Pod Save America - "Zelensky's Plea."

Episode Date: March 17, 2022

President Biden announces more aid to Ukraine after President Zelensky delivers an emotional plea to Congress, Donald Trump may be facing some new political challenges on the road to 2024, and progressive activists Amanda Butcher and Lucas Meyer join to talk about last week’s wave of New Hampshire school board victories that can teach Democrats how to beat back the Republican culture wars.Support Democrats running in New Hampshire by donating to 603 Forward. 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, President Biden announces more aid to Ukraine after President Zelensky delivers an emotional plea to Congress. Donald Trump may be facing some new political challenges on the road to 2024. And progressive activists Amanda Butcher and Lucas Meyer join us to talk about last week's wave of New Hampshire school board victories that can teach Democrats how to beat back the Republican culture wars. But first, we have some exciting announcements about our upcoming tour. On April 14th in Washington, D.C., our first show, we'll be joined by guest co-host

Simone Sanders, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, comedian Mike Birbiglia, and more. Press Secretary Jen Psaki, Comedian Mike Birbiglia, and more. And on April 15th in Boston, we'll be joined by guest co-host Jane Koston, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, and more. There's also an incredible lineup of the Love It or Leave It Live or Else Tour. Love It will be joined by Damon Young

and Aparna Nanchurla in D.C., John Hodgman and Chanda Prescott-Weinstein in Portland, Maine, and Vinnie Thomas, Allie Barthwell, Ashley Ray, and Peter Segal in Chicago. Tickets are now on sale for these cities and more. Get your tickets at cricket.com slash events. Dan, I think you have some exciting news for us as well. I do. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share it. So I have spent the last year writing a book. Now you may-

You're crazy. I was going to, you preempted me because I was going to say is, if you think writing a book during a pandemic with working from home with two small, wonderful, but quite active children is an insane move, you'd be correct. But I did it because I ended up with an, even though I'd foresworn book writing, I ended up with an, even though I'd foresworn book writing, I ended up with the opportunity to write a book about what I think is the most important issue in politics, something I've spent most of my career focused on, and something that I think is the single biggest threat to democracy, the planet, everything that we care about on this

podcast, and that is right-wing disinformation and propaganda. So battling the big lie, how Fox, Facebook, and the MAGA media are destroying America comes out on June 7th. Very subtle title. And it is about. Tell us what you really think. about how everyone from Roger Ailes to Steve Bannon, with the help of Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump, have built a massive messaging operation that I think is the greatest weapon in American politics. I explain where it came from, how it works, who pays for it, and I think hopefully, most importantly, what Democrats, the media, all of us, you, me, everyone listening here can do to fight back

against right-wing disinformation, online trolls spreading hate, the Ben Shapiros, Steve Bannon's of the world. Now, I will say that throughout the process, in addition to people telling me that it was insane to write a book under said circumstances, many people unhelpfully would point out to me that it was a bad idea to write a book because there is a limited audience for progressive books in the post-Trump era. I don't know why people thought that was constructive to a man trying to turn around. Well, guess what? We have the power to change that. That's exactly what I was going to say. And like, there is real evidence that that has actually been true. You know, if you look at the New York Times

bestseller list, all through 2021, it's like dominated by Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson and Mark Levin. And in just like just today, the New York Times bestseller list was announced that Bill Barr is number one on the list. Just in who he kicked off, Peter Schweizer, who wrote Clinton Cash with Steve Bannon's help in 2016. Gross. Yeah, it's disgusting. It's really a who's who of all the worst people in America. And while I would love to prove all those people wrong for all the obvious self-interested reasons

of selling the book I wrote, that skepticism among the book public about the audience, whether people who listen to Ponce of America or watch MNZMC or else who are still buying books, makes pre-orders all the more important. Because it's the only way to demonstrate to these bookstores and these services that there's an audience. And therefore, they'll stock the book.

They'll buy more books. They'll display the book. They will advertise the book. They will offer discounts to readers. They're doing that for all the right-wing books. Like, as an example, Kellyanne Conway of Alternative Facts fame, which is very fitting given the topic of this book, has a book coming out two weeks before mine. And it is promoted everywhere. It's got discounts. It's easy to find on Amazon.

And so I need all the help I can get to get as many pre-orders as possible to be on equal-ish footing because I would love to sell as many books as Kellyanne Conway. No one thinks it's possible. Maybe it's not, but I sure as hell love to try. And if that is not desperate enough, because I am a desperate man, I will send a signed book plate to anyone who pre-orders the book. You know what? Up until just now, I was all set to go pre-order Kellyanne Conway's book, but now I'm changing. I'm changing my mind. See?

And I'm going to pre-order your book. It was the signed nameplate that finally put it over the edge for me. And your desperate plea that the one thing you want in life is to sell as many books as Kellyanne Conway. Well, John, you're providing a perfect example here for a thing we talked about on this podcast, which is not all about motivating the base. It's also about persuasion. So I've just persuaded one voter. I was a swing voter. You're a swing book buyer.

And so go to battlingthebiglie.com. Upload your proof of purchase. Give us your name and address. I hope to sign so many book plates that I do this podcast with a cast on in a few weeks or a few months, I guess. So anyway, thank you for listening to my biannual ritual of awkward book pitches. But I hope everyone buys the book, enjoys the book, finds it useful. And if you are willing to do so and help spread the word by posting my social media, I'd be

very, very grateful. So thank you. End of pitch. Go pre-order Dan's book. What's the website again? Well, if you want to upload, you can get it at Amazon or Barnes and Noble or even better bookshop and Indie bound for local independent bookstores. But if you want to upload your proof of purchase, it's battling the big lie.com. There are also links to buy it. Battlingthebiglie.com. Remember it. All right. Let's get to the news. President Joe Biden called Vladimir Putin a war criminal and announced $800 million more in aid for Ukraine after

President Vladimir Zelensky urged the United States to do more to help stop Russia's invasion during an incredibly moving speech to Congress on Wednesday. The package will include anti-aircraft systems and drones, but not the fighter jets or the no-fly zone requested by Zelensky, which some Republicans in Congress are using as an excuse to attack Biden as being weak on Russia, even though many of them voted against aid to Ukraine just last week. Still, as Putin continues to massacre civilians, including children, pregnant women, hospital patients, it was hard to listen to Zelensky's emotional speech and not share his sense of urgency and frustration. Here's a clip. Peace in your country doesn't depend anymore only on you and your people. It depends on those next to you, on those who are strong.

Strong doesn't mean big. Strong is brave and ready to fight for the life of his citizens and citizens of the world. And as the leader of my niche, I am addressing the President Biden. You are the leader of the nation, of your great nation. I wish you to be the leader of the world. Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace. What effect do you think Zelensky's speech will have on U.S. policy toward Ukraine and U.S. politics? The policy question is most certainly better answered by Tommy,

if he were here, than I can answer it. But it seems like the Biden administration is doing everything that it can without crossing a few very important thresholds they have that they feel might trigger a direct conflict with Russia. I mean, I think just if you take a step back from the impact of it in the history of the United States Congress, that's one of the most dramatic emotional speeches ever given to Congress. The context, the leader from a bunker in the middle of a war making a direct

plea to Congress and the president for assistance is incredibly powerful. And I think it will continue to push forward the urgency and unity that has been behind supporting the Ukrainian people both in Congress and America. Where I think the politics is going to come in here is it is going to embolden the people who are pushing Biden to do more. And some people are pushing him to do more in good faith and others are doing in bad faith. But it creates a context for them to do that where Biden's going to sort of ends up being the bulwark against, quote unquote, more to help people, particularly with the backdrop of all the horrible war crimes being committed by the Russians and the tragedy that Zelensky talked about and showed us and we're seeing on the news every day.

Yeah, I thought it was an incredible speech. I do want to talk about the speech just for a second. I realize there's been a lot of focus on Zelensky as a messenger and stagecraft, and that can seem, you know, maybe a little weird in a time of war to be focusing on stagecraft but you know i think politics even in war maybe especially in war is fundamentally about persuading other people and in this case you have a leader who's watching a foreign army destroy his country and murder his people literally begging for help and trying to persuade a bunch of American politicians and the rest of us that we should do more to help. And so what does he do in a speech? He appeals to our common humanity. He had a very moving video and traumatic video that he showed during the speech

that showed, you know, scenes of families playing in Ukraine that look familiar to us before also showing the horrors of war juxtaposed right next to those scenes. He appealed to American values, to our history, to our belief in democracy. He quoted Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech. He talked about 9-11. He talked about Pearl Harbor. He used some justifiable fear and outrage and directly challenged our conscience. But I think he did it all in a respectful, almost aspirational way, especially when he said to Biden at the end from that clip that we just played, you know, you are the leader of your great nation. I wish you to be the leader of the world. Being leader of the world means to be the leader of

peace. So I thought it was an incredibly effective speech. And if I were Vladimir Zelensky, or if I was someone in Ukraine, I'd want him to give that speech. And I'd want him to push as hard as he possibly can for the United States and the rest of the world to do more. That's his role, Zelensky's role. And he's fulfilling that role impeccably, I think. Back to the United States, you know, the bipartisan opposition to a no-fly zone, which is shared by our NATO allies, seems to be holding up, even after this speech. But there is, as you mentioned, growing pressure on Biden to send the Ukrainians jets and to draw some kind of a red line in case Putin uses

weapons of mass destruction, whether they be chemical, biological, or tactical and nuclear weapons. Why do you think Biden's been resisting that pressure so far? Because he believes, and I think a lot of people, frankly, on both sides of the aisle agree that doing either of those things make it much more likely that the United States and NATO end up in a direct war with Russia. And for as incredibly important as it is to stop Vladimir Putin's aggression, both from a humanitarian point of view, a geopolitical point of view, President Biden has come to the conclusion, and I think most people would agree that it is not in the United States' interest to be in World War III or a direct conflict with a nuclear power run by a madman. And so that is a

deeply uncomfortable position for President Biden to be in. President Obama was in it as it relates to Syria, where you are the bulwark against a huge, in many cases, bipartisan cry for people to do more while horrendous things are happening around the world, that you have to make a decision about what is best for the United States. And it is very unsatisfactory for everyone involved, I'm sure, especially President Biden, who had to listen to that and want to do more. But he's got to make a decision. And he is the one accountable for what happens.

He's the one who sends troops into battle. And so that is where we stand. Yeah. I mean, look, we know this. Ben knows it uh even more like when you're sitting in the white house and you're making these foreign policy national security decisions like everyone outside the white house is uh is a genius has great ideas uh thinks things are easier than they are and when you're in the white house like you especially when you're joe biden um you have to make decisions and and no there's no easy decision here. Whatever you choose to do is not without risk and not without plenty of drawbacks.

And so and you have to live with the decision that you make. And sometimes when you make a decision and when you make a decision, it's not reversible. Once you escalate, you don't know where that escalation is going to go. And so I think the reason he probably has not drawn a red line on certain things is you don't want to box yourself into a situation where you have to escalate, particularly when one side has nuclear weapons. And, you know, Dan Balls in the Washington Post wrote a great piece about Zelensky's speech where he talked about Zelensky's role as I just did, and then also talked about how Biden has a different role than Zelensky. Biden has to keep NATO together. He has to keep the rest of the world united or most of the rest

of the world. And he has to most importantly, keep us out of a nuclear war that could, you know, destroy humanity. I mean, the video that zielinski showed was incredibly powerful and moving and i was crying watching it myself you know there's another video that's powerful which is max fisher at the new york times wrote a piece about the chances of of nuclear war and how a lot of experts are saying you know they're they're low but they're not zero right now and um he linked to uh a simulation that some experts at princeton did there's like a four minute video that shows what might happen if russia launches even a nuclear warning strike just uh just to show that they could do it just a small you know

and it should and you can see how things how it sets off the united States, NATO, and suddenly you have 90 million people dead all around the world because these things escalate beyond control. And so it's difficult because as heart-wrenching as the images are that we see on television right now, and as much as we want to do more to stop this war, in the front front of our mind we have to just remember the fact that vladimir putin is sitting on the world's largest supply of nuclear weapons could be in some fucking bunker somewhere in russia and decide that whether it's the transfer of planes whether it seems like nato is going to invade whatever it may seem like he may put his finger on the trigger and start something that no one is going to be able to stop. And that's very scary, but that's, I think, what's going through Joe Biden's mind and the administration's mind.

And no amount of sort of pressure from the media or Republicans or anyone else is going to change the fact that they have to make that calculation about the risks of nuclear war. about the risks of nuclear war. And there are people, many people in Congress who are very thoughtful about these issues, who try to approach it from an incredibly responsible point of view. We hear a lot of them about Save the World all the time. Elizabeth Warren, who was very thoughtful on this when I spoke to her about it last week on our podcast. But a lot of people in Congress just want to say what they want to say and not have to hold any accountability for decision making. There's not, they're not, they don't want to vote on it. There's a reason that the, we passed two authorizations for using the military force 20 years ago and just let them run out and use them as an excuse for military conflict,

basically anywhere in the world, because no one wants to vote for it. They don't want to vote to repeal it. They don't want to, you could, if you think you should do more, you can, you can bring a bill up and you can vote for it. And they don't want to do that. They want to be in a position of maximal opportunity to criticize Joe Biden if it goes, something goes wrong. That's right. Polls show that Americans are almost completely united in their support of Ukraine. Healthy majority support sending foreign aid, which is relatively unusual for the American public. How long do you think that

support lasts? You know, I'm really fascinated by the unity here and the amount of engagement with the story. People are paying incredibly close attention, which is just, it's incredibly unusual. It runs against recent history about how much the public pays attention to foreign policy, particularly when U.S. troops are not involved. And I do, I've just been very curious about what is driving that. Obviously, this is a very compelling story. There's a lot of history in our country about Russia and Russia aggression and how to think about it. And Putin is this person who has been sort of, I think, probably incorrectly and dangerously so inflated as some sort of master strategist on the world stage by a lot of Republicans in the US media.

But the unity, I do think that there is something here where, and maybe I'm being naive about this, but where the US public is sort of yearning, after everything that we've been through the last few years, yearning for something to have common cause for, where we can all get together and be for this. So I think the unity is going to last for a while. What I worry about is the urgency. What happens when people stop paying attention, the news moves on? You know, just today when people hear this, there will be, you know, the NCAA tournament starts, a huge cultural sports moment in America. Fewer people will watch cable news today than watched it yesterday. And that'll be true for the next few weeks. be true for the next few weeks. So what happens when the spotlight goes away? Because all the people who would normally be troublemakers on stopping some of this aid and other things aren't doing it now because of the spotlight. But when the spotlight goes away, it's going to get

much harder for Congress to act, to provide humanitarian and military assistance to Ukraine, and fewer Americans will feel compelled or be reminded to donate to humanitarian efforts and charities and other things that are helping Ukrainian refugees and Ukrainian people. And so I worry about the urgency because of, you know, as is the topic of your other podcast, your side gig, your side pod is the short attention span in America. Well, speaking of that, I mean, I think one of the reasons everyone's so united is because this war is being fought on social media, because people are seeing images of what's happening in Ukraine on the ground, not just from cable news, but on TikTok, on their phones, on Twitter, on every kind of platform they're watching this unfold and it is in a world that is very complicated and divided and disagrees on a whole bunch of different issues especially here in the united states vladimir putin is is a villain and he is he is as close to pure evil as you can get right now and um the whole world can see it that that this man is murdering civilians. He's murdering children. And everyone's watching it happen.

And for all that Vladimir Putin has done over the last decade to spread disinformation and to fight information wars and to try to get people to believe one thing or the other everyone sees what he's doing right now no one is confused as you know there's like tucker carlson and people like that very few people are confused uh except the you know people buying into his propaganda at home because he still uh has control of you know a lot of propaganda channels in russia and of course in some other places around the world as well But there is enormous unity because what is happening is pure evil and everyone's watching it. But you're right. Like, how long does that last? And can we find an off ramp here before before things get worse? I think is the big question now. Some Republicans are, of course, using all of this as an opportunity to attack Biden.

Mitch McConnell said the president needs to, quote, step up his game and that, quote, we're not doing nearly enough. And Congressman Mike Rogers said that he hopes Zelensky's speech, quote, moves that senile devil we got in the White House. The fuck? It's just like, fuck these people, right? right like and you know and then fucking you know i didn't even want to bring it up and then like playbook this morning is like well the republicans are certainly out hawking the democrats on this one because you know there's this you see this in the media too and some of it's some of it's well-intentioned and you know tommy ben have talked about this especially with foreign correspondence we're reporting from a war-torn country you see you see this carnage you become emotional and and you have a good intention to want

the United States to do more. I get that. And then there's sort of the DC blobbish folks and some folks in the media who are just like treating escalation and the push for more war as you would any other political conflict between the parties, which just is sort of gross to me, but so be it. How should the White House and Democrats handle those attacks? I think the attack from McConnell was interesting. Now, obviously, if McConnell thought it was in his political interest to attack Biden for doing too much, he would do that. And he may do that tomorrow. Just turn around on a dime and do it because he is the human embodiment of cynicism. But I think the fact that McConnell is making the

attack sort of gets to something that Celinda Lake, the pollster who was on our podcast a few weeks ago, hinted at from her focus groups about this was that, and it sort of dovetails with, I think, some of the rumors and scuttlebutt you and I have heard about internal Democratic focus groups and polling in recent weeks is that although Biden's approval numbers are up a little bit, they're not all the way back to where they were. Democrats have some optimism because they're seeing movement and some of the underlying attributes about Biden's strength, his ability to manage a crisis. violence and has not stopped in ukraine the invasion has not stopped i think people have a sense that he's doing everything he can short of bringing america to war which they most definitely do not support sorry playbook um and and you know in the republican political strategy is distilled in its you know most basic form is hope the world burns and then

try to convince everyone that joe biden is too old and tired to put out the fire. And right now he looks like someone who can manage a crisis and that creates a threat. So now you have them trying to, you know, sort of readjust to this new, this, you know, sort of new or re-emerging impressions of Biden, I think. But also, you know, the undying support for Ukraine here from these Republicans in Congress. These were the people who let the guy off, who extorted Zelensky just a few years ago when he needed military assistance to fend off the Russians. And, you know, I'm sure, you know, a lot of them now say, oh, whatever. Trump eventually gave him the military assistance. Right. Yeah. What was the rush? Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Trump eventually gave him the military assistance he desperately needed to fend off the Russians. Like, the guy was begging for help, and the only reason he didn't get it from Donald Trump is because Donald Trump wanted to force him to make up a smear against Joe Biden so Donald Trump could win an election. But now Biden isn't doing enough for Ukraine. Yeah, sure. Yeah, that's really believable, and all these Republicans don't think he's doing enough.

Just let Donald Trump get away with extorting this man who spoke to Congress when he needed our assistance to help fight Russia. That's the Republican Party. And don't forget, they smeared Ukraine to suggest that Ukraine was the ones who were the ones who actually got involved in the 2016 election to defeat Donald Trump. And they were hiding a server. I mean, like the amount is just the amount of just absolute shameless cynicism is not obviously not surprising, but it is quite apparent. And a bunch of them and a bunch of them just voted against assistance last week. And some of them have been saying shit on right wing media that Russians have been using as propaganda on their own state

TV channels. That's what Republicans are doing right now. Speaking of Donald Trump, he made some completely unsurprising news this week by effectively ruling out Mike Pence as a 2024 running mate. During an interview with the Washington Examiner, Trump said, quote, I don't think the people would accept it. Mike and I had a great relationship, except for the very important factor that took place at the end. A reference to Pence refusing to overturn the election after Trump supporters threatened to hang him. Are you shocked, Dan, that Trump has ruled out Pence? I mean, look, Trump seems like a guy who could look at the full balance of their five or so

years together, look at the good and the bad, maybe overlook Pence's unwillingness to involve himself in a ham-handed criminal conspiracy to steal an election and try to rekindle the magic. So yeah, I'm shocked. My question is, do you think Mike Pence would have accepted it if it had been offered? You know, that's a great question. I don't think so. I think yes. I can't say, yeah, I was going to say, you can't say, you can't say no for sure. I mean, he would, look, he's, he's a man of integrity. He is a Ronald Reagan Hall of Presidents kind of guy. And he would he would demand a handshake agreement from Trump against further attempts at murder relationship, except for the very important factor that we're just sort of yada yada-ing the whole hanging thing in the overturning of

the election. Yeah, it's no big deal. So I think the real question raised by this interview is, how much does it really matter who Trump might want as a potential running mate? Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake pointed out this week that in poll after poll, running mate. Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake pointed out this week that in poll after poll, Republicans are leading Democrats in the generic midterm ballot by a lot more than Trump is leading Biden in a 2024 rematch. The former president's potential Republican rivals might be sensing weakness. Politico reports that in recent weeks, Pence, Tom Cotton and Ron DeSantis have, quote, prodded at or even outright criticized Trump from the right on issues like crime, COVID and Russia. Meanwhile, some of Trump's 2022 Senate endorsements aren't doing so hot.

Trump just said he might unendorse Alabama's Mo Brooks. Georgia's Herschel Walker said this week that he doesn't believe in evolution or IVF. And here's a recent New York Times headline about Mike Gibbons, the frontrunner in Ohio who Trump met with at Mar-a-Lago this week. Quote, Republican in Ohio Senate primary spoke offensively about Asians. Wonderful. A lot to unpack here. Let's start with these polls that show generic Republican midterm candidates outrunning Trump. What do you make of that? Is it possible that Trump's not as popular as everyone, including Trump, thinks he is? Well, I think we should start with a couple of caveats to this, because no segment about Trump

being doomed to fail has ever aged poorly. So we'll put this out here. I mean, the first is there is an out of sight, out of mind thing happening with Trump where, you know, on the Democratic side for like soft Democrats or independents, they are not constantly reminded why they hate Trump. And so that's probably helping Republicans in some generic polls. And on the Republican side, they are not being reminded why they like Trump or love Trump or were willing to go along with Trump. And so that's probably hurting Trump on some of these numbers in these early primary polls or other things. But there is a very interesting number in the Wall Street Journal poll, which is that 15% of US voters say they don't like Biden

or Trump. These voters prefer Biden by 12 points over Trump if they were to run against each other in 2024, but they are picking Republicans by 13 points in the generic ballot for this year. And we saw something very similar in 2018, where there were a bunch of voters who switched from Trump to Democrats in the 2018 midterms. But then 75% of them, according to some studies, went back and voted for Trump in 2020. So this is not a super unusual dynamic. But I do think that there is something here where Republicans are sort of seeing that Trump is absent. The Republican, the MAGA movement, the Republican Party is stronger than it was at any point in which Trump was in office or as a Republican leader. And so there is ability to sort of have their, have Trumpism without Trump. And that may be appealing to some number of voters. And that may be appealing to some number of voters. And again, I think maybe the most important thing here is these polls may be showing general election weakness for Trump, but they're not showing primary weakness in a Republican primary. And that's what matters most of all. I also think, by the way, these polls may be missing the Trump supporters who come out in the presidential and don't answer pollsters calls.

We have not fixed that fucking problem yet. Just, just sort of happened in 2020. Everyone's just, oh yeah, that happened. And now we're just sort of moving on like it, like it never happened, but that's always in the back of my mind. Um, so look, I don't, I do think that group of voters that you point out as a, as a critical group of voters, right. And in a world where a lot of people tend to think that everyone's made up their mind and everyone's a partisan. You're either on our side or you're on their side and there's no one in between. No, no, no. There's a critical group of voters, mostly independents, probably, probably some Republicans, maybe even a few Democrats, who are going to vote for Republicans in this midterm, but then also say they want to

vote for Joe Biden or a Democrat again in a presidential and vice versa with Trump and Democratic candidates in 18, like you point out. And again, in 16, if you want to go even further back, that group of voters that didn't like Trump and didn't like Hillary Clinton ended up voting for Trump, which is one reason he won that election. And then in 2020, it was reversed and they didn't like both candidates and they went for Biden. So there are swing voters out there and they determine elections. What do you think about Pence, Cotton, and DeSantis starting to criticize Trump? Smart politics or what? I mean, Pence obviously has no choice. If he really wants to run for president, he's obviously has to be the anti, there has to be some sort of anti-Trump lane. And he,

I think he thinks he could probably, but incorrectly, fill that role. He's not Mitt Romney. He's not sort of an apostate or a rhino in the view of some. He was Donald Trump's vice president, and he doesn't like Donald Trump anymore or doesn't agree with Donald Trump or doesn't want to join in his crimes or whatever that is. And so he has that choice. The other ones are trying to navigate sort of an interesting, very narrow path of – I think they do recognize that if they want to be president, they're going to have to beat Trump.

They're going to have to be different than Trump. So they're going to have to criticize him, but they're going to have to do it in a delicate enough way where they can be the heir to Trump's movement, where they could be like a smarter, less chaotic, less criminal, less annoying version of Trump. Right. Whereas like this sort of thing where you can get Trumpism without all the baggage or the chaos. And that's what they're trying to get. Trump without the chaos. Yeah. That's the.

I just, you know know here's the thing even so tom cotton right just for as an example he uh gives this speech and he calls sentencing reform uh the worst mistake of trump's presidencies as criminals released from prison under the first step act have committed many more heinous crimes basically tries to willie horton donald trump here um uh in in this uh in this in this speech tries to go at him from the right on on criminal justice reform in the same speech he also praised trump and compared him to reagan yeah so like talk like you mentioned this but like talk about carving a narrow, narrow lane here. I just think just call him a fucking loser. Take the swing.

You don't win a Republican primary against Donald Trump with subtle swipes and policy criticism. That is not how this game is played, people. It's not how this game is played. You have to like this because like, look, and Donald Trump, he has been hitting back. Right. DeSantis said something about blaming Trump for listening to Fauci and lockdowns and all that bullshit. And, you know, Trump came back and hit him. And then when Pence said there's no room in the party for Putin apologists, Trump gives a speech the next day and says, oh, someone called me a Putin apologist. Trump hasn't even begun to really train his fire on these people because he's waiting to see who actually becomes popular so then he can really attack them. And I'm not saying it's impossible to beat Donald Trump in a Republican primary,

though I do think it is exceedingly difficult and that he is the frontrunner. I still think that. But if you're going to do it, you've got to take the swing. And you've just got to go fully at Donald Trump in a way that Donald Trump would do that to you and not try to criticize his record around the edges. The primary polls are interesting. So in January, Morning Consult tested this, the hypothetical Republican primary with Donald Trump in it. Donald Trump gets 50% of the vote.

And in one way, you look at that, and that's kind of a pretty startling rebuke of Trump. Half of Republican voters, most of whom believe that Donald Trump had the election stolen from him, would rather have someone else run. Ron DeSantis comes in second at like 24%. Everyone else is in the very low single digits. But 50% in a multi-candidate field is basically an insurmountable lead. 50% in a two-candidate field is a very different deal. I mean, Hillary Clinton had a lead that large against Bernie Sanders, and he almost beat her in 2016. But the problem is you never get to the two-candidate field, which is basically how

Donald Trump ended up winning the nomination because no one ran against them. They were just waiting to be the person who got to run against Trump. And then he was the nominee before that happened. Yeah. And again, you got to make your message about why you and not Trump as crystal clear as possible so that everyone gets it. It can't just be, oh, maybe someone, maybe it'll be intuitive to people if I run to the right on this issue and then run left on this issue and then, no, no, no, no. It's just like, why you, why not Donald Trump, who most people in your party, again, are saying is the rightful winner of the 2020 election and the greatest thing since Reagan, and has a 95% approval in the party, even if some people don't want him to run again. Why should this man run for president again?

And if you don't have that message early, I don't know what you're doing. So Ron DeSantis, here's some free advice. Donald Trump was a great president, he did great things. He put conservatives on the Supreme Court. They did all these things that you and I would find terrible. He made America first. He built the MAGA movement. He had the election stolen from him by Democrat judges, elites, etc. The stakes are too high

to lose this time. For as great a person he was, he couldn't beat Sleepy Joe. If you want to still parrot the bullshit that the election was stolen, which they're all going to want to, because that's what their fucking base believes, or at least most of it, you're going to have to say, yeah, Donald Trump got the election close enough for Sleepy Joe to steal.

That's how you do it. Yeah. And I wouldn't have gotten at that close. No. We need somebody who can stand up to Sleepy Joe and the Obamas and Stacey Abrams and AOC and the squad and all of that. Donald Trump's a good man, but he couldn't do it.

Yeah, he's passed his prime yesterday. Yesterday versus tomorrow. Does the fact that some of Trump's Senate candidates are having trouble tell us anything about Trump's popularity? Or does Trump just gravitate towards the nuttiest Republicans? I think it says more about his vetting process than his actual popularity. Are you saying it's not rigorous?

You know, no system is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. You could miss some things that happens even to the best opposition researchers, I'm sure, poured through everything. Herschel Walker and all these people said, I don't think it says anything yet about Donald Trump's popularity. It's a little early to find out how many of these people win and lose. And as we can see in some states, if his candidate is losing, he's just going to switch. He's already about to throw Mo Brooks overboard and pick up the winning candidate. I do think, though, that if it turns out that Democrats keep the Senate,

despite all the political winner Republicans back because of Trump-backed candidates lost in Arizona and Pennsylvania and North Carolina and Georgia, then I think that would, that will be a blow to Trump. That will sort of, that would be, it was sort of buttress to Trump as a loser narrative. And that, that I think that would be bad for him. Is it,

does it mean he can't win the nominee? No, but it would be, it would be a stumbling block, I think. And he does gravitate to the biggest goobers. That's just who he is. Yeah.

I do. The Mo Brooks thing was so funny. Cause he's like, well, Brooks is losing in the Alabama Senate primary. And Trump gives an interview this week, the Washington examiner funny because he's like, Mo Brooks is losing in the Alabama Senate primary. And Trump gives an interview this week, the Washington Examiner, where he's like, I mean, I think Mo Brooks has changed. Mo Brooks has changed, which is also what he has now been what he's now saying about Putin, his old pal Putin. After he called him a genius for invading Ukraine.

Now, now no one likes Putin. So he's like, ah, Putin changed. Putin changed. Notice that it's never it's never donald trump that was wrong if donald trump was was wrong about you you changed it's very clever like mo brooks is the same fucking idiot he was when he started running for alabama he's just losing now so donald trump's like oh it wasn't my judgment it was mo brooks who changed it wasn't me loving vladimir putin when i loved vladimir putin he was a great guy something got into him

that's why he's invading ukraine now it's a it's a great way to go through life that way unbelievable all right when we come back i will talk to two local activists in new hampshire about the wave of progressive school board victories that happened in that state last week. While right-wing activists are targeting local school board races across the country with extreme agendas and lots of outside money, New Hampshire has some good news. Last week in local elections that were dominated by debates over issues like COVID and critical race theory, 29 out of 30 pro-public education candidates won their races, some in pretty red areas of the state. Here to talk to us about how they did it is 603 Forward's Lucas Meyer and newly elected Londonderry District School Board member Amanda Butcher.

Thank you both for joining us. Thanks for having us. Thanks, John. Great to be here. Amanda, congratulations. What were you seeing and hearing in Londonderry that made you decide to finally run for school board? Yeah, so that's actually why I'm here.

I had been slowly kind of catching up to what was happening. I was watching the meetings online, actually, which I took a lot of heat for because I didn't go in person. But the more I saw, the more concerned I started to get. And I'm in the business of behavior. I'm an educational behavioral consultant. So from that behavioral place, it was bothering me to see that sort of behavior at meetings. That's not how to collaborate. That's not the way to push things forward. So that's when I really started considering getting involved. What was going on at some of those meetings? What were some of the issues that were being discussed and what was the behavior that made you realize that this was too much? Yeah. So it actually started for me back in the summer. My friend,

who's a registered nurse, was on the task force, the reopening task force, and she was getting constant messages and posting and people reaching out to her in a very aggressive way because of her medical opinion and wanting to kind of look at research and data to drive the decision-making process related to masks. So that's really what kind of got things fired up and got me paying attention. And then just like the tone and tenor of the meetings, people yelling when other people were speaking. And in Londonderry, it definitely got to a point where one of the meetings had to be ended publicly due to audience behavior and just, you know, current board members being harassed and ended up resigning. And it just got to this point where I felt like people were getting afraid to participate.

And that's what really struck a nerve with me. Lucas, how did you guys decide to help candidates like Amanda? And what kind of support did you offer these campaigns? Sure. And so, you know, growing up in New Hampshire, you know, a lot of kids my age didn't stick around after high school and didn't come back after college. And it's no surprise when you look at state government and you look at local government and some of the decisions that have been made in the state that really do not make it a terribly enticing place for young people to come back to. Now, when I founded 603 Forward with my partner, Liz Wester, a couple of years ago, we wanted

to make sure that we were building power for young people. And we believe that theory of change is putting young people like Amanda in those positions of power to represent young mothers, teachers, families, parents, to make sure that some of those extreme ideologies that people are pushing in these communities don't make it very far. And so we do this work year round. We have an advocacy pipeline with our advocacy and engagement director, Matt Mushian, who works with folks one-on-one on issues that are important to them. And then we feed them into a pipeline with our leadership development director, Tim Pelletier, who works with these candidates one-on-one. And really what we look for are people like Amanda, who just care about

their community and who are willing and who are brave enough to step up to the plate to serve in their community. And the least we can do is help lower that threshold, right? So what does that look like? That looks like trainings. We held eight trainings starting in December for candidates and we focus on candidates 50 and under. And that seems, you know, we consider that young in New Hampshire. We are an aging state, so we consider under 50 young in the state. And we had over 60 young people run for local office this last election. In the city elections last November, we had over 50. So we find some of these candidates we recruit, some of them are just looking to run, and we provide them some of that baseline information. We call them run for office 101s, then we have 102s, and then we have one-on-one meetings

to make sure that Amanda knows. Here's what it takes. It doesn't take a lot because Amanda is exactly like how the theory of change works. She's ingrained in her community. She works in the schools. She has kids. All we bring to the table is here are the tools to get it done. And then after the filing period closes, you know, we kind of cut off those communications and then we invest in digital, digital ads, mail program, direct mail to candidates, and then even some direct voter contact, which has changed a little bit during the pandemic. But heading into the into the summer for the state elections, we'll be looking to do more of that.

So just really, you know, if these leaders are willing to step up to run in their community, we want to make sure we have their back and that we provide them that support for any office. This wasn't just school board. We were focusing on local election official positions. We were focusing on town council positions and select board positions, budget committee, planning board, zoning board. So it's not, the school board obviously was a very, we were very nervous about this heading into the new year. And just seeing the results on Tuesday was like, I mean, I was pulling for Amanda in Londonderry, but I was not expecting the margin by, I knew she was going to win, but I was not expecting the margin by what she won by. Amanda, I know a lot of out-of-state right-wing groups spent tons of money on attack ads in these races.

What were some of the attacks you heard repeated most frequently and how did you respond to them? My experience was more just kind of constant hammering and words in my mouth. The big thing was that me and my neighbor ended up kind of, well, so just to give you the backstory, Me and my neighbor ended up kind of, well, so just to give you the backstory, there's a Facebook group for London Dairy residents who are for common sense thinking. So not necessarily masks all the time, but hey, like numbers are low right now and the hospitals aren't overwhelmed. So that makes more sense. But like we should never take, you know, a mitigation strategy off the table. And, you know, we need to look at what's best for the whole community and that sort of thing. So within that group, I kind of realized that someone needed to step up and run. There were two seats available that were going to kind of make for an uncontested race, which first off, no race should ever be uncontested.

Right. But the second the second thing that really kind of happened was I felt like my beliefs weren't represented. Um, and so I started to kind of, you know, Hey, like I have a master's in ed and I have two kids and I work with admins and teachers and, and students and, you know, um, I'm kind of interested. Um, but then got overwhelmed and kind of pulled back. And then it kind of within that group, hey, if people are willing to run, like we have someone who could help support, you know, making signs. And this is just like my neighbors, like local community members who I didn't even really, to be honest with you, know much about before. saw that I had that support, then I was like, okay, even though I still tried to talk myself out of it a little bit for the next two weeks, knowing that I had that support of the people around me was great. And then of course, 603 Forward came in once I had announced that I was running and it was super helpful. And I will say very nonpartisan in terms of like, hey, like, here's what you do. Like, here's how to write a piece about your background. And here's the message here, you know, decide your message. And here's a way that you

could get it across. And here's how to, you know, do this and that. And just those little logistical pieces that you wouldn't necessarily know if, if you didn't do this for a living. Um, and that was super comforting at a time, obviously where things were super contentious. Um, but the big thing that came out of that was that, um, to get back to your original question, was just kind of that, you know, I'm this hand selected puppet, extremist, liberal. And that was like the big thing. And even now, after the election, things have actually kind of ramped up again. And now, the election was fraudulent. and I didn't really win. And I left the high school gym before the announcements were made, not because all of the people that had harassed me were in that gym packed together, but because I already had known that I won.

And so, like, just the narrative of disinformation, I think, was probably the most frustrating part. the most frustrating part. I imagine that you talked to quite a few undecided voters over the course of the campaign. For people who are undecided or people who might traditionally be independent or even Republican, what were the arguments that tended to win them over when you were talking to folks one-on-one? I think the big thing, and to go back, you know, I obviously love behavior. You probably know that from talking to me just for five minutes. Part of it was that my message was that you can feel however you feel always. It's always okay to share your beliefs. But when you get into doing so inappropriately, that is not only disrespectful, but it's counterproductive. No one ever says to someone who yelled at them like, oh, thank you so much. Let me really consider your thoughts.

You've changed my mind by screaming at me. Thank you. You're right. So that's, that's unproductive. And that's something that I thought I could really bring to the table because in my job as an educator, I'm a consultant and I typically don't get invited onto a team until things are pretty bad. So we have a frustrated parent, their child's not doing well. No one who works in schools likes to see a child struggling, right? So teachers struggling with that, but a lot of times it's pretty maladaptive behaviors that I deal with. So teachers are having a hard time teaching because of behavior and things like that. And administrators having that same kind of, I want the best for the kid, how

can we move forward? So my thing was kind of like, I already kind of work out of these contentious situations pretty often. So maybe that would be a good skill set. But that's kind of what I really tried to say to undecided voters was that if I have the perspective of a parent, I have a third grader and a fifth grader in this district. I have perspective of school administrators. I've worked through COVID the last two years with people trying to keep buildings open and keep everybody safe. I work with through COVID the last two years with people trying to keep buildings open and keep everybody safe. I work with teachers. I work with paras. So like perspective wise, I am super cognizant of what the whole group's perspective is, which is really important when you're looking at decision making. Lucas, you've now supported dozens of candidates

who won local races dominated by these right-wing culture issues. What lessons do you think Democratic candidates and campaigns across the country can learn from what happened in New Hampshire last week? Well, I'm always hesitant to draw big, broad conclusions based off what happens in a single election. But what I do think is true here is you just heard Amanda talk about her experience and the values and her personal and professional experience that she brought to the race. So I think as we, you know, in 603 Forward, we're looking at every election, right? We're doing this every, I mean, you know, New Hampshire, John, right? It's like every other week there's an election in the state. So we are always looking

to find leaders like Amanda, like the other 60 plus young people we had on the ballot, and give them the tools they need at the local level to build that pipeline of leadership and to demonstrate to voters in these communities, and I understand these are nonpartisan races, but that ideas like taking care of our students, like supporting our teachers, like making sure we're not censoring teachers in the classroom, which is a very real problem in this state, that we are demonstrating at a local level the benefits of electing, I don't want to say Democratic candidates, but like progressive candidates. And that you can't take any election off. And that if we want to build power, it has to be trickle up. That we will see in this state millions and millions of dollars to reelect Senator Maggie Hassan,

which I'm super supportive of. If we took 5%, 2%, a half a percent of how much money is going to be spent that U.S. Senate race and invested it in next year's town elections, next year's city elections, and the state house races coming up in the fall, we could do some amazing things. And guess what? And that's what Republicans have been doing for years. That's exactly right. I mean, we're talking about a cumulative investment

from our organization, maybe $25,000, $30,000. And we swept across the state. And more importantly, we saw voter turnout increase in some communities from 30 to 50 percent in a town election. Those are people who weren't registered before. We heard anecdotes around the state of a lot of new young people showing up to vote. So if we want to build sustainable power, let's start local. Let's make sure we invest in these candidates.

It's not a ton of money, but the benefits are huge. Lucas, it's not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but for someone like me, who was obviously like not working with a lot, one of my favorite parts of this whole experience was my husband came in the house with a mailer that you had sent out. And he was like, what is this? Who paid for this? And I was like, what is that? And I looked and I, you know, I saw my name on this mailer. And that was invaluable to me. You know, we weren't able to raise the kind of money needed to do something like that and get our names out there. And it was such a short election season. So I just wanted to say how much I really appreciated that. It definitely meant a lot. And it was super exciting

to see that because, of course, we're doing the best that we could with our resources, but to have that additional layer of support was super important. Right. And just real quick on that. And I want to make sure some of our partners who worked on this are recognized as well. Granite State, Progress, Standing Up for Children did a lot of really great work here. This is always a team effort in New Hampshire. And I think that's really important. But making sure we're just educating people that these elections are happening, right? A lot of folks, I mean, we're excited about like a 50% increase in turnout in some communities. That's still only for a voting age of the whole town, still like a 30% turnout total. So like the sky's really the limit here on what we can do when we invest in

these local races. Amanda, you mentioned earlier that you were apprehensive at first about running. What would you say to parents out there who might be worried about a right-wing takeover of their kid's school board, wondering if they should get involved or even run themselves, but like you, were a little worried about taking that first step? Yeah, I would say that there's different ways to get involved and kind of get your feet wet. And that, um, I was told many times, like you're too late. You should have been here this whole time. And what are you doing here? And, um, it's never too late, you know, to say, um, how you feel. And even it's something like a small is showing up to a meeting and supporting, um, just by your physical presence, supporting people in that way makes a huge difference and is very valuable in terms of

showing your support for your community. Amanda Butcher, Lucas Meyer, thank you so much for joining Pod Save America. Congrats on all the fantastic work and keep it up. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you, John. and keep it up. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you, Joan. Thanks to Lucas Meyer and Amanda Butcher for joining the pod today. And everyone have a great weekend.

We will talk to you next week and go pre-order Dan's book, Battling the Big Lie. Thank you for forcing me not to do that on the end. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is

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

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