Trump's Indefensible Pardons

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or at lululemon.com now. Welcome to Pod Save America.
I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
On today's show, America's golden age has begun, Dan. We'll talk about the first week of Donald Trump's second term and try to separate the signal from the noise, though there was quite a bit of the latter during the president's sit-down in the Oval with his pal Sean Hannity on Wednesday night.
There was also a catfight between two of Trump's billionaire friends that broke out over which one of them gets to help control the artificial intelligence that could destroy civilization. So that's fun.
We'll also talk about what Democrats might learn about how to fight back from an Episcopal bishop and a pod bro. And speaking of Democrats, DNC chair candidate Fashek here, one of the smartest voices in progressive politics, stops by to talk to Dan about why he's running and how he's different.
But first, as of Wednesday evening, Donald Trump had signed by our count 48 executive orders and actions and generally spent the week making drastic changes to the way our country is governed and how our society views itself. Some of this we previewed on the Tuesday show, but here's a sample of the moves that got the most attention.
Trump ordered a review of the Biden administration's investigative actions, quote, to correct past misconduct related to the weaponization of law enforcement and the weaponization of the intelligence community. He withdrew America from the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement.
He's also pausing all leases for offshore wind farms and incentives to buy electric vehicles. He's sending U.S.
troops to the southern border and building a mass deportation force of federal agents to begin immigration raids. He's also directed federal prosecutors to criminally investigate state and local officials who resist the coming deportations.
But Trump's also going after legal immigration. He signed an order trying to end birthright citizenship for the children of immigrants who aren't yet citizens, even the ones who are here legally on visas.
He suspended our asylum and refugee programs. He signed orders directing the federal government to dismantle all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and jobs to no longer officially recognize transgender Americans, to freeze all federal hiring and make it easier to replace non-political civil servants with Trump loyalists, which he is already doing.
He gave top-secret clearances to White House staff without going through background checks, and he also canceled the security clearances of 51 people who signed a letter, casting doubt on the Hunter Biden laptop thing. He's renaming Denali over the objections of Alaska's Republican senators and the Gulf of Mexico over the objections of anyone whose brain hasn't been broken.
He signed an order directing all executive departments and agencies to deliver emergency price relief to Americans. Didn't realize the Commerce Department was responsible for the price of eggs.
And last but not least, he has issued pardons and commutations for all of the January 6th defendants, regardless of the severity of their crimes. That's a lot.
We're going to spend some time on the pardons and immigration in a bit. But beyond those two big issues, what from this list really matters the most? What matters less? And what is just a bullshitty talking point?

I think other than the renaming various things on various maps, we should take all of it pretty seriously.

Even if the order seems more symbolic or so legally dubious that even this Supreme Court is likely to strike it down, because it all sends a message to the Project 2025 goons who will be running this government about what they should do, right? The order on investigating the investigations to understand the weaponization of government, that's kind of a fake thing, but that is a signal to Kash Patel and the people who work for the people in Pan Bondi's DOJ that we want to investigate these people. Even if the order doesn't mean that much, it sends a dangerous signal to dangerous people, and so we should take it quite seriously.
Having to choose amongst this list of terrible things as the thing that's most terrible is pretty hard, but for me, the stuff I'm most concerned about is all the climate stuff. It is pulling out of Paris.
It is getting rid of electric vehicle incentives, in part because on climate, it's the one thing we don't have time to waste, right? We're already behind schedule and trying to get where we need to get to keep the planet alive. And wasting another four years on Donald Trump is deeply dangerous.
And it's time we can't get back. On some of these other things, if we can survive these four years, you can go back and you can undo the worst policy does.
You can issue new executive orders. You can pass new laws.
On climate, we're never going to get those years back. And I think that comes at a great cost.
Yeah, I think the climate stuff is pretty horrible. I think probably the most bullshitty executive order is the one on price release and bringing down inflation.
Because the idea that the Biden administration had levers within the federal government to lower prices and didn't pull them, even if you think that they don't really care, at least they care about staying in power. You think just would have been more popular to have lower prices.
So you think they would have done that. But that's probably

because there are no levers in the federal government to break down prices that Joe Biden

hadn't already tried over the last four years. So that is clearly window dressing and just sort of

bullshit. Let's talk about the January 6th

pardons, which, while promised by Trump during the campaign, I think it's fair to say were not

expected to be this broad. Pardons and commutations, even for people convicted of brutally assaulting

police officers and for the leaders of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, which are two far-right

paramilitary groups, those two leaders had been found guilty of seditious conspiracy.

As recently as January 12th, Vice President J.D. Vance said, while defending potential pardons for nonviolent offenders, quote, if you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn't be pardoned.

J.D. Vance, if you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn't be pardoned jd vance if you committed violence on that day obviously you shouldn't be pardoned not so obvious to jd vance's boss who according to reporting from notice decided to extend the pardon to even the most violent criminals because of the blowback to vance's interview from trump's base according to axios trump said fuck it release them them all.
Trump did an interview with Sean Hannity on Wednesday night where he talked about his reasoning. Number one, they were in there for three and a half years, a long time.
And in many solitary confinement, treated like nobody's ever been treated. It's treated so badly.
They knew the election was rigged and they were protesting the vote. And that should be allowed to protest a vote.
You should be allowed to. You know, when the day comes...
You shouldn't be able to invade the Capitol. Ready? Most of the people were absolutely innocent.
Okay, but forgetting all about that, it would be very, very cumbersome to go and look. You know how many people are talking about? 1,500 people.
Almost all of them are, should not have been, this should not have happened. They were very minor incidents, okay? You know, they get built up by that couple of fake guys that are on CNN all the time.
Nobody watches. They were very minor incidents.
I'm so angry about this. I want to talk about Michael Fanone for a minute.
He's a D.C. police officer.
He was beaten within an inch of his life on January 6th. Wasn't even on duty that day.
Responded to radio calls for assistance.

after he got there, the rioters dragged him down the steps,

sprayed chemicals in his face, beat him with pipes,

tased him repeatedly in the back of the neck,

and said they were going to kill him with his own gun while he said, please, I have kids. He suffered burns, a concussion, traumatic brain injury, and a heart attack.
He had to retire. He testified at the January 6th trial.
He's gotten threats. His family's gotten threats.
He said that as recently as a month ago, his 76-year-old mother was outside gardening and someone threw human feces on her, a Trump supporter, because of her son. The man who tased Michael Fanon is Daniel Rodriguez from California.
He saw Trump call for a protest on January 6th, got on a big group chat, told everyone to bring knives and bear spray to Washington, where he said he would, quote, hang Congress. And after he tased Michael Fanone until he lost consciousness, he wrote on the group chat, quote, tased the fuck out of the blue.
And after he pleaded guilty to assaulting an officer with a dangerous weapon, he walked out of the courtroom. He screamed, Trump won.
He was sentenced just about a year ago, and now he is free. No shorter sentence, free.
And now Michael Fanone is trying to get a protective order because the rioters who were pardoned are now threatening to go after the people who sent them to prison. I don't know what to do with that, Dan.
I mean, it is so deeply dangerous. And the way Trump talked about it is just, it's pure gaslighting, right? None of what he's saying is true.
Nothing that he describes happened the way it happened. These are not peaceful protesters.
It's an entirely made-up reality to justify this pardon. And it's all belied by video evidence, testimony from the people who were there, testimony from some of his allies and former aides.
And he has created this false right reality. And I think the scariest thing about it is he clearly believes it.
There's a lot of things Donald Trump says that he obviously doesn't believe. He has convinced himself about what happened on January 6th, that it is something that was not violent in the way it was, and that the violence that did happen was justified because it was on his behalf.
And it is quite, quite scary.

And look for all the Republicans and other people who think, oh, we're going to relitigate January 6th again and we're looking back. This is actually about the future, why this is so dangerous.
Because now Donald Trump has pardoned all of these right wing extremists who were armed, who committed violence, who are not apologetic at all, who are not maintaining their innocence either. They know they're guilty.
They've said they're guilty. They're not apologetic.
And now they're out of prison. and other right-wing extremists who might want to cause violence

now know that if you commit violence in Donald Trump's name,

then he's going your back. And so why wouldn't they commit violence again? Now they're all talking about revenge.
Revenge against the people who testified, against the prosecutors, against the judges who put them in prison. And so when the Proud Boys come to your community

and start marching or menacing people

or whatever the hell they do,

what are the police going to do?

Knowing that last time a police officer

was beaten within an inch of his life

that the perpetrator was just released.

Are the police going to protect us?

Who's going to protect people?

Because it's Donald Trump's,

whether or not Donald Trump thinks it's his private army, they think they're Donald Trump's private army. That's what they think.
What does it say about the politics of the Trump coalition that they believed that it would be a huge political problem to not pardon right-wing militia groups? I mean, that's where it is that that would be a political problem. And I think these pardons are the fullest expression of that famous quote from Frank Wilhoyt that went viral a few years ago.
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition to win. There must be in groups whom the law protects but does not bind alongside outgroups who the law binds but does not protect.
Yes. If you support Donald Trump, you have the full protection of the law.

If you do not support Donald Trump, if you oppose him, then the law will be turned against you.

That is the message of Donald Trump on the first day of his presidency.

Meanwhile, even before he sits down with Hannity, Trump allies were having trouble

defending these pardons. Let's listen to some Republicans.

What about those who assaulted police officers and then were pardoned by the president? I haven't seen any. I haven't gotten to the detail.
What do you mean with President Trump's pardons for violent offenders? I'm grateful that President Trump is the president of the United States. I certainly don't want to pardon any violent actors, but there was a real miscarriage of justice here, so I'm totally supportive of it.
Are you comfortable with those pardons for violent my place. It's the president's own decision, and he made a decision.
Again, it's not ideal, but I'm not overly concerned about it either. I think the gift is that it's all behind us now.
Pathetic. Pathetic.
I think those Republicans, I think every elected Republican should be asked that question, who refused to answer it, should be asked that question every single day. That any reporter can get in their face and put a microphone there.
The ones who are walking through Congress. I mean, I just, at least, at least answer the question.
At least have the courage to say, yeah, I support the pardons of the violent criminals who beat the shit out of police officers and almost killed them. Yeah, I support it.
At least say that instead of just running away. I mean, do you think that Republicans will pay a political price for defending this? Is this something that is going to haunt some of these members when they're up for re-election in two years? It will haunt them more if the reporters and others in politics are aggressive about continuing to ask the question and we don't just give up after six days.
These capital reporters, many of whom also have their lives in danger on January 6th, are going to see these members every single day. Are they going to keep asking about this? Or are they going to switch to their opinion on whether it's one bill or two bills or whatever else? If they drive this, then it has a greater chance of staying in the public consciousness.
The pardons are very unpopular, right? Large majorities oppose them. Even the significant number of Trump's most ardent supporters don't think they're a great idea.
And I think we should, Democrats should scream from the rooftops about this as much as we possibly can because most voters are not going to know this happened or they're not going to understand exactly who he pardoned and what those people did and what the consequences of that are. But I do want to sort of level set expectations on the politics of this in the short term at least.
And this gets to what I think is one of the analytical errors that I made in 2024 when talking about this election, is we have to sort of understand the difference between the popularity of an issue and how big a priority is for voters. These partners were always unpopular.
Every voter, people said they did not like them. They do not like it when Donald Trump talks about January 6th.
But in the end, for most of the voters who were persuadable, this did not drive their vote choice because they cared so much about costs in immigration to a slightly lesser extent that they're willing to put up with a whole bunch of shit that Donald Trump was willing to do that they did not like if he was going to lower their costs. So the political price of this is going to come if and when prices don't come down, as Donald Trump says, or the borders not become more secure, or America continues to feel more chaotic.
In the short term, is this going to move things a lot? Probably not. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep talking about it because it's incredibly important.
Yeah, I just, I get why it didn't move vote. Like, first of all, how many people knew that he was promising pardons like this? How many people knew exactly what these people did?

And it's a prospective promise during a campaign.

And it's not something that you're experiencing while you're going to the voting booth.

Now he's done the pardons.

Now we should be telling the stories of what happened.

Because I think this goes, like, okay, what if prices do come down?

But there's still paramilitary groups roaming our communities, right?

Like, probably we should say something about that.

Probably we should let people know what's happening. And, you know, we will get into the Democratic discussion about, you know, how Democrats are responding.
But I completely understand the driving force behind Trump's victory and probably the central challenge that has destabilized American politics has to do with people's living standards and yawning economic inequality in this country.

And so I completely understand that.

But sometimes I think you just have to talk about one thing and then you have to talk about the other thing.

You have to be able to talk about both, especially this far out from an election, you know, because I think this is this is the time, if any time, to cede the ground and make sure that people know what has happened and what the stories are. Yeah, I think maybe the way to think about this is, and one of the strategic errors of the first Trump term was there was like this belief, this intuition among so many Democrats that we were just like one thing away from people abandoning Trump.
They could just learn this one singular piece of information about him, then they would walk away. And we spent a lot of time screaming about all of those things.
And the way to think about it now, right, because he just did this on the furthest distance possible from the midterms, right, when he will actually have to be held accountable nationally for his political misdeeds, is we actually tell a story about Trump, right? And not just about Trump, about the Republican Party in the Trump era is probably the way to think about it. And this needs to be a piece of that story.
It's not just that we're just like, he pardoned these people, they're bad. Look at all the terrible things.
Look what it means that that's going to move things. It's just like over time, right? We're not trying to move his numbers today.
We're not trying to move his numbers tomorrow. We're trying to make a case against him that is going to bear fruit for us when voters actually vote in Virginia and New Jersey in November and then nationally in the House and Senate elections next year.
One way to think about this that I've been thinking about is our kids, you know, in a couple years, your kids probably even sooner, are going to like know the details of these stories, right, of like what happened, or they're going to learn about it in school at some point. God willing, who knows, if the curriculum been changed by uh by donald trump's administration by the regime they're going to learn about this and they're going to be like okay so these people beat up these cops this cop had a heart attack he was threatened and then donald trump let them out of prison and then they said that they wanted revenge and that they were going to go buy guns.
And so what did everyone say?

What did everyone say? What did everyone do? And, you know, we're going to say, oh, well, the Republicans pretended that it wasn't happening. The Republicans tried to avoid that.
What did the Democrats do? Well, the Democrats complained about it, but then they said, that's certainly not lowering the price of eggs and like i'm not of course i i'm i'm only half joking because i will say a lot of statements from democrats about the pardons that included the price of eggs in the statement about the pardons and i'm like no no guys that's not that's not the time to do that now.

And I feel bad because we have suggested that.

You know what I'm like?

No, costs are it, right? Like standard of living, that is the central challenge. That is the challenge that most voters are dealing with.
Democrats have to talk about it. We have to reckon with it.
It's going to drive vote choice. That doesn't mean combining it with everything awkwardly.
Yeah, I think there is a difference between the story you're trying to tell and the words you use every single day, right? The log line here is that Donald Trump failed to lower prices in part because he did all of these other things instead of that. That's not what you say, right? It is reading the stage directions out loud.
You can scream about the pardons as we should, understanding in the back of your head that the longer game here is going to be around prices. Like you don't have to jam it all into one tweet or one skeet or one statement.
It is you can just scream about this. And then over the course of time, you were making a case about all of the things he did that people don't like, which are going to have much more political weight when he undoubtedly fails on the promises he made that they care the most about.
You can even do a multi-part skeet. Do not thread this.
It doesn't have to be a thread. It can just be, just make a point.
Reading the stage directions is just such a good description of what so many Democrats have been doing this week and maybe the last several years. The last decade.
Like, just stop reading the stage directions, please. It does tell me something about how Republicans view the politics of this.
Mike Johnson gets asked about it and says, we're not looking back, we're looking forward. And then three hours later, Mike Johnson announces that they're going to investigate the January 6th investigation that Congress undertook.
And the reason why we now know, because of reporting from CNN, is that Donald Trump asked Mike Johnson to go investigate the January 6th committee. And Johnson was like, it's a little looking backwards.
I don't know. But of course, Johnson has to do whatever Donald Trump says because they are all doing whatever Donald Trump says.
There's no Republican left that is trying to actively oppose him. We had a few Republicans who said they don't agree with the pardons.
Good for them. Lisa Murkowski, Tom Tillis, some others.
But no one is making it. None of the Republicans are making a big deal out of it.
Yeah. I mean, there's in their minds and they're not incorrect on their short term politics is if you're on the wrong side of Trump, you're out of the Republican Party.
Right. What do you think about the one excuse you hear from some of them as well? Joe Biden did all the pardon.
So Joe Biden pardoned his family and he did those prospective pardons for Fauci and Cheney. And so if he's doing pardons and Trump's doing pardons, all the pardons are bad.
I don't love Joe Biden's pardons, particularly the one, well, I'm very sympathetic on the Hunter one. The ones for the rest of his family, six minutes before he left office, I think, are much harder to defend.
I don't think that's a good yeah but if you think that donald trump did all of these pardons in this way because joe biden did some pardons that the day that earlier that day then you were too fucking stupid to be in politics like that then you didn't you then you were like uh in fucking a coma for the last year because he talked about it every day on the fucking yes of course he of course he was going to do this. Now, Biden made, probably slightly leavened the political pain that could come from this because a lot of the coverage is the Biden pardons and the Trump pardons.
Look at how presidents are now breaking norms left and right. He gave the press an opportunity to do its favorite thing, which is default to the pox on both your houses narrative, and that both sides are doing it.
Once again, Joe Biden, in his last move in the White House, nailed the messaging and communication, you know, because he excels at that. There is a fundamental difference morally, legally, in every other sense between proactively pardoning your family and pardoning 1,600 people who assaulted the Capitol, some of whom committed violence against police officers, members of right-wing paramilitary organizations because they were on your side.
Those are not the same thing. They can both not be awesome, but one is a lot less awesome than the other.
Yeah, I mean, I could be wrong, but I don't think Anthony Fauci tased anyone until they had a heart attack. We'll find out soon.
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Let's talk about the immigration moves. We could do a whole show about this.
I imagine we'll probably end up doing that at some point. We'll talk about this a lot.
Just to start, what do you make of the moves so far in immigration? And what did you make of that directive to prosecutors to go after any official who tries to stop the deportations? Well, let's start with the directive, which could not be more ironic in the sense that it is exactly what Donald Trump has been running against in his mind for the last four years, right? It is weaponization of law enforcement apparatus of the government to scare people into adhering to your policy agenda. right that is uh like if you are someone who in a in a city in a blue city or somewhere else or law enforcement local law enforcement and you have every reason to be afraid that this Department of Justice will prosecute you.
And even if ultimately you will be found innocent or you won't end up being indicted, you're going to have to spend your own money and your own resources to defend yourself legally against this. It's going to upend your life.
It's going to potentially ruin your reputation. And so he is trying to remove all obstacles to anyone who will stand up against him.
I think the other thing that has stood out to me about all of the immigration moves is Donald Trump's first term. He basically cut legal immigration, legal immigration by more than he reduced illegal immigration.
So again, much like cost of of living and prices, a lot of people voted for Donald Trump thinking there's a situation at the border. They need to control the border.
There's been an influx of immigrants coming into our cities that we can't care for. This is a problem.
Can we get this under control? And what Donald Trump is saying is actually, I want to go after legal immigration, birthright citizenship. Not just for people who've just crossed the border and had a child here.
No, this is people who are here on student visas, H-1B visas, people who are here legally. Now he's suspending the refugee program.
Refugees who we take into this country are the most vetted people of any immigrant when we take refugees in. suspended the refugee program, suspended the refugee program.
Refugees who we take into this country are the most vetted people of any immigrant when we take refugees in. Suspended the refugee program, suspended asylum.
People like Steve Bannon and that wing of the party, they want to cut legal immigration. Stephen Miller wants to cut legal immigration.
They don't want the H-1B visas, that whole fight we talked about. So it is hard to look at his immigration moves as moves that are about national security, people's safety, anything like that, order in the immigration system, and more about the Trump administration deciding that they want to define who is an American and who is not.
Yeah, the national security threat in the minds of Donald Trump and Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller is a diverse, pluralistic society. That's what they're trying to stop.
Right? And that anyone who represents change or diversity is a threat. And that applies to immigration, it applies to their policies on DEI programs and all of it, and that is exactly what they're doing.
And I think the scary thing here is a lot of this is warmed over policy from the last time, but they are just implementing it faster, more aggressively, and seemingly with more precision than before. They now know how to pull the levers of government in a way they absolutely did not.
It was just a clusterfuck the first time around. If you remember what they're doing, if you remember the Muslim ban, they had to rewrite it like five times to get

it through. They made huge errors that delayed implementation.
And now they're not, for what we

can tell, they're not going to make as many of those errors, right? They have real people in

charge of things. The entire government is on board with Trump's immigration plans.
And before,

there was a wing of the government that was for it, and part of his White House staff was resisting

it, right? Including some of his closest aides. And in this case, everyone is moving

Thank you. There was a wing of the government that was for it, and part of his White House staff was resisting it, including some of his closest aides.
And in this case, everyone is moving forward to do it, and that's where it's the most scary. All right.
This is what counts as lighter fare. I was saying when I got to the start.
How fun. A mini-drama erupted on Wednesday when Elon Musk went on the attack against a $500 billion AI initiative that Trump had announced the day before in the Roosevelt Room with the SoftBank CEO, billionaire Trump donor Larry Ellison, and Elon frenemy Sam Altman of OpenAI.
Elon responded on X, quote, they don't have the money. And then Sam and Elon got in a bit of a slap fight online.
What's going on here? Why is Elon Musk mad about the artificial intelligence initiative announced by his pal Donald Trump and all those other billionaires? I thought he loves AI. He does love AI, I think, but he hates Sam Altman more than he loves AI, right? Elon was on the board.
He also loves his AI. Yes, yes, which we're going to get to, right? This, in the big tech world

in this club of billionaires,

it is like,

it's all about money,

but it's,

there is a high school cafeteria element to this.

And yeah,

it's a little,

it's a little dick swinging contest.

That's what it is.

All the people at the outcast table

in the high school cafeteria

now are fighting over being at the cool kids table. Yeah.
just keep in mind donald trump is the cool kid yeah what a fucking wrong run um but sam elon and sam altman founded open ai together that elon left it in dispute about its direction elon then started a uh competing ai model grok which is part of twitter he does not like the people involved. He did not, I imagine, did not like being on that stage because Twitter does not have the money to be or X does not have the money to participate in such an endeavor like OpenAI and the others do.
And so he just did what he always did, which is say what was the top of his mind without really thinking about it it's also watching sam altman who in in 2021 was tweeting uh thank you reed hoffman for for everything you've done to help defeat donald trump and we're so lucky he's not in the white house anymore we've defeated donald trump this is great he was he was he was like our he was resistance pilled at one point he was tweeting polls in 2017 like what should we call him dangerous donald like this is sam altman and then just yesterday or the day or this week he he posted on x wow you know i think i was wrong about donald trump and now that i've met him in person i'm really excited about what he's gonna do for the country give me a fucking man. I mean, I met Sam Altman in 2017 at a series of meetings about trying to bring together political folks and tech folks on how to defeat Donald Trump and fight back against MAGA extremism.
And now he's on stage. He's giving him billions of dollars.
Now that he's free of your brainwashing, Dan, your liberal propaganda that you were spouting at him. Now, thank God he got to meet Mr.
Trump so he could see firsthand how great he is. So is Elon now the most powerful person in government? And I say in government because he's got a White House email and he's apparently getting a West Wing office.
He was originally going to be in the EEOB, old executive office building. That's the one next to the West Wing because there's not a ton of West Wing offices.

But Elon was not going to have that.

Now he's in the West Wing with his buddies.

He pushed Vivek Ramaswamy out of Doge.

Vivek's now running for governor because apparently Elon didn't like his weird thread about saved by the bell.

And, you know, we need to have more screeches and fewer Zaks and all that kind of stuff, which, you know, point to Elon on that. Yeah, just fundamental misunderstanding of the plot of Saved by the Bell.
Correct, correct. But so, like, is Elon the most powerful person right now? Steve Bannon was taking shots at him for this open AI thing, the fight with Sam Altman.
He was like, Donald Trump needs to sit him down. I can't believe that he's just out there and he's been brought into government.
Now he's criticizing the president because Bannon hates him. But what do you think of this whole thing? Yeah, I think he is the most powerful person in government by far and one of the most powerful people in the world because Donald Trump has limited leverage over him compared to everyone else.
Anyone else can kick out a government. He can support a primary challenge against them.
He can use his Twitter account or his Truth Social account to trash their reputation and send a mob of people after him. Elon has more money than Trump.
He doesn't need Trump per se. And he also has a very vicious, aggressive, very large online mob of people who support him.
And so you can see it. Donald Trump treads lightly around Elon Inouye.
He does not tread lightly around anyone else we've ever seen. Yeah.
I wonder how long it'll last. So more from the Hannity interview.
They talked about a lot of other stuff besides January 6th. I think it's safe to say that both men were really feeling it.
They were really happy to be together. Let's listen.
After four long years, President Donald Trump is back where he belongs. He is in the Oval Office.
Joe Biden has very bad advisors. Somebody advised Joe Biden to give pardons to everybody but him.
They wanted to take care of me. Yeah, but you're on.
They wanted to. I don't care.
This guy went around giving everybody pardons. And but him they wanted to take care of me yeah but sure they wanted to i don't care this guy went around giving everybody pardons and you know the the funny thing maybe the sad thing is he didn't give himself a pardon and if you look at it it all had to do with him and i heard schiff went to him and and just begged him for a pardon because schiff is a crook.
I will say that. So I don't know if you watch the whole interview, but that clip, he has like a sort of menacing tone, but is a little vague on investigating Biden or Schiff.
But at one point, you know, Hannity asks him about just sort of, you know, vengeance in general and retribution and all that. And he gets really angry and really dark.
And it's like, I went through hell these last four years. And, you know, maybe people need to go through that.
Like it was, you know, we are on a watch what he does, not just what he says kind of path here. But I hear something like that.
I left that interview thinking, oh man, he really wants to do these investigations. Yeah, 100%.
I mean, he's implicit is doing a lot of work here, but he threatened Biden repeatedly, right? See, you know, seems weird. Seems unfortunate he didn't pardon himself.
Like says it like six times. Kind of funny, kind of sad.
Yeah, maybe it's sad. Maybe it's funny.
And I mean, there is this, you know, you and I, based on a series of misbegotten professional decisions, are forced to watch all of the Trump-Hannity interviews over the last near decade. And there was always this moment where he sees Trump about to light himself on fire and he tries to use like gentle parroting techniques to shift the interview onto safer territory.
And so you hear him in that clip being like, I want to get to the economy. Seriously, the economy, high prices.
And Trump's like, I don't care. I want to talk about prosecuting my opponents.
Yeah. Yeah, that's what we got.
There was also, by the way, a very long discourse about the fires in LA and smelt and turning the valve on in Northern California so that the water flows down to Los Angeles. That's the old days we would have played that.
But if you want to laugh, or maybe you'll cry, go take a listen to that, and we'll probably hear it again when he goes to Los Angeles on Friday. I'll tell you when we cry, which is when he conditions a fire aid to California based on sending the water to L.A.
When the water doesn't go to L.A. Water doesn't go to L.A.
Doesn't go to L.A. Doesn't know what he's talking about.
He just sees that the fish, they're trying to save the fish and the fish. How are you even saving the fish? Because don't fish need water?

I mean, it's obviously absurd,

but when you say something like that,

you see why people believe them.

It's like, well, your fish do need water.

Yeah, it does make sense that there'd be a valve in Northern California

that you open.

It's just the button.

The water would just...

It's just, he's just pushed one button

and the water goes all the way down.

And they won't push it

because it might hurt the smell.

It might hurt the smell. It might hurt the smell.
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USAA. Donald Trump has done a lot of public appearances since the inauguration.
He's speaking all that we've heard. We hear Donald Trump multiple times a day.
Is that strategy? Is that just what he wants? Because he wants to be, you know, the country's host for the next four years. Or is it is there any risk to that for him? I guess there's no risk to anything because he's fucking he's immune.
He's president president. That's it.
He wins. He's not running for.
He doesn't have to run again and he's immune for prosecution. So, yeah, there's very little risk.
Yeah. Tough to keep asking what the political damage for Trump is.
I guess just so everyone knows, you know, a weakened Trump, a trumpet back at lower 40%, 30%, whatever, you know, that bodes poorly for the midterms for Republicans. And I think probably if it keeps up for four years, the same is true for 2028.
But long way to go until we get there. So go ahead.
Is it a strategy? No, in the sense that Donald Trump has always wanted to be this way. He wants to be the center of attention at all times, right? In tabloids, putting his name on everything, hosting a reality show.
But it does also happen to be, and this is why he's president for the second time in three elections, is that sort of approach is also the way you should communicate in this media age, is you have to be omnipresent. You have to be everywhere all at once.
You have to do everything. Never stop talking.
You can't abide by this philosophy that even some – a lot of Democrats will abide by, which is the news of the day is the EOs. So once I've done the EOs, I should stop talking until tomorrow, and then we'll have another news of the day.
That's not how the world works anymore. It's nonstop, always talking, always be there, command as much attention as you possibly can.
And that means that the people who don't pay a lot of attention have a greater chance of hearing you if you're always talking. But it also means, this is very key for Trump, that if you're always talking, if you say something wrong, if you make a mistake, it hurts a lot less.
And so this is the approach, right? It is exhausting. It hurts my brain.
It makes doing this podcast thoroughly, like being on a hamster wheel of terrible this at all times. But that is how Democrats, that's how everyone should communicate in this day and age.
They should over communicate. They should be out there all the time.
And that was not the approach that Joe Biden used for sure. Certainly not the approach that Kamala Harris used, although she did exponentially more than Joe Biden.
But you have to be, we have to sort of adopt not the messaging, not the behavior, but the conceptual understanding of messaging that Trump is employing here. Trump didn't said so much shit this week, it was easy to forget that he also is trying to get a cabinet confirmed.
So far, the who's gotten through the senate who's officially confirmed as secretary of state marco rubio who by the way has planned a trip to panama dan so i guess that canal thing is no joke that's gonna be his first trip as secretary of state marco's going to panama what he's excited about that there's gonna be a moment on that trip where trip where Marco Rubio thinks of himself like, how the fuck did I get here? On one hand, I'm Secretary of State. On the other, it's for Donald Trump and he sent me on a mission to take back the Panama Canal.
I mean, we are, the world is on fire in multiple places right now. And the top priority, the first thing New Secretary of State is going to do is to go to try to take back a canal for reasons that are entirely made up.
Made up. As we went through on this podcast two days ago.
Because Donald Trump is stuck in the 80s and no one wants to tell him otherwise. So that's Marco.
DOD nominee Pete Hegseth made it out of the Armed Services Committee on a party line vote on Monday.

But on Tuesday, the committee got a sworn statement from his former sister-in-law detailing abusive and scary behavior toward the woman's sister, Hegseth's former wife, including that she once hid in a closet to get away from him and that she had to develop an escape plan. Fox News reported that Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, and Susan Collins may all be planning to vote against Hegseth, in which case J.D.
Vance would have to cast the tie-breaking vote,

possibly in a Friday evening vote. No word on whether Pam Bondi or Kash Patel will have any trouble getting confirmed now that Trump has basically shut down the Justice Department's largest ever investigation into right-wing domestic terrorism.
That's the January 6th rioters. And also suggested that he wants the government

to investigate his opponents.

RFK Jr. is apparently telling Republican senators

that he's changed his mind on the polio vaccine and others

and that he's not trying to limit access to inoculation.

So there's some good news for your day.

Some good news for your Friday.

Go into the weekend with that.

But apparently he'll continue to make money

from his involvement in a lawsuit against Merck over the HPV vaccine, which he would now be overseeing. So that's lovely.
He's going to get a piece for him, too. You know, everyone's got their piece.
Meanwhile, one nominee who may actually be in trouble, Tulsi Gabbard, one Republican senator just told Semaphore, quote, there are very serious concerns by enough members to put her nomination in jeopardy. What do you think, Dan? Is the Senate going to reject any of these yahoos? Maybe Tulsi Gabbard.
Maybe. I wouldn't bet on it.
But it does seem possible there was some reporting she wouldn't get out of committee. And they're most mad at her, as it turns out, for suggesting a pardon for Edward Snowden, which seems to be low on the list of reasons why she should not have this job.
Wow. I think they're also – she's not as right-wing on sort of surveillance issues.
And I think they're a little – some of them are a little worried about that. Worry that she's going to over or under-surveil? Under-surveil.
Oh. You can't be under-surveilling in the Trump administration.
You've. You got to be over surveilling the right people.
Yeah, exactly. Very against surveillance on their people.
Very pro surveillance on everyone else. And then, of course, she met with Assad a couple times.
And they're a little concerned about that. So we'll see about Tulsi.
It is wild that Hegseth, they can't get one more Republican to take. Because if they have three, they can't get one more Republican to take down Hegseth.
But just the drama is whether he's going to pass easily or J.D. Vance is going to have to remind America he exists and show up to break the tie.
Yeah, that's what we're that's what we're going with. So it looks like Trump's going to get his cabinet.
And it seems like John Thune is going to keep the Senate in session basically until all of the nominees are confirmed. So that's what we're looking at there.
Unsurprisingly, Trump's opponents have not been getting a ton of airtime this week. One moment that did break through, though, was this one from the prayer service at the National Cathedral on Tuesday.
In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in democratic, republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives.
And the people, the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals, they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors.
That, of course, was Bishop Marion Buddy. She is the head bishop in Washington, D.C., of the Episcopal Church.
Trump and the rest of the Republicans spent the rest of the week attacking her for what she said. Not just disagreeing, saying that it was despicable.
One Republican congressman, I don't know if it was a joke or not, said that she should be on the deportation list. Trump has demanded an apology from her.
They've called her a liar uh mike johnson very religious man uh he he posted about her that she was uh it was despicable white house called her despicable what did you make of that moment at the prayer service it was incredibly powerful uh not just what she said but the fact that she said it to trump's face particularly in an environment where so many of Trump's longtime opponents are bending over backwards to kiss his ass in the most debasing way possible. And so to have someone who actually is not willing just to say it, but to say it to his face in a moment when people are listening was powerful and courageous.
I also think it is a model for other leaders to talk about trump because she like they're all saying you know she's so division and i've just looked at what mike johnson actually said her her hateful radical ideology that's what she uses an opportunity to push that and then anyone who listens to the clip like like go listen to the clip. Go listen to the whole thing.
She could not have been more respectful of Donald Trump and Republicans. She could not have been more willing to extend a hand and to try to just, she's just trying to lodge her complaint in the most respectful way possible.
And I do think there is additional power in criticizing Trump and criticizing what he's doing in a way where she didn't really care in that moment if Donald Trump was going to get mad at her. But what she was thinking about is how is this message, how is what I'm saying in this criticism going to land even with people who may not agree with me? And that's not to say that she was being like super political and thinking of message strategy like we do, but she's clergy and she thinks about it from a human perspective.
And she spoke in a way that normal humans would speak to each other when you're trying to convince someone who may not agree with you in a respectful way, in a way that normal humans would speak to each other when you're trying to convince someone

who may not agree with you in a respectful way,

in a way that shows grace.

And I think it's something,

and even in her interviews afterwards,

she had some, you know, all these reporters,

all these people kept setting her up

to like take another shot at Donald Trump

or really attack her.

And she just, she wouldn't do it, you know,

because she's like, this is,

she said, I think on a, Rachel Maddow interviewed her and she said look i just i wanted to say it this way because i think this is a moment to try to like bring the country together and i don't think this is a moment to further inflame divisions but these voices weren't being heard and i needed to say something. And I just, I thought that was great.

It was very, you hit on that I think is like the instructive part of this for Democrats is the core of her remarks is that she believes that despite this election, despite whom we just elected, that this is a country of people who care about each other, who want to come together and want to do the right thing, particularly for America's most vulnerable people. And- That we take care of each other.
We take care of each other, right? We've all been strangers here at one point. And we don't want to be, try to make ourselves be a lesser version of Trump, right? Sort of a paler shade of orange, if you will.
What we want to do is we want to speak to the opposite of Trump. And that's what she did, right? And I think, and I do, it didn't come to fruition in this election, but I have continued to believe ever since Trump first came down that escalator and won that election that the antidote to that in the long term in politics is to get back to speaking to hope and optimism in unity and the idea that we care about each other.
Yeah, decency. What else have you seen? What are your overall thoughts on how Democrats have responded to this week? Man, that's a loaded question.
I've been here trying to answer it all week here. I'm getting asked it all the time on all these-

That is your personal choice, my friend.

I know.

You're wise to keep your head underwater there.

Look, I think to be fair to Democrats,

it is impossible to ask them in a moment

in which we are thoroughly leaderless

to have the fully formed response to Trump

in the first 72 hours of his presidency.

What I worry about in some of the responses to date is that we are unwilling to truly reckon with this election, right? We can tell ourselves a story that the election was closer than sort of the narrative, and that is true in one sense. But it's also true, and more importantly, that we have bled massively with the most core parts of our coalition, right? Latino voters, black voters, young people.
And that is an ongoing trend, right? If you look at the Latino numbers, it's massive over the last four years. and it just feels like we're doing the same people are doing the same things they were doing six months ago, as opposed to really rethinking how we communicate, how we speak, right? Not our message.
Like, what are the words that come out of our mouth? How do we sound different? What are we going to do that's different than before? And I see that a little bit in the way the DNC race is playing out is that people really – we want the easy way out. What we want to do is kind of get lucky, right? And that we're going to survive this period and then Trump's going to be unpopular.
It's kind of an election. Maybe we can win it, kind of like we won 2020.
But that doesn't solve our bigger problem. and I don't even want to depress people, but take a look at what the 2032 electoral map is going to look like.
And once you do that, you're going to realize that we have massive work to do to reconfigure our coalition. And we have to be willing to ask really hard questions.
And I'm not convinced that enough people in the party are willing to ask those questions right now. And when you say the 2032 electoral map, you mean that some of the blue states could lose electoral votes because of the new census by then, because blue states are losing people to red states.
I'm still, you know, like you, I'm still giving people time to sort of get their sea legs in the new. And look, we had to wait to see how extreme he would be in the first week whether he'd actually follow through i mean i you know on this very podcast on our tuesday show i think i was saying oh we've tried resistance politics we should try normal politics and here's the price of a like i did the whole thing and then you know he goes and pardons these violent offenders and all the other shit and you you're like, you just, you know, you've got to adapt to and react to him in some ways.
Right. Like that is just part of dealing with Donald Trump.
He does something and we often have to react. We try not to overreact, but like that's he's the president.
He commands a lot of power right now. Right.
And so, you know, a lot of Democrats are just finding their sea legs. I get that.
But I have not seen anything this week. Right.
Like, I don't you know, I saw Chris Murphy on the floor talking about the pardons and I think he was very passionate. He's someone who who talks like a human AOC is out there.
She's talking like a human. And I just don't see a lot else from Democrats right now with people who are just, you know,

putting all the polling down for a second, put the stage directions down.

Just tell us how you feel.

It's the first week, right?

You don't have to think about what polls well right now.

It's the first week.

Tell us how you feel about this.

I think there's obviously a messaging problem, but even take the Chris Murphy example, right example right great speech he lived on the floor of the senate yeah right yeah like right you know you saw that yeah because i i've now made a a twitter list of democratic politicians just so i could see what they're all talking about and that was the only one that caught my eye in that long list and part of it is is hard other than the example of aversa who did a lot of her stuff on instagram live which is the right place to do a lot of this is there's just not people who have the capacity to be heard yeah right and that that is a challenge but part of it is you well this is a you know this is a a bigger topic about uh attention and how to command attention in age. But sometimes one way to get heard and have the capacity to get heard is to say something worth hearing.
And I don't think that anyone said anything worth hearing yet. Or not a lot of people.
The bishop sure did. Now, look, she's a bishop.
She's not political. Donald Trump was sitting right there.
So obviously that's why the whole thing went viral. like i don't know i think we gotta start throwing some stuff against the wall see what sticks in terms of getting the message out right not in terms of message itself but like people it's what you said about trump you gotta over communicate right there's the press release the senate floor speech the five minute not sufficient, not sufficient right now.
One last thing on Democratic strategy here on Wednesday night, someone we know, Tom Vitor, was a guest of my pal Jesse Waters on Fox News. Let's listen to how he did.
How many genders are there, Tommy? How many genders are there, Tommy? The honest answer, Jesse, I don't care. I'm a libertarian.
I don't care. Be what you want to be.
You can be what you want to be, Desi. Live your truth.
Well, I'm not a Democrat, and that we know. I haven't seen this enemies list.
Can you show me this list? Yeah, read Kash Patel's book, The New FBI Director. You should check it out.
It's not a long book. I haven't seen the list.
I know there was FBI agents on the ground on January 6th, and then they destroyed evidence in the committee, and then everybody gets preemptive pardons. What's that all about? He's doing kind of a greatest hits of conspiracy.
Are we going to do lab leak now? Where do we want to go next? How'd our boy do? He did great. He did great.
He hung in there. Our libertarian co-host.
I really appreciate it from Tommy because I a one of my theories I'm noodling on for the future of our party is we have to become more libertarian okay yeah free speech legalized marijuana I thought Tommy did great he was very quick on the draw it was very quick it's also it's also I mean I did this I i did jesse waters during the convention when we were uh it was the height of brat summer we were riding high yeah he was much jesse water seemed a little scared about his future we saw you now he is uh yeah he was like well no well tommy was like why don't you just you just want to let this go donald trump one he's like i'm not letting it go tommy vitor tell me that that question about how many how many genders that was the first question to tommy yes no it wasn't like hey hello could you comment on the pardons or anything that was tommy tell us about the genders it's still worth and you know i still think it's worth going on it was worth going on to hear tommy bring up the conspiracies give jesse some shit like i think I think it's good this is I mean I have been a long time opponent of Democrats other than the most talented of Democrats which I would include Tommy and going on Fox News but now like this is the thing we have to do we have to be everywhere and you have to be in uncomfortable spaces so you'll get more attention like if tommy had just gone on pick your msnbc show it wouldn't have gotten any currency outside of the people who happen to be watching at that moment and because for example we're not we're not talking about love it star turn on chris hayes last night at the same time yes he did i'm learning this right now and i did the night before with tim miller yeah get you and tim miller were on chris hayes at the exact same time yeah it was basically just yeah we're just hanging out just hanging out cool i mean if we had a good time yelling about everything if i didn't know that then i gotta tell you can't wait till your wife finds out you did that she definitely doesn't know she doesn't know she texted me she was like are you coming home and i'm like no i'm doing this pod and i got the view no i said i think you're right like you gotta it gets more attention that way and i think tommy did great so let's let's keep it up all right that's all we got for news when we come back you'll all hear dan's interview with uh dnc chair candidate faz shakir but one quick thing before we get to faz dan i hear we have a special offer for our listeners for message box your substack newsletter is that right well john great toss i do speaking of speaking of reading the stage directions right here it says dan crosstalk so that's what we're doing now. We're doing the crosstalk.

Sometimes it says banter TK.

Well, John, I do have a special offer. But before I get to that, I just want to say,

I've been writing this newsletter for four and a half years now, which is very alarming. But

almost all of that's been during the Biden administration. So I spent a bunch of time

over the holidays trying to think about what I want to do differently now that Donald Trump is back in our lives and how I want to think about what four years of fighting Trump ahead of us. And so I've kind of come up with three things that I'm really going to try to focus on.
The first is continuing to analyze what happened this election, exploring how we can rebuild our coalition. It's not pleasant to look back at that election, but we have to learn the lessons from it.
The second is strategizing about how we can continue to combat the right-wing media machine. We got our asses absolutely kicked in the last election.
We're at a huge media disadvantage. So how do we fix that as Democrats? How do we communicate better? What platforms do we use? What platforms do we need to build? And the last thing is I want to identify from my readers specific ways we can all fight back against what Trump and his minions are trying to do, right? And that includes where to volunteer, where to donate, which campaign matters most, and how to talk to the persuadable voters in your life about what's happening in politics, what Trump's doing, how to do that the most effectively possible.
So this is of interest to you. I have a special offer that cringes me to say this in so many ways.
But I'm watching your face do this. Right.
The special offer is if you go to the most embarrassing website possible, crooked.com slash yes, we Dan and sign up for message box, you will get your first month free. So that is crooked.com slash yes, we Dan end of pitch.
I have to go take a shower now. Everyone, when there is a Dan Pfeiffer message box, it is the first thing I read when I wake up at the ungodly hour that I wake up.
Because I'm like, I'm not going to start my day with anything else, but I got to read the message box first. I do it every single time it comes out.
It is a fantastic fit. And I talk to Dan all the time.
So you would think that there's not a ton I could learn from it, but I always do.

So everyone should go subscribe.

I want you to know I started sending it earlier to try to abide by your sleep schedule. Because if I could beat my playbook, I'm fucked for the day.
That's true. That's true.
All right. When we come back, Fats Shakir.
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Joining me now is Faz Shakir, the founder of the progressive media site More Perfect Union, former national political director for the ACLU, longtime advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders, and now candidate for DNC chair. Fez, welcome to Pod Save America.
Dan, thanks for having me. Okay, you've been in politics a long time.
You've worked on campaigns. You've worked on The Hill.
You've been in groups. You know a lot about how the DNC works.
Why the hell do you want this job? We've gotten a creeping sense that maybe you feel the same way, Dan, that there's a powerlessness about the DNC. Oh, it's useless, especially in an age in which you've seen a lot of the power drift over to super PACs and outside actors who are a little more nimble and quick.
And I understand that, but let me get philosophical with you for a moment here. We are dealing in a society where you've got wealth and income inequality, where power is residing with people who have a lot of money.
And when you think about like, if you just pull back and say, okay, well, what do you do in a situation where, hey, a lot of power has moved to the hands of a few? What you need are people powered organizations led with integrity that say, hey, don't forget about us here. And those things have to exist as institutions.
So to all the people, and I understand them, there's a lot of working class people out there who say institutions are corrupt, they're broken, they don't work for me. I'm making the argument, yeah, but institutions are you way out.
You need to have solidarity within a structure to have some power. This is what unions are about, right? This is why you and I have built up our own media institutions, is that people need voice.
And the DNC is one of two, right, major political parties in America. You got the Republican Party, which we know what direction is going on, and the Democratic Party.
I'm like, don't give up on a structure and an institution that has to work for people. We've had your two primary opponents for this position on the show.
We've talked to Ken Martin and Ben Wickler. What is something you disagree with them on? You got into this race after they've been running for a long time.
So there must have been something you saw that was not being addressed or something you would do differently. So I'm curious what the contrast is.
Yeah, the shortcoming in my mind is that I am very pleased and happy, no surprise to you, that we're not talking about being a working class party. I'm like, great.
I've been hunting this one for a while, but I'm glad coming out of this, we're all talking about it.

And so then I'm sitting around saying, hey, OK, get me.

What is the ambitious new thing that we are going to do out of the DNC that is going to turn the heads of working class people to say, oh, that's different.

That's interesting. I didn't realize you guys are going to act that way.
And I, quite frankly, was feeling let down by the lack of ambition on that score. And I'm jumping in to challenge the notions of our constraints of thinking around what the DNC can do.
If you're an apparatus with a $ million plus in raise of a year and you've got 50 plus state parties, can you think outside the box of how you let people into this? The big thing that I'm trying to force everyone to think about is a grassroots DNC that says membership to our organization is not merely a contribution, it is us being in community with you. We have to be out there with striking workers, organizing workers, people fighting utility rate hikes or evictions and foreclosures.
You have to be closer to grassroots people who are fighting economic justice issues and using your media apparatus to highlight those fights in which I think working-class people turn to you and say, well, that I've never seen from the DNC. That's interesting.
That's different. That's what I'm compelling and forcing us to think about.
So what is that? Is community that big idea? Can you talk a little more about that? So I blend it all together, that media infrastructure being on the front lines. Let's take, I mean, you go case by case here, but let's say Amazon workers are going to organize to fight for a union in a North Carolina warehouse, which by the way is going up.
And does the DNC play a role in this? Right now, historically, you and I know we're a partisan organization. We focus on elections.
What I'm arguing is that if you are a working-class party, you associate with the working-class struggles in all different fronts and utilize some degree of your email list to help build solidarity with them. Use your media channels to advertise and explain what the hell it is that they're fighting for at this Amazon warehouse, why they matter to us.
And ultimately, when we stick out our necks out for them in North Carolina and there's an election, I believe you're more likely to get some of those people to stand with the Democratic Party up and down the ballot when the time comes. So I'm seeing it more holistically that when we change the way we are projected to working class people, when we get closer to their fights rather than just our fights, I think we got a better chance to recruit them back in, particularly in this moment where people feel like Donald Trump is leading us into a world where wealth and power dictate all.
You obviously work for Bernie Sanders. You've talked a lot about the Democratic Party becoming more populist.
This is a fairly loaded question or one that you could take this entire interview and several podcasts to talk about. So I'll try to get your short version of the answer is, Joe Biden was on economics the most progressive president in a very long time.
He did a lot of the things that Bernie Sanders and other populists and progressives wanted him to do. Yet we bled more with working class voters than in any election since the 80s.
What is your short diagnosis for why that happened? I'll try to keep it short. My diagnosis is that when Joe Biden was rightly doing a lot of great populist policy, it was not matched by the political apparatus leaning into those same fights.
So you take a moment where Joe Biden makes history by going to a picket line on behalf of the UAW during the midst of their strike. You do not see a UAW kind of solidarity effort and action from the DNC saying, this is our fight.
We together in this. This was Joe Biden doing his thing, not the Democratic Party standing with you.
You take any of those big moments, you know, if you have a Biden administration going after big pharma, launching a major case, going after pharmacy benefit managers, going after Amazon, a Kroger-Albertson's merger, whatever the case might be, some of these big bank junk fees that Rocha Chopra and others were fighting. You correct me if I'm wrong, Dan, it does not feel to me that the policy apparatus that was taking on these major challenges was accompanied by a political apparatus telling you, here's what we're doing, and here's the friction that we are engaged in right now, and why we're asking you to be part of this Democratic Party.
And when the political apparatus doesn't do its part, we can't blame voters for just being like, I had no idea. And I think to this day, if I went out and talked about, hey, did you know we were fighting the Kroger Albertsons merger because we wanted to make sure grocery prices were low and you had competition? What percentage, Dan? What are we talking about? 5%, 10%? Less.
1%, if you're lucky. Yeah.
What a sad situation that these were the biggest things that Biden was bringing about. And as you know, the business world, if I went into any K Street lobbying operation or in a chamber meeting, and I mentioned any of these things that you and I are just talking about, would they know? 98% awareness, right? They were very upset.
Why is Mark Zuckerberg where he is? He was upset that, you know, they're taking on his Facebook monopoly. So he's upset and he moves away.
Elon Musk, oh, I didn't get invited to a White House meeting and Joe Biden was calling me a union buster. Yeah, these rich and wealthy people were very upset at this direction.
And yet the political apparatus is not leaning in to tell you this is the direction that we are choosing to fight for working class people. One of your sort of passions in politics has been sort of the asymmetry in media, right? Which is why you started More Perfect Union, a progressive populist pro-union media apparatus.
What would you do with the DNC to address the media asymmetry here? Because that gets to the core of like, there is a missing political organizing piece to what we're just talking about, but a huge part of it is media, right? We got outgunned in media. We were unable to communicate in the right way.
Some of that specific to Biden, but how would you change the DNC to address our media problems? Part of your job, I think in this moment, is to think of yourself as editor-in-chief of a social media channel. Thankfully, we at More Perfect Union have about,

I'd say, 1.3 million YouTube subscribers now. Dan, I want you to guess, how many does the Democrats' YouTube channel, which started in 2006, how many followers does it have of More Perfect Union? What does Pod say? Probably close to a million or maybe 750,000 or something.
Yeah. So, you know, respectable numbers here.
What does the DNC have? 150, I'm guessing. 76,000.
76,000. So, you know, we are obviously undershooting on just utilizing the channels to do compelling and interesting content.
But you and I know you don't just sprinkle fairy dust on a YouTube channel and suddenly it grows. No, you have to give some compelling content.
I don't know. Do you ever work in the building? You know, I work back.
It was back in the day I was a DNC opposition researcher. What I do know is we're sitting on content.
If you want to know what Donald Trump ever said, you know, from his first term, his campaigns, video, it's there. You know, they have been recording it.
It's wild that, you know, that you can't come up with compelling and interesting pieces to just tell people about here's what Donald Trump promised, here's what he said. You could just, that alone could do a hell of a lot of service of content.
But then, as I was mentioning, when you're grassroots operation, you're getting out in the country and you're trying to tell people we're a working class organization. We care and affiliate with your economic justice fights.
why not use the channels, the videographers and our 50 plus state parties

to say, hey, we're going to get on the ground

and tell this interesting and compelling economic justice story

just as a service to all of us to know what's going on in the housing market or how you're getting screwed on your utility rate hike. Whatever the case might be, I find that those types of pieces of content right now would do a hell of a lot to attract new audiences and that aren't just purely partisan, you know, in nature.
You know, everyone who has ever run for this job since about 2006 has talked about a 50 state strategy. We're going to organize everywhere.
We're going to have red states, blue states, et cetera. The challenge of that always is money, right? Which is, there's not enough money to do everywhere.
And then you ultimately feel a need to prioritize in the seven swing states or the Senate rate, the states where they have the Senate races or wherever that these days are often the same states. How do you plan to address that? And what's your approach to organizing all over the country? So when I, you mentioned I was at the ACLU, I faced the same thing.
We had 50 state affiliates all over the board. We were fortunate that we had a great grassroots fundraising operation.
I think we ended up raising $200 million plus. I think the DNC can do that this year too.
So I would challenge the notions that, well, we just don't have enough money. I think it's a matter of conviction around that money.
It does mean if you take away from somewhere, you have to add to somewhere. But if you have a conviction of saying a baseline of funding, right now you may know this, Dan, but most state parties, if you're out in Idaho or wherever, you probably get $12,500 a month.
That's a poverty budget. Think about trying to run a state party in Idaho at $12,500 a month.
And so one is just you have to increase the baseline of that. And if you had a robust grassroots operation, you're not only increasing their baseline, you're also saying that the data, the donor, the lists that we're getting out of maybe even the last election cycle, we raised a billion dollars from small dollar funds, that that list goes back over to you as well.
But you've got to know what to do with it. This is a challenge I face at the ACLU.
So I give you the list. Do you have the digital expertise? Do you know how to do online to offline events with volunteers? Probably it might be challenging for a lot of other states.
That's where DNC comes in to say, hey, I got to give you some baselines. Not only am I increasing the amount to the state, I also got to give you technical expertise from national of how to use it, the know-how.
And then I would just say our job, and I'll say this with all delicacy and respect to the DNC universe, which I've been in and you know a little bit about, lots of councils and lots of caucuses. Man, one council in one caucus breeds another council in a caucus.
What we really need is program and mission. And so, by example, what I did at ACLU is say, hey, we got one program mission for us was expand voting rights in this country.
Here's a North Star. Now, states, pitch me on what you could do to expand voting rights.
You got independent redistricting commissions. You got expansion of early vote.
You're trying to get formerly incarcerated individuals to vote. Great.
Get me a pitch. Explain what's going on in your state and what you need to help fund it.
See, so if you set like a goal and ambition, a purpose at the top, and now you've got states saying, I think here, even in Idaho, I think we can do something about that. We need that.
So goals and ambitions are like grassroots organizing is one in events and communities that I was mentioning before. Candidate recruitment across the board.
Tell me what you're doing to expand and do interesting candidate recruitment and we'll fund it. And, you know, so I just feel a lack of ambition around where's program and mission here.
Can you raise that money while still being less annoying in your texting emails than the Democratic Party has been in a long time? You know, so this, you know, one of the learnings of Bernie's email list, which still to this day is very vibrant and raises a fair amount and probably outperforms a number of candidates still running for office, is that, and I don't know if you're on the email list, he writes very substantive, long emails and asks people, often not even for a direct contribution, it's a petition action and a secondary ask for money. And I think I don't want to treat people like they're dumb.
I do think people, particularly in this age where the economy is complex, people know it's rigged, they're seeking depth. Get me an understanding.
Own your leader, your job. Help unpack stuff for me.
And I believe the emails, lists, and texts don't have to be superficial and treat people like they're dumb. I think you can raise the bar and you say, hey, this is something interesting and compelling that I want you to know about, and I'm asking you to fund it.
I think we'd seen an increase in funding, not a drop off. Would the DNC under your leadership accept contributions from corporate PACs and lobbyists? So what I'm, yes, well, what I'm most upset about there is that corporate power influence over the party.
So I wouldn't accept money from PACs lobbyists who are trying to say, hey, we want a seat at the table, we're going to influence this. And right now, I think that that's what you got going, Dan, is you've got these folks who believe not that when I give you a contribution, I expect that my finance committee will now not be run by, you know, finance people that are the delegates or people who we've brought into the DNC, but they're outsiders.
The people outside the organization, they come in, they make determinations. so I think if you're a working class party in my view you do things that stand for working class

people and I was wrestling with this in real time, if Amazon wanted to give me $50,000 for the DNC, promise you, earmarked to support Amazon workers in this country. So I'll take it.
And guess what? Those Amazon workers who are organizing in North Carolina are going to get every penny of it. We're going to show, you know, if you're a working class party, this is what you are supporting.
And in that way, yes, I will show my true colors because corporate influence will not have driven the decision making. And I think that my sense is there's a lack of transparency and people feel like corporate influence is having a large role of it because we don't even know where the hell the money's going.
Where does all the large numbers amounts? Because on the FEC filings, there's consultants who get money. But what I don't see anything.
Where is my value as a member of the Democratic Party? What are you doing in community with me? We can raise the bar on that one. We can do compelling and interesting stuff in communities all over the country.
Well, Faz, thanks so much for joining us. Good luck in your race.
It's always great to talk to you. Thank you, Dan.
Appreciate it. That's our show for today.
I'm going to be back in your feet on Sunday for our very first Sunday show of 2025 featuring an excellent in-depth conversation with none other than Rachel Maddow about Trump's first week back in office, how we should cover his second term and how to stay sane.

it was a lot of fun as always I hope you'll check it out thanks to Fashik here for coming on the show

and thanks to Jared O'Connell

Dio Gomez

Jake Goetz, Jesse Carson

Dave Seidel and everyone

here at SiriusXM in New York City for hosting us this week. We loved being here.
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