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Because we are cultured people too.
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I will not let my audience down, AJ.
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Schnack.
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Welcome to dirty moderate.
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How are you?
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I'm good at him.
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Thanks so much.
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Yeah.
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So AJ is our first
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guest really, from the culture section.
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We do intend listeners.
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You should notice it be culture vultures as time goes on in
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this podcast.
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But again, we link everything to something
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political something in the realm of social policy,
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something in the realm of, we're what's going on in
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America.
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AJ should knock.
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Is a nonfiction filmmaker.
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He's an artist and a writer whose La based.
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He is prolific.
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Matter of fact, his latest nonfiction feature is called
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long gone summer
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to ESPN film 3430 documentary.
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It's all about the 1998
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home.
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Run.
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Chase between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa for those Baseball
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fans.
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There you go.
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But AJ is an incredible political documentarian and AJ.
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I promise, I'll let you talk as soon as I get through this.
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I for about 10 years.
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I'm not mistaken, right?
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They believe Big C 2008 when he covered the Obama convention in
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Denver till around 2018.
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He has been doing a Politics as Cinema verite.
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Is that right?
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AJ?
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Yeah, that's right.
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I did it did not intend it to be a decade-long project.
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But,
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yeah, we started doing stuff around the 2008 convention, the
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Democratic Convention in Denver, and it just kind of
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carried on through the 2016 elections.
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And yeah, it was a very interesting time.
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Obviously, so much changed over that time.
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Period.
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Now, tell us
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about
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How you?
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I mean obviously an incredible document are incredible
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filmmaker.
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What?
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Drove you beside?
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You know, it's something good to cover caucuses and primaries
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are just right there.
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Fascinating human interest stories their case studies in
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idiosyncrasy and lunacy, right?
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How did you what drove your political passion or political
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interest to do this?
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Tell us first about your background and love to know how
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you grew up.
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And what makes a Json object relational.
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Well, I grew up outside of st.
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Louis and
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Nice little small town called Edwardsville, Illinois, little
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college town,
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and went to Mizzou.
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I was a journalism
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student and graduate at the University of Missouri and
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worked in the broadcast
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sector there.
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Thought maybe I would go into working at a TV station, but
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really found that long-form storytelling was more of what I
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was interested in.
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And one of the documentaries that I had always loved
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was a no Old film called primary
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from
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Robert, Drew and Associates and he had got together a bunch of
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like filmmakers.
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At the time, Al maysles da pennybaker.
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I love
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Ricky Ricky leacock and they went up and went and covered
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one of the Kennedy and
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I guess there was Humphrey at the time,
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so
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it's a great.
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Eight
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kind of early look and one of the early Cinema verite kind of
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Classics.
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And that was something I always
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wanted to do both
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both from a standpoint of,
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you know, covering politics, but also the way in which they
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kind of got a bunch of different people who are all
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great filmmakers in their own, right.
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And
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we're able to like bring them all together and cover this,
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this one event.
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So that was always kind of in my mind when I was a student at
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the First day of Missouri.
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I did kind of a variation on that for the student newspaper
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where we took a bunch of
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reporters with us up to Des Moines from Colombia.
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Well,
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like I stayed in one small hotel room and and just
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covered.
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Then 88
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primary caucuses in Des Moines.
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And anyway, right way the but both parties both parties.
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Yeah, so
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the caucus in Bush, but you cover it over buddy, do Dole
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was in that and dull.
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Paul Simon Ricard, you know, Gary Hart would it be?
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He was out by the Yeah, he was out but
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Pat, Robertson Robertson, Jack, Kemp, Jack Kemp.
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Yes, so and and it was just the most amazing thing because you
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know, it's like every
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buddy was there for a young college student like seeing
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just this whole
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situation where the entire political Universe has
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descended upon Des Moines
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just really It just struck me.
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And so,
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you know,
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bubbling under my thoughts about making documentary, which
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was maybe making a film about the Iowa, caucuses one day and
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we tried to do it in 2008, but really just couldn't pull the
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trigger and get everyone together in time.
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But I had a bunch of friends in
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Denver and
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was talking to them and just started thinking about the
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convention that year and, you know,
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An interesting idea that this really huge event,
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you know, even before we knew whether it was going to be
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Obama or Hillary, right?
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It was just going to be like, this huge event.
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In this pretty small town in Denver is a pretty small town
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and had never really dealt with anything kind of on that level.
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It's really like a small town masquerading as a big city.
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That's right.
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Yeah,
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and so the notion always was like, what would it be?
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Like if we did the kind of primary approach and got a
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bunch of To come in and we all just tackle the different
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aspect of how does a city the size of Denver, you know, it's
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it's it's city government its local journalists.
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It's protesters like how, how do they all kind of tackle an
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event of that size?
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And so that's something we ended up doing for a film
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called convention and brought in a bunch of other filmmakers
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who have like since then they've four of them have won
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Academy Awards for the documentary work.
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Another one was nominated this year for a feature documentary.
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So it's a really talented group of people trying to just tell
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the story of what it was like
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for Denver to be part of this.
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In the end huge event that led to Obama.
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Speaking at Mile High Stadium
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that summer.
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I you mentioned the pennybaker
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both because I
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was a person of the theater and I'm a personal Politics, the a
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penny The famously did
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Moon Over Broadway about this play, Boone of a buffalo of
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Carol Burnett, as you know, he did company, the original
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recording, you know, the Sondheim musical company, but
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the thing that I was, I can watch over and over and over
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again, that really was impactful upon me and it
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was early in my political Awakening was the War Room.
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Yeah, although I'd already we'd already gone through the 92
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cycle and I thought watching, you're watching primaries and
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some of your other stuff.
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I thought that's it's interesting.
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This was the A war room because a, it felt pennybaker worthy.
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And I say they're both praise.
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But we should the War Room.
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The first, I hope you didn't read a primary but was the War
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Room.
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The last kind of
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thing of its kind before documentarians like you and
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others began diving in and covering more of this because I
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don't know of any
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other.
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Like I remember seeing that going.
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Wow, how come we've never seen this before and then up until
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I guess the last decade or so I've seen several people
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wanting to cover
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the day-to-day, the pleasure of New show of campaigns.
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I hadn't seen that since War Room.
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What's the
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like?
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Is there a link to this here or any kind of yeah there.
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There were, you know, there were few in
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and I'll
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make the mistake of not remembering, you know with the
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directors.
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We're on each one.
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I know that you know, like there have been campaign films.
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There's some others in the 90s famously.
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There's a
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and Oliver North
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Campus.
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Oh, right, right.
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Yeah.
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I think they closed the In terms of like, really seeing
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early early days of George w-- Bush.
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There's Alexandra Pelosi these Journeys with George,
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which was on HBO.
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Yeah, and but I think, you know, it was definitely,
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no,
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no one had really done what we had done with caucus.
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I think,
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in terms of just making the decision early on that.
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We're covering every candidate.
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Wow, and that was something I think that, you know, was, was
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brought to us by primary.
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You were they covered both candidates who are still viable
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at that point, but it was really interesting
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to us to like
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sort of like none of the candidates
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that year felt interesting enough in singular.
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But as a field, you know, having Michelle Bachman, Rick
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Santorum Herman, Cain Newt, Gingrich Mitt Romney,
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you know, I mean as and Ron Paul, I mean, as a group, I
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think that it felt pretty pretty compelling.
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We certainly Only didn't anticipate how it was going to
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turn out but that was sort of our thinking I think going into
00:09:14 Speaker 1
it was let's try to see if we can cover everything and then
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that was successful enough.
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I think both creatively and also just in terms of finding
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an audience that we kept doing that kind of thing
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in the midterm elections of 2014 and then again for
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primaries in 2016, for those that don't know.
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The primaries is currently streaming on Amazon.
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So when we We're lucky to get AJ on the program.
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I started being able to how nice build your research to
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just watch this stuff, everyone who listens.
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This knows what a political geek.
00:09:45 Speaker 1
I am
00:09:47 Speaker 1
a couple things my primary.
00:09:48 Speaker 1
I thought were wonderful.
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One was first of all you captured
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the
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because other than Trump coming down the escalator and whatever
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was June or July 2015.
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It was June, you know, you start to capture the way in
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which this
00:10:03 Speaker 1
Thing called Trump is a metastasizes and we're
00:10:05 Speaker 1
witnessing it right there to the shock and consternation in
00:10:09 Speaker 1
many ways of the Des Moines Register, people Daily Beast
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reporters.
00:10:13 Speaker 1
And I love the way that it weaves in and out of their
00:10:15 Speaker 1
report eyes, you know, getting their take on what they were
00:10:18 Speaker 1
watching and how they saw that happen.
00:10:20 Speaker 1
So it was journalistically.
00:10:21 Speaker 1
Wonderful, but then you just get those great things of
00:10:24 Speaker 1
Chris, Christie, sort of back slapping in a in a pub and and
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you know, all that Marco Rubio, the scripted Little Marco just
00:10:32 Speaker 1
you know, And Torn to Pieces by Chris Christie.
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In that moment.
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That was an inflection point but then of course the
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phenomenon of trump, you know, the
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this this the rally Master of the showman, you know what I
00:10:45 Speaker 1
mean.
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The right wing, PT Barnum as he BS something that we're so used
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to but his command the ability of this guy as a star and I
00:10:53 Speaker 1
hate to say that but as a start of captivate
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and shocked the political establishment in retrospect, I
00:11:00 Speaker 1
watched primaries.
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Going course.
00:11:01 Speaker 1
This guy's going to be depressed.
00:11:02 Speaker 1
See, I didn't think that then, but now you go cheese.
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You also showed without bias, unless I read it, unless I
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watched it wrong.
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The feel the Bern movement, their support for Bernie and
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the and I voted for Hillary and I like Hillary.
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I don't say this disrespectfully, the stiffness
00:11:18 Speaker 1
of Hillary as a candidate, you know, and it's wonderful that
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people who I can watch this to see.
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Do you do remember sitting there thinking
00:11:26 Speaker 1
Donald Trump's be present at States despite what
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misgivings people have?
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No, I didn't.
00:11:33 Speaker 1
I didn't think he was going to win, but I will say that the,
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so one of the, I think the
00:11:42 Speaker 1
best things we were able to capture during that cycle, was
00:11:45 Speaker 1
his first big
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rally in
00:11:49 Speaker 1
in Iowa.
00:11:51 Speaker 1
And I think it meant Tumblr
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or Oskaloosa of one of the two,
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a no.
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No.
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No, I don't think anybody knows.
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Yes
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Oskaloosa.
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Yeah,
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so
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It was, it was
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first thought was, you know, a lot of people
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showed up for that for this event, so much to the extent
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that Not only was he, in kind of a decent sized Auditorium,
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but there was a
00:12:16 Speaker 1
pretty decent overflow as well.
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And that, that kind of thing, that early just signaled that
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people were curious, you know, I mean there were certainly his
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celebrity Factor,
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but you know what?
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I told people after that was, he was funny.
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And he was,
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you know, he was not doing the things that Republicans had
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not.
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He the thing, he was making fun of like, Jeb Makin raising the
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he had reported that he had made a raise a bunch of money
00:12:47 Speaker 1
saying like, well, that's all people who he's going to owe.
00:12:50 Speaker 1
Those favors to.
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I know.
00:12:51 Speaker 1
Yeah.
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It was just a kind of the kinds of things.
00:12:53 Speaker 1
He was saying, I I thought was like, well this I have no, you
00:12:57 Speaker 1
know, having
00:12:58 Speaker 1
been around all the Republicans for years earlier, certainly
00:13:01 Speaker 1
nothing like any of this.
00:13:02 Speaker 1
This before and the audience was laughing.
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The other journalists, who were there were laughing.
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People were applauding they were excited.
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He went into the Overflow room.
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There was like a buzz in the air and then afterwards you
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could just hear people saying I showed up because I was curious
00:13:23 Speaker 1
or I wanted to see the TV star but I'm I like what I hear.
00:13:27 Speaker 1
I think this is interesting.
00:13:29 Speaker 1
So that was thing.
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And the so then the, I think the State Fair,
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Like a
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month later and you know, I mean a lot of the we were kind
00:13:38 Speaker 1
of
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ensconced at the Iowa Pork tent.
00:13:41 Speaker 1
We had like two other
00:13:43 Speaker 1
better.
00:13:44 Speaker 1
Can I ask you a question or
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you feel like you're stuck in time or do you feel?
00:13:53 Speaker 1
No, this is like a well, wartime Warren tradition there.
00:13:56 Speaker 1
That you kind of like, what was the feeling of the?
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I've always wanted to go to Iowa either for this stuff?
00:14:01 Speaker 1
You know, I don't know.
00:14:02 Speaker 1
I like Like that kind of stuff.
00:14:03 Speaker 1
I, I've been, I've been to the Iowa State Fair a bunch of
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times.
00:14:07 Speaker 1
And I even went after
00:14:09 Speaker 1
I made friends with the folks at the pork tent.
00:14:11 Speaker 1
So in 2019, I actually went just to work at the pork tent
00:14:16 Speaker 1
not to film or do anything.
00:14:18 Speaker 1
So,
00:14:19 Speaker 1
yeah, there's something about it that I that I like,
00:14:22 Speaker 1
but, you know, it's like there were, you know, like look at
00:14:25 Speaker 1
Rick Santorum, who ends up being kind of the central
00:14:28 Speaker 1
character of caucus in the end, you know, he's come running
00:14:31 Speaker 1
again in 2016.
00:14:32 Speaker 1
He comes to the pork tent to like, flip his laptop won and
00:14:36 Speaker 1
he won having twins.
00:14:38 Speaker 1
Well, even though Romney was not me and Huckabee won in 08.
00:14:41 Speaker 1
Despite.
00:14:41 Speaker 1
McCain hasn't always happened that way, but that's so
00:14:44 Speaker 1
fascinating.
00:14:44 Speaker 1
Because I'm bhama wins, Iowa.
00:14:46 Speaker 1
He goes to the nomination.
00:14:47 Speaker 1
Trump didn't win, Iowa and still got the nomination.
00:14:50 Speaker 1
So it's gonna be interesting.
00:14:51 Speaker 1
Yeah, and Trump.
00:14:52 Speaker 1
Basically, he showed up at the
00:14:55 Speaker 1
Iowa State Fair.
00:14:55 Speaker 1
He like wanted to land his, his, his helicopter on the the
00:15:00 Speaker 1
grandstand.
00:15:01 Speaker 1
Yeah, and and they Wouldn't let him do that.
00:15:03 Speaker 1
So he did all these flybys
00:15:06 Speaker 1
over the over the fairgrounds and so like you're with the
00:15:10 Speaker 1
other candidates and people and there's this huge loud
00:15:14 Speaker 1
helicopter noise as this like Trump is circling and he lands,
00:15:19 Speaker 1
you know, somewhere, you know, nearby the whole bringing him
00:15:23 Speaker 1
into the fairgrounds the thing and it becomes one of
00:15:25 Speaker 1
the it was a crazy time because I think was the same day that
00:15:28 Speaker 1
Hillary was at the fair and the same day that Bernie was like
00:15:31 Speaker 1
speaking at the fair.
00:15:32 Speaker 1
It was like in though, all three of them, kind of Hit the
00:15:36 Speaker 1
fair with in like a three or four hour period, but right pad
00:15:39 Speaker 1
just like, I would say him and and, and Hillary, they both had
00:15:43 Speaker 1
this thing where they didn't do the, they didn't do the pork
00:15:45 Speaker 1
10th.
00:15:46 Speaker 1
They didn't do the soapbox
00:15:48 Speaker 1
speeches.
00:15:49 Speaker 1
They just did like a, they landed and they kind of did a
00:15:52 Speaker 1
walkthrough and the walkthrough was just total and utter chaos,
00:15:58 Speaker 1
and that maybe should have been, you know,
00:16:01 Speaker 1
I second clue after.
00:16:02 Speaker 1
The
00:16:03 Speaker 1
Oskaloosa sooretama rally, the good, something that something
00:16:07 Speaker 1
was happening that was going to up and everything else for the
00:16:12 Speaker 1
rest of the candidates in the field.
00:16:14 Speaker 1
But I think, you know, I still had a suspicion as to what that
00:16:18 Speaker 1
the crews would end up being
00:16:20 Speaker 1
the one to commit Victoria's out of Iowa.
00:16:23 Speaker 1
Whether you know, whether that would have been able to take
00:16:25 Speaker 1
him any further, which of course, it didn't, that was
00:16:28 Speaker 1
sort of unclear.
00:16:29 Speaker 1
The two things.
00:16:30 Speaker 1
I want to ask you, number one.
00:16:32 Speaker 1
What?
00:16:34 Speaker 1
What is and I want to explain this really from a cinema
00:16:39 Speaker 1
point of view.
00:16:40 Speaker 1
Okay, but art directors point of view, but also to help
00:16:42 Speaker 1
people understand since you're on the ground and every four
00:16:46 Speaker 1
years, we go over this and nobody still knows what it is.
00:16:48 Speaker 1
What is a caucus?
00:16:50 Speaker 1
But what's going on there?
00:16:51 Speaker 1
Can you like talk us take us through that you captured on
00:16:53 Speaker 1
video, but I want, you know, I feel like someone from the
00:16:56 Speaker 1
world of culture can explain this better because sometimes,
00:16:58 Speaker 1
you know, politicos make this a little more convoluted.
00:17:00 Speaker 1
Sure.
00:17:01 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:17:01 Speaker 1
I mean, I think the Republican caucus makes a lot more sense.
00:17:04 Speaker 1
It's because it's people show up,
00:17:07 Speaker 1
you know, kind of at their,
00:17:09 Speaker 1
their equivalent of a polling place, whatever.
00:17:10 Speaker 1
The caucus location is, right and they vote.
00:17:13 Speaker 1
I mean, they're sometimes their speeches
00:17:16 Speaker 1
candidates, either the candidates themselves, or
00:17:19 Speaker 1
depending on the, especially at the larger caucus locations,
00:17:22 Speaker 1
the candidates might show up and give a speech or they'll
00:17:24 Speaker 1
send,
00:17:26 Speaker 1
you know, a representative to give a speech
00:17:29 Speaker 1
or if you're the might just be like, you know, a local person.
00:17:31 Speaker 1
Who's like, oh, I volunteered for
00:17:34 Speaker 1
Mike Huckabee, and I just wanted to
00:17:36 Speaker 1
just reiterate, what a great guy is and hopefully, you'll
00:17:38 Speaker 1
vote for him.
00:17:39 Speaker 1
And at the end of all that everybody just puts their
00:17:43 Speaker 1
little tally their boat into into a box there, tallied
00:17:48 Speaker 1
pretty quickly.
00:17:48 Speaker 1
And then everybody goes in this takes place in gymnasiums and
00:17:52 Speaker 1
Civic calls, and whoever people are congregating, with, by the
00:17:55 Speaker 1
way, groups of people supporting different
00:17:58 Speaker 1
candidates.
00:17:58 Speaker 1
Obviously, it's not like just one, right?
00:18:00 Speaker 1
It's not one Hall.
00:18:01 Speaker 1
I when people understand this, they don't go into said, For
00:18:04 Speaker 1
Ted Cruz, it's there to cruises there and Romney or whoever.
00:18:07 Speaker 1
Yeah, and I mean, you might be sitting, you might be in a
00:18:10 Speaker 1
gymnasium with like six different caucus locations, but
00:18:13 Speaker 1
your location will will vote.
00:18:15 Speaker 1
You'll put it in the box and then it's like a community
00:18:18 Speaker 1
meeting in a way where they read the votes right there.
00:18:21 Speaker 1
You'll know who won your caucus location
00:18:24 Speaker 1
and then those get sent into, you know, kind of the central
00:18:27 Speaker 1
party and they tally everything up and, you know, him sometimes
00:18:32 Speaker 1
on Election night sometimes later.
00:18:35 Speaker 1
And that's that's that's how the Republicans work.
00:18:37 Speaker 1
So it makes the Republican thing just makes sense.
00:18:39 Speaker 1
It's it was easy to visualize.
00:18:42 Speaker 1
The Democrats.
00:18:43 Speaker 1
I think are
00:18:44 Speaker 1
sort of well known that their process is is weirdly different
00:18:47 Speaker 1
that you you get
00:18:50 Speaker 1
you have to be in a certain portion like you get gather
00:18:53 Speaker 1
with the other supporters.
00:18:55 Speaker 1
You have to reach a certain threshold to be viable within
00:18:59 Speaker 1
that.
00:19:00 Speaker 1
Allow me to interject the Democrats.
00:19:01 Speaker 1
Never make it easy.
00:19:03 Speaker 1
Yeah, always, I let me See, there's something of a
00:19:05 Speaker 1
shambles, aren't they?
00:19:06 Speaker 1
Did that just I mean you hear this and you go what now?
00:19:08 Speaker 1
Say that again, one more time, come again with this.
00:19:10 Speaker 1
They do what?
00:19:11 Speaker 1
Yeah, and it's so in this whole thing.
00:19:13 Speaker 1
So it's like you could have you could be one the shy of my
00:19:17 Speaker 1
ability which mean May mean that you have a considerable
00:19:19 Speaker 1
support,
00:19:21 Speaker 1
but you didn't reach a certain level.
00:19:22 Speaker 1
And so in that case, all of your supporters now, we'll go
00:19:27 Speaker 1
to somebody else.
00:19:28 Speaker 1
They will you know, so you don't meet the threshold and
00:19:31 Speaker 1
you have to then shift that those votes.
00:19:34 Speaker 1
Sore that support.
00:19:35 Speaker 1
Oh right.
00:19:35 Speaker 1
That happen with Martin O'Malley in the Heat and get
00:19:37 Speaker 1
anywhere.
00:19:38 Speaker 1
No malli supporters, you know where you're going to go, you
00:19:42 Speaker 1
know, after afterwards and so I think that was you know, this
00:19:45 Speaker 1
last I didn't do the 2020 but I think in that case it was a
00:19:49 Speaker 1
much more.
00:19:49 Speaker 1
It was a much bigger question because there were so many
00:19:52 Speaker 1
Democrats running, you know, like, you know, if Biden does
00:19:55 Speaker 1
is that person who's one or two votes short?
00:19:57 Speaker 1
And we saw that in a lot of the different caucus locations that
00:20:00 Speaker 1
he was just under viability places.
00:20:03 Speaker 1
And so then, where did that go?
00:20:04 Speaker 1
That go to Elizabeth Warren.
00:20:06 Speaker 1
Did it go to Bernie.
00:20:07 Speaker 1
Did it go to pee poo to judge?
00:20:09 Speaker 1
So yeah, that's their processes is complicated and you know,
00:20:14 Speaker 1
visually it's kind of interesting because you can see
00:20:16 Speaker 1
the people like kind of drifting around the room, but
00:20:19 Speaker 1
it doesn't make just as much
00:20:22 Speaker 1
inherent sense as the Republicans system
00:20:26 Speaker 1
with the caucus, you know, and the other thing primaries.
00:20:28 Speaker 1
Are you?
00:20:29 Speaker 1
Your film shows is how change hung in the air.
00:20:33 Speaker 1
You may say, like a paw.
00:20:34 Speaker 1
All over any candidate that was running a traditional campaign.
00:20:37 Speaker 1
And you saw Martin O'Malley, who was basically like a wooden
00:20:41 Speaker 1
marionette and the guy who I like but really looked like,
00:20:45 Speaker 1
you know, wallpaper.
00:20:47 Speaker 1
I mean, he did you saw the enthusiasm of Bernie talking
00:20:50 Speaker 1
about, you know, things are not going to say the same and you
00:20:52 Speaker 1
see the rise of trump and then you see the patheticness of Jeb
00:20:56 Speaker 1
Bush who you would have thought, given his namesake and
00:20:59 Speaker 1
his hat passed would
00:20:59 Speaker 1
be the odds-on.
00:21:00 Speaker 1
Favorite.
00:21:01 Speaker 1
You know, Marco Rubio is pegged as a future Republican Party.
00:21:04 Speaker 1
Chris Christie was and all these people.
00:21:06 Speaker 1
Christie less come off like a manicured, lawn, you know, and
00:21:10 Speaker 1
the people who did not speak to that restive angry, populist
00:21:15 Speaker 1
did not hear the populist, call the populace, and the
00:21:18 Speaker 1
populists,
00:21:20 Speaker 1
and they lost.
00:21:20 Speaker 1
And it's and it's interesting.
00:21:22 Speaker 1
There's 2016
00:21:24 Speaker 1
AJ, we talk about a lot of things on here, you know,
00:21:26 Speaker 1
people have all sorts of reasons.
00:21:28 Speaker 1
Why Donald Trump won that election.
00:21:29 Speaker 1
He did win that election and steal it just like Joe.
00:21:32 Speaker 1
Biden didn't steal it.
00:21:33 Speaker 1
So I'm not R4 that he narrowly edged Hillary out in the
00:21:37 Speaker 1
Electoral College and we don't do elections by popular votes.
00:21:39 Speaker 1
I'm so sick of hearing that, but but I think what people
00:21:42 Speaker 1
underestimated, which is what primaries your film catches and
00:21:46 Speaker 1
that's what I want people to watch this in its all of its
00:21:48 Speaker 1
nuances,
00:21:49 Speaker 1
it it was much more.
00:21:51 Speaker 1
Yeah, they're a lot of racists.
00:21:52 Speaker 1
There's a lot of sexist.
00:21:53 Speaker 1
They're the kind of people were throwing
00:21:58 Speaker 1
the, the two-party system out with the bathwater.
00:22:00 Speaker 1
It happened to be Trump, but the Republican party, but in
00:22:03 Speaker 1
other words, they just had had Enough and for many people in
00:22:06 Speaker 1
ass, why?
00:22:06 Speaker 1
I think he lost in 2020 because people realize seven and half
00:22:09 Speaker 1
million more people realize it wasn't disastrous experiment,
00:22:12 Speaker 1
but I think people said, you know,
00:22:14 Speaker 1
this is a change year.
00:22:16 Speaker 1
We believed in Obama, things have not gotten better.
00:22:19 Speaker 1
You know.
00:22:19 Speaker 1
Both parties have screwed up.
00:22:21 Speaker 1
Hillary Clinton is not somebody who represents the future to us
00:22:25 Speaker 1
as many ways represents a kind of cynical core of the two-
00:22:29 Speaker 1
party system and that there she was more qualified smarter
00:22:32 Speaker 1
should have been president.
00:22:33 Speaker 1
It's all those things.
00:22:34 Speaker 1
But the appetite was not there, you know, they were serving
00:22:36 Speaker 1
meat at a vegetarian buffet or, you know, and I think you're
00:22:41 Speaker 1
you really you really captured that, you know, and each
00:22:43 Speaker 1
segment, you sort of see, you know, the way in which all the
00:22:47 Speaker 1
rallies that had any meaning
00:22:49 Speaker 1
were rallies like Bernie's or Trump or I should say, meaning,
00:22:51 Speaker 1
any resonance, among the vast majority of Voters.
00:22:54 Speaker 1
Didn't you think?
00:22:54 Speaker 1
That's what you I think you cause you caught that really
00:22:57 Speaker 1
well, then you think that was great to sort of be able to be
00:22:59 Speaker 1
witnessing that.
00:23:01 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:23:01 Speaker 1
I mean, there were several things that were just kind of
00:23:04 Speaker 1
you know, Really caught our attention as they were
00:23:06 Speaker 1
happening and we so having film that 2008
00:23:11 Speaker 1
convention, you know, there were a lot of Hillary
00:23:14 Speaker 1
supporters in Denver who had this notion going to Denver
00:23:18 Speaker 1
that Hillary could still be the nominee.
00:23:21 Speaker 1
You know that that was
00:23:23 Speaker 1
Obama was a phenomenon.
00:23:25 Speaker 1
Nobody could have predicted.
00:23:26 Speaker 1
Right?
00:23:26 Speaker 1
Right.
00:23:27 Speaker 1
But I mean there were there were definitely like we
00:23:29 Speaker 1
followed some delegates who really thought that there was a
00:23:32 Speaker 1
chance.
00:23:32 Speaker 1
There was a chance that That Hillary could somehow pull it
00:23:37 Speaker 1
out and when and when she gave her speech saying, you know,
00:23:43 Speaker 1
this is not, I'm it's not me and you're not doing this for
00:23:45 Speaker 1
me.
00:23:45 Speaker 1
This is for something bigger.
00:23:48 Speaker 1
I mean, there were women on the floor.
00:23:50 Speaker 1
He said women because those were some of the ones I saw.
00:23:52 Speaker 1
I'm sure there were some upset gentlemen, as well, but women
00:23:55 Speaker 1
who particularly saw this as
00:23:57 Speaker 1
this, transformational representation representational
00:24:01 Speaker 1
candidate,
00:24:03 Speaker 1
you know, they were in tears and And just really just felt
00:24:05 Speaker 1
like, you know, couldn't couldn't believe, it wasn't
00:24:08 Speaker 1
going to happen
00:24:10 Speaker 1
fast forward, eight years.
00:24:11 Speaker 1
And, you know, the
00:24:13 Speaker 1
burning people who showed up in Philadelphia.
00:24:17 Speaker 1
They not only thought that they could still get the nomination.
00:24:23 Speaker 1
They wanted no part of Hillary
00:24:27 Speaker 1
and the level of
00:24:30 Speaker 1
You know, we're going to take our ball and walk we're going
00:24:34 Speaker 1
to boo every single person who comes on stage who has like
00:24:37 Speaker 1
endorsed Hillary
00:24:40 Speaker 1
that level of dissatisfaction.
00:24:44 Speaker 1
However, it happened.
00:24:45 Speaker 1
However, like so many of those people got into the, the
00:24:47 Speaker 1
convention center
00:24:49 Speaker 1
that compared to, you know, the Republican convention the week
00:24:54 Speaker 1
prior, which certainly there are people there who didn't
00:24:57 Speaker 1
want Trump, and there were those those
00:25:00 Speaker 1
I still like,
00:25:01 Speaker 1
you know, last-minute attempts to try to do something about
00:25:04 Speaker 1
it,
00:25:05 Speaker 1
but it was, you know, that was a, that was a convention that,
00:25:10 Speaker 1
you know, when it endorsed when endorsed him.
00:25:13 Speaker 1
And when it nominated him, that that there was a level of
00:25:15 Speaker 1
enthusiasm and excitement that they had, despite the overall
00:25:19 Speaker 1
convention being pretty dark and Troublesome
00:25:23 Speaker 1
that that when you got to the Democratic Convention,
00:25:28 Speaker 1
it really felt like If the energy on both sides was behind
00:25:33 Speaker 1
somebody who was going to blow up, what we knew, right?
00:25:37 Speaker 1
And, you know, was there enough of an appetite to you know,
00:25:42 Speaker 1
keep going in the way we've been going a yeah, you would
00:25:46 Speaker 1
that was a question.
00:25:47 Speaker 1
I still think you know, we thought that Trump was so
00:25:51 Speaker 1
so much of an outlier right?
00:25:53 Speaker 1
And you know
00:25:55 Speaker 1
and being in Cleveland that convention felt so disconnected
00:25:58 Speaker 1
from everything, we Experienced in the past at other
00:26:01 Speaker 1
conventions.
00:26:02 Speaker 1
We've been to other campaigns, we've been around because
00:26:04 Speaker 1
because you Feud ever expected Trump to be standing there or
00:26:07 Speaker 1
the convention itself.
00:26:08 Speaker 1
Yeah, the convention itself, tell me about that.
00:26:10 Speaker 1
What happened?
00:26:10 Speaker 1
What do you remember?
00:26:12 Speaker 1
We were at that point.
00:26:12 Speaker 1
We we couldn't believe Trump was going to be the nominee.
00:26:15 Speaker 1
But at that point at the convention was the energy weird
00:26:18 Speaker 1
on the ground.
00:26:19 Speaker 1
Is that very weird.
00:26:20 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:26:20 Speaker 1
And so one of the things that would happen with with Trump
00:26:23 Speaker 1
that was interesting during the campaign for us,
00:26:27 Speaker 1
you know, kind of just journaling it.
00:26:30 Speaker 1
It was a few months before that at the, in Vegas
00:26:34 Speaker 1
at the Nevada caucuses
00:26:36 Speaker 1
that he gives the he's in front of a huge crowd and he does.
00:26:42 Speaker 1
It's the first one where he's like, you know, I
00:26:45 Speaker 1
we used to take guys like that out on a stretcher, whatever,
00:26:48 Speaker 1
whatever the comment was.
00:26:50 Speaker 1
And that was a moment.
00:26:51 Speaker 1
Where,
00:26:53 Speaker 1
as I said, you know, the first time we saw him, it was like,
00:26:55 Speaker 1
oh, this guy's funny.
00:26:56 Speaker 1
He is,
00:26:58 Speaker 1
he's not doing things the way anybody else.
00:27:00 Speaker 1
Doing it, but this kind of Darkness like starts to seep in
00:27:05 Speaker 1
and the some of the fun that people are having has this
00:27:09 Speaker 1
violent tinge to it.
00:27:11 Speaker 1
And so when you get to Cleveland
00:27:13 Speaker 1
that aspect, it's not just the lock em up stuff, which was
00:27:17 Speaker 1
obviously, you know, present there, right, you know, the
00:27:21 Speaker 1
first night was like, very ven Ghazi heavy,
00:27:26 Speaker 1
you know, they it was intended, you know, Joni Ernst to, you
00:27:29 Speaker 1
know, We covered in 2014 when she ran for Senate.
00:27:33 Speaker 1
She was supposed to be like the keynote speaker.
00:27:36 Speaker 1
She was supposed to on the Monday night was supposed to be
00:27:38 Speaker 1
the future showing the future of the party.
00:27:41 Speaker 1
She does not get to speak because Michael Flynn just
00:27:45 Speaker 1
filibusters and keeps talking well into a lock her up.
00:27:49 Speaker 1
They'll change the lock her up and everybody's leaving, you
00:27:52 Speaker 1
know, the next night is the Ted Cruz, and everyone's booing
00:27:54 Speaker 1
him.
00:27:56 Speaker 1
There's there's a, there's an aspect of every day of that.
00:28:00 Speaker 1
That that just feels super Bleak.
00:28:04 Speaker 1
Not like, you know, the contingency agreement grew up
00:28:06 Speaker 1
around.
00:28:07 Speaker 1
I mean, I kind of like Chicago, but like, you know, the
00:28:09 Speaker 1
brightens and the fun and like everything else.
00:28:11 Speaker 1
Lightening Gore waving, you know, 88 and Richards.
00:28:15 Speaker 1
George Bush, born with a silver foot in his mouth, there felt
00:28:17 Speaker 1
like.
00:28:18 Speaker 1
Yeah, you know, we don't want Bush but if he got in its like
00:28:21 Speaker 1
the world isn't ending.
00:28:22 Speaker 1
This started to you.
00:28:23 Speaker 1
Yeah, there was a kind of nascent
00:28:27 Speaker 1
almost like not.
00:28:27 Speaker 1
I want to be dramatic but kind of like, you know, you feel
00:28:29 Speaker 1
like the Of I'm our Republic is coming to an end.
00:28:32 Speaker 1
It's like little bit and I know, I mean, it definitely was
00:28:35 Speaker 1
it was a very different vibe and it was very
00:28:40 Speaker 1
it, just felt.
00:28:40 Speaker 1
I keep saying felt very dark, but it did it just felt like
00:28:43 Speaker 1
there was there was this an undercurrent of both, just
00:28:47 Speaker 1
violence and, you know, like revenge against one's political
00:28:51 Speaker 1
enemies.
00:28:52 Speaker 1
That just was unlike anything I had ever witnessed before and
00:28:56 Speaker 1
we would like you to reach the crescendo and the idea that
00:28:59 Speaker 1
they had.
00:29:00 Speaker 1
Ben Michael Flynn like this moment and he, you know, he had
00:29:04 Speaker 1
sort of like just on his own.
00:29:07 Speaker 1
I mean the convention no one was in control of that
00:29:09 Speaker 1
convention.
00:29:10 Speaker 1
I mean the show who the hell was Michael Flynn?
00:29:11 Speaker 1
If you think about it that time, nobody you know, why is
00:29:14 Speaker 1
he taking up Joni Ernst?
00:29:17 Speaker 1
Who is then a popular Senator?
00:29:18 Speaker 1
I mean, you see the Republican Party morphing into this cult,
00:29:22 Speaker 1
right?
00:29:22 Speaker 1
Yeah, right.
00:29:23 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:29:23 Speaker 1
And so I think that then when you go from that and then the
00:29:25 Speaker 1
next week, I mean like over the weekend then the whole
00:29:27 Speaker 1
Wikileaks stuff happens.
00:29:30 Speaker 1
And, and then you go into Philadelphia and it's like half
00:29:33 Speaker 1
of the people there.
00:29:35 Speaker 1
I mean, it really did feel like half and half of like Hillary
00:29:38 Speaker 1
supporters.
00:29:39 Speaker 1
People who felt like this was a historic, glass ceiling
00:29:42 Speaker 1
breaking moment and, you know, the people who were like, she's
00:29:46 Speaker 1
corrupt.
00:29:47 Speaker 1
She's the past.
00:29:50 Speaker 1
She's, you know, the worst person we could nominate.
00:29:53 Speaker 1
And we're going to lose
00:29:55 Speaker 1
that.
00:29:56 Speaker 1
That was a, it was a, it was, it was not a fun couple.
00:30:00 Speaker 1
We,
00:30:01 Speaker 1
it was not as funny as speaking of this and you capture it, you
00:30:04 Speaker 1
know, and you can convention politics when everybody, you
00:30:07 Speaker 1
know, students of political Geeks, know, and you as a, as a
00:30:10 Speaker 1
student of this, and a filmmaker of this, you know,
00:30:12 Speaker 1
conventions used to be the back
00:30:13 Speaker 1
room.
00:30:13 Speaker 1
The other cigar-chomping guys, would choose the candidate
00:30:16 Speaker 1
before really, 1972 with McGovern, you know, your
00:30:19 Speaker 1
nominee was just chosen.
00:30:20 Speaker 1
They were anointed which is what's interesting.
00:30:23 Speaker 1
Is conventions had real suspense often.
00:30:25 Speaker 1
The vice president was nominated separately, right?
00:30:27 Speaker 1
Up until I'm late 50s and so you Have like
00:30:31 Speaker 1
you could go in there and be like wait is is this really
00:30:34 Speaker 1
going to be a delay Stevenson again?
00:30:35 Speaker 1
Is Estes kefauver of Tennessee going to be the running mate or
00:30:38 Speaker 1
as young John Kennedy, you know, you didn't know.
00:30:40 Speaker 1
So what I'm finding interesting on both sides, you're at
00:30:43 Speaker 1
conventions and you have Bernie people thinking Hillary is not
00:30:46 Speaker 1
going to actually get the nomination and other people to
00:30:49 Speaker 1
cruise.
00:30:50 Speaker 1
People whomever thinking Trump isn't going to get the
00:30:52 Speaker 1
nomination but yet they're standing there, which is it's
00:30:55 Speaker 1
already.
00:30:55 Speaker 1
Excuse me.
00:30:57 Speaker 1
It's already a done deal.
00:30:58 Speaker 1
I mean, they're standing there.
00:31:00 Speaker 1
Being coordinated because there is no contest.
00:31:02 Speaker 1
These conventions are televised as political theater admittedly
00:31:05 Speaker 1
by the media because they're not there to nominate their
00:31:08 Speaker 1
there.
00:31:09 Speaker 1
To
00:31:10 Speaker 1
kind of culminate the nominating process, which is
00:31:12 Speaker 1
already been settled.
00:31:13 Speaker 1
Don't you think that's what?
00:31:14 Speaker 1
Yeah, that's exactly what they are.
00:31:16 Speaker 1
And that's why the you know, I think
00:31:19 Speaker 1
Bernie had like giving a speech to his supporters on either
00:31:21 Speaker 1
Saturday or Sunday before the convention and had said
00:31:24 Speaker 1
something about like we're going to take the fight to the
00:31:26 Speaker 1
floor and that that was like it was like he knew Knew that that
00:31:30 Speaker 1
wasn't going to happen.
00:31:31 Speaker 1
I mean, it was just
00:31:33 Speaker 1
crazy.
00:31:34 Speaker 1
The other thing people, I wanted they switched it in
00:31:36 Speaker 1
2020, but you know, so long as there have been
00:31:40 Speaker 1
voters choosing candidates, the Republicans never had super-
00:31:44 Speaker 1
delegates meaning that in 2016.
00:31:46 Speaker 1
Super-delegates actually ensured that was.
00:31:49 Speaker 1
So you could win a number of delegates in voting and then
00:31:51 Speaker 1
there are party leadership meet state that cast votes and that
00:31:55 Speaker 1
not only buttresses, but can call.
00:31:57 Speaker 1
So superseded kind of week showing by the Handed it, which
00:32:01 Speaker 1
sort of made.
00:32:01 Speaker 1
Sure Hillary wouldn't lose the nomination even though she was
00:32:04 Speaker 1
damaged by Bernie severely losing badly in the industrial
00:32:08 Speaker 1
Midwest, which kind of mirrored her defeat in that fall and it
00:32:11 Speaker 1
actually made her, I think a weaker candidate than she
00:32:13 Speaker 1
already was.
00:32:14 Speaker 1
And on the Republican side, the guy like Trump could get there
00:32:17 Speaker 1
because there is no stop Gap.
00:32:19 Speaker 1
In other words, the super-delegates her let's put an
00:32:22 Speaker 1
English or kind of supposed to be like Alicia's a leash on the
00:32:24 Speaker 1
crazies.
00:32:25 Speaker 1
But well they got rid of it.
00:32:27 Speaker 1
Now, you know what I mean?
00:32:28 Speaker 1
And the Democrats don't do it anymore.
00:32:30 Speaker 1
Whatever.
00:32:30 Speaker 1
And I believe a super delegates, you know, because
00:32:33 Speaker 1
you saw Cruz win a fair number of fights.
00:32:35 Speaker 1
Cruz might have been the nominee and them.
00:32:36 Speaker 1
In other words.
00:32:37 Speaker 1
They might have yoked back on Trump and this is cute.
00:32:39 Speaker 1
He'll win some, you know, like you said.
00:32:42 Speaker 1
But that darkness that I mean he was inciting violence very
00:32:45 Speaker 1
early on and that's what you were saying after the show was
00:32:48 Speaker 1
over and on, he's funny, and he's mr.
00:32:49 Speaker 1
Apprentice there.
00:32:51 Speaker 1
He was saying in my day, when you know, hit him and take him
00:32:54 Speaker 1
out on a stretcher.
00:32:55 Speaker 1
Basically things, we send South Carolina, brutal off to a crowd
00:32:58 Speaker 1
that starts.
00:33:00 Speaker 1
You know, chillingly in a kind of Beer Hall Putsch, kind of
00:33:03 Speaker 1
way cheering on the violence, you captured that to and it you
00:33:07 Speaker 1
know, so that was really fascinating in your work as a
00:33:11 Speaker 1
documentarian because you actually are showing and I'm
00:33:14 Speaker 1
saying this a locks.
00:33:15 Speaker 1
I really want people to see this.
00:33:17 Speaker 1
You we get to watch as an audience this bizarre
00:33:21 Speaker 1
sort of confounding, but also scary transformation before our
00:33:25 Speaker 1
eyes.
00:33:25 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:33:26 Speaker 1
I mean, it definitely felt that way to just being in the
00:33:28 Speaker 1
opening round.
00:33:30 Speaker 1
Then.
00:33:30 Speaker 1
I mean, yeah, I mean there was because it was, you know,
00:33:33 Speaker 1
it went from,
00:33:35 Speaker 1
you know,
00:33:37 Speaker 1
when you cover entire campaigns and I
00:33:40 Speaker 1
haven't really talked about this directly with with a lot
00:33:42 Speaker 1
of journalists, but I know a few kind of we've all kind of
00:33:46 Speaker 1
said the same thing, which is,
00:33:48 Speaker 1
you know, the ones where it's
00:33:50 Speaker 1
going to the thing.
00:33:51 Speaker 1
You're like a cheese,
00:33:53 Speaker 1
I gotta go shoot this guy, again.
00:33:55 Speaker 1
I gotta go like, film.
00:33:56 Speaker 1
This me, like you mean, like, Martin O'Malley's Rally or
00:33:58 Speaker 1
something like that.
00:34:00 Speaker 1
Yeah, we're like even, I mean,
00:34:02 Speaker 1
even like,
00:34:03 Speaker 1
you know, this Santorum stuff in 2012, you know, like you
00:34:09 Speaker 1
drive to a small town, you knew he was going to be talking to
00:34:12 Speaker 1
like somewhere between 9 and 18 people and he would, he would
00:34:18 Speaker 1
go on for a couple hours and it's just, it's,
00:34:21 Speaker 1
it's exhausted.
00:34:22 Speaker 1
And I mean like, live physically because we were
00:34:25 Speaker 1
shooting handheld cameras, you know, you're just it's
00:34:27 Speaker 1
exhausting to try to capture when you get a moment.
00:34:30 Speaker 1
How many people is he speaking to it?
00:34:31 Speaker 1
Something like that?
00:34:32 Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean, I think that was the
00:34:35 Speaker 1
room would like I would like a group of like Kiwanis people.
00:34:38 Speaker 1
I what I mean.
00:34:38 Speaker 1
Is that what that is?
00:34:39 Speaker 1
Yeah, like there's a, there's a, there's a moment in caucus
00:34:43 Speaker 1
where he shows up and he's walks up and, and he's like,
00:34:46 Speaker 1
how many we got, and they're like, it's okay.
00:34:48 Speaker 1
It's about 12.
00:34:52 Speaker 1
Well, how about that moment?
00:34:53 Speaker 1
I didn't know.
00:34:53 Speaker 1
Don't think it was in if it wasn't primaries apologize.
00:34:57 Speaker 1
When Jeb Bush said, please clap.
00:34:59 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:35:00 Speaker 1
Get that on this.
00:35:00 Speaker 1
I don't know.
00:35:01 Speaker 1
If no I was not.
00:35:01 Speaker 1
We were not there for that night.
00:35:03 Speaker 1
But you know guys remember, you know, Jeb Bush is petering out
00:35:06 Speaker 1
Bush.
00:35:06 Speaker 1
I mean, Trump is making mincemeat of them and at some
00:35:09 Speaker 1
point, his rallies become so listless.
00:35:11 Speaker 1
And so if you know poorly attended that like one guy is
00:35:15 Speaker 1
like, you know, he's like, please clap it was kind of a so
00:35:17 Speaker 1
pathetic.
00:35:18 Speaker 1
I'm neither a Jew or Jeb Bush fan or a Jeb Bush photo, but I
00:35:21 Speaker 1
just thought
00:35:22 Speaker 1
this guy this guy's not going to be hungry president.
00:35:25 Speaker 1
I don't know why he's running, you know,
00:35:27 Speaker 1
we we did.
00:35:30 Speaker 1
The equivalent that we that I was at and that we did film
00:35:33 Speaker 1
was what was to be a big event for him and in South Carolina
00:35:38 Speaker 1
and right before
00:35:41 Speaker 1
he is to go on Lindsey Graham is there to like, you know,
00:35:44 Speaker 1
speak on his behalf word comes out
00:35:49 Speaker 1
that the governor
00:35:51 Speaker 1
mistaken
00:35:52 Speaker 1
her name at the misplaced her name.
00:35:54 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:35:54 Speaker 1
Yeah
00:35:55 Speaker 1
Nikki.
00:35:55 Speaker 1
Haley has just endorsed Rubio and there was that to it.
00:36:00 Speaker 1
So bizarre, it's literally like the you saw like the news
00:36:05 Speaker 1
filtering to team jab.
00:36:08 Speaker 1
Like in that moment.
00:36:10 Speaker 1
You see the error of the blue like Priya and it's just like
00:36:13 Speaker 1
this is, you know, that's easy cratering before your eyes,
00:36:16 Speaker 1
right there, something you captured all this in real time.
00:36:19 Speaker 1
And again, like you said, there's been so much done as I
00:36:21 Speaker 1
get since pennybaker and whatever and really besides the
00:36:23 Speaker 1
war room, but this was like, you know, you're not just
00:36:26 Speaker 1
feasting on in a voyeuristic way and mean you really really
00:36:29 Speaker 1
Watching
00:36:31 Speaker 1
something profoundly shape, our political system.
00:36:34 Speaker 1
And the way we live The Way, We Now govern in 2016.
00:36:38 Speaker 1
And here we are.
00:36:38 Speaker 1
Six years later with the wake of this and Trump is, and then
00:36:42 Speaker 1
still here and he is coming back.
00:36:43 Speaker 1
And what is going to ask, uh, eggs?
00:36:45 Speaker 1
I do have to ask, and I want to know before we before we wrap
00:36:48 Speaker 1
up
00:36:49 Speaker 1
to questions.
00:36:50 Speaker 1
Okay, it's
00:36:53 Speaker 1
you do it.
00:36:53 Speaker 1
You're there.
00:36:54 Speaker 1
You're on the ground.
00:36:55 Speaker 1
What are your politics?
00:36:57 Speaker 1
Like?
00:36:57 Speaker 1
Where do you stand?
00:36:58 Speaker 1
Are you coming at this?
00:36:59 Speaker 1
Are you like a die-hard?
00:37:00 Speaker 1
I'd leftist to protest your kind of guy who wanted to know.
00:37:03 Speaker 1
I'm a skier.
00:37:03 Speaker 1
You
00:37:04 Speaker 1
rode your dirty moderate.
00:37:05 Speaker 1
I don't know.
00:37:06 Speaker 1
I mean like I want to know because your passion and your
00:37:07 Speaker 1
such a you know, you're really an art, a fabulous artist, but
00:37:11 Speaker 1
I love the way you capture politics, but I want to know
00:37:14 Speaker 1
when I think you want to
00:37:15 Speaker 1
know your great filmmaker.
00:37:16 Speaker 1
What are your politics?
00:37:18 Speaker 1
I'm not.
00:37:18 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:37:18 Speaker 1
I'm a liberal Democrat.
00:37:20 Speaker 1
I grew up in the Midwest and you know is
00:37:23 Speaker 1
I'm used to
00:37:25 Speaker 1
being around people who have very different opinions.
00:37:29 Speaker 1
Ins than I do, you know, it was raised Christian and,
00:37:33 Speaker 1
you know, her real
00:37:35 Speaker 1
south,
00:37:35 Speaker 1
South
00:37:36 Speaker 1
West, Illinois.
00:37:37 Speaker 1
At
00:37:42 Speaker 1
the same time that we started.
00:37:43 Speaker 1
This process from 2008-2012
00:37:47 Speaker 1
II, made a film with my friends, David Wilson and
00:37:49 Speaker 1
Nature's Del a film called, we always lie to strangers,
00:37:53 Speaker 1
which is about the town of Branson, Missouri.
00:37:56 Speaker 1
And so, we spent a lot of time.
00:38:00 Speaker 1
Yes, it is.
00:38:01 Speaker 1
Yeah,
00:38:02 Speaker 1
and spend it.
00:38:03 Speaker 1
We spent a lot of time there and you know, I think to me one
00:38:06 Speaker 1
of the best things about getting to make these films is
00:38:10 Speaker 1
you know, you're really asking people to kind of let you in to
00:38:15 Speaker 1
their world.
00:38:16 Speaker 1
And so I think you have to
00:38:18 Speaker 1
try to be empathetic and open to views that are very
00:38:22 Speaker 1
different than your own.
00:38:23 Speaker 1
I think you know with with caucus part of our initial
00:38:26 Speaker 1
thinking was I was curious about the the Tea Party
00:38:29 Speaker 1
Movement.
00:38:29 Speaker 1
Movement
00:38:31 Speaker 1
and kind of thought maybe we would have more Focus around
00:38:34 Speaker 1
Michelle Bachman because she's just seemed to be
00:38:38 Speaker 1
you know, somebody who's getting a lot of that support
00:38:40 Speaker 1
and that attention.
00:38:41 Speaker 1
But really our first full day of spending time with her
00:38:46 Speaker 1
was noticing, she was showing up late
00:38:48 Speaker 1
to each
00:38:50 Speaker 1
of her
00:38:51 Speaker 1
appearances.
00:38:52 Speaker 1
And one of her first appearance is somebody said, you know, if
00:38:55 Speaker 1
you're late for the first appearance of the day, your
00:38:58 Speaker 1
whole day is going to be behind.
00:39:00 Speaker 1
And
00:39:00 Speaker 1
and that to me was like, that's
00:39:03 Speaker 1
that's interesting because this is less about, yes, it is about
00:39:08 Speaker 1
the issues and it is about the things that they're saying, but
00:39:12 Speaker 1
it's also about a bunch of people who may have run for
00:39:15 Speaker 1
Congress.
00:39:16 Speaker 1
They may have run for governor.
00:39:17 Speaker 1
They may have run for Senator successfully or unsuccessfully,
00:39:20 Speaker 1
but now they're going to do this thing, which is very
00:39:24 Speaker 1
different and we're going to see all of the foibles
00:39:28 Speaker 1
of human.
00:39:29 Speaker 1
Save Yer
00:39:30 Speaker 1
and and that's what was interesting to man.
00:39:33 Speaker 1
The rub to me.
00:39:34 Speaker 1
That's what you capture and I was going to say when you watch
00:39:37 Speaker 1
this and you see the transformation happening before
00:39:40 Speaker 1
your eyes.
00:39:41 Speaker 1
What I think is also.
00:39:42 Speaker 1
And that's why I want to know your politics, your your work
00:39:45 Speaker 1
betrays.
00:39:46 Speaker 1
No ideology to me.
00:39:47 Speaker 1
Meaning.
00:39:47 Speaker 1
I have no idea.
00:39:49 Speaker 1
It's not like you covered the Republicans with any contempt
00:39:52 Speaker 1
or Venom and it's not like you covered Bernie and Hillary
00:39:54 Speaker 1
certainly in the primaries film.
00:39:55 Speaker 1
I mean, with any
00:39:57 Speaker 1
any affection, you know, you let the camera And because our
00:40:01 Speaker 1
political system is unraveling and crashing and undergoing
00:40:04 Speaker 1
major transformation.
00:40:05 Speaker 1
You were able to capture that without Nest without me
00:40:07 Speaker 1
necessarily knowing the filmmaker.
00:40:10 Speaker 1
In your case is politics.
00:40:11 Speaker 1
I like that.
00:40:12 Speaker 1
I do because I really don't want to watch.
00:40:15 Speaker 1
I don't want to watch a hard right documentary of some, you
00:40:17 Speaker 1
know, hay geography of trump.
00:40:19 Speaker 1
Cultish thing, of course, or even, or even a, some kind of
00:40:22 Speaker 1
heavy pro-republican things.
00:40:23 Speaker 1
I'm an independent, but I really, I'm so sick.
00:40:26 Speaker 1
This is just me your lipstick.
00:40:27 Speaker 1
I don't want to watch some liberal propaganda of move.
00:40:29 Speaker 1
See, I just I just it's just not what I want to see and that
00:40:33 Speaker 1
you didn't do that.
00:40:34 Speaker 1
So I love that.
00:40:35 Speaker 1
It's real journalism.
00:40:36 Speaker 1
It's real document work.
00:40:38 Speaker 1
And also before we go, who's going to win the midterms, we
00:40:41 Speaker 1
got to be impressed
00:40:43 Speaker 1
going to be akka wave of deep Crimson or what?
00:40:46 Speaker 1
Yeah, probably, I mean, I think it's
00:40:49 Speaker 1
the funny thing is is we were on the ground, the midterms in
00:40:52 Speaker 1
2014 and
00:40:54 Speaker 1
here for the Democrats bad year and and I can't say that, you
00:40:58 Speaker 1
know, even though we were in, Iowa.
00:41:01 Speaker 1
It felt closer
00:41:03 Speaker 1
on the ground than it ended up being.
00:41:07 Speaker 1
And and similarly, you know, we covered the the senate race in
00:41:12 Speaker 1
North Carolina, Kay Hagan,
00:41:15 Speaker 1
losing her seat to taunt millets plus, right?
00:41:18 Speaker 1
Yeah, and and that you know, she had led.
00:41:21 Speaker 1
Okay.
00:41:21 Speaker 1
I liked her a lot.
00:41:22 Speaker 1
She had let up until like toward the end of that, that,
00:41:27 Speaker 1
that campaign.
00:41:28 Speaker 1
So
00:41:30 Speaker 1
Think things?
00:41:31 Speaker 1
Yeah, if they are where there are now
00:41:35 Speaker 1
then?
00:41:35 Speaker 1
Yeah, it's a pretty red
00:41:37 Speaker 1
year,
00:41:39 Speaker 1
but it's early still, you know, I think that that's the thing
00:41:42 Speaker 1
of, you know, if you would have asked me in
00:41:45 Speaker 1
late September of that year.
00:41:47 Speaker 1
I would have said K, probably hangs on because she had never
00:41:50 Speaker 1
really trailed
00:41:52 Speaker 1
and there was a possibility that
00:41:55 Speaker 1
that Joni wouldn't wouldn't win her race because I would have
00:41:58 Speaker 1
probably told you that Iowa likes.
00:42:00 Speaker 1
Having one of each have I made them a
00:42:02 Speaker 1
republican.
00:42:11 Speaker 1
Mike Dukakis,
00:42:17 Speaker 1
deep red and insane is just
00:42:20 Speaker 1
it's a huge cards in 2020 and it's Mike.
00:42:24 Speaker 1
I mean I went for Dukakis and eat the caucus 110 States.
00:42:27 Speaker 1
I mean, it's just an Iowa was one of them.
00:42:28 Speaker 1
Wow.
00:42:30 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:42:30 Speaker 1
No, I mean it
00:42:32 Speaker 1
the difference between 2012 which as you said, Obama went
00:42:35 Speaker 1
on and while yes, they are and just kind of being
00:42:38 Speaker 1
around and the energy and the state while we were filming the
00:42:41 Speaker 1
Republicans
00:42:42 Speaker 1
to 22
00:42:44 Speaker 1
years later
00:42:45 Speaker 1
in 2014.
00:42:46 Speaker 1
And every know we covered a house race and the senate race
00:42:49 Speaker 1
and
00:42:50 Speaker 1
in Iowa and the Republicans
00:42:52 Speaker 1
won both and you know, obviously they've held on to
00:42:54 Speaker 1
the governorship.
00:42:56 Speaker 1
It's it's a red State and
00:42:59 Speaker 1
yeah.
00:43:00 Speaker 1
Yeah, that's that's that's a lot different than it was 10
00:43:02 Speaker 1
years ago.
00:43:02 Speaker 1
When we were there doing caucus.
00:43:04 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:43:04 Speaker 1
Well, our politics are calcifying into deep blue deep
00:43:07 Speaker 1
red.
00:43:08 Speaker 1
I don't like guy any of that.
00:43:09 Speaker 1
I certainly don't want them to be redder.
00:43:11 Speaker 1
That's for sure.
00:43:11 Speaker 1
And that's, that's a disappointment.
00:43:12 Speaker 1
Anyway, jaysh knock a filmmaker documentarian, Politico.
00:43:16 Speaker 1
I love this
00:43:18 Speaker 1
guy who brings.
00:43:19 Speaker 1
I think the best of filmmaking, best journalism together with
00:43:23 Speaker 1
an Eagle Eye for our political landscape.
00:43:26 Speaker 1
Yep, and our detail AJ.
00:43:27 Speaker 1
Thanks for being on the show.
00:43:29 Speaker 1
Thanks for having me.