is former senior advisor to President Obama, David Oxelrod. You all know Axe. Maybe you've heard him on this pod, listen to either of his shows, Hacks on Tap, or the Axe files, or you'll likely seen him on CNN. Axe is an all-around expert that can speak to anything in democratic politics. I asked Axe to come on the show because I wanted to talk to someone smart about the midterms, both what the map looks like for the Dems after a series of devastating court rulings and what he thinks of some of the candidates running up and down the ballot. I also wanted to talk to him about messaging, namely how some of the party's leading voices and likely 2028 candidates are talking about the administration and if their theories of the case are actually any good.

We shared a great and wide-ranging conversation, which we'll get to in a minute. But before we do, if you're a friend of the pod subscriber, which if you aren't, you should be, you can now buy tickets for this year's CrookedCon. There is a special presale just for subscribers. But if you're not a subscriber because you hate pro-democracy media and love listening to podcast ads, you can buy Cricketcom tickets next week starting on May 19th. Either way, it'll be a big fun party right after the midterms of November 5th to 7th in Washington, D.C. Go to Cricketcom.com for more details, including how to become a friend of the pod subscriber.

All right, let's get to the show. Here's David Oxalund. What about, what did you make of what happened in Maine? Because that seems to be sort of indicative of a shift in the party, a shift in what people are looking for, maybe a sense that the Senate leadership or the establishment is, at least in that race and was not in touch with the voters wanted. There are a lot of factors here. One is that I think we're in an anti-establishment moment, and that's true in both parties. I think there is a real jaundice about the status quo.

You know, I mentioned early. You know, 70% of people in polling say the system is corrupt and rigged against them. I think there is a sense that Washington, you know, when you'll remember back in the day, Dan, when Barack Obama ran, one of the reasons he won was because, His campaign was a full out critique of Washington generally, not just the Republicans, but Democrats as well and the sort of red, red blue, who's up, who's down kind of struggle for power that had nothing to do with people's lives, lives or principal concerns. I think we're back there again. And so establishment candidates are at a disadvantage. And Janne Mills is a perfectly good person and has served honorably was very much the establishment

candidate. And she had the stamp of Senator Schumer on her to certify that she was the establishment candidate. And she would have been 79 years old when she got sworn in. So part of the other discontent people feel after two octogenarian presidents is with, you know, the gerontocracy in Washington, which also speaks to establishment politics. People don't feel like the folks in Washington are in touch with their lives or focused on their lives. I think Trump has exacerbated it because he ran contending that he was. And then, you know, and he now, we're into, you know, ballrooms and monuments and, you know, graft on a scale we've never seen before. This is one

place where he says nobody's ever seen anything like this before. He's right about this. Nobody's ever seen corruption at this scale before. And so people feel betrayed, you know, those who voted for him or who had some hope for him. And all of this, I think, makes a candidate like Platner in Maine, you know, appealing because he's a grassroots guy. He seems to be speaking the language and living the life of people who feel unrepresented. And I mean, but it was stunning the degree to which he was able to take that, you know, by storm. I mean, just literally blow the incumbent governor out of the race. You know, I actually wonder a little bit if he would have been better served by her hanging around for a while.

I 100% agree with that. There was no need to start. I'm not surprised Plano. One, I was very frustrated at the DSCC and Schumer for endorsing Mills to begin with. For all the reasons you said, just the idea that we were just going to decide from on high in Washington that our best chance against Susan Collins was a 79-year-old establishment politician. And I say that someone who likes Janet Mills and interviewed her on the show, which is no Joe Biden. No, she's not. But it's just it's the model everyone rejected last time.

And Platner turned out to be, you know, I certainly thought he would definitely win prior to all the online posts and then thought he, you know, he navigated that well enough to survive and then knock her out of the water. But he would have been much better off if this had gone to the end. He had a chance to beat her. You delay the general election by another month. Instead, now he's already got negatives against them from, you know, pros who's a consular super. Yeah, I don't blame her, though. She ran out of money. And I'm not sure that she was that eager to hang around just to let him claim the trophy.

you know. So the thing, one other thing I think this underscores, and you know this from your own career, don't let yourself get talked into running for an office you don't want to run for. Because it's never going to end well. You're not going to be an effective candidate. You know, I mean, Platner, by the time she dropped out, he had done, I think, more than 50 town hall meetings in the state. she had done, I think, zero. You know, and if you guys have a huge listenership, so if I'm wrong, I'm sure someone will tell me. It's a number closer to zero than 50, I'll tell you that.

Yes, well, there's no doubt about it, yes. And, you know, he's hungry for this and he's eager for it, and he's young and he's, you know, going after it. And so getting drafted against your will is a bad way to enter a race. Don't back into a race. Another race the Democrats are very excited about and very interested in it is Texas. Our old boss made his first campaign appearance of the cycle, getting some tacos with James Telerico and Gina Hinojosa, who's running for governor.

Trump waited on the race on his way back from China on Air Force One. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. The Democrats have a weird, a weird cat today. six genders, a real hit on Jesus. I mean, this guy, his man, you know, his mask from relatively recently. He's a vegan. He's a vegan.

All of a sudden, he's not a vegan. He's a vegan home. Now all of a sudden he's not. Texas doesn't like vagans. I do believe either one of them will easily quit the race. I think that the candidate, the Democrats have in Texas is a very flawed, very weak, very, I think he's a pathetic candidate, especially for Texas.

You know that that Shakespeare thing about that dot protests too much? But you know what's interesting about the dynamic in the Republican primary is that the folks who want John Cornyn, they'll say privately that they think Tala Rico's two left for Texas. They've got plenty of stuff. They could take them out. But they're not saying anything because right now what they're saying is Tala RICO can win unless we knock Paxon out of Paxston out of the race. If Paxton wins, Tala Rico can win.

Once this primary is over, they're going to open up on him. And they're going to along the contours of what Trump is saying. I'm sure he was briefed a bunch of his guys are working on the Cornyn campaign. But interestingly, he hasn't endorsed Cornyn. I trust that when Tala Rico went out for tacos that he had beef or chicken. She's not a vegan, as Trump pronounced it. A vegan, yes. Not a vegan taco.

Not a vegan. Did he say, did I hear that right, that he's bad on Jesus or something? What did he say there? He said he had a hit on Jesus, which references, I think, I'm guessing here, which shows I'm way too online. The great question. I think it was at the same time he said the six genders thing. I don't I don't really know. But this is there have been some clips from a speech he gave in 2020, I imagine, or right after that that have been going around. I think Trump has obviously seen those and he is doing it. But I'm not sure the idea that James Helerico's anti-Jesus is going to

sell. No, I'm sure that he would love to have that conversation directly with the president, you know, you can't like violate like many of the major Ten Commandments and then start going after someone else over their Christianity. You know, I mean, I mean, Tala Rico is clearly very, you know, serious about his faith. And that's one of the reasons he is where he is because that's translated really well. And he, you know, he has preached the gospel of the Brotherhood of Man and people who are so tired of all this conflict are responding to him. So we'll see what happens. Look, I think Texas is hard. You and I have gone through campaigns together where we held out hope for states like Missouri at one point.

And it always turned out to be fools gold. And the question is that the case here? one of the wild cards in Texas is that, you know, Trump won a solid victory there, but it was with a lot of Hispanic votes, particularly in South Texas. The two biggest losses in terms of support for Trump have been among Hispanics and young people. You know, Hispanic voters, I think, they're very sensitive to economic issues. They're a working class constituency in the Maine. And I think the the uh in south texas i think they were eager for border border control they weren't eager to be racially profile and uh i think because of all the stuff that ice has done combined with the

economic stuff he has completely uh dealt away the advantages that he gained among Hispanic voters that puts texas uh more in play um it also means that they're probably not going to capture all the seats they thought they were going to capture when they gerrymandered the state. Yeah, Texas is interesting. I think Telerico is a uniquely talented candidate. Yeah, he's great. Yeah. He's very good. He is, I think, if anyone

can do it, it's James Telerico in this year, particularly against Paxton. He, you know, the Latino numbers you point out are very notable. Pew has a poll out today, which shows that Trump's approval rating among Latino Trump voters is down 30 points since Election Day,

2024, which You know, that's a big chunk of voters. You know, we saw this in the primary, right? It's a primary. But Tala Rico got more primary votes than Kamala Harris got votes in, you know, sometimes by Maddochon two or three in some of these Rio Grande Valley counties, she got two or three times number of votes Kamala Harris got on Election Day in 2024. So there's obviously some persuasion.

This is not just turned out. There's some persuasion happening here because a lot of these people, these Latinos who voted for Trump were registered Democrats. So it's interesting. No, I was going to say just on the Hispanic issue, I think one of the reasons Trump is harping on him and Christ is that I think it's very advantageous for Tala Rico to be able to go into churches across Texas, including Hispanic churches, and as fluent as he is in scripture. And so I think Trump is trying to chip away, chip away at that. What were you going to say? I was going to ask you about the decision to have Obama come to Texas for him.

Like, it is a race where he's got to win, you know, Trump won Texas by 13, I think. He's got to get a bunch of people who pull the lever for Trump to vote for him. Do you think it's bringing in Obama was a good move? You know, I haven't seen his numbers in Texas. But my guess is that looking at his numbers nationally, they're not, they're not, bad. And there is a, you know, Obama's not campaigning that much for candidates at this juncture. I'm sure you will. But there is a stature thing. It kind of elevates Tala Rico in the race. And he may just want to, you know, because of the whole vaguen thing, as you say, Trump said,

maybe he just wanted a guy who really appreciated a good beef taco. Yeah. And I, look, I think also, I imagine, I'd have to look at. I imagine that Obama's numbers with Latino voters, even Latino voters who voted for Trump are quite good. And so with like, Tala Rico's smart. His campaigns being run by smart people. They're not just doing this because it's good for TikTok views. Like they obviously have looked at their data that suggests that with their target voters, Obama is a plus. And the other, it's not like there are a bunch of Republicans who are going to stay home because they're mad at Trump and all of a sudden Barack Obama shows up for tacos one day in May.

Like, okay, we're turning out. One last thing on this. I mean, one of the reasons Trump's going after Tala Rico is because it seems pretty clear that he's decided to stay out of this race. There was a presumption that he was going to endorse John Cornyn as the most likely candidate to win. He's now been convinced that either of them can win. But the Paxton question is really an open one because he's a guy who is absolutely freighted with scandal. and while he's very popular with the Republican base, he could be very vulnerable with some traditional Republican voters

in the suburbs around the big cities there. I don't think Obama's going to play badly with those voters. I don't think it's going to hurt Tala Rico to have them there with those voters. So we'll see. But I will say, I mean, because of the fool's gold PTSD I have, You know, I'm looking, you know, I look at Iowa, for example, and I'm wondering, is Iowa ultimately

going to be a better shot than Texas? Is Alaska with Mary Peltola and the ranked choice voting system against a very weak incumbent in Sullivan? Does that give you a better chance? Here's the thing. When you, you know, you have to win a couple of states where Trump won by double digits in any case. And you want as many opportunities as possible. So Democrats can turn to Alaska, to Iowa, to Texas. Even, and I think it's the longest of them, but even Nebraska, you know, where you have an independent candidate supported by Democrats who did very well in a Trump landslide last time against Ricketts, the senator, the incumbent senator, former governor.

You know, I think that there's a better than 50-50 chance that Democrats can piece it together, assuming that the wave is what we think the wave could be. And remember, the wave is more important in these Senate races. You know, they may piece districts together to hold down the House margin, but statewide, you know, harder. Pod Save America is brought you by Fast Growing Trees. Fast-growing trees is America's largest online nursery with thousands of trees and plants for every space and every climate. And they make it easy to get plants

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What about, what did you make of what happened in Maine? Because that seems to be sort of indicative of a shift in the party, a shift in what people are looking for. maybe a sense that the Senate leadership or the establishment is, at least in that race, and was not in touch with the voters wanted? There are a lot of factors here. One is that I think we're in an anti-establishment moment, and that's true in both parties. I think there is a real jaundice about the status quo.

You know, I mentioned early, you know, 70% of people in polling say the system is, is corrupt and rigged against them. I think there is a sense that Washington, you know, when you, you, you know, you, you, you'll remember back in the day, Dan, when Barack Obama ran, one of the reasons he won was because his campaign was a full-out critique of Washington generally, not just the Republicans, but Democrats as well and the sort of red-blue, who's up, who's down kind of struggle for power that had nothing to do with people's lives, lives or principal concerns. I think we're back there again. And so establishment candidates are at a disadvantage. And Janet Mills is a perfectly good person and served honorably, was very much the establishment candidate. And she had the, she had the stamp of

Senator Schumer on her to certify that she was the establishment candidate. And she would have been 79 years old when she got sworn in. So part of the other discontent people feel after two octogenarian presidents is with, you know, the gerontocracy in Washington, which also speaks to establishment politics. People don't feel like the folks in Washington are in touch with their lives or focused on their lives. And I think Trump has exacerbated it because he ran contending that he was. And then, you know, and he now, we're into, you know, ballrooms and monuments and, you know, graft on a scale we've never seen before. This is one place where he says nobody's ever seen anything like this before.

He's right about this. Nobody's ever seen corruption at this scale before. And so people feel betrayed, you know, those who voted for him or who had some hope for him. And all of this, I think, makes a candidate like Platner in Maine, you know, appealing. because he's a grassroots guy. He seems to be speaking the language and living the life of people

who feel unrepresented. And, I mean, but it was stunning the degree to which he was able to take that, you know, by storm. I mean, just literally blow the incumbent governor out of the race. You know, I actually wonder a little bit if he would have been better served by her hanging around for a while.

I 100% agree with that. There was no need to start for it. I'm not surprised Plentner. One, I was very frustrated at the DSCC and Schumer for endorsing Mills to begin with. For all the reasons you said, just the idea that we were just going to decide from on high in Washington that our best chance against Susan Collins was a 79-year-old established from politician. And I say that's someone who likes Janet Mills and interviewed her on the show. Yeah, no, she's no. But it's just it's the model everyone rejected last time.

And Platner turned out to be, you know, I certainly thought he would definitely win prior to all the online posts and then thought he, you know, he navigated that well enough to survive and then knock her out of the water. But he would have been much better off if this had gone to the end. He had a chance to beat her. You delay the general election by another month. Instead, now he's already got negatives against them from, you know, pros of the county. Yeah, I don't blame her, though. She ran out of money. and I'm not sure that she was that eager to hang around

just to let him claim the trophy, you know. So the thing, one other thing I think this underscores, and you know this from your own career, don't let yourself get talked into running for an office you don't want to run for because it's never going to end well. You're not going to be an effective candidate. You know, I mean, Platner, by the time she dropped out, he had done, I think, more than 50 town hall meetings in the state.

She had done, I think, zero. You know, and if you guys have a huge listenership, so if I'm wrong, I'm sure someone will tell me. It's a number closer to zero than 50, I'll tell you that. Yes. Well, there's no doubt about it. Yes. And, you know, he's hungry for this and he's eager for it. And he's young and he's, you know, going after it. And so getting drafted against your will is a bad way to enter a race. Don't back into a race.

Another race the Democrats are very excited about and very interested in it is Texas. Our old boss made his first campaign appearance of the cycle, getting some tacos with James Teller Rico and Gina Hinojosa, who's running for governor. Trump waited on the race on his way back from China on Air Force One. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. The Democrats have a weird, a weird candidate, six genders, a real hit on Jesus. I mean, this guy, his man, with his mask from relatively recently. He's a vegan. He's a vegan. All of a sudden, he's not a vegan. He's a vegan. Now all of a sudden, he's not.

Texas doesn't like vagans. I do believe either one of them will easily win the race. I think that the candidate the Democrats have in Texas is a very flawed, very weak, very, I think he's a pathetic candidate, especially for Texas. You know that Shakespeare thing about that dot protest too much? But, you know, what's interesting about the dynamic in the Republican primary is that the folks who want John Cornyn, they'll say privately that they think, Tala Rico's two left for Texas. They've got plenty of stuff. They could take them out. But they're not saying anything because right now what they're saying is Talarico can win unless we knock Paxton out of the race. If Paxton wins, Tala RICO can win. Once this primary is over, they're going to

open up on him and they're going to along the contours of what Trump is saying. I'm sure he was briefed a bunch of his guys are working on the Cornyn campaign. But interestingly, he has an endorsed Cornyn. I trust that when Talarico went out for tacos that he had beef or chicken. She's not a vegan, as Trump announced. A vegan, yes. Not a vegan taco. Not a vegan. Did he say, did I hear that right, that he's bad on Jesus or something? What did he say there? He said he had a hit on Jesus, which references, I think, I'm guessing here, which shows I'm way too online, The great question. I think it was at the same time he said the six genders thing.

I don't I don't really know. But this is, there have been some clips from a speech he gave in 2020, I imagine, or right after that that have been going around. I think Trump has obviously seen those and he is doing it. But I'm not sure the idea that James Helerico's anti-Jesus is going to sell. No, I'm sure that he would love to have that conversation directly with the president, you know, you can't like violate like, many of the major Ten Commandments

and then start going after someone else over their Christianity. You know, I mean, I mean, Tala Rico is clearly very, you know, serious about his faith, and that's one of the reasons he is where he is, because that's translated really well.

And he, you know, he has, he has preached the gospel of the brotherhood of man, and people who are so tired of all this conflict are responding to him. So we'll see what happens. Look, I think Texas is hard. You and I have gone through campaigns together where we held out hope for states like Missouri at one point.

And it always turned out to be fools gold. And the question is that the case here? One of the wild cards in Texas is that, you know, Trump won a solid victory there. But it was with a lot of Hispanic votes, particularly in South Texas. The two biggest losses in terms of support for Trump have been among Hispanics and young people. You know, Hispanic voters, I think, they're very sensitive to economic issues.

They're a working class constituency in the Maine. And I think in South Texas, I think they were eager for border control. They weren't eager to be racially profiled. And I think because of all the stuff that ICE has done, combined with the economic stuff, he has completely dealt away the advantages that he gained among Hispanic voters. That puts Texas more in play. It also means that they're probably not going to capture all the seats they thought they were going to capture when they gerrymandered the state. Yeah, Texas is interesting. I think Tala Rico is a uniquely talented candidate.

Yeah, he's great. Yeah. He's very good. He is, I think, if anyone can do it, it's James Tellerico in this year, particularly against Paxton. He, you know, the Latino numbers you point out are very notable. Pew has a poll out today, which shows that Trump's approval rating among Latino Trump voters is down 30 points since Election Day, 2024, which is, you know, that's a big chunk of voters. You know, we saw this in the primary, right? It's a primary.

But Tala Rico got more primary votes. than Kamala Harris got votes in, you know, sometimes by magic me two or three in some of these Rio Grande Valley counties, she got two or three times number votes Kamala Harris got on Election Day in 2024. So there's obviously some persuasion. This is not just turned out. There's some persuasion happening here because a lot of these people, these Latinos who voted for Trump were registered Democrats. So it's, it's interesting. No, I was going to say just on the Hispanic issue, I think one of the reasons Trump is harping on him and, um, you know, and in Christ is that I think it's very advantageous for Tala Rico to be able to go into churches across Texas, including Hispanic churches, and as fluent as he is in scripture. And so I think Trump is trying to chip away, chip away at that. What were you going to say? I was going to ask you about the decision to have Obama come to Texas for him. Like, is a race where he's got to win, you know, Trump won Texas by 13, I think.

He's got to get a bunch of people who pull the lever for Trump to vote for him. Do you think springing in Obama was a good move? You know, I haven't seen his numbers in Texas, but my guess is that looking at his numbers nationally, they're not, they're not bad. And there is a, you know, Obama's not campaigning that much for candidates at this juncture. I'm sure you will. But there is a stature thing. It kind of elevates Tala Rico in the race. And he may just want to, you know, because of the whole vaguen thing, as you say, Trump said,

maybe he just wanted a guy who really appreciated a good beef taco. Yeah. And look, look, I think also, I imagine, I'd have to look at it. I imagine that Obama's numbers with Latino voters, even Latino voters who voted for Trump are quite good. And so with, like, Tala RICO smart. His campaigns being run by smart people. they're not just doing this because it's good for TikTok views. Like, obviously, I've looked at their data that suggests that with their target voters,

Obama is a plus. And the other, it's not like there are a bunch of Republicans who are going to stay home because they're mad at Trump and all of a sudden Barack Obama shows up for tacos one day in May. Like, okay, we're turning out. One last thing on this. I mean, one of the reasons Trump's going after Tala Rico is because it seems pretty clear that he's decided to stay out of this race.

There was a presumption that he was going to endorse John Cornyn as the most likely candidate to win. He's now been convinced that either of them can win. But the Paxton question is really an open one because he's a guy who is absolutely freighted with scandal. And while he's very popular with the Republican base, he could be very vulnerable with some traditional Republican voters in the suburbs around the big cities there. I don't think Obama's going to play badly with those voters. I don't think it's going to hurt Tala Rico to have them there

with those voters. So we'll see. But I will say, I mean, because of the Fool's Gold PTSD I have, you know, I'm looking, you know, I look at Iowa, for example, and I'm wondering, is Iowa ultimately going to be a better shot than Texas?

Is Alaska with Mary Peltola and the ranked choice voter? system against a very weak incumbent in Sullivan, does that give you a better chance? Here's the thing. You know, you have to win a couple of states where Trump won by double digits in any case. And you want as many opportunities as possible. So Democrats can turn to Alaska, to Iowa, to Texas. Even, and I think it's the longest of them, but even Nebraska, you know, where you have an independent candidate supported by Democrats who did very well in a Trump landslide last time against Ricketts, the senator, the incumbent senator, former governor.

You know, I think that there's a better than 50-50 chance that Democrats can piece it together, assuming that the wave is what we think the wave could be. And remember, the wave is more important in these Senate races. You know, they may piece districts together to hold down the House margin, but statewide, you know, harder. Positive America is brought to you by Tommy John. What do you love about Tommy John? Well, it's not just a surgery anymore. You know what it is?

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with the code crooked. Comfort perfected. Just Use Code Crooked at checkout and upgrade your Essentials today. Tommyjohn.com save 25% on your first order with the code crooked. Yeah, the Senate map is, I mean, it's challenging. It's kind of shocking. And it says everything that we'd be sitting here now and you'd say it's a coin flip that we take the Senate or maybe even a little bit better than a coin flip. When I look at it, you just, if you're just doing like most likely scenarios, like I'm sure, I would probably pick Alaska of the, Texas, Ohio, Iowa, Alaska. Probably I'd pick Alaska just because of the fact that Mary Paul told was one in that state

before there was ranked choice voting. Dan Sullivan is particularly unpopular. And then, you know, I think maybe Ohio. Yeah. And then the other. I think Ohio, you know, Sherrod Brown came pretty close last time as Trump was carrying the state by double digits. And he's running against a senator who was.

appointed, who's never run on his own statewide, and who doesn't have a huge image in the state. So he's going to be more associated with Trump just by dint of having no real profile. I mean, he'll try and be, he was DeWine's guy. He'll try and run that way. But he can't run away from Trump. Trump won't allow him. And it's very hard, as you know, to run away from an incumbent president anyway. So, you know, and Sherrod Brown was a economic populist before economic populism was cool. So I think, you know, I'm not sure that I would rate Alaska over Ohio, but I think that the most likely combination, if Democrats are to take the Senate, would be North Carolina, Maine, Ohio, and Alaska. Yeah, I'm sort of stipulating Maine in North Carolina as must wins.

Because winning three of the other four is hard. Yeah, but he, Platter is going to, you saw a David French wrote a very tough column in the New York Times this week about him. I mean, not that people read that, but that was the tenor of what he, you know, they're going to go back at him with more ferocity. And, but Susan Collins, you know, after all this time and given the nature of the times is a, is a, is a, is a, is a, is a, is a, is a, is a, is a, is a, is a, is a, is a, is a, is a, is a. really vulnerable candidate, you know. So we'll see for all the reasons we discussed earlier. The Susan Collins thing is interesting because she has been, like she is a Republican in a state that Democrats win by nine points.

We should beat her. Should have beaten her in 2020. She's very tough to beat. She's been fortunate enough to be able to avoid some of the worst votes this time around because of the Senate marginally. Yeah, they cut her loose to do it. Yeah. She didn't have to vote for the beautiful bill.

she got to take a pass on some of the worst cabinet appointments, but she still is a Republican in Democratic state and one who represents status quo. It's going to be a very fascinating race. And the question is, you know, you and I both know the folks working on that race is can Plattner withstand what will be a massive amount of scrutiny, some of it from his own side because they're people pretty pissed about how this race played out. and every possible dollar dumped on his head with some of the nastiest. Yeah, and I mean, I think, you know, time will tell about that.

Yeah, I heard someone told me about a focus group in that state, and someone was talking about Susan Collins, and they said, she's bipartisan, she's only bipartisan when it doesn't count. And I think that's something that a lot of voters there kind of intuit. it. And, you know, she didn't vote for all of Trump's Supreme Court nominees, but she voted for some. The ones that counted for sure. As I pointed out to someone, it's, you know, you can, you can remove a tattoo, but you can't remove a Supreme Court justice. So, you know, that, we'll see how that's going. It'll be a fascinating, fascinating race. But I'm assuming that

that Platner wins the race in the end. That's my hope for sure. You know, both, in the House and the Senate, everyone keeps saying the campaign's about affordability, affordability, affordability, affordability. Like, obviously just saying the word affordability is not actually a message. Although, you know, some Democrats have the habit of reading the stage directions instead of the script. And so they're just saying affordability over again. Is a message around affordability enough? Does it need to be bigger than that?

What do you think Democrats should be saying? Well, I think that we have structural issues in our economy. We've got the affordability issue is hitting people. hard, but people have been, you know, kind of bobbing in the water and not gaining for a long time. And the polarity in our economy gets worse. And AI is going to turbocharge that, at least in the short run, maybe in the long run. And I really think, I don't know that it's necessary to win in November. There are discrete things you could propose in order to win in this November, but as I said, it's largely a referendum. Anybody who runs for president better have a

much bigger vision about how you reform a system that was broken before. I've always, you know, I think it's a mistake to assume that when you run in 28, that the message could be, we're just going to kind of restore everything that Trump knocked down because people weren't that happy with the system before he knocked it down. I mean, they didn't feel they were being well served. And, you know, they felt the system was corrupt, they felt it was rigged against them, they felt that they weren't getting ahead. And that's, you know, it requires big structural kinds of answers that, you know, to not only to put some equity into the system, but also to genuinely try and reform a system that is, you know, since our, you remember when our boss warned people about Citizens United in 2010,

and Justice Alito was deeply offended by that and shook his head on the floor. Everything he said has happened. I mean, we are awash in money and dark money and pernicious influence. And it all conspires against working people. So campaign finance reform is really important. We also have to think, I think Democrats, you know, what strikes me, Dan, is that we have this battle going on between the great ideas of the 19th century and the great ideas of the 20th century, you know, tariffs and no civil service and so on from the 19th century and then, you know, sort of

Rooseveltian structures in the 20th century. And we're in the 21st century. And we ought to be thinking about how do we solve the problems of today using the tools of today and not be wedded to the old ways of doing things, be wedded to creating a country in which people can work hard and get ahead and where we can deal with some of our most pressing problems. But don't assume that the way we approach them in the 20th century is necessarily the way we have to approach them now. I think there's a lot of room for a genuinely reform-oriented. candidate who has some vision for the future to move this country. I also, now you put the quarter and you're getting 10 plays, but I expect nothing less.

I love it. But, you know, I've been thinking a lot about this election, and no two elections are alike. But if you were going to say, well, what is this election most like? It goes back to one that you will not remember, but I do, which is the election of 1976, It was the first election I ever voted in, right after Watergate. And the country was stunned by what happened in Watergate, by the corruption of Richard Nixon. And by the way, you know, there was a real politicization of the Justice Department, of the CIA, of a lot of these. I mean, it was somewhat analogous to what we're facing today.

People wanted a cleansing. They wanted to give Washington an angioplasty. They wanted a fresh start. And that's how Jimmy Carter emerged in 1976. No one would have known who Jimmy Carter was at this point. And he became the nominee of the party and he won. I don't know who that person is. But I think that two things, qualities of character are going to be very important.

Empathy, decency, honesty. integrity, humility, all the qualities that Trump doesn't have are going to be prized in 28. And the second thing is, I think, being an outsider who's willing to really challenge orthodoxy in Washington, challenge the institutions on behalf of people, is going to be a candidate who's well-received. This is a perfect segue to what I want to get to, because we're going to have a little fun here. I'm going to play some clips from some 28, potential 28 contenders, and I'll get your take on them, both as messengers, what they're saying.

But before we get to that, I want to, you sat down with AOC at the Institute of Politics before a live audience. One of her answers went quite viral. I'm going to play it for audience. I'm going to ask you about it. It was very clear this was a veiled threat, right? So the elite saying,

if you want this job, you just stepped out of line. They assumed that my ambition is positional. They assume that my ambition is a title or a seat. And my ambition is way bigger than that. My ambition is to change this country. Presidents come and go. Senate, House seats, elected officials come and go.

But single-payer health care is forever. So a couple of questions for forever. Women's rights are forever. Women's rights, all of that. So a couple questions on this. That answer was a Roershark test for people about whether she was going to run for president or not won for president. I wanted to see what do you, how did you take that? Do you think that means she's planning on running for president, planning on for the Senate, doesn't yet know?

First of all, let me say, I thought it was a really powerful answer. You know, I heard Favreau say the other day that if you want to run for president, you better know what you believe. And what she was saying there is, I'm not in politics for a job. I'm in politics for goals that might impact positively on people's lives, the kind of people who I grew up with,

the kind of people live all over this country. And I think she really means it. And I think that authenticity is really powerful. That said, if you, you know, she said other things in this answer and elsewhere in this conversation that made me think she really isn't hungering for that job. And if I were her, what I would be thinking is I want to have an impact. And I'm not ready to sideline myself the chances of anyone getting elected president, no matter how good they are, are limited. And, you know, she's 36.

years old now, she'll be 38. She could walk into that Senate seat in New York. And interestingly, with this crowd of young people, I said, you know, some people would like to see you run for president, and a bunch of them cheered. And I said, and others would like to see you run for Senator Schumer's seat in New York. Louder cheers. I couldn't tell they were cheering for her to run for a senator, or cheering for the fact that you said Schumer was up. Yeah, no, it was definitely a combination of those two things. You know, she's got a high-class problem here. She'd get a lot of votes if she ran for president.

But I think the way I interpret what she said is I'm going to go where I think I can continue this fight for those things that I believe in and have the most impact I can have right now. And that led me to conclude that she is more likely headed to the Senate race than to the presidential race. I mean, nothing she told me, nothing I, but was reading between the lines, I would be more surprised if she ran for president than if she ran for the Senate. And you and I both know that she would not be one of a hundred if she went to the Senate. She, you know, she would, you know, when Barack Obama went to the Senate, he was, you know, number or whatever, 99, 98 in the Senate.

But he was not the 98th member of the Senate. people were always interested in what he had to say. Yeah, she, I have seen, I worked for, as you have as well, worked for many politicians who were planning to run for president and who got this question for the years leading up to the actual announcement. And the general approach is to just start muttering words until the questioner stops paying attention. And they're terrible at it. And this is the, I say this without any hesitation, the best answer I've ever seen of anyone

asked that question. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, it really. does help to be motivated by doing something than by being something. I mean, the world of politics devised into these two cohorts, the people who run because they want to be something, and that's the larger cohort. And then the smaller, more admirable, and the more impactful cohort are the people who run for office because they want to do something. And that doesn't mean they don't have personal

ambition, but you really, you know, honestly, I would say this anybody who runs for president. It's too damn hard to do it. I don't mean just to win, but it's such an arduous thing to do. Don't do it unless you know why you're doing it. And just, you know, and if you think that it's such a prize to live in a gilded prison, you're making a mistake. You know, no one ever will, no one ever will feel sorry for a president of the United States, but you do change your life forever, and it's not all positive. I mean, you basically give up your, you know, a lot to do it. I, you know, I think, I'm not saying that she won't run, and I'm not saying that she won't run someday, but based on what I heard, and if I were betting on it, I would bet that she's going to

the one place and not the other. I had the same impression that she was, that it clearly, the people who have wanted to be president since they were 17 years old. She said that. It's obvious in the answer. And she's clearly not one of those people. She said that. She said, I'm not one of these people who've been planning my, you know, planning my campaign for an office since I was seven years old. She said, you know, you all, we all remember her when she, the night she got elected to or nominated to the Congress.

and she was in her headquarters in a billiards hall in the Bronx with some supporters around her with her hand over her mouth and her eyes wide open, watching these returns come in. She was as surprised as anybody. Whatever she decides. I think when she first came to Congress, she was clearly one of the best communicators in terms of how you communicate. Like she understood the modern media environment better than almost anyone in Congress, which is not saying a ton.

But, you know, she's doing Instagram live. She's on social media. She knows how to do it. But I think in the last couple years, she's also become the best, one of the best messengers in the party, like about what she actually says. Like, it's very powerful. She came there. She's the youngest woman ever elected to the House. I think we've watched her mature as a political leader during those eight years.

I think that process is ongoing, you know, and I think she knows that too. But she's an impressive person. The reason that she is so good, yes, she knows how to use. social media and modern media. But the thing that you can't teach and the thing you can't buy is the ability to communicate authentically and to give people a sense that you're talking honestly with them. That's what great political leaders do. And she has that quality. So that's a hell of a thing to build on. Pod Save America is brought to by built. We can all agree that housing is expensive. Rent, mortgage. Doesn't matter which one you're paying.

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yeah there it is there it's a math problem it's simple being a renter and now owning a home is better with built join the membership for where you live at join built dot com slash crooked. That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T.com slash cricket. Make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you. All right. Let's watch some other people. See what you think about. I'm going to start with John Ossoff, who may or may not run for president, but he certainly has to win re-election in Georgia first. Let's take a look at one of his recent rally. How does American politics really work? It's coin operated. Money goes in. Favors come out. It's been running on secret money, corporate money, billionaire money, both sides.

Both sides. Citizens United was the worst court decision in modern American history. What do you think of awesome? I'm from my hembook there. Yeah, I know. I know. What do you think about him as a communicator? You know, he's a great communicator.

I haven't seen him as most of the time when I see him, he's behind a podium. And, you know, there are other elements of communication. and I haven't seen a lot of that, although I just spoke to someone, someone you and I both know who saw him at an event. You may have been at the same event because I think it was out west and said he was really, really good and kind of off-the-cuff interaction with people and so on. Listen, I take him seriously. You know, if you believe what I said earlier about the kind of candidate who will do well, he checks a lot of those boxes.

And he hasn't been, even though he is a senator, he has not been there long enough to be sort of corrupted in people's minds as a kind of fact, as a practitioner of inside the Beltway politics, which he's not. So, you know, I mean, it's a quick turnaround. He's young. But I think youth also is an advantage in this election because after, two presidents who were in their 80s, I think people are going to be really looking for a more youthful candidate.

You raised an interesting point because I think he is the best speech giver that I've seen in a while. You know, there's a whole generation of politicians sort of raised on Obama who speak like Obama, and I think he does the best, like you can see it in the tone. He has some of the same pause as the same cadence, but it doesn't look like Obama karaoke, which sometimes you get some. He apparently, yeah, yeah, we've seen that too. He apparently does a lot of writing.

You know, Obama, you know, he had great speechwriters. You work with some of them. But they would tell you that, you know, they would give him a product that was in good shape. And then he would buff it up or add things that took it from one level to the next. And he, because of that, he was familiar. He felt organic to the copy he was reading. So I think he has that. But the other thing that people don't appreciate about Obama and you,

would because you travel around with them. Like, you know, those 87 days we spent in Iowa where he was, you know, doing six, eight, you know, stops a day more even in small venues, interacting with people. He was very good at that. You know, you have to, running for president is a decathlon. It's not just one event. So you can be great at, you know, pole vaulting, but you still have to, you know, throw the javelin. And so the test of campaigns is how do you do all the events well enough to win?

So I don't know that about Assov, but he's certainly a promising, promising politician. Yeah, I want to see him, you know, I mean, this is a very self-referredge what to say, but like, can he pass the podcast test? Can he sit and, like, shoot the show? Like, I was just watching a clip of Obama. Well, that's subtle, Pfeiffer. Well, he's been on our podcast. He's done fine.

But it's like, it's not really can you come on Positive America or hacks on top. Can you go on Rogan or all the smoke? Can you relate to people on a cultural personal level that's not just politics? The test that Vice President Harris wouldn't take. Yes, yes. All right. Let's do the next one is someone familiar to all of us, Pete Buttigieg. There is a powerful American majority for change and for the things we believe in.

Because right now you've got this administration that's created the illusion that their positions are supported by most Americans. and it's just not true. Most Americans agree that we should be taxing the wealthy more, not giving giant tax cuts to billion. Most Americans think it is nuts that we're being told we can't have nice things like rural hospitals and good roads and fully funded public schools.

At the same time that you've got billionaires paying a lower tax rate than the nurses in those hospitals and the workers who work on those roads and the teachers who teach in those schools. What do you make a Pete? Well, look, in many, I've said this before. He is as bright and thoughtful as anybody I've seen since Barack Obama in terms of his ability to sort of think in interesting ways and posit arguments in ways that really are clear and thoughtful. and he's a very, very talented guy, and I really, I like him a lot.

I mean, and I think he's underrated in this. You know, I mean, when you hear conversations, he's not, people don't talk about him, but, you know, every time you look at a poll, and some of its name recognition, yes, but he's, he's well regarded by Democrats, and the things he's articulating out there kind of, they square up with some of the things I'm saying. He's talking about renewal, not restoration. He's talking about reform, you know, like basic fundamental reforms. You know, now, you know, I don't know whether experience of the Biden administration is advantageous or not.

Maybe not. I'm a guess net neutral at best. This would be my guess. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder I haven't never had this conversation with him whether if he had to do it all over again, he would have opted for that. He might be in better position than he was.

You know, there's always this question about an openly gay man running is America ready for that. And look, he, he, the one thing that he did not prove in 2020 was that he could win black votes. And that is a really essential task for anybody to get through this process. You know, black voters in the South in particular are really, really important. important. And so, you know, there are questions, but the talent is, is undeniable. Yeah, I think Pete's incredibly smart. I saw him in an event recently and he just, he's so good

off the cuff. He's so good answering questions. Yeah. And he does the podcast. He passes the pod. Yeah, all those things. The thing that was always, I think not like the black, black voters is like the mass. You can't, you can't win the math as such with primaries across the south the way delegates are allocated. There's no way to do it. it. That's why it's why Obama won. It's why Hillary won. Right. Right. Right. It's why Biden won. Right. But the thing about Pete's communication in 2020 was it always felt to me like a little bit at a remove. Like he was so good and so polished that, you know, it just like there was this distance between him in the audience. I think it's a really, I think it's an important observation.

Yeah. But I will say when he was on CNBC a few weeks ago and he was arguing with Joe Kernan. Yes. it was some of the best people like Pete will go on and he'll have like at every word exactly right on Fox News and he'll stuff uh shun handing into a verbal locker or whatever else and it's incredible but he when he was on the show currently like he showed like a real he was so frustrated and so angered by the stupidity of and the unfairness of what cronan was saying that it was really was like a that was one of his most authentic moments I thought it was quite quite good and I think maybe indicative like his life has changed a lot since 2020 right he's had he's got married he's

He's had kids. He's like been, he's been through times. And so I think, you know, I think it'll be, I mean, very interesting to see

how he's in involved Canada this time around because if so, there's real potential. And he benefits from the fact that New Hampshire is probably the first state and it's a place where he has a great base of strength. Yeah,

and continues to pole well. Don't underestimate the value of having run the track before, you know, he know, or just to use another sports analogy, he knows the lay of the greens. And running for president is not like running for any other office.

So he knows the pressures of it. He knows the cadence of it. He knows this stuff. That is a valuable asset. All right. Let's look at Andy Bashir, the governor of Kentucky. You've seen how some of this speak has crept into the Democratic Party. And we sound like we're talking down to people.

We've got to talk to people and not at them. Kentucky got hit by that opioid epidemic as hard as anybody, but maybe West Virginia. I mean, we've all lost people we love and care about. I didn't lose one to substance use disorder. I lost them all to addiction. If we want to push back against this president and what he's doing to snap, trying to hold hungry people hostage for political gain, it can't be that they'll be food insecure.

It's got to be that they'll go hungry. We've got to communicate to people and the values that they know and how they would talk to each other. Electability is obviously going to be a huge issue for Democrats as it was in 2020. No one has a better electability. story that you hear what do you make of them look i mean again going back to the things i told you before i mean you have to look at him because he's a he's an outsider he's also a guy who by the way can go into those black churches uh and uh in a compelling way um and you know and in terms of empathy

most of the time when we've seen him over the last eight years it's because his state has been beset by some natural disaster or, you know, in some cases, a horrific gun incident. And he's really, really good at that. He's great at expressing empathy. I sort of agree with what he said there. The thing I would say is it's not just about the language that we use. It's about, and I've said this a lot of times,

my objection to Democrats, since the Democratic Party has become a kind of metropolitan college-educated, party is we're still a party of working people or see us that way, see ourselves that way, but we approach them like missionaries and anthropologists, and we show up and we say, we're here to help you become more like us. And the implied message is that what you do really isn't as important as what we do, except then when we have a pandemic, and then we're home and we're making our living on our computer, and they're out there caring for us, protecting us, making things, shipping things, and doing everything it takes to keep the country going.

And then we go out on our balconies and we bang our pots and we say, you're the essential worker until the pandemic's over. And then they sort of become invisible again. So I think it's more, it's about more than just the language. We fundamentally have to think about how we value people in our society. All right. Last one we'll do is Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. We have an opportunity to have a really.

debate within our party about what we stand for, about what our affirmative vision is. It has to be about what we are going to do to make people's lives better. And I think that that is a debate that our party hasn't had for a good long while. And that debate is not only going to help the Democratic Party, I think it's going to be healthy for this country. And what I can tell you for sure is that I want to be a part of that debate. Bring the common sense sensibility of what we do in Pennsylvania. what we do in Pennsylvania to that conversation. Like Bashir, Shapiro has won the key set of Pennsylvania.

He's likely going to win it again by a very large margin, which will bolster his selectability case. What do you make, Shapiro? Look, he's very talented and very smart. And what he said, I obviously agree with. He's one of the guys who he can slide into sort of, Pigeon Obama from time to time, and he's taken a lot of criticism for it. He can be a little irascible.

And for him, I think the important thing is to be real. He's so smart and politically savvy that sometimes you feel like he's giving the politically savvy, well-manacured answer, and you don't know what you don't, see the person behind it. So those would be the concerns that I'd raise. But look, I thought, you know, I thought he should have been the vice presidential candidate in in 2024. Probably good for him that he wasn't.

But I think highly of him. And he's got some good stories to tell. That story about the sort of record pace at which they repaired the fallen bridge in Pennsylvania is a metaphor for something that Democrats need to struggle with is. if you're the party of government, how do you assure people that government can work? And he's got some examples to underscore. He also, Dan, has, he's forged a relationship with working class voters and rural communities in his state. You know, I think he does approach those voters respectfully and has built alliances there

that I think is very useful and important and instructive. So, you know, again, you've got a good assortment there. I know you only have a short period of time so you can't put all 106 aspirins up there. But that's a pretty strong assortment of Canada. Yeah, you know, Shapiro, it's probably not discussed enough how popular he is in Pennsylvania. Being a popular governor of Pennsylvania is not an easy thing to do. This is a state that Donald Trump has won twice. It has moved away from Democrats.

As we have moved away from Pennsylvania demographically as a party. He basically has a coalition that combines the new version of the Democratic Party with his college-educated suburbanites outside of the Collar counties around Philadelphia with some of the numbers that Democrats like Obama and Clinton had in the rural parts of the state in the great expanse between Pennsylvania and between Philly and Pittsburgh. Let me ask you a question. And based on, you know, you've got your finger on the pulse of the left. in the party. You know, the question that comes up, oftentimes from Jews, and I'm Jewish, is, well, can a Jew get elected, given the antipathy toward Israel now? And now he's been a very strong critic of B.B. Netanyahu. But how big an issue is that? Do you think that's an insuperable barrier for Democratic candidates? I don't, but you would know better.

I don't believe being Jewish as it is a barrier that cannot be overcome for a Democratic candidate. I think that any Democratic candidate is going to have to have a vociferous criticism of the Netanyahu government is going to have to take very strong positions that would have seemed impossible a few years ago about conditions on aid to Israel, about funding the Golden Dome. I mean, even are your very, your close friend, my old boss, Rahman Manuel came out suggesting he would not be for that. Like, I think what you cannot be seen. You don't want to be seen in a Democratic primary as the. pro-neton Yahoo candidate or the APAC candidate or someone who's associated with the Biden's administration's position or policy on Gaza. So I think he can do it. But those are going to be

tricky waters for him to navigate, given some of the ways in which he's approached those issues in his past. Well, let me say. I think he's a change his rhetoric in recent, you know. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, one thing you said, I quite agree with the attitudes have shifted in ways we wouldn't have predicted because BB has done things we never would have, you know, predicted. Perhaps we could have or should have, but his, the way he prosecuted the war in Gaza, you know, I say this as a Jew. It's, you know, I was horrified and angered by what happened on October 7th.

But that doesn't mean that I don't grieve for the children of Gaza. and that I'm not repulsed by the way that that unfolded. And I don't think you're going to find candidates Jewish or not who don't agree with that. One interesting thing is that they have an election in Israel in October. Bibi Netanyahu may be gone by the time this campaign begins in earnest. And you wonder whether that changes anything, you know. Yeah, it's a very open question of what the, what will look like when these candidates actually have to go get votes in New Hampshire,

whatever other states in the early part of the calendar in early 2028. I did not play a clip from Kamala Harris. If you would ask me two or three months ago, I would have put the strong odds against her running. I think in the recent months, she's been out there more. She's been doing more things that suggests that maybe she's seriously thinking about running. What do you make of that? I don't know what to make of it. I mean, she obviously is making noises as if she's going to run. And you know, once you run for president, especially when you come as close as she did, especially under the circumstances she did very hard to look around and say, why not me? But I also don't think America's going to, and Democrats are going to ultimately go for the back to the future candidate.

You know, there's a lot of, there are a lot of seared memories of 24, and a lot of it don't have to do with her, but with her boss, you know, in the White House. But, You know, it didn't end well. There were a lot of Democrats who were hoping that it would. And part of it did have to do with her inability or reluctance to do the things that you have to do at that level. You know, go on those podcasts. Be real. Be open.

And of course, the answer on the view under the withering interrogation of the people on the view, to not be able to answer the question. that I think any sort of competent candidate for at any level would know how to answer when asked did you, you know, is there anything you would have done differently? She didn't have to say, yes, these things. She could have said, I'm grateful for the opportunity he gave me. I'm not going to critique him here. I'm here to tell you, I'm not running for the to be the second term of Joe Biden. I'm running to be the first term of Kamala Harris. And I'll tell you what I'm going to to do. I mean, there are a million ways to have answered that question. She just couldn't find any of them.

And those are the moments that define campaigns. Yeah, you know, it's from her perspective, right, as you came very close, you know, she believes, as many people in the campaign, that given more time, she might have actually won that race or if she had not been thrust it, if she had a chance to actually, if Biden had just not run at all and she'd want a primary, she could have maybe actually won, you know, no way to no way to answer that counterfactual. But you look at, you know, one way she's leading in all the polls right now. And now you and I know, and everyone knows that oftentimes the person leading in the polls at the beginning is leading by dint of name recognition and nothing else.

And that falls pretty quickly like it did for Rudy Giuliani in 2008, Joe Lieberman in 2004. But it still is true that you're not winning the Democratic nomination without running up the score with black voters across the South. And you look at that field right now and she's the candidate best position to do that. So you could, she could make an argument to herself about how she could win that nomination. Now, the question will be, you know, and this was, I think, the experience John Kerry had when he was thinking of running again in 2008 is he was all ready to go, picked up the phone sort of calling all his old supporters. Yeah, right. And they were like, I'm with Hillary.

I'm with Biden. I'm with Hillary. I'm with Obama. I'm with Edwards. And she might have a similar, you know, I don't know. And not just probably, you know, from what I understand, not just don't, not just supporters and donors, but even some key staff. you know, look, I respect her and she got thrust into a really difficult position, but I just don't see this.

And I, yeah, I mean, I do think she's the beneficiary of early name recognition. On this issue, she may well do, you know, really well with African-American voters in the South. But I keep thinking back to 2019 when she was a co-frontrunner with Joe Biden when she entered the race and she never made it to Iowa. And her numbers in those southern states weren't that good. So I don't know. It's, you know, there's one. I just don't have enough information to know. But I don't think she's going to receive some tough, tough news from some of the people who,

support perhaps she was counting on. Anyone I didn't mention that you have your eye on? Actually, it's kind of uncanny because you listed a bunch of folks who, you know, look, I got two guys from Illinois, right? Yeah. I was going to, I was looking for a good ROM clip to play at the end for you, but I didn't want to do that to you. Look, Rom, you know, I would say that, um, uh, Gabby. Evan Newsom won the presidential primary of 2025. I think Rahm is doing pretty well in

26, at least with opinion elites. I mean, he's throwing out a bunch of ideas. He's really aggressive, you know, and we'll see where that takes him. Governor Pritzker is running for re-election, but it seems pretty clear to me that he's headed in that direction. And he's shown a lot more serious political chops than I would have expected when he first ran for office. He's, and he does have affection among some, among the Democratic base. You probably hear it in your own. And he's got, obviously, he's got the advantage of resources. So, you know, I wouldn't draw him out of the, out of the circle. You know,

rumors emanate from Washington that Cory Booker might run again. He didn't do that well in 2020. But he's got talents. He's got gifts. And in an election that may be about sort of character and kind of the, you know, to borrow Biden's phrase, though no one should use it,

the soul of America, which honestly is important. going to be important in 2028. You know, he's a guy who can speak to that. But I, you know, I don't know if he can, you know, do appreciably better than he did. But I'm also like open to someone we haven't, you know, someone coming from somewhere we don't even know. Like I said, this is this is a thing, an election that's grooved for an outsider. And it may be, you know, you hear about Mark Cuban.

and you hear other people mention. So who knows? Who knows? I remember calling John Stewart in 2019 after Zelensky got elected president of Ukraine before Zelensky became, you know, the wartime leader, the Churchill of our time. And I said to John, John, you know, short Jewish comedians, they're all the rage right now. So, you know, don't count him out. All right. I think it's a great place to leave it. John Stewart for president.

David Aksirad. Thanks for joining us. Always great to talk. I was going to see you in Chicago. Absolutely. Thanks, Dan. Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari with Reed Jirlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroote, Ben Heffcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kirill Pelliv, David Tolls, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single.

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