Music Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm John Favreau. I'm John Loveett. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Tommy Vittor. On today's show, Tuesday was for voting, Wednesday was for processing, Thursday was for blaming. Just 48 hours after Americans went to the polls, the Democratic Party, recrimination, soul-searching, post-mortem, blame game, pick your cliche, has begun. Plus, in some critical good news for Democrats, Senator Jackie Rosen looks like she's going
to hang on in Nevada. We'll talk about the latest updates with the ballot still being counted in House and Senate races all across the country and what it all means for fighting back against Trump's second term agenda. But first, on Wednesday, Kamala Harris officially conceded to Donald Trump in a phone call and then gave her concession speech at Howard
University, where she hoped she'd be giving her victory speech the night before. Then on Thursday, Joe Biden gave his first public remarks since his vice president's crushing loss. Here is a sampling from each. So the young people who are watching, it is okay to feel sad and disappointed. But please know it's going to be okay. On the campaign, I would often say, when we fight, we win. But here's the thing. Here's the thing. Sometimes the fight takes a while. That doesn't mean
we won't win. That doesn't mean we won't win. The important thing is don't ever give up. Don't ever give up. Don't ever stop trying to make the world a better place. We're leaving behind the strongest economy in the world. I know people are still hurting, but things are changing rapidly. Together, we've changed America for the better. Now we have 74 days to finish the term, our term. Let's make every day count. That's the responsibility
we have to the American people. Look folks, you all know it. Their lives. Setbacks are unavoidable. But giving up is unforgivable. Getting harder and harder to tell the difference between him and Dana Carvey. So both Biden and Harris offered versions of it's going to be okay. This is of course after they both spent their respective campaigns, hammering
the stakes of a Trump presidency. Obviously, that's a tough balance to strike. What did you guys think and any other reactions to either of their speeches? I find that we're going to be okay. Pretty insulting and patronizing, to be honest. You're both giving these speeches because your theory of politics and of the future was wrong.
But we all were wrong. We're collectively wrong. That's just a fact. I have great respect for Kamala Harris and the campaign that she ran and that hands she played was very difficult to hand. But they're just not in a position to reassure us right now. They don't know. We don't know. We will make it through. I hope so. I believe so. I think we have to fight to make it so. But a lot of people will be hurt. If we keep sliding back on reproductive
freedom, a lot of people could die. If we have mass deportations, there will be the children of American citizens who will not be okay. If there are rollbacks on LGBT rights, there will be trans people and gay people who will not be okay. I am not really in the market for bedtime stories right now. I would like a little bit less reassurance and more vigilance. I think politicians getting up there and being our mommy and daddy, I'm just not interested
in right now. Anyone else want to take the other side? No. I want to. Can I think I'm middle ground? These are impossible speeches to give. They are there to simply just acknowledge your own defeat. Then thank your supporters. You have to do it. None of them are great. Some of them are more fondly than others. The hard part here is the absolute dissonance between the message 72 hours ago on the campaign trail and right now about what a danger Donald Trump is that he is unstable. Unhinged. We
will be covering without guardrails. I think both the vice president and the president could have done more to acknowledge people's fear. People's pain. They're feeling right now. They're anxiety about what's going to come in the country to speak to the fact that for the second time in three presidential elections, a woman has lost to someone like
Donald Trump. I was just talking to my wife who was talking to her mom about never having seen a woman elected president and trying to explain to her a six year old daughter why that hasn't happened. I think this is hard to do but a lot of people don't feel okay right now. A lot of people aren't sure we're going to be okay. A lot of people are very worried. Doing a little more to speak to that I think would have been appreciated in the
moment. It's just that going to that's why you got a text from a friend I love who's like I'm really surprised you guys didn't mention Kamala Harris's race and gender and the reasoning behind why she lost yesterday. The reason for me is I have no doubt that it was a factor in a lot of voters decision but I don't have any data to ground that opinion in right now. I also don't want to take away from that conversation to be well now the
Democrats can never run a woman for president again because I do not think that's true. I actually think I think that would be the worst lesson to take away. I think just to address what Dan said up front. I found both of their speeches to be like gracious and decent and especially for Kamala Harris because think about she spent a hundred days pouring
everything she had into this campaign. She's exhausted even in her private moments she's thinking about this campaign she hasn't slept in months and she's expected I think to actually take on a bit of a parental role in the tone of her remarks and to comfort supporters and voters and people that loved her and I understand that that might be grading to some people like there's a naive version of like we're all going to be okay it's like
no you don't know that. I think their point is we are all now charged with fighting to make sure that we're okay especially for people that have it worse for us. I think that was the takeaway I got from them. Yeah it didn't bump me as much just because I think we're going to be okay it's just almost everyone understands that it might not be true but it's what you want to hear because people want to be comforted at a time like this
like I'm sure we're all getting texts from people and emails that are like are we going to be okay we're going to be okay and I don't assure anyone we'll be okay but we can be okay like it's possible that we can be okay we don't know I don't actually think it's useful to spend a lot of time predicting whether we won't be okay or we'll be okay I think it's about as useful as predicting election winners which is why I don't really focus on that.
It's overmodeled our co-carnish. Which I don't focus on that as much but I kind of just took it as like leadership is about trying to comfort people or inspire people or whatever and I get I take your point. I don't think it's it didn't really bump me as much. I had the same reaction
to a similar reaction to Barack Obama's remarks after the election in 2016. You know it's funny is our friend Terry Zouplatt who was a speechwriter with us in the White House just has a new book out and I was doing a book event with him and in his book he talks about how the only
time in his life he'd ever been disappointed with Barack Obama was that speech but then he said you know looking back on it now all these years later I'm glad he said what he did at the time because at the time everyone didn't want to hear that but he's like you know he was right he was right. So even though Biden and Harris both said nice things about each other in their speeches it's knives out at the staff and advisor level people close to both camps have
been making their case to reporters. Pro-Biden Democrats saying the president would have done better and that Harris could have run a better campaign. Pro-Harris Democrats saying it was Biden's fault for deciding to run for reelection in the first place and waiting too long to step aside. What do you guys think? Do you do a blanket caveat which is that so we don't all have to repeat it running a presidential campaign and putting it together in a hundred days is nearly impossible.
She did an incredible job. The biggest moment of the entire campaign the maybe the only one that mattered was the debate and she did better than anyone could possibly have expected so blanket caveat now we're gonna nip it. Great okay. Okay. So it's good time because I don't want to just repeat it. I was just giving someone else's space to speak. Okay well you do you want to start with
the who which side do you? Great. Now I'm gonna nip it. So the substantive critique from the Biden people seems to be two things that she abandoned the kind of anti-populous messaging and that she failed to respond to millions and millions of dollars these anti-trans ads that ran on every football game we ever watched. I didn't find those to be unfair or unreasonable criticisms. I mean
the ten time I saw the the Kamala's for they them at I wondered boy did it. There are people know something that we don't know about how effective that ad is and the New York Times reported today that when feature forward the big damn super PAC tested the ad it moved the needle 2.7 percentage points in Trump's favor and that the Harris campaign tested a response ad that didn't work well in focus groups so they never ended up using it and I think maybe it's fair to say that
letting that go on responded to was a mistake. Here's the problem with that and the states were common Harris campaign the hardest those are the places where she outperformed what happened in the other states those are also the states that saw the most number of ads so I mean if you just
if you just said okay what was the effect I mean it's hard to measure all these different competing variables but if you just said all right there were states where they ran anti-trans ads and there are states where they didn't trump did better in states where they didn't run those
ads that's just a fact. Well those were a lot of those written nationally. Even so there was a hundred million dollars dumped in Pennsylvania of anti-trans ads and you can say all right well what was the impact of that money maybe it made things harder for her to come back maybe she would have done better if those ads weren't there I just I just don't think we know right now broadly speaking that's why like the one nagging feeling I have is that that kind of is resonating with me is because
we felt it a bit at the time and it was which is that answer on the view how would you do differently than Joe Biden and she says well I can't think of anything or when she's asked about why she how she changed her record from 2020 she had answers that were about well I haven't changed my values
and they tried to deal with what was I think a incredibly difficult substantive critique which is you're in the Biden administration you don't represent a break from the Biden administration how do you respond to that they tried to kind of weave a kind of more like vibes based message
based argument against that and then in the same on her how she differed because there she was hard to answer that question of how she had differed from the positions she took in the 2020 campaign and I say okay could that be something that has an impact but even still I say okay maybe
those were bad maybe those were a problem fine I am still it still seems very difficult for me to picture how she overcomes the fact that she had a hundred days to run this campaign and so I am I am much more amenable to an argument about Joe Biden's culpability and actually I'm less angry
about the decision to seek reelection I don't this I don't think it was right I think we're paying for it but I'm more angry actually about the month after that debate when what happened was on a quivicle and he made that campaign even shorter eliminating the chance to even have a debate
about who the nominee should be and also leaving her such a short short space to mount a credible campaign I mean I just I struggle with this entire conversation I can pick 17 things that maybe could have been done differently I can't pinpoint any of them or all of them that lead to a different
outcome yeah in this race that's true and so the way I think to think about it going forward is to try to figure out what from the campaign sort of overlaying what the campaign did with the results on what we can learn in terms of going forward like what are better approaches better strategies
better messages on that note I do think it's funny for a campaign that was so good about tailoring their message to what tested well the this was like a hobby horse of mind during the campaign the price-gouging stuff like she started with it and then it sort of fell off in the middle of
the campaign somewhere and then they kind of brought it back and it what the economic agenda was framed more as small businesses this gonna maybe give you this gonna maybe give you this and there wasn't a lot of bite against corporations that were doing bad things and again I look I'm
just talking about going forward I think it would be useful for Democrats to hammer that because you do need people are people are angry people are dissatisfied most of the economy and I think it is fair and also politically useful to go after corporations that are making record profits and
screwing people over when they are screwing people over you don't have to say all corporations are bad or capital is bad not not gonna make any of that but like I think it's a good thing to do and she had a record on those issues as attorney general that I think was very effective and I'm
even voters that I talked to when I brought up her record it would they that moved them so I think maybe the way to think about this is the Democratic economic message has not worked in 12 years it did not work in 2016 it did not work in 2020 we lost on the economy in 2022 we won despite
despite our economic message we lost the voters who cared about it we have an economic message well we had Biden's economic record Biden did all these things he talked about them it Democrats ran they did run a decent number of economic ads but we won the voters who the 27%
of voters who said abortion was their top issue we lost the 31% of voters who said inflation was their top issue in 2022 their economic message did not work here yet once again when you go through all the individual policies all our policies are popular but we're getting hammered
on the most important issue in every single election in modern history and that is the thing we're going to have to figure out to go forward because Donald Trump has built what looks like a multi-racial working-class coalition that could dominate politics for a very long time I understand
why everyone's calling it like the anti trans ad but I would even go one step further and say that the that ad had an economic component to it because it was what was it about taxpayer funded gender reassignment surgery for inmates who are undocumented immigrants and it got right to the
heart of a republican argument that Democrats are giving your tax dollars away to everyone else all these different interest groups identity groups people that that aren't you and you're struggling right like that is what that ad was saying which I think to the extent it was effective
you know Republicans have tried to run other anti trans ads over the last several years and other races that have not been effective they've been raised to money they've been a waste of money and they failed I just sounds crazy it just sounds like a crazy the way they're doing that that
sounds crazy to me how can that be true yes yes so it turns out there's a third option here beside it being the Biden campaigns fault or the Harris campaigns fault it was the Obama campaigns fault it was Obama's fault here's a blind quote given to political by an anonymous
former Biden staffer quote there is no singular reason why we lost but a big reason is because the Obama advisors publicly encouraged democratic infighting to push Joe Biden out didn't even want Kamala Harris as the nominee and then signed up as the saviors of the campaign only to run
outdated Obama era playbooks for a candidate that wasn't Obama there's outdated Obama era playbooks that won him two presidential campaigns the best record of any Democrat since Roosevelt but anyway I just have to say something about this one please no go the floor is yours I am going
to generously assume that the constant anonymous sniping from Biden world about Obama or Kamala Harris and everyone who worked for them is coming from like the same three or four people that's that's going to be my generous assumption and it does not reflect the views of most of the Biden
folks just stipulated like Tommy stipulation earlier we all like a caveat like a caveat we all agree now we're going to do Joe Biden's decision to run for president again was a catastrophic mistake it just was and he and his inner circle they refused to believe the polls they refused to believe
he was unpopular they refused to acknowledge until very late that anyone could be upset about inflation and they just kept telling us that his presidency was historic and it was the greatest economy ever we just heard him again say that it's the greatest economy ever clearly 70 80
percent of voters don't believe that they don't believe that about their own personal financial situation but they just keep telling us that uh and then after the debate the Biden people told us that the polls were fine and Biden was still the strongest candidate and the but and
they were privately telling reporters at the time that Kamala Harris couldn't win so they were shivering Kamala Harris two reporters while they told everyone else not a time for an open process and his vice president can't win so he's the strongest candidate then we find out
when the Biden campaign becomes the Harris campaign that the Biden campaigns own internal polling at the time when they were telling us he was the strongest candidate showed the Donald Trump was going to win 400 electoral votes that's what their own internal polling said
so like I don't have a lot of I don't know what it means by the Obama era playbook I think what Dan said yesterday about they just don't think but let's just not try to unpack it I think what Dan said yesterday about trying to examine re-examine all the money democratic
spend on field programs is something that it's a conversation worth having because like I don't want to overreact here because in 2020 there were people saying well the Biden people were too scared to get out of their house and knock on doors and did everything virtually and
that's why the margins were closer right so we kind of learn a new lesson every cycle but I think it's worth thinking about that spend and the opportunity cost that said all that infrastructure was in place when Joe Biden was a nominee this wasn't like an Obama thing or Kamala Harris thing
and then also part of this could be Democrats do need to go back to the drawing board when it comes to figuring out what is the coalition that we assemble to win right the Obama era coalition that is it seems to be we've lost it that is gone that is what the on the idea that Joe Biden would
have won I think is what the subtext of that comment was again there were polls showing 80% of voters thought Joe Biden was too old to get a second term before the debate and then we all watched the debate and then in the last few weeks Biden was campaigning and he said we need to
lock Trump up he created a controversy over whether Trump supporters were garbage he said you know the weird thing about slapping Trump on the ass like his moments on the campaign trail weren't flawless either you cannot you want it's absurd two points I want to go I want to stay for the
record I also think all the TV money that should be we thought to but more importantly the idea that Joe Biden was going to do better in this race than couple Harris is on its face absurd no one is making that zero doubt it would support that there never has been ever and no one is making that
case with their name to it that's what I was going to end by saying like if someone would like to put their name on it or even come here and and and talk to us about it right here we can have a nice civil conversation about it they're more than welcome and it's a lot better than just sniping to Alex Thompson and Politico and whoever else you want to snipe you know leak to which is what they've been doing for a year what the suboptimal place we were put in after the debate was to go from a close
to zero percent chance of winning to someone who had a chance but was probably an underdog in the race and that's where we went and that's how it ended we know that we know that we know that we know that because over a hundred days of an extraordinarily well-run campaign she clawed her way back on all these metrics on which Biden was doing much worse and she and she lost by what two points and I like
I maybe one sign for hope in all of this is there's going to be a lot of infighting there's a lot of people with different points of views about the future we have to be generous with one another we have to listen to one another we open to one another but we can all unite in knowing that Joe Biden
would have lost and deserves a lot of blame for the situation that we're in and maybe that's something that can bring us all together well with I mean also when Harris became the nominee Obama people Clinton people Biden people like they all came together in that campaign and did a
fucking got really close to winning you know and they all worked really well together and they all put their heart and soul into it and they worked their asses off right so it's like this idea that there's all these divisions and blah blah blah it's like the people who just continue to do this
it's crazy because a lot of people from there were had a whole bunch of different bosses all came together to work hard to to try to get her to win so beyond the Biden Harris and I think there have been a number of other broader critiques about the Democratic Party that we can talk about
Bernie Sanders whoever the summer had lobbied for Biden to stay in the race but then became one of Harris's most effective surrogates released a blistering critique of Democrats whole strategy and identity saying quote it should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned
working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them and then blamed the big money interests and well paid consultants who control the party and he expressed skepticism that we'll be able to learn our lesson he later told the New York Times it's not just Kamala it's a
Democratic Party which increasingly has become a party of identity politics rather than understanding that the vast majority of people in this country are working class what did you guys think of Bernie's critique is he right that the Democratic Party has abandoned the working class so my
my problem with the statement so I largely think that like there is a directional critique that I agree with right that like when Bernie came up on the American and talked about we're not talking enough about corporate influence over politics the money in our politics we're not talking enough
to those concerns of the working class like I believe that I agree with that I think the nuance that is missing here and I think is important is Joe Biden when he won and one of I think his great achievements and one of the things we talked about when we were besieging Joe Biden to step
aside is that he listened he brought in Bernie Sanders he brought in Elizabeth Warren he put Lena Khan at FTC he canceled student debt he pursued an incredibly progressive economic agenda now I think we should think about why did that not resonate with people why did people not believe that
why did people not see the effects of that why did people still not trust Democrats as messengers I think those are really important questions that Bernie Sanders is going to be very helpful in figuring out how to solve but I think to say carte blanche Democrats abandoned working people
is I think to embrace a part a reality of our politics and the influence of money on our politics and in part to embrace a Republican critique and Republican vibes and I just think those things need to be separated out yeah I feel Bernie's like rage here and he's got some fair points in his
analysis of votes were losing is absolutely right but I think the harder thing to reckon with is the fact that Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden worked together to pass covid relief money cap the price to insulin they passed the child tax credit while Republicans voted against all of
those things the Biden administration was great on antitrust and breaking up corporations Joe Biden fought for unions he went on the picket line and then Donald Trump campaigns with Elon Musk famous union buster and wins those working class voters and so the question is how does that
disconnect happen and how do we fix that politically because we're doing the right things substantively not enough not enough and the messaging wasn't perfect right I criticize the lack of economic messaging on the campaign before but we're not reaching the voters who need to reach
we've been dealing with this since the Obama years and I know president Obama thought well we just we should prove that democracy can deliver and if we deliver for people for working people then they'll like the democrats Joe Biden certainly had the same theory and I I thought that
would be true as well over the last several years and I do think that's one of the things we have to re-examine the idea that like if we deliver for working people economically they will automatically you know start voting for democrats because I think it's it's more complex than that the economy
in politics as a cultural issue we think of it in democrats as a substantive issue what are the policies we can stitch together to prove to them that we will fight for them but it's all vibes Donald Trump doesn't have a policy director he has three policies about taxes that's it and but he
knows them would screw working people yeah yeah I mean and but we're losing because the vibe that he gets off he is coming off as someone who was fighting for a certain set of people and we are not giving off that one I think you can have a fair critique about whether the Harris campaign used
as much populist messaging as a perhaps it could yeah maybe that doesn't feel particularly natural to her that's maybe that's not she's not Bernie she's not Elizabeth Warren yeah she's not even Joe Biden right like scranton Joe yeah era but there's a broader issue here is that we are approaching the
issue wrong the last time we won an economic fight was in 2012 when that was that was a cultural war that was a identity issue culture war not we had better policies that supported that that's not really what it was about and just in case you think we're just simping for Obama here like we get a lot
of help because Mitt Romney was the opponent yeah for sure yeah you know and just seemed like a rich out a lot of all sorts of you know also is it not such rich guy Donald Trump right how cultural it is to your point yeah it's right culturally different to Donald Trump and Mitt Romney seem even
though they're both rich guys but it's worth but it's worth pointing out right brago bomb a wins a throw the bombs out election he bet he he wins in 2012 against a plutocrat running a campaign against the plutocrat which is an exception to the rule Donald Trump wins a throw the bombs out
election he loses his reelection when he's now the establishment then he wins another throw the bombs out election right and so I do think part like I want to I actually agree with everything that we're saying but I also like there are signs here that we can point to that like part of this
is the the the the the the energy Donald Trump brings but part of it is also he got to just he is a he is a walking fuck you he that is how he won in 2016 he built an even broader coalition of people who wanted to say fuck you this time and there's lessons we can learn from that but
you also shouldn't I think over learn those lessons and it's a different fight when we're fighting as outsiders taking on an incumbent in a country that is extremely angry at the establishment one more point in this to Bernie's point that we've become the party of identity politics
rather than understanding the most people working class it did make me think that after 2016 after Trump won it became this sort of like punchline and liberal spaces that oh it was economic anxiety because someone said oh there's some some people voted for Trump because of
economic anxiety and then you were mocked if you said that because really everyone just voted for Trump because they were racist or misogynist or misogynist and like a couple things can be true there's like a lot of people who are say racist things and misogynistic things and who voted for
Donald Trump partly because they like that there's also people who just they did have economic anxiety and voted for Donald Trump despite his racism and misogyny and I think that you know that's one thing if we're going to be introspective going forward is that like yeah there's some people who
are just racist you do racist shit and then when we hear that we don't necessarily have to say well that means that everyone who voted for Donald Trump the economic anxiety thing was just bullshit that really wasn't that runs into a real that argument runs into a real problem when his largest
gains were with Latinos yeah I just want to one one just push back to Bernie that like Kamala Harris did not play identity politics or highlight her identity at all on the campaign trail at all the opposite happened where Republicans called her a DEI higher so they played
identity politics in the most racist sexist way possible and the Democratic Party did not do that she went out of her way I would say yeah like that doesn't mean the Democratic Party writ large hasn't focused on identity as as part of the coalition we'll get to this campaign yeah we'll get
to this when I think we're going to talk about it but like sometimes a lot of what people are directing at Kamala or at Democrats they're directing actually at the commentary out they're directing at Twitter directing at social media and it's so hard and infuriating because it's like
the week we can't control those people we've tried but there's no mute button at the DNC for all that like but you know you know Tommy you talked about the effect of like organizing in field and like you know Ben Wickler pointed out all the ways in which organizing was constant was what allowed
them to be in a position to keep the Tammy Baldwin seat despite the incredible national swing and I think there's like I want to just like you know I am not ready to say that organizing or field did not matter in this race but what I do want to figure out is Donald Trump didn't need it he did
something else right he did podcast he had had these influencers behind him and like what is he doing instead of field that we should be doing too well that's a good segue way that being online is now real life yeah well that's a good segue to we're going to take through some of the other
theories yeah correct answer and the first is Harris should have done more to meet voters where they are as they say including but not limited to going on Joe Rogan and more broadly Democrats need to run the kind of candidate who can go on those kinds of shows and mix it up I think we're all
in agreement there is anyone not in agreement no I yeah I am in agreement I just think it's a it's more complicated than she should have gone on oh yeah I'm talking again sorry looking towards the future forget about like nitpicking the past but like yes I think in the future the whole
conversation like why are you talking to this horrible person you shouldn't be on the set with them and that you're legitimizing them is like yeah also there's been a few people saying like well we need a Joe Rogan of the left and it like we were talking about this yesterday which is like that's
to me is quite stupid on two fronts one is like Joe Rogan wasn't built in some conservative lab he's a yes Tom Tommy was saying this yesterday like he was a television host and a fear factor guy got into MNA started hosting this show and had built an audience and then people went to that audience
the second problem with that is if there was a Joe Rogan on the left that appeal to the kind of people Joe Rogan appeal to he would be vilified by people on the left for all of his heterodoxies and ways in which he annoys them it is very annoying and terrible that Joe Rogan is anti-vax he has
stupid views on a lot of issues that I don't agree with but Joe Rogan was somebody that had had Bernie Sanders on when when Joe when Dan you said this yesterday when Bernie Sanders put out that Joe Rogan endorsed him people fucking went after him for that and you know what people are
right to find Joe Joe Rogan's noxious use noxious totally but I think we should be honest but the ways in which we have kind of pushed like there's there's this conservative media ecosystem that is directly partisan right wing conservative covers politics every day but now around it there is this collection of comedians entertainers influencers who are not political but feel much more comfortable on the right than they feel on the left and so I am less interested in should Kamala Harris go on
Joe Rogan or should we have a Joe Rogan on the left and more thinking a how do we build the progressive version we're trying to do that here at Crooked but we need help of that kind of partisan infrastructure
and then how do we make those non-political hosts that have huge followings feel as welcome in our world and we as welcome in their world as they now currently feel on the right without giving up on our values being honest about where we disagree but being willing to go there and those people
feeling comfortable with us yeah I mean I think that love it handled the infrastructure piece of this and I talked about it last episode but I think it's Rogan sort of become a proxy for a broader conversation about like should Kamala Harris have let her rip a little bit you know I mean like should should you should you go on and Joe Rogan the arguably the biggest media platform in the country yes obviously she should but the if you watch Trump's three hour rambling mess of an interview we
know we all have the kind of a Rorsak test about what was our takeaway and I think the takeaway for a lot of people was he didn't sound like a politician you know we made fun of him saying he does the weave
we called it being a rambling incoherent man we thought he did pretty well I think that's a question like should Democrats have to find ways to communicate to people where they don't sound like they're reading a script or talking points because that was the narrative you started to hear a lot about
Kamala Harris there's a lot of tiktoks where people ask hey like Bruce what do you want for dinner it's like well I grew up in a working class family with the four micah table or people were that was kind of a meme that people were making fun of her because she was so on message Charlemagne asked
her about this directly she gave good answer well it wasn't great we don't know I mean she gave an answer that you worked in the moment but maybe it was a a sign about a broader challenge that was never addressed there are two separate issues here one there is what we say and how we say
right there's what we say the words come out of her mouth and as we talked about in our last podcast which feels like seven years ago but was yesterday that Democrats don't too much like politicians and that's that is not that's not Kamala Harris herself that is everyone right also like
90 percent of Republicans too yeah exactly just to mean JD Vance sounds terrible he's bad in these forums the second issue is how people to hear what we're saying and that's what we are feeling dramatically as a party we have not yet figured out how to get our message in front of voters who do
not consume news as a hobby and you can see that in part in the giant gap between how Kamala is in the battleground states where we spent several billion dollars to communicate to those voters and where we didn't yeah right lost six points nationally three points in the battleground states
and that's because those people they are consuming some information but they are not getting our side of the story we do not have a capacity as a party to tell our story on our terms to our voters and that is we don't fix that problem none of the other things we can have a thousand messaging
discussions about how to talk about the economy or how we sound more like a human as has been your hobby for us for 20 years and it won't matter because no one will fucking hear it yeah we can spend another billion dollars and ads and you know battle to a close to a couple points down
well or just that we like we were talking about this before recorded like all this the fucking conversation about Tony Hinch clips joke and the WhatsApp's about the Puerto Rican community vote coming out in droves like it didn't matter none of it was real and or maybe it was real in the
maybe 30 or 40 percent of the country that was tangentially touching the campaign but that there's this vast tens of millions of people who are silent we are not talking to them and they are not talking to us and so we can run these campaigns and maybe they'll help at the margins but those
but winning or losing will be determined by the vibes in a place we don't reach yeah all right another take this one's embodied by Wednesday's Brett Stevens column you know it's a good day of pot save America when we're going to Brett Stevens
but a while since we've done that I will say read included this because he said he was getting some texts from friends about the Brett Stevens column and as he said that he's friends I woke up and I had a text from a text from my friend about the Brett's column no text from my friends
my friends and not me that I'm not afraid anymore so Brett thinks that we're too annoying and elitist as a party that we focus too much on scolding voters into appreciating Joe Biden's economy and achievements we all talked about that yes agree there that we too quickly respond to even
reasonable critiques of progressive ideas by labeling them racist or misogynist or transphobic and that by going so hard after Trump's crimes and trying to get him off ballots under the 14th amendment we ended up validating the narrative that we were using the levers of power against
him who wants to take any of that I just just note that he begins this calm about how Democrats are kind of pedantic and pregish with an anecdote about a jazz era chess master yeah Brett Stevens is not he's not in touch with the the working folk or particularly self-aware right yeah but this
is a man who tried to get a professor at a random college fired because that guy tweeted something mean it yeah called him a bed bug so so maybe not the messenger in the interest of a good debate right right to Brett Stevens out of it let's just go with the message I mean yes it is stupid to
tell people the economy is great what it is not yes it is stupid to demand that someone agree that Joe Biden is actually FDR if they don't feel that way yes it is stupid to scold someone who has different views but again we're saying like it's exasperating because there's not a democratic
party mute button where we can shut up all our knowing supporters he also talks about the prosecutions common hairs and Joe Biden couldn't tell Merrick Gardnerland who to prosecute or not they couldn't tell Alvin Bragg what to do you couldn't tell prosecutors in Georgia what to do
yeah did the prosecutions galvanized Republicans behind Donald Trump's can't see and probably help deliver him the primary yes but no one's in charge of all the Donald Trump broke the law maybe people who break the law should be prosecuted for breaking the fucking law yeah the idea that like
okay I would like to stipulate Democrats are annoying correct present company included Democrats are annoying however the things that annoyed you personally aren't necessarily the reasons Donald Trump won no I do not believe that the Colorado case about the 14th Amendment is what drove turn out
in Arizona and Nevada give me a fucking I had forgotten that happened I was forced to read this Brett Stevens call about a professional obligation but and what is also frustrating as we were saying is a lot of what annoys people like Brett Stevens and Elon Musk and all these people that
are that are that are talking about talking about this kind of thing is what they're they're not really talking about democratic politicians they're talking about democratic activists they're talking about shit they see online it's it's if Twitter was gone probably most of the people who piss off
the Brett Stevens of the world they wouldn't like they wouldn't even hear their critiques but it is like and I the thing I like look there is a scolding right like and I think I think for those of us online not the democratic politicians when someone says something that you don't agree with or that
you think is racist or sexist or transphobic one thing you have to think about is what does labeling that person racist misogynist transphobic what does it get you what does it do right sometimes it's just like well I did it because I'm I'm angry right so it's like that's fine but in terms of like
building a political you could also say here's why that's wrong here's why I think that's wrong here's why that was hurtful what you just said right though there was a like a from 2017 to now the like check your privilege and do that like it just doesn't it doesn't bring people in so it's the only
point but I would just say like though these are not the people running and losing elections these are just people on the internet and so to me it's like okay what is it what is it what does that say about like the democratic apparatus and the kind of candidates it's producing and I was thinking
about this anecdote which is that Hillary Clinton failed the bar the first time she took it and it turned out that she had studied incredibly hard as she did for every test she's ever taken but she had somehow I can't remember the details but she had studied for the wrong version of the
bar the bar had changed and sometimes I feel like Democrats are front of the classroom kids studying really really hard for the wrong test and a lot of our candidates feel like front of the classroom kids and I think a Barack Obama who had a front of the classroom brain but back
of the classroom vibes Bill Clinton is kind of like that some like Bernie Sanders is kind of like that these are really smart people who are a little bit annoyed and kind of throwing spitballs at the teacher and like that like the the the Gretchen Whitmer has that vibe in Michigan and so like
I just I am going to try to be on guard because like please by the way I'm a front of the classroom kid and like I like front of the classroom I was a Elizabeth Warren voter because they built a they should have a shrine in the front of the classroom for Elizabeth Warren in front of the classroom person but Donald Trump is not that and he appeals to a lot of people and I think
it part because of that and that that is my takeaway from Democrats are annoying. I think they're I think we're missing a point here which is there are annoying Democrats none of them were I've been our presidential nominees recently right they're not our Senate candidates Republicans are also
annoying they also have very intolerant views they also respond to people in insane ways the Republicans have an apparatus that lifts up the worst of Democratic commentary whether it's a Twitter person a random state senator from Maine or by the way now just fake they will just make
up something crazy that it left that sounds like a leftist would say and then this is the power of lips of TikTok yeah right and this an entire apparatus Fox has been doing this for decades now to brand the Democrats and a way to bring it to make the caricature of Democrats seem real
to lots of others we do not have a similar apparatus to do that about Republicans right they're up like you remember in our intro video for a while or live shows we had that guy who used the example of Hitler he was a random state senator I think from a cool one so good yeah uh like
use Hitler as an example of how you can make it from the streets to success uh like if we had that Donald Trump said something then he then he praised Hitler and he became president yeah it's what a country but there is there is no apparatus to make that guy incredibly famous in emblematic
of Republicans and that's something that's one of the goes back to the other point about how we how we're losing the information warfare well and also doing a Trump Tucker Carlson some of the biggest voices in conservative media they call Democrats demonic and even unpatriotic yes it's
insane and it's just no cares yeah she antichrist audiences well they call them they call them they think they think they're calling like democratic politicians that you know and what happens is they try to say that we think of other voters like they take that like they're married you know
it's the deplorable politics it is deplorable and garbage and and but and again but they're allowed to say like I mean imagine if like Elizabeth Warren when she was like I was in ten ten to see the other day what a fucking dump it is it would have been seen as politically helpful but
Tucker Carlson ran against San Francisco as a play truck said Detroit was a shithole basically I mean and again I picked up votes again I was gonna say again those people can say it and they won right we're losing so well yeah so that's something to think about first well this is why
by the way it's not fair maybe the world is it is not fair but maybe we should think about how to win but for sure but also think that's why I go back to like Kamala Harris saying we're all going to be okay and it's like I don't know are people in the market for that is that what the leadership
we need is right now seems like people want to want a little bit more anger and a little more antagonism and we can do that in a way that's we should we should yell at voters more I'm not saying we should yell at voters I'm not saying we should call them more racist that's not obviously I'm
not what I'm saying but I just there's a kind of it there's an imperious for us not knowing yeah some some good points lastly there are those who say this wasn't really about Trump at all it was about prices and the global anti incumbent mood we talked about this a little yesterday
and we are in danger of overlearning our lesson because MAGA only works for Trump what do you guys think yes you needed the biggest factor is the political environment that supersedes every tactical strategic decision every that the Harris campaign made that the Trump campaign made
the Trump Chris Lasived and Susie Wildes will be seen as geniuses because they won this race in the most favorable political environment so I'm gonna possibly imagine and that's just how it works yes it's true that MAGA only works for Trump but Reagan only worked for Reagan and then they
won more one more election after that and the Reagan the coalition that Reagan built lasted for three presidential cycles and Bill Clinton kind of had to win with the Reagan coalition it did not change again until 2008 so we had 28 years of basically the Reagan coalition working and
this is the the urgency of our task is to make sure that the Trump coalition does not exist beyond this election and it's not a guarantee that that automatically falls by the wayside of Donald Trump's out of the top of the ticket yeah I mean John Bern Murdoch at the financial
times at this chart for the first time since 1905 every governing party facing an election in a developed country this year lost vote share first time that's happened since 1900 and that is like center left party center right far left far whatever it is so it there was an anti incumbent
mood I do think that like there's also been this rise of authoritarian movements all across the world and you can I think adequately blame inflation for sort of accelerating that but it was also the the forces were there before the pandemic causing this to and I think one of the projects we
have to figure out is like how we drain the appeal of autocratic regimes and demagogues so that people who might feel economically stressed sort of like they've been left behind overlooked whatever it may be actually don't vote for them and then vote for you know pro democracy candidates
yeah I was thinking about this too and it's like you know I know a lot of people listening have been feeling this too which is like how did this happen how is it even close doesn't make sense I still can't make sense of it and I do think we'll also look back on this error and say we went
through a traumatic once in a once in a hundred year pandemic millions of people died it melt in meant in mess with all of our mental health it meant their sense of safety our sense of security our sense of the world and I think what we're talking about here is yeah maybe it really is just
anti-incumency right maybe it really was just anger and inflation but we got to make sure the door doesn't lock behind us because that that's the risk here and I think even if it is true I think we should live as if it is not we should do everything we can to fight back as if this does
represent a real kind of of a real change we have to figure out how to argue our way out of because of what I think anti-incumency is very real in the largest driving factor but I and I'm not suggesting you guys are doing this but I don't think we can let ourselves believe
that that was all of it I do think Trump has a unique appeal in the Republican Party and he outran a lots of down ballot Republicans and he's a noxious person and in many ways the worst candidate we all could imagine and somehow we did better than we thought and we need to sort of record with
and understand that and then also there were discrete issues where voters were like telling us for a year that they're mad about something in a Democratic Party refusalist and my biggest hobby horse on this is Gaza the war was raging for a year the Biden administration walked
through the uncommitted vote process 100,000 plus people voted uncommitted in the in the Democratic primary in Michigan and they didn't change a fucking thing about the policy and then the DNC comes around and no policy is allowed to speak in Arab-American Muslim American voters so pushed out and then when you look at precincts in Dearborn Trump won Dearborn Michigan with 42.8% and Harris got 36, Jill Stein got 18, it's half Middle Eastern in 2020 Biden won almost 70% of the vote in Dearborn
and again I'm not suggesting those margins would have changed the outcome of the election obviously they are broader forces at play but when when voters are like we hate this thing you're doing and you keep doing it and what we're talking about here is outsourcing US foreign policy to
BB Nenyahoo one of the worst people on the planet besides Donald Trump like Trump of his country should listen to them we have like you can't just not course correct in a situation like that I think we are also not fully analyzing the impact of Gaza when we limited only to Michigan
because it's there are like 4% of voters in the exit polls said that foreign policy with their top concern which to me I fight personally shockingly high hey those are people Trump won them 55 39 but it's just the year long impression about Democrats
two young voters because of the Biden administration's approach to Gaza mattered I mean there's gigantic shift among young girls strictly young men is it only Gaza of course not but it did become a reason not to trust the party among voters we need well I will say too it's not I mean
just you know we're all in support of the Ukraine against Putin's invasion here but when you look at polls and you listen to focus groups what comes up even more often than Gaza is like why are we sending money to Ukraine or Israel and Gaza right like it's it's all of it together so you have
some people who like as I am are like I can't believe the fucking slaughter in Gaza is being allowed to continue right now but also like a lot of other people why are we sending so much money overseas and you know you can argue about how much we're sending and relative to this and that the other
thing but like that's a that's a message that broke through all right so did we fix everything think so any other to my other things on how do you get out of the top do it for us to work I think we talked about going forward anyway there's gonna be a lot more we're gonna have a lot more
research in talk to some really smart people Dan you're gonna talk to some folks for a special Sunday edition of Pots of America I'm gonna talk to Carlos Odio our friend who is an expert in Latino vote and Sarah Longwell from the Bullwork about we're gonna dig in the details about what
actually happened and maybe some lessons about going forward and are you mostly just gonna yell at her about comic campaigning with Liz Cheney no I'm not I'm not gonna do that no we forgot to talk about that you know clear disaster well guess what we got a lot of podcasts
to go so my sense as a democrat has been around a lot of losses this this conversation is gonna continue for a while especially now yeah we've been there we're doing the same thing we've been doing all right let's talk about the Senate in the house where things stand with congressional control in the Nevada Senate race it's looking better and better for Jackie Rosen AP hasn't called
it as of 1 p.m. Pacific time on Thursday but decision desk HQ and John Ralston's Nevada independent have the AP has called Pennsylvania for Dave McCormick but Casey has not conceded the Casey campaign still believes there's lots of ballots that haven't been counted and they think
they could come out ahead so we shall see on that one in the house it's a more fluid picture there are 29 races that haven't yet been called that includes a lot of races that are you know probably going to be the democrats gonna win or the republicans gonna win but the count just
isn't done for whatever reason within that number there's about a dozen swing races that aren't over yet uh... that includes marcy capter and ohio who's ahead a tiny bit and her race has gone to a recount and then of course races in california and erasona where we can't just where the final count
will likely be determined by on the ground efforts to cure defective ballots something's wrong with your ballot you signed it wrong you did something wrong you get a call you can fix your ballot and they will count it democrats including our friends of votes of america believe there is a path still
to a razor thin house majority more on that in a minute just so everyone understands what's the real world difference between a republican trifecta democrats getting control of the house if we win the house down trump will pass no legislation in his entire presidency
that's cool i like that yeah that's a big one that's no national abortion ban if they want if they try to do that no repeal of the affordable care act no budget cuts no huge tax cuts got the ira no that's right no getting of the ira the chips act stands thank goodness we should it's a good it's a good job all over the place i know i know i know i do that's why i did it what do we know about the map and these uh... uncalled house races what do you what are you thinking
i mean we we just we know from eighteen that that in california does take a while and then at the end in eighteen that's when a lot of the democratic ballots can take a while and it's gonna be tough i think there's six races in california two in Arizona so could be a while and the question in
california primarily is is the remaining male vote that's the last to come in going to be as democratic as it has been in previous elections if it is we've got a real balance not male not male versus female yes yes male bouts male bouts the male bouts we know are not different
did female said male balance it's a good take let's talk about the senate we know republicans will get control so here's the map in twenty twenty six we can flip main because Susan Collins is there and either we beat her she might retire morkowski in Alaska is a wild card i don't know that's a wild
now you know oh here's a good one north carolina talk to us uh... that's possibility and then it's like texas again yeah yeah it's shortens up it's cornon so it's texas tough and then after that it's ohio iowa because there's gonna be a jade events uh... replacement ohio iowa montana been there and nebraska again so it is a and to defend we have to defend asoff in georgia gary peter's in michigan and uh... tina smith in minnesota chinchahine mark warland chinchahine markwarner yeah so that's our
asoff's hard obviously peter's is hard the defense the defense seats aren't as hard as they were i think this time around but flipping after you get after you get through uh... collins it's it's a tough map tom tell us should be beatable he spells his name with an h thom yeah stupid disqualifying
that is done okay that's something that's good that's it's the kind of creative thinking i can say that this is the kind of creative strategy to think and we need a tom or credit as a as a baby named adult Tommy i can say that now that we talked about the stakes let's talk about what you can do these uncalled house campaigns uh... they could use your support they they need to fund legal challenges they need to keep paying staff salaries as the courts continue to count and then an easy thing you
can do is um... help people cure their ballots uh... they need volunteers to help people do that to reach out to people to find out how you can help you can just go to votes of america dot com it's really important this message has been paid for by votes of america you learn more at votes of america dot com the saddest not been authorized by any candidate's committee it's unbelievable i have to say that every time yeah i think i have i don't think we can i just don't believe it
but what what are laws anymore don't show president you have to say that every time it's gonna happen for us again i guess i guess the wrong side of the law the first law the fcc ever enforces will be each of fcc case against us anyway how are you all feeling because terrible i i i'm doing the uh
the the stages of grief in reverse i'm unhanger today i'm pretty mad yeah i will go because i hit myself with too many of the takes this morning well honestly bad's better than sad and i'm really enjoying the stupid fucking takes i am uh... it is getting it is keeping me getting me putting one foot in front of the other all right well everyone enjoy your takes but more importantly enjoy your weekend and uh... danne will be uh... in your feeds on sunday with a great new episode and then uh...
Tommy and love it and i will be back in your feeds on Tuesday if you want to get ad free episodes exclusive content and more consider joining our friends of the pod subscription community at crickett dot com slash friends and if you're already doom scrolling don't forget to follow us at pod save
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conversation pod save america is a cricket media production our producers are david tolido and solve rubin our associate producer is ferris safari rechirlen is our executive editor and adrian hill is our executive producer the show is mixed and edited by andru Chadwick
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