The Bulwark Podcast - D.L. Hughley: Kamala Is the Main Character
Episode Date: August 28, 2024The pundit class keeps talking about how Trump hasn't figured out how to respond to Kamala—but she already knows how to deal with him. And the man who's used to controlling the narrative finds himse...lf on the sidelines. Plus, maximizing the efficiency of Kamala's digital campaign over the next 10 weeks. D.L. Hughley and Teddy Goff join Tim Miller. show notes: D.L.'s radio show, streaming D.L.'s radio show, terrestrial options
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hey guys, it's Wednesday. So just a reminder that we get really kind of nerdy on the political stuff. Me, Sarah and JVL on the next level feed comes out late afternoon, early evening. So go check that out. I've got an HR McMumpers that aren't supportive enough to Kamala for her taste.
And good on her.
Good on Sarah.
So check that out on the Next Level feed.
Also, just a little bonus, some bonus laughs for you.
Me and Sam Stein on YouTube did a breakdown of Donald Trump's infomercial pushing his NFTs.
And just if you're not on our YouTube feed, we're doing some funny stuff over there.
Go check that out.
Today's guest, it's a doubleheader.
We have DL Hughley first.
I'm so excited.
Been a fan of his for a long time.
We talk about the Trump campaign's outreach to the black community, talk about mixing
comedy and politics.
It's a great chat.
And then my buddy, Teddy Goff, who knows about as much about digital and data campaigning
as anybody out there.
I want to talk to him
about what the Kamala team should be doing ahead?
And also a little behind the scenes from the convention
since he was working on that.
So it's a good convo.
Stick around for it.
We'll catch you on the other side with D.L. Healy.
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller.
I'm just delighted to be here today with comedian, actor, and host of the national radio program, The D.L. Hughley Show.
It's D.L. Hughley. He's also on the road doing stand-up on the weekends.
He's in Ontario this weekend. He's in Arkansas. He's in Little Rock, Arkansas. When are you coming to New Orleans, man? When are you coming to New Orleans?
You know, I've been in New Orleans in... It's been about two years now since I've been in New Orleans,
but we're working on it.
Let's get it on the schedule.
Get to the Smoothie King Center.
It's weird because my oldest granddaughter is named Nola after New Orleans
because my daughter has a love affair with that city.
Oh, yeah? Okay. Well, good.
We'll have great together.
We'll take care of you.
I'll get you a purple drink. We'll be in good yeah that's what i need the purple drink i need that that's what i need well i've been wanting to have you on forever
i've got caught listening to your show one morning in a cab or something and i was like
you know my dl huey you know reference is being a teenager watching the original kings of comedy
and thinking,
why isn't that guy more famous than the other guys? I swear to God, I'm not a bullshitter.
So I've been going back then and I kind of didn't realize you were doing politics takes till about, I don't know, six months ago. Right. I think politics became a different
thing. And I think, you know, with the emergence of Barack Obama, who probably has the most
ex-Twitter followers as anybody in the world, and then you have Donald Trump, and now you have this iteration of it.
I think America's consumption of politics just became different.
But I've always kind of done the same thing.
It's just that my frequency was set to a different kind of page, and I don't think everybody was kind of on it.
But I think now pop culture and politics is kind of morphed into
the same kind of yeah maybe in a way that's unhealthy so right it is unhealthy yeah have
you felt like you had to do it more in the trump era or did you change your intensity i think the
stakes are higher in the trump area and i think the the the people are more in tune in the trump
area like i said because obviously because the stakes higher, but it used to be when a president said something,
it didn't show up on social media.
Now when they do, it does.
And I think people are just, like I said, more in tune to it.
The way they consume it is a different process.
Now they don't have to go to a newspaper
or they don't have to go to mass media.
They can get it kind of a la carte.
I was pretty tickled by your appearance on the convention stage. We've got
Kinzinger coming on the pod Thursday. So I mean, you guys are kind of neck and neck for giving me
the giggles up on stage. And I particularly enjoyed this line and this segment. Let's just listen.
As president, she will give each and every one of us a fair shot in life. But I have to admit, I didn't always believe that. I
mean, if you told me the 15-year-old me would be on stage supporting a prosecutor and a
teacher, there is no way that I would have believed you. But because of that I made assumptions about Kamala's record.
And I often repeated them to a lot of people.
Then one day, Kamala invited me to her house, she put her hand on my shoulder and she asked
me to do some research.
Something I had never done.
Something a lot of people I know had never done before.
Imagine attacking someone's character without a single Google search.
So I did what I should have done in the first place.
I learned that she had done for us
exactly what she promised to.
I believe that your apology should be as loud
as your accusation, and I'm here
apologizing in front of the whole damn world.
So I was with you, man.
When I was 15, I wouldn't have been, you know,
teachers weren't really my bag. Right. And prosecutors were less. And I think, you know,
it just, it just really speaks to the maturation of people. I never would have thought that I'd
have been in that same circumstance. I never would have thought that I'd have had the mindset I had,
the allegiance that I had. I think you become a different person. I think what's unfortunate is that most people who grew up where I grew up don't get to have this kind of
incarnation of themselves, but it was surreal to be in that place. Yeah, the prosecutor thing was
less a problem for me in the Denver suburbs as a white boy. They were targeting me for my minor
in possession with the same vigor. The part of that though i want to hear a
little bit more about that story so i guess i might it seems to me through the context clues
that you were maybe dragging combo about her prosecutorial record and and then you had an
opportunity to talk to her so yeah talk about that what what what evolved and i actually don't
and this is not trying to obfuscate but i actually don't think i think when she ran in 2019 i think
it isn't that she just became a different candidate. I think the nation in general was different.
I think we were going through the George Floyd, Breonna Taylor kind of situations.
And I don't think anybody was in tune to seeing a prosecutor as a potential president.
And I also think that if that weren't true, that she wouldn't be having.
I mean, the first thing that happened when she was running in this iteration of herself is that, you know,
black women got on there,
black men got on there.
There was this groundswell
that I don't think existed before.
But I think, to be fair,
I was part of the rationale
that she had locked
a whole bunch of black men up
for truancy and for marijuana
and, you know,
all those kinds of things.
So I think I was caught up in the maelstrom of people that just kind of felt like that.
And to my lament, I think it was just horrible that I never even looked to see if it was true or not.
I pride myself on kind of, you know, just calling it like I see it.
But it's difficult to do that when you don't even see it clearly.
You know, that was one
of the reasons we had occasion to talk and i actually looked at her record and it was nowhere
near what i assessed it to be so what was her pitch to you um just look at my record yeah it
was look at my record actually it was probably which is weird because we're at the uh the vice
president's house and you know we're drinking and talking they got heated it got heated yeah yeah because
you know i'm invited to the vice president i'm thinking i'm gonna say what it is i'm gonna say
i didn't you know i think that old biblical scripture i was nathan is speaking that you
know i was speaking truth to power and i was heated and it was a heated scenario and she was
very measured and calm she said all i asked you to do is to actually look at my record.
And I went out and I did, and I felt this small.
And I said, you know, I'm going to do what I can to make this right.
I said, I probably had a lot to do with what happened to you in 2019,
and I'm going to do what I can to make sure.
And it was ironic because this was in November when she was just the vice president of Canada.
They were, you know, this was November 2023.
And I said, I'm going to get you to do what I can to make sure you get elected.
I didn't say reelected.
I said elected.
And they thought it was a Freudian slip.
But these months later, it turned out to become fruition.
Was it a slip or did you kind of feel that things were going?
I said it and I didn't feel as if it was a mistake.
And even in Milwaukee, I said it again when we were starting this thing.
I think, and I said this on stage, I think I've seen a lot of people say a lot of bad things about people.
And I participated in it, obviously.
And I think that when you have made these assertions about people, then you have an obligation to make your apology or your
recompense as loud as it is your accusations.
And I think very rarely do you get a chance to do it.
And I did.
And so I truly feel horrible that I believe the thing without even looking.
It doesn't seem like who I am, and I don't understand why I did it.
But obviously that.
Where are you at on that now?
And how do you balance the question? mean like I said I'm in New Orleans
I moved from Oakland we deal with all these questions in these communities like like how
are you balancing like okay you need to have some basic level of public safety but obviously in a
lot of cases the police have gone way overboard to talk you know there's racial talking like where
do you fall on that balance well I guess the 50 year old me has a different assertion than the 60 year old me but i do think this i think getting mad at a
prosecutor who um has this arrest people or jail people is like getting mad at the dentist because
he has to pull some teeth uh it's just but the rationale of a 15 year old guy living in an urban
community i had never seen what a progressive prosecutor would look like i
had never seen what you know measured justice looked like i got a lot of tough but not a lot
of love and people said david is you're probably old enough to remember california was texas it
wasn't it's not california this california now was the liberal bastion it was texas three strikes
you're out yeah so it became you know in the 90 the 90s, 2000, it became a more liberal California.
Ronald Reagan came from California.
Yeah, right.
Pete Wilson, man.
Pete Wilson was that era.
Pete Wilson.
You know, Richard Nixon came from California.
This California that people now know is not the one I grew up in.
It was one, Proposition 13, where they stripped everything down to property taxes.
And it gutted our communities.
People went to jail by large numbers.
So there was never, if you grew up in a system where, you know, you see a bureaucracy tear up the things you love,
then any agent of said bureaucracy would probably be suspicious to you.
So where are you at now?
I mean, obviously, there's this huge vibe shift from Biden to Kamala, and we were kind of like tweeting at each other a little bit during
that period after the debate. Full disclosure, I was very angry with the way the Democrats treated
Biden. And I still have a problem with the way they did it now. But I'm very pleased with this
outcome. But I think that there's something to be said. I mean, I guess that,
you know, Biden probably isn't much different than Winston Churchill was. Once you win the war,
then people can't use you anymore. But I think ultimately he will be regarded as one of the
legislatively, I think his legislative agenda rivaled FDR. And I think what he's done, I've
never seen a president voluntarily give up power for the good of a nation. And that tells you the
difference between him and the other candidate running.
There are men who'd rather lose their life than lose the presidential power.
And I think they'd rather start a war, they'd rather tear this country asunder than to say me stepping aside is in the country's best interest.
And I think it was hard for him to reconcile it, and I think people, it was hard for me to see him treated that way.
But I think I understand what had to happen.
I was, and I think a few people were.
I don't think it was just me.
But I think the way it turned out now could have never possibly foreseen.
I'm very happy she's in the position.
Many of the listeners are with you on that.
So they'll be happy to hear that.
They're tired of hearing me dogging them.
But we're in the moment now.
You know, Kamala takes over.
It's hard for me.
I was talking about this on the podcast during the time.
It's funny. As a gay person like we i was very sensitive about
pete i'm like oh i don't know if we can do a gay guy i don't know if country's ready and you know
like i producer katie's just jewish she's like i'm not sure we're ready for shapiro like people
are mad at jews right now and like in focus groups black focus groups and and my aunt said this to me
several several black women said this to me like i'm a little worried about kamala people aren't
ready but all of a sudden it happened.
And I don't know.
We're not out of the woods yet.
She hasn't won.
But what's your sense for how kind of excited folks in the black community are about her?
Are there still lingering worries about that, electability?
How do you assess all that?
I think any time any group that has been on the outside of anything sees the potential for something to happen for the first time.
I think they're more there's a lot more trepidation. I think you come off Barack Obama.
I remember Donald Trump said because of Barack Obama, we'll never have another black president.
And then four years later, we're on the precipice of it.
But I think whether you're gay or whether you're Latin or whether you're Jewish or whether you're, you know,
there are all these things that have never been these things before. So there's a, but I do sense this, this is what I do sense.
I think the prospect of being without the specter of Donald Trump hanging over us is seductive. I
think it's alluring. I think it would be nice to have regular conversations without having these,
I mean, you like him or not
you like his positive or not he's really done so much damage to every tenant every you know
important thing in america from the press and to like we we just can't agree on anything because
he decided to tear it all asunder for his own benefit and i think uh when i hear people the
funniest thing about it is and this is what crystallizes for me, I hear people say that Trump hasn't figured out how to deal with her.
But the problem is she already knows how to deal with him.
She already knows what to do with him.
And I think that is a problem.
It is her that's getting the bigger crowds.
It's her that's raising the most money.
It's her that's polling the highest.
It's her that the meters clamoring to talk to.
She is in the midst of doing something powerful white men always hate, and that's to be irrelevant.
They hate to be invisible.
She's erasing that orange stubborn stain that nobody could get rid of.
Powerful white men who've gotten to tell you the narrative have never had to play defense, always offense, never.
This takes us to your other good line from the convention, which we'll play here.
They even have Republicans for Kamala.
Republicans for Kamala.
I guess Donald Trump will finally know what it's like when you get left for a younger woman.
It's kind of delicious, isn't it? I mean, again, we don't want to get out of our skis. We've got this debate coming, but it's kind of delicious isn't it i mean again we don't want to get out of our skis
we got this debate coming but it's kind of delicious just thinking about donald trump
losing to kamala in particular right you gotta have a little excitement about that like i do i
think that it is ultimate if you look at the way um society viewed black women 20 years ago or 30 years ago, it's decidedly different.
I think political historians will look at what black women have done in the realm of politics in America,
what they would consider decidedly different 30 years ago than they are now.
And they've risen to the seat of being one of the most important demographic in a political party,
in a major political party in the United States of America.
And they didn't do it with bellicose, allowed. They weren't saber rattling.
They just were insistent. They just were consistent.
They're the demographic of the votes at the highest levels of any other demographic.
And they they have a Supreme Court justice that represents that is reflective of their experiences.
Black men don't. They have a vice president who's reflective of their experience.
Black men don't.
They could very well have a president that's reflective of their experience.
Black men don't.
So rather than being jealous or worried, I would take this as an opportunity to learn
what they've done to rise like this.
I think if you look at the annals of human history, there's never been a diaspora quite
like what black women have done in America.
So it'd be almost poetic to see it play out this way.
So Susie Wiles, my former boss, sadly, who is Trump's campaign manager now, she said a month ago to The Atlantic that, you know, there's all this talk about how Trump's trying to reach out to black folks and trying to reach out to black folks.
And she basically says that's not true.
Actually, we're trying to reach out to one demographic and she basically says that's not true actually we're trying to reach out to one demographic 18 to 39 year old black men and they're doing it with
the machismo stuff they're doing it by like the dent you know woke stuff what's your assessment
of that like have they had success with that like what's working what's not working i think that's
spot on he is playing to men who respond to fake ass videos with people with bling and talking shit
and doing a video and then at the end of that
they give all of it back. None of it's real.
All of it is
for the camera. All of it's for the
ground. And Trump plays right
into that idea. Like nobody
actually does the shit that they rap
about. Nobody actually does the
things they say they do. So
if that is your mindset then a guy
who does the same thing you do would appeal to you so i think that she's absolutely right but i also
think that those people tend not to vote in high numbers so you're not that worried about it you
don't feel like there's there's like progress you made i don't know your listeners your call-ins like
you know you're not looking at data but just like are you you seeing a little bit of Trumpy? I think that I hear the same things that everybody else hears, and I think I've heard them for years.
But I also think, and just like when I hear, we could talk about young black men, but also on the other side, the Bradley effect.
So I'm interested to see what people do when the chips are down. I do think it is interesting that a man who thinks he can roll out gold tennis shoes and sell Bibles and T-shirts,
that says a certain thing about what he expects from people.
And it's sad that some people actually respond to that.
How many, to what degree, I don't know.
I wouldn't be interested in having a conversation with people that that did appeal to.
You're saying Donald Trump's stereotyping people that's that's hard to believe what did you think
about the whole like oh kamala turned black that was insulting to me we live in a country that told
us what we were this country said that if you have one drop of black blood you're black right
it told us that now it's telling us for political and speedy sake that if you have 50% of your DNA,
you're black, you're not. I've seen her be a DEI hire. I've seen her sleep away to the top. I've
seen her not be black. And now this iteration of her not being even constitutionally able to run,
it all means the same thing. We don't know what to do with you. I don't know how she isn't black,
but I do know this. You know you're black when the person they call you is a D.I.
You know, you black when they insult your intelligence. You know, you black when they tell you who you are.
And I think all those things, I think instantly all the people who've had any level of success know what that's like.
They know what it's like to have whatever you've done reduced to whatever they think you are and i think that plays whether you're a black woman or a gay person or a latin person or an
asian person all of us had different kind of ideas about how that looks do you see my buddy
bakari sellers on cnn saying that uh the same like making fun of trump being like you know the time i
became black is when i first heard back that ass Up by Juvenile. Yeah, yeah.
Is that right, though?
Is the right way to deal with that stuff being pissed or making fun of him, or both?
I think that what she does, if you grew up in Oakland, you looked that way, you sounded that way, you had a difference.
And I do find it interesting that the people who have ascended, who have been black, who have ascended to this level, this kind of stratosphere, have had names that are difficult for America to process.
And I think it says something. I think their experiences have prepared them for all the slings and arrows.
If you grew up and you were a black dude named Barack Hussein Obama, or you grew up and you were in Oakland and you were named Kamala and nobody knows what you are,
you had to fight identifying yourself your entire life. So going through Oakland, you know, going through HBCU,
pleasant of black sorority prepared you.
He pales in comparison to the gauntlet
you had to run through to get there.
And so I think that's why he's easier to handle.
But everybody that has ascended,
they could say their name in a way
that makes them,
whether even when George Bush Senior
was saying Saddam,
like there's a way that they pronounce your name
that makes you less than.
So imagine having your whole life
to have one people not accept you because of your name
and some people lessen you because of your name.
I think that gives you a callous, an armor
that prepares you for whatever else happens after that.
All right, y'all.
When you're on cable and YouTube all the time
and you're just seeing everything from the waist up, sometimes I'm looking in my closet, I'm saying I'm running out of shirts, I need to mix it
up a little bit, you know, we need some fresh material. And so I was so excited to partner up
with our new sponsor at Quince. You know, Quince asks, do you ever open your closet and say,
why did I buy that? You better believe that I do that all the time. But since shopping with Quince, I've seen fewer misses and more hits. Things I'm going to be wearing live stream after live stream.
Quince has all the seasonal must-haves like 100% European linen shirts from just 30 bucks,
performance polos, and versatile activewear. The best part, all Quince items are priced 50% to 80%
less than similar brands. by partnering directly with top
factories quince cuts out the cost of the middleman and passes the savings on to us and quince only
works with factories that use safe ethical and responsible manufacturing practices along with
premium fabrics and finishes i love that i got this little kind of short sleeve button up i bet
you've seen it i bet you've seen me wearing it on the podcast lately. You're like, oh man, Tim's looking a little fancier than usual. He's not just in that
boring chambray that he likes to stick with. So I love it. I'm going to be going back to Quince to
be getting some more new shirts for you. So you got to keep an eye out for that. Fill your closet
with timeless pieces you'll be wearing for summers to come with Quince go to quince.com slash the bulwark for free shipping
on your order and 365 day returns that's q-u-i-n-c-e.com slash the bulwark to get free
shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash the bulwark you won't regret it
jd vance uh i would like to get your take on really quick he's also a guy that i guess had
to have some calluses and armor but i feel like he's processed it in about as unhealthy way as
imaginable you know there's a dude that needs therapy instead of being on the vp ticket but
i'm just wondering like his whole shtick just doesn't work it i see what you want about trump
like trump does the racist stuff but he's funny right and like it cuts it like jd just doesn't work right like is there do you see anything about him that's
appealing i think trump has charisma but he also was a game show host and he hosted a reality show
you kind of judge on a different jd vance is a man that takes himself seriously if he believed
what he said then he would be a psychopath but
the fact that he i don't know that he really believes it and is saying it anyway i think that
that you can tell that he never expected to send to this level because he spoke so freely and
without regard like he did and it's hard to dig he is a a vacant man any man like i heard him talk about how drugs coming
over from the border you know almost no your your parents or grandparents were alcoholics that's
legal they want prescription drugs that's legal so you you make these which is a true problem i'm not
saying it isn't but trying to blame a thing you're more likely to be an alcoholic because you have an
alcoholic in your family or drug addict because you have a drug in your family than people bringing in meth from
across the border.
So he seems insincere at best.
If you love this woman, she's a beautiful woman.
Your wife is beautiful and you love her even though she's not white.
You say things that are all putting to it.
I don't know anybody who likes you.
Like, I can't think of anybody who likes you.
And I agree with this.
You've co-opted the language of the poor to speak ill of poor people.
Like, hillbilly energy.
You co-opted the language.
And that's the thing.
We all co-opt the language of the poor but don't want to do anything for them.
You use their story.
My father came here with this and my mother was this and they were this.
But you never feel like they need any help at all.
That's, to me, even more disingenuous.
I've got one more clip for you. We're just going to play really quick for JD.
I think our conservative idea is that parents and families should determine
what children learn, what values they are brought up with. You know, so many of the leaders of the
left, and I hate to be so personal about this, but there are people without kids trying to brainwash
the minds of our children. And that really disorients me and it really disturbs me.
Randy Weingarten,
who's the head of the most powerful
teachers union in the country,
she doesn't have a single child.
If she wants to brainwash
and destroy the minds of children,
she should have some of her own
and leave ours to hell alone.
If you really believe that,
if you really believe that,
my son is,
and I don't want to talk about his business,
he has Asperger's syndrome.
He doesn't want children. He doesn't want children. And he don't want to talk about his business, he has Asperger's Syndrome. He doesn't want children.
He doesn't want children.
And he doesn't want children because he's,
and this is unreasonable, but this is his assessment
of it, he doesn't want to potentially
give to his children what he
has. There are people who
don't want their children born in this world.
There are people who don't think they have the wherewithal
to band with the beat. What if you don't want
children, but you want to impact them in some kind of way?
You have another skill set, another gift to give them.
I think that this idea, it sounds so much like Handmaid's Tale.
It's scary to me.
And I think as galling and I think as horrible a human being as Trump is, you saw him in the kid movie where he's home alone.
You saw him on rap videos. So he's out, you're home alone. You saw him on rap
videos. So there's something that cuts against it. J.D. Vance, it was a movie, then a dude paying
$15 million so you could be a senator, and then you're saying horrible shit on a podcast.
Yeah, dude shouldn't have done so many podcasts. Maybe you shouldn't run for anything, DL. I don't
know. But it was fun. You brought up your kid. So I've got one personal one for you. I asked the
same question to Bakari.
So we're going to get to you.
And then I got one comedy question.
And I'll let you go.
You got a granddaughter now?
You got two daughters, too, in addition?
I have two granddaughters.
Oh, you got two granddaughters.
Two daughters and two granddaughters.
How's being a granddad treating you?
I never thought this is true.
I loved my children.
I never envisioned myself as having children when I was growing up.
I've been married 40 years.
So I never envisioned having myself as children. I always knew I would, but it wasn't something I thought
of. I always thought I'd have children. And then when I had them, I could never imagine life without
them. But I never thought I could love children that weren't mine. I love my grandchildren so
much, I don't even need my kids anymore. I call my daughter, I'm like, hey, how you doing? She's
like, hey, how you doing? Just put the kids online. You've had your chance. I don't need need my kids anymore i gotta call my daughter i'm like hey how you doing she's like hey how you doing just put the kids on you've had your chance i don't need to talk anymore
yeah since you've had that successful experience my mother is the same way by the way i'm raising
a black daughter she's six you've successfully raised two daughters so i don't know if it's
successful i live that's i don't know you lived they're grown and they got kids uh it seems to
be doing pretty good to me uh so i'm just i'm
looking for advice give me some parent what do you got for me i don't know what a teen daughter's
like i don't know what having a black teen is like you know you i'm sure you've got some tips for me
if you live through it you'll be all right but the thing that i that i always i remember when
my daughters were growing up and my wife would be never break their spirit because the very thing that you that annoys you right now, the very thing that you find so hard to deal with will be the thing that carries them through.
It'll carry them on to victory.
It'll be the thing that sust annoying you right now the thing that you think you can't live with and how does she do it and how can i put up with it will be the very thing that resonates and it'll cut through
everything and make you so proud of her later i love that that's kind of what makes them unique
you gotta live through it though i ain't saying there's no guarantee you're gonna live through it
i'm just telling you i'm gonna live through it she's amazing i'm gonna live through it it's
awesome all right we got to do comedy before i before i leave you because i was listening to
an interview you did with kevin hart and i'm of like two minds about this i'm not a comedian you know so i also this is another place
i'm not coming from right but like there's all this you know you hear jerry seinfeld out there
and he's like oh you can't do the same jokes you used to do anymore and people get canceled
and i don't know man dave chappelle's selling out smoothie king center rogan selling out smoothie
king right to me it seems like things are okay but maybe i'm being naive i don't know how do you assess it i always wondered what that meant because we're
grown like yeah i think that there's probably some commercial opportunities you can't get
right obviously okay like like network tv or whatever yeah like network tv or there's some
advertisers that may not deal with you and that and that's only till look trump got banned for a
lifetime on twitter and then unless a lifetime of a year and a half, he came back.
So, ultimately, it's what you can take.
I think your only obligation as a comedian or anything else is to be true to who you are.
There's nothing I wouldn't say if I didn't want to say it.
If I believe that people don't, then that's, you know, there's a new crop of people or potentially not.
I don't understand that.
But when Jerry Seinfeld, something like that, you got to remember,
this was a man who
at the apex of commercial success.
So maybe for him,
there might not be people
that deal with him.
But I mean,
you could air Seinfeld now.
You could air the D.O. Hewley show now.
I'm just thinking about
Shane Gillis got fired from SNL.
Now he's back hosting SNL.
He's doing better than ever.
What won't happen is
there are certain things,
there are ways you feel.
There are people who are so used to being liked and so used to people being.
Jerry Seinfeld did a show about nothing.
Yeah, right.
And I'm not knocking.
Yeah, sure.
Obviously, but it was about nothing.
Imagine the show that's about something because something requires that you have an intent behind it.
And when you have an intent, that when you have an intent that opens you up to more
uh subjective judgment like kevin hart does things that are you know not as confrontational so if you
do those things that's not gonna and you you have a commercial apparatus and success that's designed
for that i knew that when i got off that stage at the dnc there would be people that had an opinion
like we're 50 50 countries so
50 of the people might like it 50 would people that are used to appealing to people higher
percentages might have a problem with that i think other people don't it's a fair trade for you though
you're like fuck it i just got i just got to be me or what i love what i do and i believe in what i
do and if i didn't i wouldn't do it i mean just, I'm on stage every week. I do the radio show every week, five days a week.
I'm in a position where I get to do what I love.
And if I don't want to do it, I don't.
You make enough money, you can do enough things.
And I just, I want to do the things I believe in.
And when you were talking about your daughters, I do not want to live in a world where I didn't make my granddaughters or attempt to make my granddaughters life better.
Like my granddaughters are growing up in Georgia right now. When I was born in 1964,
I have more rights than my granddaughter, Stevie, who will be a year old in a week is born with.
That's tenable to me. I have to be able to do something about it. And if I could do it from
my professional apparatus, I will.
Well, man, I appreciate you so much.
Thanks for coming on this podcast.
You want to go see D.L.?
And you're the only dude I've ever seen wear pearls that look dope on.
The only one.
I was like, wow, this dude.
I don't know if it looks dope.
It looks all right.
It might look like a midlife crisis.
It might look like a midlife crisis.
I wouldn't wear them, but you, I was like, this motherfucker looks fly.
Look at him.
Thank you, D.L.
I hope to see you in person sometimes.
All right, man.
See him in Ontario Friday.
Little Rock on Sunday.
DL Hughley radio show every week.
We'll talk to you soon, man.
Thanks, Tim.
All right.
Thanks to DL Hughley.
That was awesome.
Appreciate him coming on the podcast up next.
My man, Teddy Goff. all right we are back here's the digital director for brock obama 2012 hillary 2016 we'll talk about
that now he's a co-founder and managing partner at precision a strategy and marketing agency he
heads the corporatist wing of the DSA. My buddy,
Teddy Goff, what's up? Hi, Tim. Good to be here.
That's pretty good. Did I miss anything else on your bio? Anything else you want to share
with people? No, that's my entire life in three sentences. Triumph, failure, pivot to corporate.
Okay. Well, I want to talk to you about the convention. Your colleague at Precision,
Steph Cutter, was the head woman in charge over there. So I want to get some convention stories.
And I also just want to talk about some digital strategy with you.
But first, I just like right before you came on, I was just reminded of that this is the 10-year anniversary of a big moment.
Do you know what it is?
August 28th, 2014.
Do you know what happened?
No.
Barack Obama came out to a press conference and wore a khaki suit.
Oh, is this Tansuit Day?
10-year anniversary.
We all celebrate.
I have memories.
Except that I'm not in theme.
No, you're just in a striped polo.
Were you horrified that day as a homosexual staffer?
Did you feel like his sartorial choices challenged you at all?
No, I feel that he's a style icon.
You know, I wouldn't have chosen
the tan suit but you know i feel like he was probably coming from or going to martha's vineyard
and you know he was giving late summer martha's vineyard and and um i wasn't horrified at all i
was proud of him the man has a right to like step out a little you know it's not an easy job yeah
okay that's right he is he deserves it obama deserves i do think the tan suit scandal
was blown a little bit out of proportion i know that that's kind of a little bit a little bit
well you you guys at the time you were still among you guys had so little on him that you
just need like you were grasping it at straws with him there was just anything you didn't this
is a nice transition to the convention i was having nights so it's nobody remembers this except me
and like stewart stevens but at the 2012 convention we dedicated
an entire day to the you didn't build that gaffe i remember that i remember that well i was so
infuriated by that because it was so stupid i mean it's like it's so stupid you didn't build that
yeah the whole community made that happen yeah socialist communist obama we were struggling man
we were looking for whatever we had there wasn't much yeah there wasn't much all right i want to hear some positive memories i want to hear some
behind the scenes i saw your instagram but my but the big question that i just have to ask you as a
tough journalist is what was with the choke on beyonce all right people are saying beyonce's
coming tmz's saying it was what was happening back in the war room was not anybody just like
hey maybe we should tamp the beyonce thing down little bit? I have a funny story about this that I need to probably not tell all of it. I'll tell
most of. So as you mentioned, my incredible business partner, Stephanie ran the entire
convention, I didn't have anything to do with it until probably two weeks prior when I started
getting pulled in to this or that. And so I did wind up being in the programming room for the week
itself. And, you know, this Beyonce rumor is kind of bubbling and bubbling over the
course of Tuesday and Wednesday, I'm looking at the schedule. There had been for Wednesday,
like a six or eight or whatever minute block for a special guest. But by let's say, Tuesday,
that was filled in with with the word Oprah. So I'm looking at the Thursday schedule. And there
are no holds for special guests. And'm like this beyonce thing is not
is not real there's no top i mean unless unless they're scamming us and there's a secret
you know program known only to stephanie and ricky kirschner but not to the other five people
working on this then there's no possibility but i keep hearing it and keep hearing it and then i
start hearing it from like relatively senior folks in the party and at the conventions on thursday
morning i walk white house staffers are tweeting out bees.
Yeah, so I, right, exactly. So I walk into the programming room and I'm so embarrassed to do
this, but I have to go to one of my colleagues and be like, I'm so embarrassed to do this.
Is this Beyonce thing true? And there's four or five people there and they all look around and
they're like, we don't know. We don't know. And I'm like, is this because everyone's afraid to
go ask Stephanie? And they're like, kind of. So I'm like, this because everyone's afraid to go ask stephanie and they're like kind of so i'm like well shit i'll ask stephanie so an hour or two later she picks
up the phone i don't know who's on the other line but she goes okay one of us would have to know if
it were true right i'm like get the fuck out of town so even stephanie cutter who was in charge
of the convention was unsure she was like maybe maybe this is happening above my head maybe maybe
maybe kamala so what that referred to i mean i i died laughing but what that in fact referred to unsure. She was like, maybe this is happening above my head. Maybe Kamala.
So what that referred to, I mean, I died laughing. But what that in fact referred to was,
was she coming? Because the fact of the matter is, she wasn't in the program. I mean,
Stephanie knew, but I think it was a little hard to get to the bottom of it. Is it possible she's
coming? And various reporters were calling saying, I've got a source from the Chicago PD that her
plane has landed, blah, blah, blah. I don't have her cell phone, so we can't disprove it. But it was actually kind of a thorn in the side of the
convention team that day, because they didn't want that to be the story to the point where they,
you know, wound up just having to call up reporters and say, it's not, it's not true,
just to try to kill this thing dead, which it still didn't. And, you know, obviously,
we all love Beyonce. But you know, the fact of the matter is, first of all, you don't want the
data to be consumed with this rumor. And second of all, you don't particularly want network
cutaways to Beyonce every 15 minutes during kamala's speech so
i was uh glad she was not there with all uh respect to beyonce and i wish the rumor had
been killed a bit a bit sooner yeah it did seem to work out i feel like you do a social science
experiment on how that happened so you're all asking around it's reminiscent i'm trying to get
my husband's old boss heidi heidkamp on the pod and it reminds me of there there was a rumor going around at her Christmas party that she was going to go work for Trump.
And like, everybody was standing in the corner, like kind of talking.
And it's like, this is on Twitter and stuff.
And I was just like, has anybody asked her?
And they're like, no, we don't want to.
We don't want to ask her.
I was just like, I don't fucking care.
I was like, I just went up to her.
I was like, are you going to work for Trump or not?
And she was like, no.
And I was like, your staff thinks you're going to work for Trump.
Like, sometimes you just got to clear things up. You know, it's just important just to
say no. That's why J.D. Vance should have just clarified that he never...
Fucks the couch.
Fucks the couch, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, it would have been very easy. Just put out a clear statement. That's PR 101. That's
PR 101 right there. So Stephanie, refresh me, was she was working on it even when it was supposed
to be a Biden convention or no?
Yeah, because this stuff is going like, I don't know, six, seven months ago, something like that.
So how much of the rejiggering, just as an amateur watching it, you look at it and it's like, well, clearly some of the stuff they rejiggered and some of it's like, all right, we got to do the best we can.
Chris Coons is still speaking on Wednesday or whatever.
No offense, Chris.
We love you. That had to be challenging, right? Like navigating all the principles. I
don't know. Any interesting nuggets on kind of how she overcame that in such a whatever it was,
four or five weeks sprint there? Well, yeah, I mean, I think you're right. I don't want to
overstate my involvement. Like I said, I just kind of got involved in it a couple weeks ago. But
yeah, I mean, I think you want to, you know, reshape the thing in, you know, in the vice
president's image. Not all of the speakers need to change,
but all of these speeches need to change, all of the videos need to change videos, like take a
while, you know. And the other thing that started happening is, you know, there was just so much
incoming. I mean, I, you know, I think I'm not like oversharing here, when I say, you know,
certain celebrities, and, you know, musical artists and even elected became more interested in speaking at the Harris Convention than they had been.
And so you have to just make room for a lot of stuff.
And obviously that means, you know, calling up certain podcasters, certain self-important podcasters went from like boycotting the convention to wanting to have wanting to live stream and have a prominent place i think those self-important podcasters have been banned from the perimeter uh so not necessarily a boycott of
their own initiative but yeah and you know and obviously um some of our great leaders in the
democratic party have an interesting relationship with time limits and so you've got to navigate
that so you know again i i don't want to overstate my involvement but i think i think the thing
changed like 100 i think there was not a single element that did
not change i mean just the like final thing on convention stuff like and everybody had to just
feel over overjoyed i mean like the like the big takeaway you know from the week was like just being
able to transition into kamala demonstrate momentum and then i think like this sort of big
broad outreach to like the widest possible number of americans like to me like that was my
takeaway from it like she and i get 53 or 54 like the convention was like we're trying to talk to
54 at least the last three days and that's what i liked about it absolutely did you have a favorite
celebrity sighting all right i debated with myself whether i was going to tell this story but i'm
just i'm just going to go for it this is why I'm a penetrating interviewer. Yeah, exactly.
It's the stripes.
I can't say no.
So, you know, I had a very cool experience and privilege of being backstage.
And the backstage area is tiny.
I mean, it's a corridor, maybe 10 feet wide and 200 feet long with tiny little offices on either side.
But I mean, everybody is back there if they're, you know, an hour before their speech or an
hour after.
And so at one point, Spike Lee was back there. Now, he was not on the speaker program, but he was brought back there if they're, you know, an hour before their speech or an hour after. And so at one point,
Spike Lee was back there. Now he was not on the speaker program, but he was brought back there.
And he runs into Stevie Wonder, who had just performed. And I didn't know this, but you know,
they go, they go way back and Spike's kind of holding court. And there's like a little scrum
around them, because this is an incredible interaction. And I want to just preface this
by saying this was a joke. I'm not making Spike Lee look bad. This was in good fun and they were kidding around. Spike says something like,
you know, Stevie, I always tell people you performed at my wedding. There's been so much
love between the two of us. And Stevie Wonder goes, yeah, yeah, there's been love. That's good.
That's nice. But you never paid me. And Spike is like, doesn't know what to say. And he's like,
I thought, I guess, stevie cuts him off and he
goes baby love is love but money is money baby and i'm just there being like i cannot believe i
witnessed this it was just the best and and if you're back there i mean that was special but
there's just cool stuff happening you know all the time as these people run into each other that's
also true at the republicans convention we have to be fair i mean you know trump telling story you
know hogan owed trump money yeah kid rock trump didn't pay kid rock for an appearance at bedminster one time like there's
a little tension there and scott baio seems like a pip in person charles is in charge all the celeb
stuff now getting into your actual expertise unlike your kind of uh stolen valor from all
stephanie cutter's work there thank you the digital stuff it's kind of amazing like how much of this is just happens
organically and just as a general comment like political strategists are so overrated like
there's just bad ones and and good ones like you just do the best you can uh but like it's the same
exact digital team working for viven as for harris essentially right and just overnight it changes
right and calm was there and you have like the
attitude is different the vibe is different the memes are different you have all these celebrities
coming in you're in brat summer and that literally the kamala hq twitter is a charlie xcx brat logo
like it all happens in 48 hours and like it really seems to work like all of the data
that you look at shows that just the sentiment around the ticket changed, just completely inverted in a matter of a week.
Talk about how the best ways to channel that. Can they continue to nudge it through November? Do you reach a cringe point? How do you think about all that?
Yeah. First of all, I couldn't agree with you more that strategists are overrated. And then when they lose, get, you know, shit that they didn't deserve.
And, you know, like the thing I used to say during the Obama days, like you could put
a camera in front of Barack Obama, have him say some stuff, put that on the internet and
people would be like, I love this.
Wow.
His digital team must be great.
And you could do the exact same thing with Jeb Bush, let's say.
And people are like, I don't like this.
His communications team is not good, you know?
And, and that's just how, you know, that's just how it goes.
So I think the Harris team is doing an incredible job.
And I think they were doing a really good and best job they possibly could with Biden.
But, you know, obviously, you know, other people have said this, but obviously, you know, you can get away with a certain kind of mean speak with Kamala that if it were Biden would have just been counterproductive, because everybody knows that's not his politics. And he has no idea what any of this is. But you
know, the other thing that I think they're really benefiting from right now, like I think,
like people always talk about enthusiasm in politics, and enthusiasm is, you know,
obviously super duper important. But there's this other factor that I think is as important,
particularly when it comes to public actions, you know, putting up a yard sign, putting up a poster
in your dorm room, retweeting something or whatever, which is like social acceptability. You know, you could be super enthusiastic about someone, which tons of people
were about Hillary, tons of people were about Biden. But, you know, you put your hand on the
stove, you retweet something from Joe Biden, and you get a million replies saying he's old, I hate
him. You've just been taught a lesson that you shouldn't do that again. And, you know, I think
that what we've got going for us right now, and what is like absolutely essential to
preserve as best we can, and it won't be able to be fully preserved is people are jazzed about
Kamala. That's great. But also in many circles in the United States, not all of them, obviously,
you can reshare something about Kamala on Instagram. And, you know, you're going to get a
lot of replies, you know, indicating that you've just done a cool thing, rather than indicating that you've just done something
horrible that makes you look like a complete fucking loser, you know, and that's as important,
I think, as as enthusiasm. And I think that's the thing that we've got to try to figure out how to
sustain. And one of the things that I think is really helping with that is this whole white
dudes for Kamala thing, you know, you can make fun of that, maybe it's a bit cringe.
You liked that. I did make fun of that. I didn't like that i just don't like self-selecting based on race i just it's not
really well whites whites groups are not really for me white groups are not for you now that you
switch parties but um you know you could have gone to deadheads for uh you know for com or i don't
know you know i'm going to yimby's i'm going to yimby's for com tonight that's much more in my
alley but yeah so i mean I think, you know,
I had mixed feelings about the white dudes thing,
but I mean, I think it like,
it is so important to show people like,
not only is it okay to support this person,
it can be cool to support this person.
It can be cool to do so,
even if you're like a white dude
or a NFL quarterback or whatever.
And I think, you know,
I think it's really important to sustain that.
At the same time, I think,
and I think they're doing this.
I don't think I'm telling,
I'm saying anything that they don't know. Vibes are vibes, but people are a little smarter than that. At the same time, I think, and I think they're doing this. I don't think I'm telling I'm saying anything that they don't know. vibes are vibes, but people are a little smarter
than that. So I think it's important that we continue to have fun with this election. I think
the memes are great. And it's great to make fun of JD Vance and all of that. But, you know, people
do need to understand what we stand for, we cannot get carried away with the meme thing,
not only because it might become cringe, but also because it is not enough. And, you know, ultimately, you know, people have got to have a pretty clear understanding of who
this woman is, you know, what it is she intends to do as president, and not just who Donald Trump
is in terms of a boorish figure, but how he would hurt you if he were to be elected president in
material ways. And, you know, they've got to make sure that that comes through even as they continue
to have fun with the memes. Like, what do they actually need to do like who do they need to reach what are some strategies
they called you up today and we're like okay i like we only have 10 weeks like we really got
to focus on one group or one platform or one tactic like what like what jumps out at you
you know they they wouldn't ask that because i think what we have what i think we need to be
able to do as a democratic party is like do multiple things at once i I mean, you know, I don't I know the consultants speak.
I know. Yeah, they got to do all of them.
I'm just saying, like, I'm not saying that.
What are some high valence?
I'm all for throwing out certain audiences because I do think we waste money on, you know, like, you know, we love to think that we people of color, and white people, by the way, who are with us more or less ideologically, but who don't believe it's worth their while to go vote, either because they think it's going to take too long, or because they think their vote may literally not be counted, or because they think nothing ever changes in their lives.
So they could take the five minutes, and maybe their vote is counted. And then the next four years are going to look like the last four years and you know there are way more of those than there are swing voters important
distinction because i talked about this group a lot so let's let's sit on this for a second because
like joe rogan voter is sometimes a stand-in for the i'm a guy and i'm 27 and i'm like generally
like socially liberal or whatever maybe i don't like all the woke stuff i might be black or brown i might be white doesn't like matter but i mostly consume part of my take like i mostly
consume sports or just whatever like you know video game like media i don't consume any of this
like regular media i don't watch cable i don't read the newspaper like but they demographically
you would think might be a combo voter voter. Like, is that like,
how do you reach those people? Is that worth even trying to reach? Like, where does that voter only
worth reaching if they're black or brown, just because like, that makes them more likely to vote
for Kamala, and you're just trying to maximize resources? Like, how do you think about that?
You know, I think a couple things on this, I think, for the most part, there's exceptions to
everything, obviously. But for the most part,
a person who's kind of a low information voter has made a decision they want to be a low information
voter, either because they're fed up with all this stuff, and they just don't want to hear it,
or because like I was just saying, they have made the not necessarily irrational decision that it's
not worth their time, and things don't change for them, or because they've chosen to receive
bad information, and they're having fun receiving the bad information. So you know, there's very few
people who like don't know where to turn to
look up the issues and look up the candidates that they want to do that, you know, so they've
made that choice. And so I think we need to understand at a, you know, at as narrow a level
as we possibly can, you know, why they've made that choice and what it would take to get them
to reconsider that choice. You know, I think, you know, for the person who's just, you know,
fucking fed up with politics in both parties, know i think odds are the democrats would be a lot better for their lives than the republicans
are but you know that is the person who's going to be very very very hard to to speak to for the
person who has lost faith that their vote's going to count and that the government can do something
for them i think that that is someone that we can reach but we need to do so we need to understand
like they've made these decisions that they've made, you know, because they don't like what they're hearing from our party, the other party, and, you
know, and they're tired of stuff that sounds the same, same, same, same, same, cycle after
cycle.
So, you know, like, that's one of the reasons I'm super jazzed that Kamala's kind of going
all in on housing policy.
And I'm not just catering to your going to be, you know, sensibilities here.
You know, like, that's something that really, really means something to every 27-year-old
in this country.
You know, the rent is too damn high.
And you don't hear that from presidential candidates.
And I think there's a chance that that has the kind of stickiness for people that student
debt had for Bernie, not just because it's a young person issue, but because it's an
issue that it like real people.
And by the way, like 95% of them, you know, you got to be in the absolute upper, upper
classes to not care about your rent or have some student debt, care about, and they haven't heard stuff about.
So I think some of it is spokespeople.
I think Tim Wall sounds different, not the same, but in a similar way to how Bernie sounded different.
I think some of it is platform.
I do, despite everything I'm saying, think we should send people on to Joe Rogan.
We can't just refuse to talk to tens of millions of people. But, you know, but I think, you know, ultimately people have got to, you know,
feel that something is in this for them, feel that it's plausible. You know, we can't be out
there saying, you know, we'll abolish rent. That's not believable, you know, feel that there's
something plausibly in it for them. I know you wish you could. And if, you know, and if they,
and if they felt like there could, you know, if they feel like there's a realistic path to,
you know, 5% reduction in their rent, that's that's you know that's worth the 10 minutes to vote so the highest roi
thing on digital at this point you think is is what like trying to like register and like this
thing it's different than when you were in like in 2012 i say all the time like there was a lot
more low-hanging fruit right because like the non-voter like if you could just get them registered
into the system they're probably going to vote for Obama.
But now the least engaged voters are much more split than they were back in 2012, when it was Romney and Obama.
And so is the ROI better?
I don't know.
I guess I leave it as an open question.
There's 10 weeks.
You have seen good registration numbers increase for young women,
black women. Is that just it? Just go where the fish are and just try to max juice numbers on digital? Sort of, yeah. I mean, look, I think, first of all, we haven't even touched on the
fundraising, but obviously the fundraising is bananas and that allows them to go do all the
other stuff, including offline. I do think there's huge pockets of people who need to be registered
and who would turn out for us, even if it's only 60-40 rather than, you know, 80-20.
That could still be good, especially if we have enough data to make sure that we're really doing the most follow up with the 60%.
I don't know where there's the most ROI on the Internet, but I think, you know, needless to say, everyone's on it.
You're a digital strategist.
You're a highly paid digital strategist.
I just want to know where your ROI is at.
I don't know.
I'm sorry.
I didn't realize that was such a trick question.
I'm used to, I guess, different kinds of questions.
I think they've got to use paid media to reach both whatever number of people we think can be persuaded.
And that's not all that many people, but it's some, I think we would be making an absolute mistake not to be using paid media to speak to our infrequent voters, our soft voters,
and not just at the end with a reminder to vote, but now through the end, reminding them what we
stand for. And I think getting at this idea, however you want to get at it, that like government
can help you. I mean, it's not going to radically change your life in four years, but it is worth
believing that things can change for the better if you have a better government rather than a worse government this is worth your time it's worth
your time you wanted to get there but that's this is a good this is a good insight right it's like
the people that are gettable for kamala that are not engaged are not engaged because they don't
think it's worth their time like people that are most gettable and they don't think it's worth their
their time and their faith you know like they don't want to feel like they've been duped you
know like i voted for the democrats yet again and yet again nothing changed you know like makes
sense i have one dumb question that people in our slack i guess the ri question
was dumb too but i have a second dumb even dumber question for you that people are wondering why is
donald trump advertising on the bulwarks youtube are they just doing a really bad job or is youtube
or is advertising targeting a lot harder these days because the way that the platforms changed
you know how you can do political advertising and like what's the story with that i wonder if they don't think of you and your
audience a little bit i'm not trying to insult your fabulous audience but a little bit a little
bit the way that that we might think about joe rogan these people who you know they're not far
left could they possibly be gettable now i don't think that's true of your audience but i wonder
if they think that but yeah to the other part of your question there is less you can especially on, well, so some platforms don't allow political advertising at all, especially TikTok, which is, you know, it would be great in some ways and horrible in some ways if you could, but you can't.
You know, certainly the Google platforms of which YouTube is one don't allow individual targeting in the way that they used to.
So, you know, it's interesting because while the hypothetical capabilities around data have gotten way more sophisticated over the years, the things you're allowed to do with that data have in some ways
gotten less sophisticated. And so yeah, you've got to choose by channel by show by audience in a
broad way rather than a, you know, one to one match of human beings way. And by the way, the
campaigns, you know, to some degree have more money they can spend. So you know, I think those
would be some of the reasons why that might be lining your pocket with that with that Trump coin.
We appreciate it. Keep on sending it to us, Donald Trump. It's better than sending it to your lawyers.
OK, while we're making fun of Trump, I got one more story here. NPR at Arlington Cemetery.
Trump was there earlier this week. Two members of Trump's campaign staff had a verbal and physical altercation with an official at Arlington.
The cemetery official tried to prevent Trump staffers from filming and photographing in a section where recent U.S. casualties are buried, known as Section 60.
Trump's spokesperson said that the person that was preventing them from taking the pictures was
clearly suffering from a mental health episode. So these people are rotten to the core. And I'm
just wondering, I'm curious on your take to make fun of them, but like these things are kind of
more challenging. I'm new to deal with this, with obama and hillary like you know nag negotiating
these sorts of situations obviously you just weren't a dick like them but i'm curious what
your reaction to it was yeah yeah you typically don't you typically don't uh accuse people of
having a mental health breakdown because you've um physically attacked them that guy steven chiong
by the way just seems like a sad person the absolute worst person in Trump land. You know, it's
interesting. You know, like, I never tried to film a campaign ad at Arlington, because it's a
disgusting idea. But, you know, you are often dealing with, you know, people who maybe were
victims of gun violence, or their children were or, you know, people who are in very, very delicate
positions. And in the circles and parties that I've always traveled in, you know, you actually like
think about how to treat them with dignity and sensitivity. And you do want to get the content
or convince them to speak at the convention or whatever it is you're trying to do. But you want
to do so in a way that they come away from that experience feeling that you've, you know, handled
this proper. And that doesn't seem to be the MO for the for the Trump people. But Trump, you know,
the other thing with Trump is just like, you know's sort of like jd and the you know people without children thing like there's something deep in
trump's core that just like disdains soldiers who've been wounded or killed in action and it's
just like where does that i didn't even know that's an opinion you could have like where does
it come from but it just seems endemic i understand the jd thing at least right that's just a cultural
thing like he just hates single women and he feels like you know whatever they're annoying they're karens but like the trump thing i don't know there's something i
think it's the bone spurs maybe it's like some sort of jealousy that's me putting him on the
couch could be that we're out of time but i do have one last question are the reason that we're
here right now am i that i'm doing a never trump podcast because you didn't run enough digital ads
in wisconsin in 2016 have you thought about that. Are you the core problem? Am I the root of our American troubles right now? No, I think that you woke up one morning and the
better angels of your nature started speaking to you. And that would have happened. That would
have happened either way. I think a President Hillary, by the way, would have pulled you into
our party even faster. So I love that kind of factual. Thank you, Teddy. Please come back soon.
This has been delightful. And I appreciate you. Give our love to Steph.
I will.
Cut her and congratulate her on a wonderful convention.
Three out of four nights.
Really great.
And to everybody else, we'll be back tomorrow with one of the key convention speakers who,
thank God, you guys gave such a prime slot to.
Good on you for doing it.
Adam Kinzinger on the pod tomorrow.
We'll see you all then.
Peace. The apple wood, the apple wood I guess the apple cut turned yellow or green
I know that's lost to different nuances to you and to me
I wanna grow the apple, keep all the seeds
But I can't help it, it's so angry you don't listen
I'll leave to the apple wood, the apple wood
The apple wood, the apple wood The airport
I'm gonna drive drive, I'm going to drive, I'm going to drive for my life.
The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.