Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm John Fabra. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, Kamala Harris takes the lead in the race for the White House just three weeks after announcing her candidacy, but now she's got to reintroduce herself to voters and the lead up to the convention, while the Trump campaign throws everything they have at her and Tim Walls. And later, our pal Brian Tyler Cohen is here to talk about his brand new book and play a round of
take-appreciators with me and love it. But first, remember Donald Trump? Since the debate on June 27th, he's held only eight campaign rallies, and we haven't seen him on the trail all week. The Washington Post reports that he's quote, upset, and quote, complaining relentlessly about Kamala Harris's surging poll numbers and massive crowds. He's posting fantasies about Biden crashing the Democratic convention to take back the nomination.
And all of this might be why the old man decided to shuffle out of his beach club on Thursday and yell at the cameras for a while. Here's some highlights from Trump's press conference. In history, for any country, nobody's had crowds like I have. And you know that. And when she gets a thousand people and everybody starts jumping, you know that if I had a thousand people would say, people would say, that's the end of his campaign. I have hundreds of thousands of people.
But she has a thousand people, a 1,500 people, and they say, oh, the enthusiasm's back. No, no. The biggest crowd I've ever spoken before was that day. And I'll tell you, it's very hard to find a picture of that crowd. You see the picture of a small number of people relatively going to the capital. But you never see the picture of the crowd. The biggest crowd I've ever spoken,
I've spoken to the biggest crowds. Nobody's spoken to crowds bigger than me. If you look at Martin Luther King when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours, same real estate, same everything, same number of people, if not, we had more. And they said he had a million people, but I had 25,000 people. But when you look at the exact same picture, we actually had more people. I'm not complaining. I'm saying it's a...
Comparing his crowd on January 6th to Martin Luther King's, I have a dream speech during the March on Washington. I was driving, I had to go pick up Kyla from basketball camp during that press conference. And I was driving with it playing in the car. And I almost drove off the road at Martin Luther King because I did not see that one coming. I should have, but I didn't. That was a compilation of all the times he talked about crowd size. I actually think there was
some more. He's, first of all, the press conference lasted over an hour. He continued to bring it back to crowd size and polls. It was a wild press conference. I feel like we say that every time he does a press conference and we're like, this one is really wild. This one, I'm trying to think of what was different about it. He's seen, first of all, he's very angry. He's very frustrated. He does seem upset. And so yeah, I do think that Washington Post stories is true about him complaining
relentlessly because we all heard him do it. What do you think? What were your, some of your takes on the press conference? I mean, I agree with that. He cannot get over the state of the race. Like he is a lazy entitled human being. And he thought he was cruising to the White House. And now he's not. And he is mad about it. The other thing he can't bring it back to was how he was definitely not
mad about Kamala Harris being the candidate now. He was definitely not complaining. I'm not complaining. But the Democrats destroyed the Constitution by Joe Biden stepping down. Yeah. I mean, in the, in the, his vehement defense of Joe Biden, who he repeatedly said he did not like, he doesn't like his brain. He said, I don't like his brain. But I just think, just think about this. He has not done anything all week. He has a rally in the core battleground state of Montana
later tonight tonight, right? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. And he, whatever, yeah, Thursday night, the night we are recording is not the night you were listening to this. It's always tricky for me. And so here he is. He's got the whole press in front of him. And he does nothing to advance this message. No message. No policy. Later today, which you can tell one of the things his advisors told him to do was to talk about his proposals on
taxation of tips and no taxation. So security, because he's been truiting the hell out of them afterwards, like to try to clean it up. Just did he talk about Kamala Harris's record? Not really. Did he talk about Tim Walsh's record? Not really. Did he talk about his, any of his plans, anything he's going to do? Nope. Not really at all. No. It's just it. Did he talk about how the economy was great when he was president? Did he talk about what the economy is now? Did he talk about him? He just,
he did. He started out the press conference by saying we are headed toward a depression. It's going to be worse than 1929 and also a world war. And the country is an awful place and everything. Everyone's laughing at us. And then he just sort of went off on a tangent that lasted for about an hour about himself and how he's angry with Kamala Harris and himself and his poll numbers and his crowd size and all the rest. Here's what I'd say. Get out there more.
More press conferences. More rally. Everyday. Yeah. Every single day. Let's do it every day. There were some newsy things he was asked. He was asked whether he would restrict access to Mifapristone. And they really caught him because instead of saying the abortion pill, they said Mifapristone and he clearly has no idea what Mifapristone is because his response was you could do things absolutely. Those things are pretty open and humane.
That's what he said. Would you restrict would you would you ask the would you have the FDA restrict access to Mifapristone? We could do you could do things absolutely. Yeah. He also someone asked him how he'd be voting on the constitutional amendment in Florida to protect abortion access. And he said he'd be holding a press conference about that and and he'll have a more liberal answer than you think. Sure. I guess we're holding our breath
for that press conference. I'm sure you know when his staff learned about that press conference. Do you just ask our friends? Yes. Just then. He said he was off the trail when someone asked him why he wasn't campaigning. He said he was off the trail because the Democratic Convention, which is in two weeks. I would just know. I would just know that for a long time for decades or as a tradition where you did not campaign during the other person's convention. I think we actually
yeah, there was we actually broke that. I think Obama was one of the people who tore down that norm. But it is definitely that tradition that you do you don't campaign for the month before the convention. That's not that's not how you do this. He once again questioned Kamala Harris's race. Someone asked him a question about why he did that why he said that at the NABJ and he said whether
it's Indian or black, I think it's very disrespectful to both. And then when he was asked about her surging in the polls, he said, well, she's a woman and she represents certain groups of people. That was his response. He did some really in-depth poll analysis of the impact she would have in the race about who would help him with and who to hurt him with. Yeah, he really started going into demographic groups like he's on polar coaster. He's not in fight. Do not come up on post-culture.
Have we talked about the fact that it's clear now he has confused insane assilums for asylum seekers. Have we talked about that on this podcast? I can't remember. You and I have not talked about it. Have you talked about it with anyone else on another podcast? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what I say in public or what I see. What's the meeting? What's a podcast?
It is clear that the reason he's always talking about other countries dumping out their mental institutions around whenever he's bringing up immigration, it's now clear that it's because he thinks insane assilums are like asylum seekers and he has conflated those two terms. It is much like in 2016 when he tweeted no cuts to Medicaid when he meant to tweet no cuts to Medicare in
the age of the difference. Right. And of course he did propose a very large cuts. He pays to basically eliminate Medicaid or he's completely eliminate the federal guarantee for Medicaid and then also cuts to Medicare. Yes. Also, he's really into, he said this when Tim Walsh was first selected, he said it again, transgender has become such a big thing and he's really into transgender. He's really into everything transgender. See, he doesn't really know it. He doesn't. He doesn't
know much about stuff. And so he can sort of skate on the surface of a lot of these words. He knows the words. He hears the buzzwords in the background when he's watching cable and he's watching his favorite shows. So he can say, you know, a couple sentences, but he really can't go beyond that. He has the public affairs knowledge of a regular cable news watcher who does a lot of two screening. Yeah, that is about right. So the other news, he think he said he's now agreed to
the ABC debate on September 10th. He is that debate is now on. Kamala Harris afterwards said, she's in. So that is happening. We are headed towards a September 10th debate. Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, exciting stuff. He said he's also agreed, of course, to the Fox debate on September 4th, which Kamala Harris has not agreed to because he wants it to take place in a mega thunder dome with like a huge audience. They're like all his people. And then a new one, he said he wants a
debate with NBC on September 25th. She said she's open to that one. We're going to get by that first September 10th debate first to see what, why do you think why do you think Donald Trump changed his mind because she's surging and he's sagging. Right. I mean, you guys talked about this on Tuesday, but last Friday night, he pulled out of all the debates, pulled out the ABC debate, doesn't want to do it. Seemed like the last thing the world he wanted to do was debate Kamala Harris,
but she's on a glide path right now, right? She was, she gained. And then she passed him in the national polling average. All these dates are toss ups. He knows she's heading into her convention in two weeks. That is a, that is more momentum for her. And he's got to do something to stop it. He cannot just sit on his ass in Marlago and win this election. Right. And it's finally come to, he's finally come to that conclusion. And so he wants to do many debates. And he seems to be trying
to, he wants to, he looked weak. I think he recognized he also looked weak and scared this past week from not wanting to debate. So he's trying to go back on the, on offense here and seem like he's the one pushing for debates. Can't wait, can't wait. So would you do more debates if you were her? If I was her. Yeah. Depends on how the first one goes. Right. Like they're, I mean, you know, there's a scenario where she absolutely crushes it in that first debate. And then it's like,
why do you do another one? Then there's almost any other scenario, even a scenario where they're, where like she wins, but you know, enough people say that maybe he did okay or, and then he starts like pulling even or pulling ahead in September, then maybe you want to do another debate. Or if she does poorly, then then you probably do want to do another debate. I mean, you, the calculus for Biden to want the debate. It's not the able not to go back. Yeah. Yeah. The history will
wonder about for a long time. But the original calculus was we need the elect, the elect are to focus on Donald Trump to win. That was Joe Biden's calculus. That's not necessarily, we'll get to this, that's not necessarily a common error. So it's calculus. But I do think she's, she's largely undefined, which we'll also get to, but getting on stage and kicking his ass, I think has real value and doing it multiple times. I think probably also has real value. But I think your purchase
probably right. You know, you could theoretically agree to two. And then after you kick his ass in the first one, say, I don't know, put Donald through this again. Like she like he did about Biden. To me, it feels a little bit like the Obama McCain debates in 08, which is like, I think that voters, you know, like Obama was ahead, voters still just needed to know that he could do the job that he
was ready. And all it took was sort of like one or two debates with McCain. And they're like, okay, even though everyone's saying he's this like new inexperienced young guy, he stood up there on stage, he held his own, he knows what he's talking about. He gave as good as he got. And like that was it. She shouldn't have to do that because she's the vice president of states like it's basically inter-jobbed. Oh, but she, but again, everyone, everyone has the memory of a goldfish now and
people don't, and the media's fraction. So people don't know her as well as they should. And like with Obama, you're asking people to make history in this case several, in several different ways. And so that the burden is unfairly on Kamala Harris and the way it wouldn't be on a white man candidate. Yeah, but it is, I think for voters, it's probably more of a reassurance. And who is she and what is
she for? Then can she really kick Donald Trump's ass, though for the press and the way it's going to be covered, people will want to see that she can kick Donald Trump's ass. Kicking Donald Trump's ass is not about beating Donald Trump. It's demonstrating strength on her behalf and election where, and because you also, that is the emperor has no close moment for Trump, right? If you're running
as a strong man and you get your ass kicked in a debate, like that is very hard for you. And that did not happen in either of the two elections, even though just the way it would play out of things is different than it would be with Biden or Clinton because of just how those politicians were perceived and how unknown Kamala Harris is to people. So I think it's just a very fascinating strategic calculus for them. It's different than it was for Biden in a similar situation.
Yeah, for sure. Pulling big source of Trump's anger, Kamala Harris is now leading by two points nationally in the five, 38 average dimension. That includes a whopping 53 to 47 lead in the latest Marquette poll, which is one of the highest rated polls out there. She's also got a point lead in their Wisconsin poll has seemingly tied it up in Georgia, closed in the gap in Arizona. Our friends at Split Ticket also found a one point lead for Harris in the blue wall states of
Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Their late July poll, just a couple of weeks ago found Biden trailing Trump by seven in those states. Quite a swing. Seems like a long honeymoon for Harris, huh? What do you mean? What do you make of all the polling? Care to rain on our parade at all? What? I know that would be on for you. That's what I go to you for it. Yeah. But you know what? I'm not going to do that today. Not going to rain. What's prayed? Oh, Dan's just guaranteeing a win.
I'm not guaranteeing anything. I'm just saying we could let's just revel in the positivity right now. Think of where we were three weeks ago, right? Three weeks ago, Donald Trump was cruising for an electoral landslide that would have brought him the House of the Senate at the same time. The Georgia Arizona Nevada were off the map and no longer competitive for Democrats. Biden was behind in Pennsylvania, Michigan, in Wisconsin. The odds of victory were quite long. The states of
Minnesota, Virginia, New Mexico, and New Jersey were becoming competitive. Here we are now three weeks later, new new ticket toss up race, right? All six states are within the margin of air and toss ups. Joe Biden had one path to 270. If you squinted as hard as you possibly could, Kamala Harris has as many paths to 270 as Donald Trump does right now. She has momentum. She is surging. That doesn't mean it's in the bag. There's a ton of work to do. We have to remember that the country
is more democratic than electoral college. Even a two-point lead in the popular vote is about we probably a tie, if not a slight deficit in the ballot ground states. We are the Democrats, Kamala Harris, Tim Walls. We are in this in a way that seemed impossible to imagine three weeks ago. There's a ton of work to do. A ton of work to do to define her, to win this race,
to make sure that the voters turn out. But to get back, even though she's made huge improvements with young voters, black voters on Tinovoters, over where we were three weeks ago, there's still work to do to get to the numbers that we had in 2020. We probably have to exceed them, because if you look deep in the poll, you see some bleeding with older white voters. We're going to need more young voters, more black voters, more Latino voters to make up that deficit in
win. We can be happy right now. We can be excited and overjoyed at where we are, because it's not anywhere where we thought we would be just three weeks ago. I know. I think if you look under the top lines of these polls, what has happened, what she's been able to do is essentially consolidate the Biden 2020 vote in a way that Biden could not or was not when he left the race. His weakness with younger voters, black voters, Latino voters who had not necessarily said they were voting for
Trump some had, but we're flirting with a third party candidates or not voting at all. It seems like she has consolidated that vote, but of course, that still brings you to a 2020 race that was decided by 40,000 votes across three states. Super close. You can hear it in some folks groups too, the Trump Biden voters, the Trump voters from 16 who switched over to Biden in 20,
you know, they're still work to do with them. Like you said, they're still work to do, you know, registering and turning out more democratic, leaning constituencies and voters, and you know, it's going to be close. And Trump will still get, you know, never, one lesson since 2016 has been like never underestimate Republican turnout when Donald Trump is on the ballot. And it always breaks records. So that's that's something that we have to think about in the next couple months.
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of your friends. And that's it. That's all we got. We are recording this exactly two weeks before the Vice President delivers her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the next 14 days, or a window for the Harris-Walls campaign to frame the race and define the candidates
on their terms. A new blueprint poll found that voters are more responsive to informative pro-Harris messaging that focuses on her biography, record as a prosecutor, and commitment to economic populism and immigration reform. They are less persuaded by anti-Trump messages because 71% of all voters say their minds are already made up about Trump and there's nothing you can do to change their mind, whether they're against or for. Obviously Harris goes after Trump pretty hard in her stump speech
right now, but especially this week she's been leaning into a more positive message. Here she is accepting the UAW endorsement in Detroit today. We want to recognize the right all people have to freedom and liberty to make choices, especially those that are about heart and home and not have their government telling them what to do. Our campaign is about saying we trust the people. We are a nation of people who believe in those ideals that were foundational to what made us so
special as a nation. And we know we are a work in progress, we haven't yet quite reached all of those ideals, but we will die trying because we love our country and we believe in who we are. And that's what our campaign is about. We love our country. We believe in our country. We believe in each other. So how would you balance the anti-Trump pro-comma message if you were the Harris campaign? There has been a theory all along that if this election is about Donald Trump,
Donald Trump will lose. That was certainly the theory when Biden was the Democratic nominee. Do you toss that theory aside and say she needs to define herself. She needs to define her agenda and she needs to tell people what the Democratic Party is for. Or do you do some kind of a mix? What do you think? It's a little of a mix. I do you do have to throw the previous model aside because we have been analyzing this race in the context of an election that was the present versus
the recent past. And now it is the past versus the future. And that's a very different. Comma Harris is the vice president to the incumbent president, but she does not represent the status quo in the way that Biden did. She represents change from change from Biden, change from Trump, change from this sort of grinding politics we've been in since Trump came down the escalator 10 years ago. It is a different, more hopeful future. And so the way to do it I think is to she has
to educate people about herself. Like that all the polling, all the focus groups, the public stuff, the private stuff, all shows the same thing. The single most important thing is to educate people about her biography, her positions, and her values. She has high name ID, people know almost nothing about her. And the persuadable voters know less than everyone else. And so you have to do that. And that's why you that's what the ads that the campaign and the smart people who run the
super PACs have on the air right now. It's all bio stuff. Now in your stub speech, you got to you got a crowd of people hate Donald Trump there. You got to give them some stuff. And so you got to do it contrast, right? I think the great her best riff is the prosecutor perpetrator one because it's her bio against him, right? And against what he stands for and who he is. And so all of the testing I have seen this cycle shows that the most the best ads are contrast ads.
Now for Kamala Harris, you have this urgency that you need every every second of that 62nd ad to educate people about her because no, no nominee has ever been this this seems crazy for the vice president of states, but this less known at this point in the race. Right? Everyone else has been through a year primary, right? They've campaigned in, you know, 40 or 50 states or they're the incumbent president. She just for both people popped up on their screen two and a half weeks ago. And now she
is the nominee with 88 days or 70s, whatever it is to go. And so you have to do a lot on her bio and who she is and what she stands for. And there's a way to to do that where you're not just like reading your Wikipedia page, but you're tying you take every aspects of your bio. And this is in this great ad they have up target Latino voters that talks about her position of immigration as someone who
is a children of immigrants. And so that like it's that way like use your bio to to as the reason why you have certain policy positions and then use Donald Trump's bio to be why he is certain policy positions, right? It's sort of it's not exactly a scrant inverse Marlago or whatever that sort of frame was, but but it's kind of in that realm. Yeah. And I think that the prosecutor versus convicted felon riff was like very useful at the beginning of the campaign to show fight to take on Donald
Trump as she was still sort of consolidating the Democratic party. I would imagine that as she goes forward and she's already doing this, that sort of morphs into using the elements of her bio that show her as a fighter who can take on powerful corporate interests on behalf of people and Trump's only for himself. And so, you know, an element of her bio that's particularly effective when she talks about it is, you know, she was a attorney general for the fifth largest economy
in the world in California and took on the big banks on behalf of homeowners. And when she was vice president with Joe Biden, she took on pharmaceutical companies to bring down the cost of insulin. And so, I think she'll be introducing herself on those terms. And, you know, we heard her do this in the clip that we just listened to. They are going to try to other her, right? And they're are doing it to her antimwalls, right? Like she is not like us. She is whether it's whether it's
Donald Trump implying that she's, you know, she's a phony. Is she biracial? Is she just changing who she is, right? Not pronouncing her name correctly. Not not spelling her name correctly, right? This is what they did to Barack Obama too. So, they are going to try to other her. And say that she's not like us. She's not like your typical American. And she can get up there
as she just did in that clip and talk about how much she loves this country. And, you know, she and Tim Wall said this at the event where she introduced him and announced him a couple of middle class kids. She's from Oakland. He's from Nebraska. And she's the middle class daughter of immigrants who has lived the American dream. And now she's going to fight to make sure every single person in this country can live the American dream too. And you contrast that with Donald Trump who's had
everything fucking handed to him and only cares about himself. It's a great contrast. They're Republican, Maga version of the American story is like you fell off the, off the Mayflower. You just arrived in Plema Throck. But the true American story that everyone knows because that's everyone's family is at some point your parents, your grandparents, your great grandparents, are immigrants from somewhere and telling that story. It like I mean, that's Republicans look
to scance at Obama's version of his story, right? With a single mom and a father who wasn't from this country. And they like that's not the American story. But that that rings true to everyone. And her story is truly a sequential American story. And so there's a way of telling it that informs your values, that inform your policy is going forward. Yeah, for sure. How would you spend these two weeks leading up to her convention speech? And what do you think the goals of the convention
itself should be? So for the next, at least the next week, right? The week of the convention, it makes sense to sort of do some stuff a little bit lower key so that your, your convention's getting the attention, right? Because Tim Wallace is going to speak one night, President Obama, I assume we'll speak one night, President Biden will speak one night, like you want that to drive your message. But next week, normally you would sort of just like glide into the convention,
just doing your stump speech. And I think I think going with Tim Wallace introducing herself and giving us the same version of first stump in each of these battlegrounds, it's the right choice. This is our first time in most of these states. And certainly our first time at Tim Wallace would do that. But you got to continue to be on offense. So you're going to have to like start, we're now at the point in the race starting next week, we've got to mix in a new hit on Trump every day. And,
you know, I would think about doing some policy rollouts next week. I know that sounds crazy. But because her convention speech needs to be so much about introducing her, I worry about a convention speech that's introducing her, but also laying out her vision for the future, we're going to get into like some sort of, you know, horrendous version of a state of the union, right? That's not what you want. You want to be tight. You want to be good. You want to be
careful. Honestly, that was our O8 convention speech right up until like two days before, and we just kept cutting and cutting and cutting and just getting bigger and bigger and bigger with policy. Yeah. You have to, there's a lot of business to get done in any convention speech and her specifically. No one cares about the policy part of it. Right. And so they hear about, they care about it in terms of
who you're going to find out who she's going to fight for and what she's going to do for them. And I think if she has a like a real tight section on lowering costs of affordability, what she plans to do, like that's going to take care of it. Right. But what you give yourself, she's in the position where by the time Barack Obama gave the speech, she'd given 700 economic policy speeches on the campaign trail. So you could reference it here. She has given no economic policy speeches as a
presidential candidate. So if you, I'm not saying, I know the speech writers, I like the speech writers personally too much, just suggest a major economic policy speech before the convention. I'm not saying that. But just do, but just I would do that to you. I would not do that to them. Just like you can just, you can put
it in it, you can just insert it into a speech in Michigan next week, right? Just like wine proposal here, one post there, even just like, I think she even said this at one point, like on day one, I'm going to appoint someone to go after price couching, right? There are some things you can do like that. They're just easy that you can then reference in the speech. The main thing here is she is succeeded by being on offense the whole time. And you can already see the press, not that the
press matters that much, but it's still matter some is going to get bored with this quickly. And they're going to start putting pressure on it. I also, she did this today. She took questions. The press is already freaking out. She hasn't talked to them enough. As I said, she took a few questions today before leaving Detroit, I think. Do that a couple, do that all week. Just a couple and a couple there. Of course, one of the questions was, why aren't you taking more questions from us?
Why aren't you doing an interview? She did say, she didn't know that would get you. But she said, I talked to my team, we're going to schedule an interview by the end of this month, like I sit down and say, she, she, which was, I would even, I just like, just the thing we'll always hear is let the air out of the balloon slowly, right? So that when then when you do, like I do some local TV interviews next week, right? I know, I know the Washington press won't count
those, but they kind of, they have to pretend like they count. And just, so that you can't, you can't shit all over the local media. I would just take that, you want that out of the way before the convention speech. So you can roll out of the convention speech. And I don't know what they have planned, whether it's like a bus tour, a boat tour, just like a barnstorming tour, where you can just really build up a metham for a few days without the press screaming at you every time you turn
around. Why won't you talk to us? So just like take care of that business now so that you can maximize the convention moment going forward. I hope it's a boat tour and just go through great lakes. Yeah, did who did the boat tour? I did not do a boat tour. Did John Kerry do a boat tour? Either John Kerry did a boat tour or a rock-a-bobby did a boat tour. I think it was John Kerry. Yeah, John
Kerry did like a sea to shining sea tour after the convention because it was in Boston. So he went right across the country and he went all the way to Oregon, I think, like he was talking Lewis and Clark. Didn't work. I don't know if we didn't get dysentery on the Oregon trail. Harris's new running mate, Tim Walls, is also an eraser to find himself before the Trump campaign can do it for him. Their senior advisor, Chris Lasavita, was the person who led the
Swiftboat attack against John Kerry's military service way back in 2004. Got 20 years ago. Hoof. And now he's doing the same thing to Walls. JD Vance kicked off the attack this week by accusing Walls of lying about his rank in the military, his surface and leaving the national guard before his unit was deployed to Iraq. One other Trump campaign line of attack on Walls has blown up in their face after ABC unearthed the recording of Trump praising Walls for his response to the
George Floyd protests. Let's listen. I know there are walls on the phone and we spoke and I fully agree with the way he handled it the last couple of days. I asked him to do that. The whole world was laughing. Two days, three days later, I spoke to the governor of the governor. I think of the quality. He's an excellent guy. He's dummies. They're like from the moment Walls gets picked. They're telegraphing like his handling of the George Floyd protests and Minneapolis. This is going to be
the main line of attack. We're going to get him because he didn't send the national guard out you know with they wanted it one afternoon and he sent it out the next morning and that was going to be the whole thing. And then they got Donald Trump being like, great job. We love you. Excellent guy. I'm sure he just loves Tim Walls because his last name is Walls.
I never really, I never really thought that that line of attack was going to be that salient only because I feel like as again, we all have the memory of Goldfish now and that's gotten worse over the years. I hear like talking about something that happened in 2020 in one city in the country feels like it has limited, limited effectiveness. The only thing it does is that it gives like mega Republicans who go on TV something to say because there's really nothing else to say about
Tim Walls. Right. He is incredibly successful. Incredibly like him. No, no, he had the, he had the audacity to have tampons in school bathrooms. That's that that one. Rocket, rocket around the Magosphere pretty quickly. They're very upset. They think they want to call him tampon,
Tim and they think that that's going to be that's it. He's done. I mean, I would stipulate one that almost any time spent focusing on Tim Walls is probably a win for us because it's I was going to say this whole thing of like, why are you going this hard at the, I mean, I you know we've done our share of JD Vance attacking, but I do think that there's again, there's limited value in that as well. Well, I mean, we I think we've been pretty open and that's mostly catharsis.
It's a music like we deserve that, right? Like, like, you see the Harris campaign spending all their time on JD Vance. You're right. Right. I mean, you have said the JD Vance part that was useful with his connections of Project 2025. Like that was a helpful that drove a larger narrative. Still a Trump. The things about Tim Walls is handling of something in Minnesota four years ago is not does not drive any sort of message about common hairs. And once again, the guy is a veteran
gun-owning football coach from rural Minnesota. Like, you're not going to make him into some sort of radical. Like, this is not that is not feasible. Well, what are your thoughts on the, on the attempt to swift-bodeum of attacking his military record? I mean, it's disgusting and despicable and totally unsurprising from Trump to go running his campaign and it's complete and total bullshit. Right. He filed paperwork for Congress a month before the even rumors that his unit could be
deployed. He announced for Congress a month before his unit got orders. There's no evidence that he ran for Congress to avoid going to Iraq. It's, it's complete bullshit. He served 24 years in the guard. You only had to serve 20 to get retirement. He served 24 years. He was also deployed during the war in Afghanistan operation and during freedom. He was stationed in Italy at the time. In an ad, he was talking about assault weapons bands and he was saying, I've, I've carried
weapons of war in a war. And so they were attacking him on that. But, you know, as the campaign said, he has carried fired and trained others to use weapons of war in numberable times. And he was stationed in Italy doing security missions during operation and during freedom, which was the war in Afghanistan. So it's like, what are we talking about? Yeah. It is just absolutely ridiculous. Like it's, it's totally absurd. I think the stuff like people are going to hear this because
these are the kind of things that will rock it around the internet. Like in your text exchange with your uncle, you're going to get the tampon thing and you're going to get the veteran thing. And so the things that we just laid out here are the talking points to respond to that. Once again, attacking Tim Walls is service record and attacking his gubernatorial record for one period of time that Donald Trump raised four years ago. It's not particularly constructive
use of time for the Trump campaign. But if you want to win the argument with your mag uncle, these are the points you need. Yeah. And also there's a guy who served with them in his unit whose Republican and said doesn't like his politics. Not going to vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walls, but he's like, he was a fantastic soldier, loved serving with them. And of course, he did not leave the guard to avoid Iraq. He left the guard so he could run for Congress.
The other argument here is that he has inflated his rank because in he served, he rose to the rank of command sergeant major, but he did not retire with that rank. You have to serve for three years of that rank to retire with this. He retired at a lower rank. And there were a couple of times in pieces of paper, including one from the Harris campaign that said retired ass is supposed to rose to. But like we are that's it. That's the whole
controversy. It is a semantic argument that is absolutely absurd. And just the fact that we're having this conversation speaks to how what an amazing pick Tim Walls is because this is the best they have, right? And it's also, well, it's also a sign that they are flailing right now in May. Are desperate. Like you said, they think that the press might be a little bored. The honeymoon has gone on too long. She's gotten a lot of good press. So like they see an opening to just latch
on to something, which I think by the way, you know, they might have had some traction. Had Donald Trump not gone out today. And for an hour, just fucking had a breakdown on National television. Because now once again, he made himself the story. So we're going to deal with that for another another new cycle. And then we got next week. And then we got the convention. So yeah, it's they are they are running out of time. But obviously lots of work to do for Kamala Harris and
Tim Walls and the whole campaign and all of us. When we come back, we will talk to our friend Brian Tyler Cohen about his new book shameless Republicans deliberate dysfunction in the battle to preserve democracy. I'm not going to say that. Joining me now are good pal Brian Tyler Cohen, YouTuber, podcaster and now author his book shameless Republicans deliberate dysfunction in the battle to preserve democracy comes out on August 13th.
You can pre-order it now wherever books are sold. Brian, welcome. Thank you so much. Look at this book. I love it. I love the cover. We got we got Abe Lincoln here. We got the Lincoln Memorial. But he's right. Just hand on his face. Cowering and shame. He is embarrassed. Shame. Well, let me just say first off, it's it's awesome to be here. And a big part of why I do what I do is because of what you guys do. You are a huge part of my my media diet and a huge
inspiration for me. So to be here is really exciting. Oh, I appreciate it. That's how you get good questions in the interview. Yeah, you know what me? It's a hard hitting shit here. So as someone who just wrote a book with the help of three other people and still complain the whole time, why'd you do it? Why'd you do this to yourself? I guess I just have like I just wanted my life to be as miserable as humanly possible. Here's the thing. This was written between the hours of 10 pm
and 3 am every night in the aftermath of all of the work. When do you sleep? How is it? What are you doing? There's very little sleep and thank God I don't have kids. Just have a Chihuahua who's fine with me sitting there and writing all day. But yeah, a lot of it a lot of it happened. It's an impossible new cycle to find free time. And it's not like we're done at 6 pm. Yeah. What made you want to write the book? You obviously like have this huge platform where you can say whatever you'd like
all the time. Like what made you want to put a book together? Yeah, I think it's important to reach different people where they are. I mean, so much of what you guys do at Crooked in terms of your strategy is not just podcasting but branching out into books yourself and YouTube as well. So it's important to reach people where they are. It's also just personally it has been a dream of mine for my entire life to actually publish a book. I was an English major in college. So
the book is like the top of the mountain here. So a big theme of your book is the lessons the Democrats can learn from operating in this sort of unbalanced political landscape where Republicans are constantly lying, spreading misinformation, tough field for Democrats to play on. What's your take on how Democrats can sort of balance the field? I think the most important thing is not to confer all of our all the legitimacy onto the mainstream media as if they're
advocating for us. I mean, they are they are so not on our team that they bend over backwards to to show deference to Republicans. I mean, there were I think something like 69 Hillary's email stories and the lead up to the 2016 election. And so like these are these are people who are not only not on our team but they're broadcasting that they're not on our team.
And yet we have we have independent progressive media like Crooked media like what I do and like so many others in this space who are showing that that we are willing and able to pick up the mantle for where the media is dropping the ball. And we have to be able to be able to combat what the right has done. I mean, from the days of Rush Limbaugh all the way to today with Fox News and
OAN and Newsmax and Daily Wire and just the vast ecosystem of the right. We have to be able to push back and by relying solely or or only legitimizing mainstream media sources, we're not going to get there. Yeah. I don't even think that they should be on our team because they like that look it's their
their job is to report the news there is a job is not to help Democrats win elections. And I mean one of the reasons we started Crooked media was not even like a frustration with the mainstream media but just like at you know, people are getting their information from different sources. People have like strong opinions about politics and if you have strong opinions about politics like, you know decades ago you would like join your local Democratic committee right but now people get their
information on their phones and it's good to have sort of a community to go to. Is that how you think of of your YouTube? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we we're so lucky right now to be able to reach people instantly to get instant feedback and to have an actual connection with people. And I can see what what resonates by the way as a content creator, I can see what resonates with people, what messages are working, what messengers are working. I can see who my audience wants to hear
from. I can see who my audience is deathly bored from hearing from and I won't name any names but there are people out there in the Democratic Party. And we have we have that advantage especially from a persuasion perspective that we need to know like what works and what doesn't work. And having like the internet at our fingertips and having those analytics at our fingertips helps
us do exactly that. What messages have been working lately? Well, right now I think it's been great to watch the whole weirdness narrative set in because for so long it's kind of been it's kind
of been bizarre that we haven't been able to land on that. And it is so weird and it seems so obvious in retrospect now that these people are so obsessed with everybody else's lives that they're trying to insert themselves between a woman and her doctor insert themselves between where Americans can travel, insert themselves between what Americans can read and what they get.
I mean, the whole thing is just so weird. And like now that we finally landed on it and because we have a growing progressive media ecosystem and these campaigns are strong, that message is able to actually resonate whereas before the left wing media ecosystem kind of just felt like scatter shot attempts at trying to make something stick and it never really did and it always felt like Republicans went into the morning meeting every day and they came out with
with their talking points and they were always so organized. And to finally see the tables be turned and it's actually the left that's better organized while the Republicans are dissembling and figuring out whether they're going to hammer away at Trump's message of killer windmills or hammer away at Trump's message of imaginary cannibals or hammer away at sharks or whatever it is has been has been great to see. We've all been coconut pills here. We've all been walls pilled. We've taken
all the pills. How are you feeling about the election now? Now that now that we are in this just crazy crazy moment where three weeks ago we had an entirely different democratic nominee, entirely different democratic ticket. It feels so weird to feel hope. Like that's a
democratic last decade. Hope has been so fleeting and you know you find what moments you can view and farm between but look obviously we have to be vigilant as we head toward November but I think at the same time we can kind of enjoy the moment that we're in and I think that it couldn't be going better right now which as a Democrat is a very foreign concept. Knock on all the wood. Knock on all the wood. A very foreign concept to me but it could not be going better than it
is right now. And the fact that Trump is is falling apart to the extent that he is right now has has been a testament to that I think and even with with this debate stuff has put it especially into particular focus because Donald Trump's whole stick thus far has been that he's that he's a strong man right that he's tough and he's not particularly adept at policy or far
like domestic policy foreign policy he's not a good speaker. He's not good at governing. He's not good at managing people but what he had was was the toughness the strong man vibes and when he refused to debate Kamala Harris on September 10th for ABC News and the Harris campaign
leaned in on this and that kind of enveloped the narrative for days and days and days it showed that she took away the last thing that he had left and what he was left looking like was just deflated and defeated and weak and I know that you guys talk about this a lot and this is especially
you know Dan Fifters focus here with with message box and whatnot but like our job is not to to to always point out that Trump is trying to be a strong man because that actually plays into his hands it's that in fact he's weak and this was the first time that was really really put
on full display to the extent that the entire country was able to see it. Yeah he doesn't love being mocked either as most strong men do not before we go one one of my favorite anecdotes comes near the end of the book it's about how you convinced your mother who never had any interest in
politics and believed the entire system was corrupt to vote for the first time in 60 years during the 2020 election not only that she voted for Joe Biden and Democrats down ballot what advice would you give listeners who want to encourage someone in their life who might be cynical about
politics or skeptical about politics to go out there and vote. So the story I like to tell is actually about Wisconsin and Wisconsin's oftentimes the tipping point state in 2020 the difference between a Biden win and a Trump win was two votes per precinct that's it and so if you're looking
for a proof point that that we have agency here it's that all it would have taken for Donald Trump to win Wisconsin in 2020 the tipping point state would be flipping two people per precinct and everybody has somebody in their lives who doesn't vote when I asked my sister I think it was in 2018 when when there was the gubernatorial race if she was voting for governor her response was what's a governor and if somebody in my family can like can be at that position then I know that there are
people listening and watching who have those people in their lives too so look I'm not asking everybody to do everything but but we are asking everybody to do something and in that case you know it's just a matter of finding one or two people in your lives who wouldn't otherwise be able to part you
know wouldn't think that it was worth it that it would have any impact to to participate in this election and and make those people your responsibility you want to stick around for a game of take appreciator let's do it I think we're doing the the blind ranking test let's do it we're going to
be right back with love it to play a game and we're back hi hi I'm John love it I'm I'm here because we're going to play game yeah we are here's so welcome so welcome to blind take rankings here's how it works I'm going to read you five takes pretty shameless takes if you ask me
oh see what you did there Brian and John you must rank these takes from least egregious to most egregious so five is the least egregious one is the most egregious here's the catch you must rank the takes as they come and you don't know what's coming next so try not to
use that number one spot too early all right are you ready let's do it all ready take number one and here it is Tim Walls is an MSNBC anchors idea of a folksy politician who can appeal to middle America quite a take about a man who tricked us into believing he wasn't a coastal elite by being
born in Nebraska and grazing a family coaching a team and serving the country in Minnesota just playing that long game you know yeah uh what what makes this even more egregious is I think it was written by a writer for the national review yeah yeah rich larry is a real take
where was that I mean come on well it's Elijah's like oh that's an easy one you can go well it's not about it's not about guests to take it's about ranking the take I know sometimes we just like to show off our knowledge I know it's impressive I'm I'm ready for yeah I think it's kind of a
lazy it's kind of a reach it's kind of a lazy also and I'm stealing this from someone else but you know who's uh who's uh MSN MSNBC's idea of no what what was it again an MSNBC anchors idea of a folksy politician who can appeal to middle America he's just a JD van yeah that's one so I'm going
to put a picture of JD van South all right take number two the best thing that can happen for long term supporters of the Democratic Party is for this election to be a massive loss for the party that's the only way the party will reform itself consider how the party shut down competition
in the primary misled the public about the health of the president chose its nominee without a democratic process and ultimately today selected its VP when something is totally and fundamentally broken the best thing to do is to start over we won't see a reboot of the party unless it takes a
massive loss in this election that is such poor concern trolling yeah it's just not I'm like given that a I would say I would say three for that one I'm given it a five because I feel like they they they did such a poor job of trying to have it really like to piss you off with a take
like I doesn't even piss me off it's just stupid I would agree with that I think I think this is something that that Trump is trying to shoehorn into the narrative that Republicans are trying to shoehorn into the narrative for first of all to like undermine the whole coup narrative it's like
well you think we did a coup right yeah you I know but it's also like we we're good we're fine it's them who are it's them who are mad about it that's why they're so mad they're mad that they're mad that we're so happy you know they're mad they weren't happy they hate to see us happy
they don't want to see us in a ray they don't want to see us in a ray so we're I needed an agreement here three or five I'd say five you ready okay five we're saying five we're saying five that was Bill Ackman I remember he spoke at the he spoke at the public national I mentioned I might
have bumped into three next up this is the headline here it is Democrats could regret calling Trump and his supporters weird could regret it could come to regret it I'll read you a passage from the op ed I don't know what is sufficient for Harris to win but I sure know what is necessary
a message that is dignity affirming for working class Americans not dignity destroying if this is a campaign that descends into name calling no one beats Trump in that arena two two two I agree with that that is getting a two it's it's these are one of these takes that's
that comes in a vacuum like they've net they they haven't been around or awake for the last eight years and all of a sudden it's it's the Hillary Clinton or it's you're very separable it's the shallow bomber when they go low yeah uh yes well dignity affirming uh much like
JD Vance and Donald Trump right the whole tack was that they are they're they're they're out there using their voice for workers was it was that what it was I think it was more that um uh uh we know it's sort of I think of more of a they go low situation and that comes from Thomas Friedman Thomas Friedman that's right oh of course it does of course it does tough take hard that one in an uber it's also it's also like in jacarta it's also it's also just like the kind of thing where it's like
you know that thing that seems to be um making Republicans insane while delighting every Democrat from Joe mansion aOC I don't think it's working uh all right also also like they're going to regret calling them weird what's what skeletons are in our closet that haven't come out yet that would
make all of a sudden Kamala Harris and Tim wall seem weird relative to someone like JD Vance and Donald Trump also we may lose the selection if we do I'm not going to go back and be like uh it was the it was the weird thing that we shouldn't have done that no no it was not picking Josh
Shapiro you know what I'm gonna head down you know I'm gonna head down uh next up this is short this is a short one again just to take not a headline it's in response to the wall's pick the quote is no Jews allowed at the top of the Democratic Party this is what we're gonna take what do we
have left we have one and uh three I think one and three I think it's one and three we have one and three I feel like it's got to be three yeah I would agree with that also like no Jews and something like that I think Chuck Schumer even quotes we did that when Chuck Schumer is
is dunking on you it's good dunk yeah he struck Schumer saw that bigel fell right of his mouth I can say that that's allowed also he saw that he saw that it was like we got to get tweeting before Doug M. Hoff was it first yeah I got there's a little little little
little friendly robbery there who's the yeah and if it wasn't sat really at the top and it was in saturday Josh Shapiro could have been out of two because he's I guess no I'm not top he's not top party and I remember when there was a second two gentlemen versus Senate Majority Leader
is to your dismay yeah Chuck probably wins that one but yeah no for sure for sure well there was that there was that I was a profile there was a profile that called that dog that although you know what dogs moving up how's well if dogs first gentlemen first gentlemen first gentlemen
versus Senate Majority Leader yeah it's you know it's you know it's got the got the president's ear you know it's a powerful power job eat it's Wilson around the country much like Jill is doing today Jesus what it's over now next to you and Kristy Jackson still fighting the war if walls
just getting everybody if walls is running against Obama he totally do a birth certificate joke at no time in living memory has there been any such thing as going lower than Democrats are willing to go it's not possible wait what this is about the this is about the couch joke
can't go lower than that that is the lowest that is the bottom I'm so glad we saved one yeah so glad I feel so good but you said you said the birth certificate thing right that was that was part of it yes so the example that they use is literally example that that they use and is worse and
and that's a good point I think it's a good point philosophically saying Democrats could not go lower than this it is equivalent of the things Republicans do that's such a good point here's what's driving me I have not talked about this yet like the the coach joke complaints if Tim walls had
got up there and and was given a riff and said something about a coach and we're like you heard about the coach right you heard about JD Vance and the coach JD Vance fucked a couch oh yeah or even like insinuated that he did that would be one thing I still think it was a funny but like we
could at least have that debate he just he just he said a word that was like a signal to a certain group of very online people us uh the coach and like that's it the fact that they got so mad is also telling on themselves but he didn't he didn't spread the disinformation right he just
nodded to a joke that's out there and it was smart because if you didn't know the joke it would still work it just sounds like he's lazy well he didn't know that he was not spreading any kind of misinformation or just information because if you hadn't heard it you would have had no
fucking idea what he was talking about it still makes sense you're just saying I'm like the guy must be on his couch hanging out and I think the reason it drove them so crazy is because if somebody doesn't understand it and hasn't heard it to explain it you sound on him yeah and you
have to like someone made up someone made up a story about the JD Vance fucking a couch so he said he talked about him getting up off a couch I think the reason that better are you upset yet that get you angry the reason it hurts so much too is yes it's it's not it's not true but like
the fact that so many people believed it could be is a pretty poor reflection on JD Vance but it's like yeah of course Democrats shouldn't also spread disinformation right like everyone's like whoa now you think you know we shouldn't that's not what he did that's not what he did yeah
I mean look the fact that JD Vance was born in Canada is not even something we've been bringing up no no we've been very we've been we'll let them fight that out yeah that's they're we're not gonna service I don't know I don't know maybe Trump may be Trump will drop him from the ticket when he
finds out yeah don't say that too much actually want to happen well let's let's do a let's uh so that's it did anybody did any of the many people in this room keep track of the rankings anybody did a single person in here I got I see four laptops did anybody type out the order I think I remember
anything I remember um okay number one no we start with five okay well I'm just trying to go with my fucking memory the fifth the fifth was your first you said uh folks no no no that was no you didn't know okay in fifth you said uh the concern trolling was fifth mm-hmm uh Tim Walls being a
folksy politician in the minds of an emissimacy anchor was fourth uh Democrats could regret calling Trump in his support was weird that's two that was two no Jews allowed at the top of the Democratic Party three three and number one nice job number one Democrats can never sink lower
than this couch illusion it's the Democratic equivalent of a joke Republicans constantly make uh and that's gonna be number one I'm totally fine with that list that's exactly what it's done that's a good one uh hey everyone go buy shameless go buy his book please go buy the book you can get it anywhere books are sold anywhere you get your books online that's right or in real life August 13th August 13th is out but it's available for peor to know all right help our buddy Brian
out thanks for uh thanks for coming by love it thanks for that fantastic game what a delight thanks to thanks to thanks to Elijah on the ones and twos everyone have a great weekend uh we'll see you next week thanks everybody if you want to get ad free episodes exclusive content and more
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