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This is The Daily Show with your host shown Steward. Welcome to the Daily Show. My name is Young short Man. Do we have a good show for you tonight? The chairman, not the alderman, not the assistant secretary, the chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party only if the Daily Show? Does that get a big round of applause? Really, Wisconsin Democratic Party. Benwick is going to be joined us to discuss the future of the National Democratic Party, specifically, is there going
to be one? But first, ladies and gentlemen, we can often get cynical about the state of things in the world. Fauna a psycho of despair, so the horrors and deprivations of our modern world can never be overturned or undone. But then at our lowest we get images like these from this weekend, a moment in time of pure unalloyed joy, the delirious, almost uncomprehending excitement for a people celebrating a suddenly bright and hopeful new future. Yes, even the people
of Syria are celebrating. The New York Mets signing ron Soto chanting. You heard them, You heard them in the streets, chanting. I can only assume we're going to the series I did. Of course, those images were jubilant Syrians celebrating the end of the fifty year rule of the murderous, despotic assad family, a result that would have seemed incomprehensible even two weeks ago. And you know it's the real deal because they sealed it with the universal symbol of falling dictatorships, the traditional
toppling of the statues. They pulled them down and home. They toppled the horse run, They've knocked over the one where a signal field goal. They even paraded us out through the streets like a decapitated Charlie Brown in the
Macy's Day parade. And if I may a quick word to the many remaining despots in the Middle East, it is my deepest hope that when you see this footage you realize once and for all that you are really skimping on statue structural integrity, because when you are overthrown, and you will be, they're just going through these statues like it's tissue pap. I mean this one here, there's one here guy just pushes it over with one hand. It's all native. It is one guy.
This statue is a symbol of my eternal power and iron fisted. Oh no, don't touch it. It's just clay and pressed wood shavings. Father always told me, if it's worth putting up.
A symbol of autocracy, it's worth doing it right. And all the dictators could have made it fun for people by filling the statues of candy or something. Assad's former subjects are still finding a way to have fun with the toppled totems. It's like their new public transport system, some kind of Syrian version of a club med banana boat. By the way, I don't speak Arabic, but I'm pretty sure that what they were chanting there is mustache rides five cents. Oh, I know that fella there is feeling
the sweet taint of freedom. But while statue Assad is being tea bagged in the streets, actual Assad has left the building.
Assad fleeing with his family to Russia, where he had been granted asylum on humanitarian grounds.
Their hugolds we yes, Putin has given a sod humanitarian asylum and then immediately sent him to go fight in Ukraine. They're very they're very shorthanded. But obviously it's a great decision by Assad. I think no leader can go wrong in their exile choice by posing one simple question to themselves, what would Stephen Segal do? But if Asad is in Russia, you know what that means. Nobody's home at the palace. It's open house people, the estate sale begins. Crowds are
pillaging the palace. They are sitting in his chairs, they are taking pictures in his chair. There, they are stealing more chairs. They was there some kind of terrible seating problem in this country. The people are rushing the palace and they're just taking the chairs. People are coming out like, don't bother going in? The good chairs are gone. All that's left is money, jewelry and antiquities. In fact, I want to show you real quick my favorite moment from
the looting of Assad's palace. A gentleman in the palatial room, frustrated that this chair is not reclining. Are there no depths to assads depravity? Where are the cup holders? And obviously this is surprising because in that part of the world, you'd think they're be an abundance of at least Ottomans. Here's an empire of them. What was startling to me is how quickly the whole thing unfolded. I mean, how long did it take to overthrow the Assad regime? The
regime overthrown by rebel fighters in just eleven days? How did they manage to end a decade long civil war and defeat the entire Syrian military in just eleven days? And wait, zoom in on there is that zoom Are you a gray? No? No way? That guy? What?
How did.
Is that? Where he rode that city bike? Is that? Actually? I was like, couldn't have been that guy today? They did appear to catch that guy today at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania. It's true. Look, I'm sorry, guys. Apparently a bystander at the McDonald's ratted him out. And normally I would say snitches get stitches, but obviously without pre approval. There's really Seriously, though, I want to meet the rebel
mastermind who overthrew this entrenched regime. The leader of the Islamist rebel group, Abu Mohammad al Jawani, arriving triumphantly in Damascus, addressing a crowd at a mosque, My God, all hail Syrian John Turtureau, tell me more about this modern day George Washington.
Syrian rebel leader abum Hamad al Jolani, who's been on the US terror watch list since twenty thirteen.
Significant portions of Algielani's group maintained strong links to isis a former al Qaeda member.
He's got a ten million dollar bounty on his head.
Oh ten million. Who hope he never ends up in a McDonald's in Altoona. Okay, so we've got a former al Qaeda guy in charge. Now what did he have planned for the new Syria. I'm assuming it's some taliban asque, brutal fundamentalists to dystopia.
There must be legal framework that protects and ensures the rights of all, not a system that serves only one sect.
I asked God Almighty that this be a conquest free of revenge, but a conquest entirely of mercy and love.
Conquest of mercy and love. I think that's how Taylor ended the Aristour wait that the new leader of Siria's a swifty How many terror groups is that guy in l I'm all swift? Seriously, though, how did an al Qaeda associate suddenly turn into Deepak Chopra. You've gone through quite the transformation once.
An Al Qaeda leader, and now you are projecting this image of a moderate leader in a moderate group. I believe that everyone in life goes through phases and experiences, and these experiences naturally increase a person's awareness. A person in their twenties will have a different personality than someone in their thirties or forties.
I get it. Who amongst us hasn't gone through an Emo goth phase or nine to eleven phase? You know, you know how kids are. I don't like Gioann anymore. Dad, I'm into horses. Jilani's purported transformation to a more benevolent governance gives me hope as our country goes through its hopefully peaceful transfer of power to hopefully a more humbled and mature leader as well.
In his first Network TV interview since the election, President like Donald Trump, says he would like to see members of the January sixth Committee sent to jail.
Honestly, they should go to jail or not. That is, of course, the incoming United States president and I'm assuming future statue have her Donald Trump, who this weekend was in Europe, continuing the long American tradition of not waiting for the inauguration to become president and head overseas and meet with allies and remind everybody how fucking weird he is about shaking hands top down, up, down, bottom, side and side grab it hit me on the Flemity and
how seamlessly Trump resumed his official duties of looking bordos shit and meetings. This is so dumb now. Normally the first Lady Milania would have been there to say to Donald set up. But another stroke of weirdness. Trump was apparently traveling with his predecessor's wife, attending the opening of
the Notre Dame Cathedral with Jill Biden. It was a rare moment of conciliation, one that would have given this country hope had it not immediately been undermined by the returning president releasing an actual cologne ad belittling and sexualizing said moment. The caption there saying a fragrance your enemies can't resist. The men's colone and women's perfume are both for one hundred ninety nine dollars. You one, you one.
You don't have to push merch anymore. I find it hard to believe I'm saying this, but it's beneath you. I mean, for God's sakes, you.
Don't see Jolani out there pushing product.
I conquered Syria and now you can conquer dry hair follicles with my new line of beard oil.
When we return that we will be going if they'll go away? Where am I to with out until I got tonight?
Here is highly the head of the Wisconsin Democratic Party running to be chair of the Democratic National Committee Police. Welcome to the program, Ben Wickler, Sorry, I'm ahead. Well, thank you, thank you for coming in from Wisconsin, the Democrats, and I'm getting it. You know. We take a little questions and things from the audience early on, and the biggest question that we get is no follow up and then the tears, yeah, sometimes vomiting. It appears the Democratic
Party is slightly broken. You run the Wisconsin Democratic Party, which was broken before you took it over. There was a super majority in Wisconsin. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin was diabolically making changes to with stand power. Scott Walker was the governor. How did you turn that situation around?
So Republicans took over Wisconsin in twenty ten and immediately smashed unions, suppressed voting rights, jerrymandered the living daylights out of legislative maps to make sure they'd never lose power even if voters tried to throw them out.
And for years it looked as though.
Wisconsin was going to fall off the cliff, be a state where Republicans controlled everything, whether voters liked it or.
Not, undemocratically. So because through all those methods like what New York, the Democrats in New York had tried to do as jerrymander it, you know, even if it was closer than it should be, those were the methods they undertook.
So twenty twelve twenty eighteen, Democrats won a majority of the votes for the legislature, Republicans got almost two thirds of the seats, and twenty eighteen I moved home and volunteered Governor Evers.
Now, Governor Evers.
Ran and in a landslide year for Democrats nationally, he won by one point one percentage point, super super close. It was like we'd grabbed a branch as we fall off the side of a cliff, and we're pulling ourselves up by a fingernails. Republicans then took away a bunch
of the powers he'd been elected to wield. Republicans rejerrymandered the state through the state Supreme Court after that, and I was elected chair in twenty nineteen with the goal of supercharging our kind of grass roots organizing and how we communicate.
Across the state.
And year over year we flipped two We won two critical state Supreme Court races. We were able to re elect Governor Evers, stop Republican super majority. Finally, a new kind of pro democracy majority on the state Supreme Court, struck down the jerrymander. We stopped Republicans from preemptively impeaching a Supreme Court justice. And this year, finally, for the
first time in fifteen years, we had fair maps. And it meant that even in a year where we were basically fifty to fifty statewide in terms of the votes, we flipped fourteen state legislative seats. It is now Democrats are on track to win a majority in both legislative chambers. In twenty twenty six, we re elected Tammy Baldwin to the US Senate. We actually added votes for Harris relative
to Biden. It came we were the battleground state that the whole state in the country that came closest to defeating Trump, where Trump still won.
There was a lot of Republican turnout.
There's still work to do, but we're a democracy again and that is the goal.
That is the fight that we're fighting.
Here's the idea.
I'm just going to.
Throw it out there. I'm just spitballing. We jerrymandered the shit out of that place and a point a bunch of Democrats of the State Supreme Court and cut all the power out from no. No, no, no, okay, right, no, no, Your plan is probably good too.
What we want, what we want as a government that is structurally required to pay attention to what people want and is called accountable for what happens, whether or not they actually deliver it.
Was it only a structural issue, But they're not a baud. Did you make any changes to the messaging to connect, because again, I don't want to give the impression that I think that this election the Democrats lost because structurally things were against them. I think they have a messaging issue. I think they have a what do they stand for issue?
I think there's both.
Okay, and I will say in this election, just now, if Republicans hadn't taken over the North Carolina Supreme Court in twenty twenty two and then gerrymandered that state, then right now Democrats would have a majority in the US House of Representatives where we are because Republicans have paid attention to these down ballot races that the rest of the country doesn't even notice that have enormous consequences later.
Right now, Wisconsin has a state Supreme Court race in April, Susan Crawford versus Brad Shimmel.
Never Crawford. But my point is the thriller in Manila.
But there are Susan Crawford's and Brad Shimmel's all over the country. As here's my point that the National Party there is an infrastructure piece, which is to have a strategy in every state to prevent that state from being rigged and thrown out away state. And that's part of what we need to do with the Democratic National Committee. That's why I'm running for DNC chair now.
And you're running to be the national DNC chair. Yes, you are, outside of though the establishment. Look, one of the things that's been difficult for the Democrats over these past years is they have been a real status quo establishment party. They suppressed I think Bernie's role in the twenty sixteen election. You know, they've put their thumb on the scales pretty clearly. You're an outsider. Are they going to put their thumbs on the scale against you?
I think Democrats across the country, members of the Democratic National Committee, we're there's a real sense of unity that we need to change and adapt and win elections.
And the question is how.
We do that, And to me, it is these two things. One of them is organizing, building the kind of infrastructure and apparatus supporting state parties across the country to have the kind of strength that has made such a difference in Wisconsin. And the second piece is that we need
to show people working folks across the country. And this is across race and ethnicity, this is rural areas, small town city suburbs, that we are fighting for them and that we mean it, That we know this is not a game, and that, to me is the central thing that we know. Trump next year is going to try to pass a multi trillion dollar tax cut for the richest people in the world, and he'll do that by
trying to cut healthcare. They're talking about cutting the veterans administration and veterans benefits.
That's stuff that the vast.
Majority of Americans do not want, and Democrats need to get caught trying to fight back against that and to create a country that works for working people.
But see that, I think the difficulty is and it's the kind of rhetoric that I very much appreciate. I don't know that I've felt like they've governed with that urgency that you're speaking with, you know, And that's the part. How connected are the Democrats? Even here in the audience, you know a lot of people talk about, well, geez, do you think there were structural issues? Is that why we lost? It was pretty clear this was a whooping on narrative that.
Let me personally disagree. Yes, this election.
This is the first election in my lifetime where we lost the majority of the voters who were making less than fifty thousand dollars a year. And those voters have
a lot going on in their lives. A lot of them are the people least likely to be watching political news hearing really either side's message, and they're folks who often got a lot of financial support during the pandemic when we passed, expanded unemployment insurance and child tax read all this stuff that really made a difference, and then it went away at the same time as prices went up.
And if you're experiencing you have less money in the bank and you have to spend more to fill up prescription or buy your groceries or I'm sure you don't lose the home where you're putting your kids to bed, then you're going to vote for change. You're going to vote for something else.
Correct.
Now, Trump is going to make things worse for working people, and that.
Was the argument that the Democrats were making, that he's going to make it worse. I guess, but I think we're saying the same thing.
We're saying the same thing, and I think a lot of people did not hear our message, and when some people who heard it.
Didn't believe it. But that is those are the two things.
Let me ask you where voters are and show it, because hey, like we made it.
You were saying, people making less than fifty thousand dollars don't really connect with the news, so they don't hear our message, but what they do feel is your governance. Yes, that's my point.
Is that and I agree with.
I think part of it is Democrats are defending a status quo that people feel is not delivering on the discomfort they have in their real lives.
I think that during Trump's first administration sometimes we'd say this is not normal.
It wasn't normal.
But it's also the case that what's normal is not necessarily okay boom. It is it is not okay boom that people can't get it for their kid.
And you have to we have to show that this piece is my God, I'm getting excited. Yes, you actually have to make the same.
It looks like the fight people. That is the point of this work, all right. The only measure of working politics. It's not actually winning elections. It's whether you deliver change in people's lives. That is what winning looks like. That is the point of this work.
Actually, I was thinking, do you think we just didn't spend enough time with the Chinese? Is that the issue?
I was in Wisconsin, we had a business from les Chandy.
We did a little bit better in the suburbs around Milwaukee than we did in previous elections.
And also, this is a country that is majority working class.
Most people in the United States do I have a college degree, they work for a living, they don't live off returns on their investments. And if we're not winning working class voters again across race and ethnicity, if we're not winning with those voters, we're gonna lose. And we are the party that actually believes everyone should be able to join a union and fight for better working conditions
and wages. We're the party that thinks that no one should have to go to bed hungry because their parents didn't have enough money to put in a down payment for them. People shouldn't have to choose between rent groceries. This is stuff that Democrats believe to their core, and we need to communicate it through our actions and our words and where it is that we show up so that we're listening and then we're speaking in language that actually resonates for people.
That is the work of the Democratic It's like.
Wrestling a bear.
You're a giant man with a golden tongue.
What do you think? Ultimately, because I completely agree, one of the fundamental problems that the Democrats have had is they co signed to this sort of what they call the neoliberalism economic supply side deregulation NAF to all these other things, and they never clawed it back. And what we keep hearing is, well, we just need to raise
taxes on billionaires. But if you haven't convinced your voters that the money that is raised will be spent wisely and with value, none of it's going to matter, isn't it. Look Rats have a harder road to hoe. Yeah, because they're the party that believes government needs to be there and play a vital role in balancing out corporate interest and helping people's lives. It's not nihilistic like the other which is like blow the whole thing up and reduce it to the size you could drown in a bathtub.
So is that a message of competence that people can can wrap their heads around? In the Democratic Party?
You have to prove it out now right to be able to earn.
Have they done that? In Wisconsin?
They've done that.
Governor Evers ran on fix the damn roads, and then he fixed the damn roads.
So in Wisconsin, can I tell you something Wisconsin people orf I med I mean no disrespect. They share like the spicy talk.
Yeah, you know, sometimes there's pepper jack and the still what to talk about?
Fix the damn roads.
But what happened to that was twenty eighteen twenty twenty two. In Wisconsin, it's so evenly divided. Five of the last seven presidential races has come down to less than one percentage point, and that means that there's usually this slosh back and forth. If there's a Democrat in the White House, Democrats lose the governor's race. That's been true ever since nineteen sixty two. That was the last time we won by one percentage point in nineteen sixty two with the
Democratic president and governor. IVRs won in twenty twenty two by three point four points. He tripled his landslide one point one point margin in twenty twenty two, and that was in no small part because people could see that he was actually delivering on what he talked about and it touched their lives directly. We had there, you know, he had ads in every county about what he'd done in that county to make people's lives better. And I think politics can make people so cynical. It can be
so frustrating. Sometimes it feels like the only thing people want to do is attack each other. You have to actually show your work and show how what you have done will make someone's life better to have any possibility of building trust. And I think you're right. The Republican project is to create so much corrosive cynicism that people give up and walk away.
That is kind of their mission. And when they do the.
Vote to overthrow any status, vote.
To overthrow the status quoe.
But then what they do is they use that cynicism to tear up the place and hand out the pieces to the richest people in the world. And for Democrats, we have to show that they are righting for people, that it works, that we can deliver, and in this moment, as an opposition party, we have to fight against these attacks and also make a proposition that we think we should be a country where everyone has basic freedom and dignity, where working people can actually support their family or aspire
to have a family if they want to. That people should be able to live their lives and know that if they work hard, that they're going to have a decent life that is not brigged against them.
When you do this, I'm assuming that the Democratic National Committee has meetings, Yes, and you're at those meetings, yes, And you say this with that great passion. You don't use words like damned because we're delicate party. What is their response to it? They do they throw analytics at you? Do they throw data? Because I have watched the people that were running these presidential campaigns on a variety of platforms, and I've been stunned at the lack of accountability or
even reflection. And I'm curious if that's been your experience in the meetings.
I will say, you know, when the Democratic National Committee meets, I was just in a meeting with the state cheers. People do this work because they believe in actually fighting and making a difference, and it is often totally thankless, and it is often really tough, and often the choices that people are making are between two bad options when they're in these roles, and so people are mad at them because they chose a bad option that was actually
worse than the other one. It is really really hard to do to win these elections, especially when you're facing a wall of attacks and people who think that all politics is corrupt, and you're like, I'm actually just trying to make sure that kids can get lunch when they go to school, right, So I don't think that there is this kind of cynicism I think that there's defensiveness defensiveness. I think that there's this we're kind of in a
system that is generally broken. Money has this giant role in politics on both sides that the you know, people's attention is in a million different places, so you can scream something from the rooftops and almost no one will hear it. Often if you work in politics, you're being told all the time, hey, you should do this thing, and you're thinking yourself, I do that every single day and no one notices it.
So it is it is hard work.
You know, you talk about messaging, you have to build an infrastructure if you want to get the message out, you actually have to have you know, you talk to you talk about door to do or organizing. We build neighborhood teams so neighbors are knocking on their neighbor's door so that it's someone that you actually.
Know so much. But blew my mind that they were like we had strangers knocking on people's doors three times, and you're like, you're lucky no one got killed.
But you have to do that for years to get to the point right where it actually so.
Your energy though, I have to tell you and I have talked to DNC chairs and people that have been interested. You have a different energy than they do. I'm telling you they have a more corporatist vibe that's been the vibe of their I can remember Tim King God bless good dude, but came on the show when he was a DANC chair and he was like, we have door knockers, and I was like, oh my god, we're in the shitter. Like the passion that you're bringing, boy, that feels like
what it needs in this moment. I really do feel that way. You are approaching it from a much more populist, bottom up standpoint than I've heard in the past, other than Howard Dean's sort of fifty state.
Strategy, and I believe it. I really appreciate it. Well, I appreciate it. I appreciate the nice compliment. I will also say that there are so many people. There are thousands of people who work in politics, and sometimes you're buried in the numbers and you're you know, you're trying to like when you use this phrase, then people are like, what the hell are you talking about?
So you got to use this phrase.
And a lot of times in politics, people when they're on your show. They're trying to remember all those things about like what might be a landmine if you step on it and it's going to blow up in your face.
And you're trained to do that.
In politics, you're trained to try to like navigate through these incredibly tricky waters. And that is sometimes important work to hold a coalition together, but it's easy to get lost in that and not actually go to the whole point of the thing, which is to fight in a way that makes the difference in people's lives so that they remember who was on their side when something went wrong and they understand who's trying to wreck them book like that is the reason when politics actually been is.
Someone writing this down. Stop with the analytics, just sign one. So, oh, I'm sorry, I apologize. It went back to the mets uh dead on, dead on. The caution is killing effective governance. It's a fear. If you come from a place of fear and not from a place of passion and belief, you lose.
And people can see, people can feel authenticity, they can feel it, and this I think Trump is a disaster for the country. I also think it's very hollelujah. It's very clear he does not think before he talks, he just says it. And there's something that draws people towards him about that. It is, even when he's lying out of his teeth, he's lying in an authentic way.
I don't even think those are his real teeth, quite, frank, we have.
No idea about the teeth his medical records deep deep sea deep secrets.
Yeah. I really appreciate you coming by and bringing this. I'm telling you you had a dispirited group of people wandering in the desert of feeling that they didn't know, thirsty for leadership. You have provided it for them. Today we are announcing right now Ben Wickler is a nominee for President of the No no no, no no no no no no.
No no no no no.
For the seconding, it for charity, the Democratic it's doing.
It matters who leads the Democratic National Committee, and it matters who leads state parties, and it matters who does this work because this doesn't happen alone. You have to have millions of people involved to be able to make elections like this work. I'm running to get people involved. I want people to join and fight and win.
Why do we do it? Thank me? Thank you for having me. It's not a Democratic party. Chari Bay Red Club.
We're gonna tell me.
Quick clack all right about epilom. That's what I'm talking about. That a dog show. But before we go, we're gonna check in with your host for the rest of the week, Michael Kost. Everybody, Michael, that's that's that's a really nice chairman. Yeah, well, thank you.
John picked it up this weekend. I guess you can.
I guess you could say it was a real steal. You looted that from Assad's palace. Don't be jealous, John, Okay, I picked you up a little something too, all right, Merry Christmas? Is this a Sods underwear? This is a Sods underwear. I don't want to Sods underwear?
Oh why because you don't celebrate Christmas?
Marco Kus everybody here it is your moment? Is that that's really Jeff Bezos called me.
We're having dinner.
As you know, Mark Zuckelberg came in. We had a really nice dinner.
He has to have dinner.
I had dinner with him. I'm having dinner with everybody. People like me. Now, you know it's something going on that people. I said, would you have come to dinner with me if I lost, I think the answer is no.
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