Pod Save America - "Will Trump '24 Come Too Soon?"

Episode Date: July 7, 2022

Donald Trump contemplates a pre-midterm presidential announcement, Joe Biden tries to escape a pre-midterm presidential rut, and with November just four months away, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake joins to talk about where the country is on abortion, inflation, both parties, and more. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, Donald Trump contemplates a pre-midterm presidential announcement. Joe Biden tries to escape a pre-midterm presidential rut. And with November just four months away, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake joins to talk about where the country is on abortion, inflation, both parties, and more. and more. Before we start, quick word from our friends at Vote Save America. We are all furious about the radical right-wing Supreme Court's decision to end the constitutional right to an abortion in America. So let's do something about it. From directly supporting patients who need abortions right now, to electing pro-choice candidates in 2022, and building a progressive

majority over the long term, you can find everything you need to fight back in our Fuck Bans action plan at votesaveamerica.com slash row. Also, a huge thank you to everyone who's already donated a total of more than a million dollars to these causes, including the thousands of you who have signed up to volunteer for the midterms just since the decision came down. Thank you. Also, if you have a chance, head volunteer for the midterms just since the decision came down. Thank you. Also, if you have a chance, head over to the Crooked store.

We are having a huge summer sale on all your favorite merch. Now through Friday the 8th, which is, I guess, tomorrow, you can take 15% off site-wide and up to 90% off new sale items. This is our last summer sale. So if you get your eye on something, now's the time to nab it before it's gone for good. As always, the Crooked store donates a portion of every order to VoteRiders, a nonprofit working towards ending voter suppression via voter ID, education, and assistance. Go to crooked.com slash store to check it out. All right, Dan, we're back from the break, and we got some news that happened over the break.

I tried not to pay too much attention to the news over the July 4th break. But I did see the story as I was leaving for vacation that caught my eye about our friend Donald Trump. So we are fast approaching midterm madness. But we're going to spend today talking about the two current 2024 frontrunners who will almost certainly affect this November's elections. Two current 2024 frontrunners will almost certainly affect this November's elections. One former president who may be on the cusp of announcing again and one current president whose tumbling approval rating is hovering close to his predecessor. That predecessor, Donald J. Trump, has, according to a New York Times piece from over the weekend, reportedly, quote, surprised some advisers by saying he might declare his candidacy on social media without warning even his own team. And aides are scrambling to build out basic campaign infrastructure in time for an announcement

as early as this month. Dan, what do we know about why Trump may want to do this other than the Occam's razor explanation that he's a deranged sociopath driven by a mixture of boredom, narcissism, and vengeance. Well, I think you nailed it. That's it. No notes. You got it. Go to an ad break. We got it. We don't have to scratch much deeper than that. Well, since we do have time to fill here, I will offer some additional emotions, which you did not include in your list. One is weakness, and the other is insecurity.

I think that what is driving this is that Donald Trump is sitting in Mar-a-Lago, stewing in his own juices, watching the January 6th hearings sort of portray him to be the complete and utter deranged lunatic that he is. He's sitting in Florida watching Ron DeSantis become sort of the bell of the Republican ball. In his own backyard. Right before his eyes, right? He sees these polls that show, depending on which one you look at, maybe Ron DeSantis is gaining, he's becoming an alternative.

There are a lot of people talking up Ron DeSantis. And I think Trump, for all of his idiocy, and much of the preceding paragraph you read is exhibit A of his idiocy, and much of the preceding paragraph you read is exhibit A of that idiocy, he does have an instinct for raw political power, how you get it, how you use it, whether or not you're losing it. Not power for the sake of doing something, but just power for the sake of having it. I think he can probably sense something slipping from him, power for the sake of having, I think he can probably sense something slipping from him.

And that if he doesn't reassert his dominance on the Republican Party, once again, become the center of discussion on his terms, not Liz Cheney and Cassidy Hutchinson's terms, he could maybe lose this. And so I think that is what is driving the speculation, causing him to vent to aides. All the caveats here that Trump says lots of things speculation, causing him to vent to aides. We, you know, all the caveats here that Trump says lots of things. He says those things to his aides, his aides that proceed to leak them to reporters. And oftentimes those things do not come to pass. But I think those are at least that is what is driving this desire of his to announce for president in 2022. You think maybe his red checkmarked truths aren't traveling as far as he thought they would?

Well, we know that in a lot of reporting, we know that that is one of his great frustrations is that his teeny tiny little social media company is not getting the attention to which he has become accustomed on the other social media platforms that have at least up until now banned him. I do think he might think that were he to announce for president, he might get

back on other platforms, get more attention. He definitely feels like he's struggling to get his statements out there, either via truth, retruth, or like really poorly edited, very long written statement, which I presume is like faxed to people or something. Especially if Elon closes the deal, right? Then he can hop right back on Twitter and get his, go from his red check to his blue check, and then he's off to the races. I'd be really interested to see, I mean, it's a total side note and probably a topic for offline, but be very interested to see like what the conversation at Twitter would be pre closing of the deal.

If Trump were to announce for president, knowing what the likely future owner is going to do, it just becomes much harder to. It shouldn't be harder, but you can see the public conversation shifting around his bans and suspensions at Facebook, Twitter, etc. If he is a active candidate for president? Yeah, I mean, this is the fundamental problem that kicking him off Twitter doesn't solve, has never solved, is that the Republican Party is still one of two major political parties in America, and he has largely captured a big chunk, if not almost all of the Republican Party. And therefore, because it is still treated as a legitimate political institution in America,

if he gets the nomination, then he gets all the coverage that comes with that. You know, whether, and that's what Twitter would face. Can I offer an alternative idea here? Sure. What if Twitter let Trump back on to kick the rest of us off? I mean, again, 100% support. Problem solved. Yes, problem solved. You know where my

position is. Elon Musk buys Twitter and shuts it down. And I am supportive of that. And you're going to tweet your feelings about that until it happens. I am on the record. Can you talk about the legal and financial implications of Trump deciding to run now instead of later? Then we can do the politics, but just the legal and financial implications first. It would be truly one of the stupidest decisions any presidential candidate has ever made. So let me explain. Which does not foreclose the possibility. No, no, no, no. It may even suggest that it's more likely it will happen. But right now, Trump has about $100 million parked in a super PAC.

He can spend that money on political travel. He could spend it on ads promoting other candidates. He could spend it on staff polling. Based on today's FEC, he could probably spend it on shrimp cocktail. He could spend it on almost anything, right? And were he to announce – and any person, right? We'll take Peter Thiel as an example, Peter Thiel could write a $100 million check to that super PAC.

And after Trump spent that money, he could write another $100 million check. Were Trump to announce for president, between the day he announces and the Republican convention in 2024, Peter Thiel or any other American walking this planet can give Donald Trump a total of $2,900. If they give him any more money after that, he cannot spend that money until he has been at the officially becomes the Republican nominee. So even though he has a huge grassroots fundraising army, he would basically put himself at a massive, massive financial disadvantage. Candidates often really try to wait as long as possible to officially announce their presidential campaign because they want to shorten the clock if they think they're going to be the nominee between the day

they announce and the convention when they can then start spending what are called general election funds. You get to write two checks, one for the primary at $2,800, one for the general at $2,800. There are some complications around other things, but for the general at $2,800. There are some complications around other things, but that's the basic gist of it. So he would basically be cutting off his nose despite his face financially to do that. And if he were to be involved in a protracted primary, could have real trouble having enough money to spend against someone who has waited longer and spends their primary money in 2023 and early 2024 instead of in 2022. I'm trying to figure out how he thinks he can get around this by doing it earlier or what

he thinks about these potential consequences, which all I can come up with is that he thinks that, you know, he'll get enough media coverage that he won't have to do much else besides sit for interviews. And then if he wants to go do a rally, he charges everyone who comes to the rally 10, 20, 25 bucks a head. And he just does the sort of grassroots fundraising strategy. So he gets his rallies, he gets his interviews, and then he doesn't have to spend much more money until the race really heats up. I think that is possible. Another theory he could have is that the Federal Elections Commission, which is in charge of enforcing said laws, has the force and power of an law that he would sort of offload much of his staff in polling

to a super PAC and then would just sort of raise money for himself. It's not like he's going to run ads now or things like that. And essentially, you see a world in which state parties pay for the rallies in 2022 when he's campaigning for other people. And now that gets more complicated as a presidential candidate because he would have to offset some of those costs, but yeah, you just break the law. I mean, our campaign finance laws are a joke.

Trump doesn't live in the gray side of the law. Trump lives in the lawless side of the law. Well, that's how fucking shitty our campaign finance laws are, is that even Donald Trump would have to work hard to break them. Sorry, so let's talk about, what do you think about the political implications of Trump deciding to run now? Pros and cons. For Donald Trump or for Democrats? For Donald Trump. Let's start for Donald Trump.

Well, for Donald Trump, I think the pros would be he would just short circuit a conversation that is happening at the elite levels of the party about whether he is the best person to run. And he would get so far ahead of everyone else. And there would be a wave of people who would endorse him right away. Candidates looking for his endorsement, his sort of collection of supplicants, people who want attention. And so he would like gain momentum. And, you know, in his mind, he could theoretically reestablish himself as the inevitable and eventual Republican nominee in 2024. He could starve any momentum that Ron DeSantis, for instance, is getting. So that would sort of be the argument for it. In addition to, I think the thing we referenced earlier about possibly

getting more attention, a lot, the thing we referenced earlier about possibly getting more attention, a lot which would give him a better platform to fight back against, in his mind, the January 6th hearings and then whatever various legal troubles he has on the horizon. Cons. Cons for Donald Trump. The con would be, one, I mean, we mentioned the fact that it would really make his actual eventual presidential run much more challenging financially and logistically. The con would also be let's say the Democrats do better than expected in these midterms. And it happened after Trump was announced for president. That would be, I think, a pretty devastating reinforcement of the argument that he might be Republicans' worst candidate to run in 2024.

Yeah, making the midterms a referendum on Donald Trump instead of Joe Biden, or even like introducing Donald Trump as a character in the midterms who is not just hovering out there for 2024, but is right now trying to become president again and then making every single Republican candidate in a tough race swear their loyalty to Donald Trump as he's running for president is probably something I'm guessing a lot of those Republican strategists who have candidates in competitive districts and competitive states probably don't want to do. Yeah. As a general rule, I would bet if you did a poll of Republican strategists and Democratic strategists, every single Republican strategist who's not getting rich on Trump's various political committees would think this was a terrible idea. And every Democratic strategist would hope that it happens. Yeah. I mean, I saw somewhere in the in the piece about this in new york times that he also thinks this would like help him get ahead of potential criminal charges coming out of both the january 6th hearings and um so potential criminal charges coming out of uh whatever the department of justice may do after the january 6th hearings and also uh grand jury in Georgia, which has also just

subpoenaed a few of his buddies, Rudy Giuliani, Lindsey Graham, a couple other buffoons. What do you make of that argument that he thinks this could help him get ahead of potential criminal charges? Because it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Well, certainly legally, there's not a lot of evidence that it would make sense. I, you know, it's so hard to try to like, take a trip into Donald Trump's pea brain to figure out why he thinks certain things. But if I were to try to do that, I guess there'd be two possible ways in which he might think this would help him. One is, and I don't really think he would think this because it's like a slightly more complex thought than he would have, but is if Merrick Garland, and I don't know this to be the case, and I don't believe it to be the case, but if the Department of Justice, they're having real conversations about the political optics of prosecutors at the Department of Justice pursuing a criminal conviction of their boss's most likely 2024 opponent, the fact that he is actively running to replace Joe Biden would potentially add to that concern. I don't think

that's really what's happening here, but I'm just trying to figure out what it is. The other way, the more simplistic way is just picture the world in which Merrick Garland holds a press conference or probably not Merrick Garland, some US attorney somewhere holds a press conference, or probably not even Merrick Garland, some U.S. attorney somewhere holds a press conference and says, we are announcing that a grand jury today indicted Donald Trump for criminal conspiracy to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. There will then ensue a conversation about whether it is a wise decision for the Republican Party to choose as their nominee someone who is currently indicted for trying to overturn an election. And Donald Trump can say, aha, I've already announced. I'm already

running. Yeah, but this to me is the big, another political con for him too, is that like, you know, the January 6th hearings, if they do nothing else, if, if DOJ doesn't move, if Georgia doesn't turn out to be anything, have reminded Americans of what a fucking criminal Donald Trump is. Like I think his, his, it has hurt his approval ratings again, which were sort of like, he was out of sight, out of mind for a little while. He was actually doing okay. Him being thrust back into the spotlight, anytime he's thrust back into the spotlight, doesn't always reminds Americans of, you he's thrust back into the spotlight, doesn't always reminds Americans of, you know,

what an asshole he is, at least most Americans. There, you know, there's like a recent poll out that says like 60 something percent of Americans think he shouldn't run again. I will tell you like, just in some of these wilderness focus groups I've done, the few Trump voters who have been in the groups, which aren't many, are like, yeah, no, I'm disappointed in Joe Biden and the Democrats, and I don't think I'd vote Democrat, but I do not,

no one, not a single person wants Donald Trump to run for president again, who is not the MAGA base that is already excited, that is not going to be more excited by the fact that Donald Trump announces for president. They are as excited as it gets. Donald Trump, the day he announces, whether it's this month, whether it's six months from now, whether it's a year from now, they are going to be there excited at rallies. It's just going to happen, right? But there's, you know, that base is not enough to win the presidency. And I wonder if announcing right at the moment when the large parts of the country are reminded of what you did around January 6th and how you tried to

overturn the last election is the best political idea. As opposed to just like waiting because, you know, everyone has a fucking, you know, pea brain memory now because of social media. But if you just waited like five months after the January 6th hearings and then announced in a different environment, perhaps like I'm sure most Republican strategists want after a midterm that isn't great for Joe Biden and the Democrats, then you're in better shape. And it's it is pretty wild. Yeah, I mean, I think Trump probably believes down deep somewhere that he has a political shelf life of milk. And so he does like it's just the longer he is not the candidate to smell. It's like he can smell himself right now. And it's just the longer he is not the candidate. It's starting to smell. It's starting to smell. Yeah, he can smell himself right now.

And it's like, just yet I sort of, like, I'm trying to imagine. I don't think he's going to do this. I want, like, the preceding 15 minutes of really smart, funny chatter about this aside, I don't think he's going to do it. I don't know. For the campaign finance reasons. Like, I just find it hard to imagine he's going to file with the, a statement of candidacy with the FEC before this election, when someone's like,

Hey, do you want to get, have a couple of rich people give you all this money you can spend forever? Or do you want to go around raising $2,900 per person? Right. I don't think he's going to want to do that because that's work, but you do see a world where he's like, he comes out, he posts, he truths something and it says, you know,

that's the right use of it, right? Isn't that what you do? That's why I'm laughing so hard. That's the exact right. Then he goes on Hannity and, and he, you know, he's on, you know, Steve Bannon's forum. And then they go to Lindsey Graham. They're like, Lindsey Graham, Donald Trump said he ran for president. Do you support him? He Bannon's forum. And then they go to Lindsey Graham. They're like, Lindsey Graham, Donald Trump said he ran for president. Do you support him? He's like, yes. And then all the rest of the fucking Yahoo's are like,

yeah, I got to say yes too. And then all of a sudden it's like 37 of 50 Republican senators have endorsed Donald Trump, you know, and all the, and like Greg Abbott running for reelection. And then you just,

you see it and you're just like Ron DeSantis, just sitting at home by yourself in Florida, trying to ban your own books. It's just like – so I can see a world like – is that the right way you would do it? But if you were just like what I care about is just maintaining control of this party and I'll figure the rest out later, you can sort of see a world in which that works better for him than you would think. And to Donald Trump, maintaining control has always been about maintaining attention right it's a it's an attention game which of course is is politics today in the social media age um you just mentioned the other uh fucking yahoos ron desantis and the rest if you were desantis or or one of the more delusional potential trump

opponents like a mike pence or uh or mike pompeo would an early Trump announcement give you pause about your own candidacy? Do you think that would effectively freeze them out? I think the reaction is not the timing of Trump's announcement, but the reaction to it could give you some pause, but I, I don't like Mike Pompeo. What she gave Mike Pompeo pause is the fact that he's Mike Pompeo. Like I don't care if Donald Trump never announces Mike Pompeo, you're not going to be president.

But like somewhat a, like a very smart, wired and political reporter told me something a few weeks ago that about Ron DeSantis. Gesser was asking like, is like, I'm presuming Trump's going to run is what DeSantis challenge him. And that person told me is that DeSantis really has looked at Rubio and Christie and what happened from them for missing their shot in 2012.

or whatever it was. And then by the time they ran four years later, they were old hat, no one cared. And they were basically, you know, Rubio's making penis jokes on stage with Donald Trump, right? Like that's where you end up. And like, this is his moment, right? And this person even told me that like, at least people around DeSantis have cited Obama

as someone who like, who understood that you run when you have your shot. And if you don't run, then you'll probably never get your shot again. So I think there's a – if that is true, then I think he probably runs anyway because if he wants to be president, this will be his best chance whether Trump runs or not. Can I ask, how often do you speak to Hugh Hewitt? Well, John, I just spend a lot of time with the nixon library just doing some research

into him there yeah no this was a this was a uh not a desantis fan per se who told me this if i was giving uh desantis advice i agree with all that that he does need to just shoot a shot if trump decides to run but like from the get-go right out of the gate you have to have your case if you're Ron DeSantis why not just why you but why not Donald Trump you cannot do the 2016 thing of let's just pretend Donald Trump isn't there I'm going to make the case for myself I'm worried about attacking him because if i attack him then he'll go after me and then someone else will rise like i think you need to have um at least an implicit case if not an explicit case why it should be you and not donald trump um and i don't know i don't know if ron desantis has got has got that in him but we'll see i mean in the case is donald trump's a

loser yeah you could, can't win. Yeah, you got the election close enough for Joe Biden to steal, right? Because they all have to say that the election was stolen to keep up appearances because they're all fucking fascist assholes. OK, let's talk about the man who is currently the Democratic frontrunner for 2024, Joe Biden. President has an average approval rating of 39 percent right now. That's the lowest of any president at this point in his term since Harry Truman. And in the same recent Harvard-Harris poll that shows the generic midterm ballot at an even 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, 71% of all voters say that Biden shouldn't run for re-election. This has unsurprisingly led to a brutal week of stories in the New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, and other outlets that are, all these stories are heavy on complaints,

light on advice from various named and mostly unnamed Democratic strategists and lawmakers, from everything about the White House's message to their management, to Joe Biden's strategy. But of course, the lowest blow by far came in a CNN piece that led with an anecdote about how Joe Biden has even lost the support of former Will and Grace star, Debra Messing. Dan, how does any White House move on from something like that? I think it's important that we put the Deborah Messing anecdote in historical context,

which is in- You know what? Of all the responses that I thought were coming to that question, this is not one. This is not one I expected, so kudos. I have to warn you, I don't think you're going to be impressed. So the Nixon presidency effectively ended

when a dozen Republican senators went to the White House and told Nixon to resign. It really feels like the perfect 2022 version of that is Debra Messing yelling at a White House aide on a Zoom call. It's the lead of the piece. It's the lead of the CNN piece. You're wondering why I brought it up. It's the lead.

You know what that is? That's fucking great writing because here you and I are talking about it. You know what? Mission accomplished. Okay. In all seriousness, most of us are angry, frustrated, disappointed about where we are right now, where the country is right now. I guess the question is, how much of our current predicament can be blamed on the Biden administration? How much is beyond their control? Of all the current critiques out there, which do you think are fair? Which do you think are not? out there, which do you think are fair? Which do you think are not? That is a, that is a multi-part question. So thank you, Chuck Todd for joining the podcast.

Well, in that case, now I'm going to leave. Because I'm not, because I'm not a, uh. Now you can say whatever you want. I'll just go on to the next one. That's right. The one thing White House reporters never realize, if you ask a multiple question, the president only has to answer the part they want to answer. But because we're here to inform, I will try to answer all of them. Look, I think I just want to stipulate I'm very biased on this question. I am biased because I worked in the White House, as you did. I know how fucking hard those jobs are. I have been in story, not Debra Messing and A Good Excited, but in stories very much like this.

I guess our version of the Debra Messing story was when Brian Cranston, who was playing LBJ on Broadway, I think did an interview with Maureen Dowd where he said that Barack Obama was not doing a good enough job twisting arms. That was our version of Debra Messing. I have blocked a lot of this stuff from my memory. I hold many, many a grudge. But it's either here or there. And I also love Joe Biden. I think he is a very good person doing a really fucking hard job to the best visibility. And all the people in the work in the White House are also our friends. And we also know they're really fucking smart and they're working their asses off and they in a really, really hard

environment. And so like, that's all to say that I'm quite biased on this. What I think the vast majority of the political problems for Joe Biden are because we are in an era of historic inflation. We now have a Fed raising interest rates to combat that inflation. We now might have a recession because the Fed is raising interest rates to combat that inflation. You have a war in Russia. You have a pandemic that won't go away. You have a radical right wing Republican Party openly plotting an insurrection and very little the Democrats have to have the ability to stop that. That leads to a whole bunch of frustration. Very little of that is under the direct control of Joe Biden. And that is not to say that the responses could not be better.

They cannot be faster. They cannot be louder. Like, is Joe Biden doing every single thing he can to deal with inflation? No. But if he did do everything he could, would it make a gigantic difference in what people were paying at the pump or the grocery store? No. Was the response from everyone in the party, not just the president, to the ruling on Roe, insufficient and too slow? Yes. Is it a completely fair critique that with six weeks notice, the White House has not yet released their executive actions?

100%. But if they had nailed that 100% and done everything that was in the very useful plans and tweet threads and op-eds put out by Elizabeth Warren and AOC. I think that would still feel insufficient to people because you have the Supreme Court filled with justices who were appointed by presidents who lost elections, taking away constitutional rights from people for the first time in modern history. There is nothing the president could say that's going to solve that. And so I think the vast, could they be doing better? Absolutely. If they did everything perfectly, would Joe Biden be at 50% and Democrats

on the glide path to victory? No, of course not. Like there is a, where there's a tendency to focus on the stylistic versus the structural, the, the crux of the political problems are structural, in my opinion. Yeah. I mean, look, I i i am obviously i i share all of your biases and um i think but but i also think like when we are resistant to criticize the biden white house i will say it's not just because i i like joe biden personally and we know a lot of people in the white house but i think it's it's more because we have been in those jobs and we have faced this set of circumstances or similar sets of circumstances where the power you have is finite and so much is beyond your control. And I think that like 70% of the job of being president is substance and what you get done and 30% is performance. But the media coverage is like 70 performance and 30 what you get done

and i think on the performance side um the community you know and and again saying these words it hurts me to know you're saying them you know because in the white house it would be brock obama has a communication problem and all of us worked in communications and were like, it's not our fucking fault that we're trying to dig out of a recession and that we couldn't pass the version of the Affordable Care Act that we wanted and that Congress isn't playing along with what we want to do and all this other bullshit that's happening. And yet the critique would be that Barack Obama is not emoting enough. He's not performing enough. He's not the same storyteller that he was in the campaign trail. And the reason for that, there are many reasons for that.

You are constrained by the office of the presidency. You're constrained by what you can say when you're president of the United States. You're constrained by the White House itself, both the physical nature of the White House, the inability to get outside, to do big rallies like you, all this kind of shit. I do think that particularly in Barack Obama's second term, thanks to you and a lot of the people who are still there, you guys figured out creative ways to meet the moment in terms of how the media environment had changed. And you got creative and everyone was more responsive to the news cycle. And I do think that we don't love

the fact that, you know, I think the Biden, I think the Biden folks rightly prided themselves during the campaign on like not responding to the Twitter crap of the day. And we all know how much the Twitter cycle of the day sucks, right? But I do think being nimble and responding to the news cycle is something that this White House has not been great at. And, you know, we talked about this, but like yesterday he went to Ohio Wednesday and he did an event about pensions and and how the American Rescue Plan saved a lot of people's pensions, which is something that I'm sure is very popular and is also just really good policy, right? Congratulations, he did it. But it is weird to be giving a speech about that when we are a week out from the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. And, you know, there was more sort of, there was more, there was a horrible mass shooting over the 4th of July weekend. And, you know, then you could say, okay, well well what do you want him to do what do you want him to say like he does not have he's he's sort of like worked through a lot of the executive actions he's has and also in the fucking

senate you still have the one thing that you didn't mention that's beyond his control is you don't really have a true senate majority because joe mansion is basically a fucking republican and kirsten sinema is a fucking weirdo. So you don't, we've never, yeah, you can say Democrats control Washington. Democrats don't really control Washington because we don't really control the Senate. And we've talked about this a million fucking times. We've talked about it for two years now and it's like enraging to keep talking about it. But like if I was president, would I go out there and say like get rid of the filibuster and I'll codify Roe and I'll get rid of the filibuster for everything? Yes, of course. And Joe Biden has now said that for voting rights and for Roe v. Wade. Would I say that I want to expand the Supreme Court

so that it's not the most right wing radical court in generations? Yeah, of course I would. And then, you know what Joe Manchin would say? Fuck you. You know what I'd be able to do about that? Nothing. Because he gets a vote. Right. And so, but I do think that like, there are a whole bunch of ways that Joe Biden and, and look, I also include the Democrats in Congress, right? Who should, who should not get off easy on this. Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress should be out there showing a sense of urgency and showing that this is the fight of our lives and, and acting like they are going to run through a brick wall for the American people every single day. Will that make substantive progress in

Congress? Probably not, not until this election, but will it potentially build the political coalition we need to win a real majority and also earn the trust of people who want to believe that if we do get that real majority, we're going to make real progress. Yeah, maybe. And like we can criticize performance all we want, but performance and the urgency and the passion behind performance is one way to build the trust and the political majority you need to deliver real change. And I do think on that front, they could be doing better. I remember it taking Barack Obama and all of us, myself in particular, a while to figure out that sometimes the job of the president is to say the thing that people want to hear, to speak to their sadness, their fears, their anger.

I remember- You're going to meet people where they are. Right. And you know, Axe, our friend David Axe, I used to call it the pastoral role of the president. That even if you had, I remember very clearly on Christmas Eve, I think, 2009, when the shoe bomber happened. And Obama, we had just been through a brutal year. Obama was in Hawaii. I was on my first day off

basically since 2007 at that point. And the idea was, should the president go out and speak about this terrorist attempt where nothing happened? No one was hurt. No one was injured. No lives were lost. No plane crashed. And we didn't know all the facts yet. We thought it might be Al-Qaeda, but we didn't really know. Should the president go out and speak? I remember very clearly some people, namely Robert Gibbs, our press secretary, saying he absolutely has to go out and speak and myself arguing on a call with the president he should not because we don't have anything. Why are we just narrating the events?

That was a huge error on my part. Robert was right. I was wrong. It's because people just wanted to see their president at a time of concern. And I think Democrats want to see their president and their congressional leaders share their anger and urgency and concern. And there have definitely been moments where Biden has done that, right? His speech on January 6th was a huge part of that, right? The voting rights speech he gave the next day in Georgia was another part of it. I thought some of his remarks after the Dobbs decision were quite good. But what I think the challenge is, and I think this is a challenge that every Democrat

in leadership currently faces, is you have to be a part of the conversation 24-7. Like, in this media environment, you are either serving dinner or you are dinner. That's what it is. And if you are not out there talking, people are talking about you. The content machine is either feeding on the people you're telling them to feed on or it's feeding on you. And I think that that is a huge – there is a vacuum and it is being filled by Republicans attacking Biden and Democrats criticizing Biden. And I get that that is incredibly challenging. Like I just in my head, and I'm trying not even to like revert to my old White House self. It's like, I know exactly how that pension

event got on the calendar. It's been a priority for a lot of people for a long time. When can we travel? This is the first day we can travel because of all X, Y, and Z. We're going to go there. We've already booked the place because we sent the advanced team out weeks ago. The labor department is paying for the trip because it's a pension event. So they're doing it. So we can't switch it to an abortion event or something like, I know exactly how it happened. And there is a real, this is what's really hard. And this is one thing where Trump's, I'm not saying Biden should tweet like Trump. I'm not saying that. Be very clear. But one thing where Trump's social media use was an advantage was he was able to respond faster than the traditional ways in which presidents can do things because it is a fucking aircraft carrier to get

things in motion. It's one of the things in the second term Obama really started doing. It's just walking to the briefing room because you can do that. You got to be willing to take questions when you do it, but you can just walk down there and do it. And you can be there five minutes after the bad thing happens. You don't have to like call the pool and go, you know, take down the, what the state dinner set up in the East room and go with, like, you can just do it. And so there's no easy answers here. Like I said, they did everything perfectly. Is that, does that change a ton? No, of course not. Like I, my sympathy goes out to the president and this team trying to operate in this media environment, which is the shit show of epic proportions. It's hard. But I will say it's also, I think it's a Joe Biden problem to solve. And it's not even

necessarily a White House problem because, you know, Dana Milbank at the Washington Post wrote this column that the Biden folks have been sending around and the DNC has been sending around about how like, actually, Joe Biden is saying all the things that all you people want him to say. And that when he gives remarks about Dobbs or about guns or about Republican book bans, he's calling out their extremism. He's calling out what bullshit this is, all this kind of stuff. And you read the column and you're like, yeah, I guess he is saying those words in the remarks, but they're not really getting through because he's not, he doesn't have the passion, right? And like we have seen, like you said, we have seen moments where Joe Biden can summon that kind of passion and he has to figure that

out for himself. And that's not something, because there's a lot of, I think there's a lot of smart people in that White House that know what the message should be. But he's the one who has to deliver it. And it can only be him. But it's not also just how he delivers, it's how often he delivers it, right? There is a political communication involves two things, what you say and how you get people to hear it. And I think Biden, for much of his presidency, has said the right thing, right? He has popular policies. He's talked about them in, I think, really smart, instinctual, populist ways. He has expressed outrage in a lot of moments. He can be funny, but enough people aren't hearing it. You've got to solve the problem. And I think just if people want to dig deeper into this thing

we've been talking about for a long time, there was a podcast, and Ezra Klein interviewed our friends, Sean McElwee and Anat Shankar Osorio on his podcast a couple months ago about like democratic communications and the White House and all of that that I think is an absolute must listen and gets to some of the questions. Because this isn't just Biden, right? Like where are the congressional leaders? Where are other people in Congress, right? There's like a handful of smart people like Elizabeth Warren or AOC, Chris Murphy on guns who are getting out there and having their message heard, but the vast majority of people are just tweeting out library grants and not commanding the share of public attention that they need.

One piece of news that I hesitate to refer to as even potentially good is that Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin have reportedly made a deal on one piece of a new reconciliation bill. Punchbowl reported Wednesday that Schumer sent text to the Senate parliamentarian of an agreement among all 50 Senate Democrats on a provision that would allow Medicare to negotiate for lower prescription drug costs. I think there's also an out-of-pocket cap of $2,000 per year per person. There's no word about other possible reconciliation provisions on climate taxes or health care though i saw in our slack just before we started recording that you sent around a piece that i guess they're getting a little closer on that though mansion spokesperson said oh there's still no deal there's still a lot of shit that we're trying to figure out i mean mean, should we bang our heads against the wall once more for old time's sake on this or what? What do you think?

I mean, I read that story. Manchin's spokesperson is quoted in Punchbowl talking about how they're not near an agreement on methane emissions, which is the same problem they've had every single time we've theoretically gotten close. So look, I don't want to be on brand as the glass half empty guy. Just like wake me when you have a deal. I'm not going to exert any intellectual or emotional investment in hoping for thinking about plotting about some sort of deal. If there's like a five minute period of time where there is not a lobbyist in each of Joe Manchin's ears and he puts his name on a dotted line, I will celebrate with confetti, but until then, just leave us alone, Punchbowl. No, not Punchbowl, Spalding.

No, no, no. I mean, obviously, I simply cannot read. Leave us alone. Punchbowl AM, Punchbowl PM, Punchbowl Lunchtime, Punchbowl Special Access. Leave us alone, Joe Manchin, fucking asshole. All right. When we come back, I'll talk more about

what the current political climate might mean for the midterms with democratic pollster and strategist celinda lake and we're back with the midterms just four months away and democrats still searching for a clear message amidst the onslaught of bad news. We thought we'd bring back one of the smartest strategists and pollsters in the business to help us make sense of it all. So Linda Lake, welcome back to the pod. Oh, thanks. I love being here. Thank you for your astute analysis. We love having you. So wrong track numbers are as high as they've ever been. Joe Biden's approval rating is as low as it's ever been. You talk to voters all the time. How much of this reflects concern over inflation and gas prices among the broader electorate? And how much of it do you think reflects the predominant media narrative about,

you know, Democrats being disappointed in the Biden administration? I think it's mostly the broader narrative and the uncertainty of everything. I mean, every time you turn around, Democrat, Republican, or Independent, you're hit with something new. The inflation, the war, Evaldi, Highland Park, Buffalo, you name it, storms, floods, Yellowstone National Park closing. When does Yellowstone National Park close? I mean, it's just like people just feel as one millennial said, this country is a dumpster fire. And I think that's what Americans feel like. So, you know, you'd have to be kind of crazy to say things are going in the right direction. But that's different than saying who's working on your behalf, where we have an

eight point advantage, who cares about people, we have a six point advantage. It's a tough environment. I'm not kidding. It's easy to be demoralized. But things like Roe v. Wade being overturned, and where that leads with birth control and marriage equality, interracial marriage, the stakes are getting very clear for the 2022 elections. Well, you know, I just asked Dan this in our last segment, so I'll ask you too. What kind of advice would you give Joe Biden right now, knowing that much of this is beyond his control or beyond any president's control, as we've seen from all our years in Democratic politics? But what is within your control

is the executive actions that you can take, your message, what you emphasize, what you focus on every day. What advice would you give him right now? I think they're doing a lot of what they should be doing and they have to do it on steroids. But the first piece of advice I'd say, and I think that you see a dramatic change

in the president's message in the last six months, which is don't say things are good because people wonder what planet you're on. They wonder, as one person asked in a focus group, what neighborhoods do economists live in? Because people think they're complete. So be in touch. Do something every day. Use every lever at your disposal and frame up a contrast. Don't let this be a referendum. This election is a real choice and frame up that choice for people.

They're doing a lot. The administration is doing a lot. I still think they have some work to do in terms of packaging it in a way that people notice it, can remember it. It's hard to get coverage for executive actions, but do something every day, frame it up, show the contrast, and pass some things this fall. We desperately need to get prescription drug reform passed. We need to get the ACA subsidies extended. There's a lot we can be doing and we need to do it. Do you think they've been nimble enough on figuring out what messages to push out every day?

Like, you know, we're talking on Thursday, on Wednesday, I know he did an event, Brian did an event in Ohio. It was about pensions and some of the work they've done to save people's pensions, which is great work. And I'm also sure without being a pollster myself that that polls really well. At the same time, you look at the news and, you know, there's more mass shootings. We're still only a week out from the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. Like, do they need to sort of be more in the news cycle with what they have him saying? Or is it important to just get those economic messages out no matter what? I think it's important to get the economic messages out no matter what. And they have been pretty aggressive on the guns message and on

Roe v. Wade. And the vice president has been very active on Roe v. Wade. But I do think you're identifying a problem, which is, first of all, there's so much going on, it's hard to process anything. And then I think, in some ways, this has to get delivered to real people's tables before they're going to really process this. But I do think there is a packaging problem. I think all of this needs to be packaged under an overall umbrella. That is the contrast. We're for the people. We're for the will of the people. They are for the corporate special interests. They are for their own power. There is a real choice here. There is someone who will not allow an abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. And there is a party that is fighting to maintain abortion care and birth control and support children that are born with a child tax credit.

And there's a party that took that child tax credit away from three and a half million poor kids. They didn't just not do it. They took it away. That's something that's really serious. that's something that's really serious. So I think we've got a framing problem of how to connect all of these dots in a way that people can go and say, yeah, that's my guy. That's my party. They're on my side. They're getting something done. Speaking about the midterms, are you surprised to see the gap between Biden's lower approval ratings and polling that shows Democratic Senate candidates like Raphael Warnock and John Fetterman holding their own against Republican opponents in two very competitive swing states.

Yes. And in fact, we're going to pick up Senate seats. I think that's a pretty safe prediction. And I think, first of all, Senate campaigns, unlike House campaigns, have the ability to develop their own message. They have enough money. They get enough press attention that they can develop their own personas. And these are big people in their states. And so is Ron Johnson. So is Tim Ryan. I mean, these are big figures. Trudy Bush Valentine in Missouri, a sleeper candidate, in my opinion. So I think these Senate races have the money to develop their own dynamic. And voters aren't looking in this state. I mean,

the irony is in 2020, Joe Biden didn't have as much coattails as we might have hoped. He had some coattails in Georgia, although I think the Georgia races brought him as much as he brought the Georgia races. But he didn't have a lot of coattails. When you're voting for Senate in your state, do you need to look at the president to decide who to support? No. And these Democrats are setting up a populist fight. They're setting up a change message, and they're setting up a contrast. And that's what we need to do presidentially, too. But it sounds like you do think that will be harder to pull off for Democratic House candidates. It's much harder in the House, I think. I think we need waves are what influence the House and the structure right now and the

nearness of the margin makes it tough. But I think there are some things working in our favor. The number of candidates that we have that have taken a strong stand on opposing the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the number of people that are wrapped up and the nominees they have wrapped up in January 6th, which is turning out to be a big issue, the economic distinctions. I think we need to get some more individualized votes. Forget the packages. Let's just vote on lowing prescription drugs and let these people go back and explain, even if we lose, explain to their voters why they think that you drive 40 miles from Detroit to Windsor and you save $310 on insulin.

I'd like to see the Republicans that can explain that. We've been talking about abortion a little bit. Just about every poll has shown that around 60 percent of the country disagrees with the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. You obviously look deeper into this polling and conduct focus groups. How would you advise Democratic candidates in competitive states and districts to speak most effectively about abortion in the run-up to the midterms? Yes, I think that the extreme decision and the extreme nature of what the candidates are saying has really made this quite easy. We stand strongly for what was the law for 50 years, that women can make their own

personal decisions with their family, their faith, their doctors, and that you cannot make this and should not be interfering in this decision as a politician until you have walked in their shoes, until you have faced these circumstances. This is basic health care. Abortion care is basic health care. And now they're going further. They want to eliminate it in the cases of rape and incest and health of the mother. They want to eliminate birth control.

They want to eliminate in vitro fertilization, which has helped so many families have children. They want to go question and investigate miscarriages. This is way too far. This is a deal breaker for a lot of women. And it's motivating for a lot of women to come out. And that's a key factor for us. Because right now, our side's more demoralized than their side is. They thought they were promised a lot.

They're frustrated that things aren't getting done. And this is a real motivator. The choice is motivating here. Do you think candidates should be spelling out a more decisive midterm strategy around abortion? AOC has urged candidates to do this in Democratic leadership. David Plouffe has urged them to do this and say specifically, you know, if we hold the House and win two more Senate seats in November, we will eliminate the filibuster and codify Roe v. Wade. Do you think that level of specificity would help with voters? I think it would help a lot because what we know is that the positive, the asset model tests a lot better than the negative and the failure. And when we just focus on the negative, we're getting some when we just focus on the negative,

we're getting some women in our focus groups saying, I'm worried it's too late. I'm worried we've already lost it. No, there is something we can do. It's within our hands. It's within our graphs. And we can codify Roe. And we have all the ingredients. Manchin has said he would go along. Biden has said he would go along. Everybody sees the need for this. We are unified in this. So I agree strongly we should make it an issue. But we should say what our positive alternative is. The governors have been very strong about this.

Then the AG candidates, and that's a sleeper race where this is going to make a big difference. They've said, I won't prosecute. I won't extradite. And a lot of businesses are jumping in and new polling out today shows voters overwhelmingly support their employers getting engaged in this as well and the businesses that they buy from getting engaged in this. election, a choice and not a referendum. Do you think that also applies to, you mentioned, you know, some of that our base is, is, is fairly demoralized right now. You talk to some demoralized Democrats and you talk about the choice. They say, yeah, of course, Republicans are awful, but why should I come out to vote just because, you know, I'm going to try to stop something from worse from happening. Is that the best we can do? Or are we going to actually get

anything out of my vote? What do you, what you sort of think about with in terms of those voters? I think I think you've identified a key problem, which is we tend to try to motivate people with the negative, I think far more effective to motivate people with the positive. That's what we did in 2018. That's what we did in 2020. We stored 2018 as it was against Trump, but it was actually for something, too. It was for protecting health care. So even when you're against a set of actors, you can be for something, as your own words suggested, around choice. Same thing with prescription drugs. And we should beat the people that are taking the wrong positions, Democrat or Republican.

We have the power to do that. So you basically just you can't forget about both sides of the choice. Make it a choice election. Make it about what Republicans are going to do and what they've already done. But also make sure you tell people what Democrats are going to do if we give us a bigger majority. And I think we need some more votes on the record, like on prescription drugs, like on family care. You name it. We've got a lot of opportunities out there, making the wealthy pay their fair share, what they owe in taxes, so that we can do what we need to do.

These are contrasts where we can have a positive and a negative. And if we fall a few votes short, okay. It still makes it within goal. The party is clear. The candidates that you're voting for are clear. Let's support them and let's elect a couple more of them and take this back. Last question. We were just talking about how Donald Trump might announce his presidential bid before the midterms. How do you think that would change the dynamics of the race? And how would you advise midterm candidates to adjust their message if that happens? Well, I think it would be amazing because voters do not want Donald Trump. And there are a lot of women voters in particular who do not think maybe he had some good ideas, but the way he did things, we cannot go back to that division. We cannot go back. And then I think he's getting, I think the January 6th hearings are doing a really good job of showing someone who incited a mob, planned violence,

is treasonous in my opinion, and in voters' opinion, is at least a criminal that should be in jail. So I think that it couldn't be better. It's ironic and it's a pure ego play because the Trump voters are already very energized. You don't need to do this to energize their base, but it will, I think, have an opportunity to energize our base because 2022 is the first vote against Donald Trump coming back in 2024. That's a good message as any right there. So Linda Lake, thank you so much as always for joining pod save america we appreciate you take care thank you so much thanks linda lake for joining us today and uh have a good weekend everyone we'll see you next week

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