Obama Night at the DNC (feat. Julia Louis-Dreyfus)

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Speaker 2 This week we're going all out for the Democratic National Convention.

Speaker 2 Here at Crooked Media, we're giving Friends of the Pod subscribers access to a ton of behind-the-scenes content and community events, including a DNC subscriber live chat, a new subscriber exclusive segment featuring me, John Tommy, and Dan, four, count them four back-to-back ad-free episodes of Pod Save America, recapping the biggest convention news of the night, and brand new episodes of Inside 2024 and Polar Coaster.

Speaker 2 It's going to be a hell of a week for content. And as a bonus, we'll have a Democratic Party nominee by the end.

Speaker 12 Pretty good deal.

Speaker 4 Get all of our exclusive DNC content and more when you subscribe to Friends of the Pod.

Speaker 13 Head to crooked.com/slash friends to sign up now.

Speaker 6 Welcome to Pod Save America.

Speaker 9 I'm John Fabre.

Speaker 15 I'm John Lovett.

Speaker 16 I'm Dan Pfeiffer, Tommy Vitor.

Speaker 12 On tonight's show, Barack and Michelle Obama rally the troops at the DNC.

Speaker 18 The one and only Julia Louis Dreyfus stops by to talk about why she's involved in the convention and all those Veep comparisons with Kamala Harris.

Speaker 17 And our own senator, LaFonza Butler, a close friend of Kamala, talks to Lovett and me about what the VP is really like and why she decided, like Joe Biden, to serve just one term.

Speaker 9 She also called me pretty weird, but I really like her.

Speaker 25 Yeah, in fairness, that's because you called yourself weird first.

Speaker 15 But anyway, so it was a good conversation.

Speaker 21 He's our J.D. Vance.

Speaker 8 Tune in. Hey, that sucks.

Speaker 27 What are you doing in that chair, buddy?

Speaker 3 Look, you started the interview as J.D. Vance, you ended as Tim Walls.

Speaker 8 Nice. Okay,

Speaker 8 okay.

Speaker 13 All right, so we're recording this at 11 p.m.

Speaker 9 on Tuesday night. Better than lunch.

Speaker 8 Which is lovely.

Speaker 8 We're doing better.

Speaker 15 Oh, half an hour better every night.

Speaker 28 Half an hour better every night.

Speaker 22 Who knows what happens by Thursday night?

Speaker 29 It's just after night two of the convention.

Speaker 10 So tonight is traditionally the night when the big festive roll call happens to officially nominate the presidential and vice presidential candidates.

Speaker 10 This year, of course, the official roll call happened virtually to make sure we didn't run afoul of the state ballot deadlines.

Speaker 11 But you know what?

Speaker 34 We're the party of fun now.

Speaker 3 So Democrats decided to do the ceremonial roll call anyway, and it was actually really cool.

Speaker 11 It was a really cool part of the night.

Speaker 13 As usual, the delegates cast their votes state by state, but this time they played a state-specific song with at least one surprise in-person appearance from, obviously, Lil John, who's from Georgia.

Speaker 3 By tradition, the nominee's home state delegation California went last to put her over the top, and then there was an unexpected move.

Speaker 32 Here's a supercut of how it all went. We are here today to officially never make Kevin Ahan for president.

Speaker 32 As Nevada's first black Wilma chair, I proudly deliver the Silver State's 48 votes for for the next president.

Speaker 38 Texas casts three votes, President,

Speaker 8 and 263 votes for freedom.

Speaker 8 California, we proudly cast our 482 votes for the next president, Kamala Harris.

Speaker 8 But now,

Speaker 39 a special surprise.

Speaker 16 Live from my home state of Wisconsin, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Speaker 40 The delegates at the Democratic National Convention, well, they just completed their roll call.

Speaker 40 And they have nominated Coach Walls and me to be the next vice president and president of the United States of America.

Speaker 2 What did you guys think of that Milwaukee move?

Speaker 15 I think we should set the stage. It's not that just he was in Milwaukee.
They filled the Fiser Forum, which is where the Republican convention was last month.

Speaker 41 Yep.

Speaker 15 And it was a raucous crowd and a perfect set. And they did it live, which is a risky maneuver.
two full stadiums

Speaker 22 for all the issues last night with going over the fact that they orchestrated the whole thing tonight so that literally like the roll call ends and Newsom puts her over the top in California and then it just cuts to her walking out on stage with a huge crowd it was amazing it was so good the stagecraft like a lot of people had a hand in that they probably don't get a lot of credit that's amazing it was just so people like we were all watching it and we were just such earnest we were just so earnestly like excited and it like just sort of that's so fucking cool.

Speaker 9 Don't look at me and Dan.

Speaker 27 You know, we weren't here. We were up in a suite.

Speaker 8 I was sitting right here. I was

Speaker 21 talking with your dogs very early.

Speaker 26 Oh, that's what happened.

Speaker 27 Oh, I was doing it to Bitsy Spider with Lizzie.

Speaker 9 I thought we were in the which is fair, which is totally fine.

Speaker 35 It's a good excuse.

Speaker 3 What'd you guys think of the vibes in general?

Speaker 9 Uh, before we get to the big speakers, vibes are good, vibes are good, right?

Speaker 16 Vibes are good.

Speaker 21 It's a good day.

Speaker 16 We're drinking now. We're having a good time.
Vibes are good on day two.

Speaker 9 All right, let's get to the speeches.

Speaker 22 Headliners tonight were second gentleman Doug Emhoff and Barack and Michelle Obama.

Speaker 36 We're just gonna take them in order.

Speaker 9 Let's listen to Doug.

Speaker 42 I got Kamalo's voicemail and I just started rambling.

Speaker 43 Hey, it's Doug.

Speaker 43 I'm on my way to an early meeting.

Speaker 43 Again, it's Doug.

Speaker 42 I remember I was trying to grab the words out of the air and just put them back in my mouth. And for what seemed like far too many minutes, I hung up.

Speaker 42 By the way, Kamala saved that voicemail

Speaker 42 and she makes me listen to it on every anniversary.

Speaker 44 But that's when she called me back and we talked for an hour and we laughed.

Speaker 43 But you know that laugh.

Speaker 8 I love that laugh.

Speaker 45 So

Speaker 13 should we talk about why we missed Doug's speech?

Speaker 26 The live card, yeah.

Speaker 30 So we were about to watch Doug, and then our friend Ben Krauss, who's in the the speech writing room, he said he was going to bring us down to the convention floor.

Speaker 27 To the podium area.

Speaker 21 To the podium area.

Speaker 27 Where you literally, I've never been down to the podium area. You're literally standing on the podium, but behind the stage that you see.

Speaker 47 It's very cool.

Speaker 24 Yeah.

Speaker 27 Like we watched Doug come off and greet his staff and everyone was elated.

Speaker 26 Elated.

Speaker 27 That's the best word.

Speaker 11 And then we walked down and we were going to go out to watch this.

Speaker 10 We were going to watch the speech.

Speaker 11 And then

Speaker 46 we were walking down the hall and we saw Barack Obama's assistant Amos, and he just pulled us in.

Speaker 26 We got to say hi to Obama.

Speaker 8 How are you?

Speaker 21 Pretty neat. Give him a little good luck.

Speaker 26 He needed that.

Speaker 46 He needed the good luck from us.

Speaker 24 Yeah, he did.

Speaker 24 He was like, all right, get out of here.

Speaker 27 It's so annoying because he did not even seem a little bit nervous.

Speaker 47 No, not a hair.

Speaker 15 It's his

Speaker 27 superpower.

Speaker 41 Fifth convention?

Speaker 8 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 24 Yeah.

Speaker 25 Yeah. So he was fine.

Speaker 37 He was fine.

Speaker 3 Doug's speech was fantastic.

Speaker 24 So we watched him when he came back.

Speaker 15 We have seen the speech.

Speaker 3 He's so charming.

Speaker 27 Yeah, he's a charming guy.

Speaker 16 I love how much they, like, it's so authentic how much they love each other. I, from, you know, when they were at the State of the Union and they found each other,

Speaker 16 and you saw Kamala looking it up and Doug up there.

Speaker 16 I like, I've always loved it. I just, I do.
I genuinely, they just love each other.

Speaker 15 There is something so relatable, and I know this from experience, as someone who knows they punched above their weight in getting married.

Speaker 15 Like, Doug knows he got lucky and that Kamala is amazing, and he probably wakes up every day. He's like, I can't believe Kamala Harris married me.

Speaker 21 Even if she's not really married, the theme of the speech.

Speaker 15 Yeah, and it is, it's so relatable to people. In the same way that Tim Walls is this archetype that's relatable to people, Doug Emhoff is exactly like that.
Everyone knows Doug Emhoff, right?

Speaker 15 They understand that relationship, they understand who he is. And this was one of the most effective convention speeches I've seen in a very long time.

Speaker 49 And to get like all political strategic about it, we've talked a lot here about this debate over masculinity and like young men and men sort of like leaving the Democratic Party.

Speaker 14 And I do think like between Tim Walls and Doug Mhoff, like you are seeing in this campaign like models of men who are just like good guys and like good models for like men to be.

Speaker 16 And they're bothered by

Speaker 16 the success of women.

Speaker 21 Yes, right.

Speaker 16 They aren't all bothered by it. That's what's been beautiful about Doug from the beginning, that you can just see that he loves being the plus one.

Speaker 8 He loves it.

Speaker 16 He loves being, he's on a plus one world tour.

Speaker 8 He used to be on a plus one world tour.

Speaker 26 I like calling him Doug.

Speaker 27 I also like Colin Wall's coach. Oh, just again, a little behind the curtain look here.

Speaker 27 We were sitting around, we were all talking about how, you know, like we all had a sense of what Obama was going to say. You could sort of had a sense of what Michelle Obama might say.

Speaker 51 We're all like, we don't really know what Doug's going to talk about.

Speaker 27 And the only preview was a message about the need to combat anti-Semitism around the world, which is a very important message, but a very different tone than what we saw.

Speaker 16 I am so glad that what we saw was a speech about Doug explaining why he loves Kamal Harry. Oh, one other thing that Doug did that was so beautiful, really reminded me.
So, Bill Clinton, 1992,

Speaker 16 he said, this is when they were making fun of like Murphy Brown and single mothers. And he said, if you don't feel welcome in the Republican Party, come be part of our family.

Speaker 16 It was a beautiful moment. It's standing up for lots of people whose families didn't look like the platonic ideal of 1950s television.

Speaker 16 And it was a big deal that Bill Clinton did that and said, there's a lot of people that live like that and deserve to feel loved.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 there was something so beautiful about Doug just unapologetically, unabashedly saying, we're a blended family. They call her Mamala.
She's an incredible stepmother. It was complicated.

Speaker 16 He said, I got divorced.

Speaker 16 And I figured out, and Kamala took, I thought she'd be good for our family, and she was. And that sort of like direct...

Speaker 16 honesty without feeling at all self-conscious like you have to pretend to be some other version just to it was a recognition by the way of like it's respect for people it's respect for the viewer for voters that i really really liked it's just like being in touch with real life not the refracted view of politics that we have, where it's like, you have to have this perfect marriage and your life has to go a certain way.

Speaker 15 And it's just comfort in your own skin. It's understanding, like, this is what everyone knows, right? They know blended families.
They know mixed-race couples. They know stepkids and stepmoms.

Speaker 15 And it's like, that's just like normal

Speaker 15 stuff just presented to people. And it's not welcome or discussed about in the Republican Party in the same way.

Speaker 33 Well, because the primary strategy of the Republican Party, particularly under Trump, has been to

Speaker 20 their opponents, Democrats, right?

Speaker 46 They are weird, they are different. Barack Obama wasn't born here.

Speaker 21 Now we do the weird.

Speaker 52 Kamala Harris is, you know, the biracial thing, is she Indian?

Speaker 52 Is she Indian?

Speaker 37 Is she black, right?

Speaker 46 And I think a theme of tonight, we're going to talk about the Obamas as well, but from all three primetime speakers, Doug, Michelle Obama, and Barack Obama, was like, hey, we're pretty normal Americans in the year 2024.

Speaker 23 This is what the country looks like.

Speaker 31 This is what we sound like.

Speaker 14 Love our families, love our country.

Speaker 29 Like, it's a really powerful message.

Speaker 27 And it's why it's the way people vote. They don't Google your list of policies and compare them and bust out the abacus and like total up what it means for them.
They're like, I like this person.

Speaker 27 They seem like me. They will fight for me, which Barack Obama directly says in his speech.
Michelle Obama got at that too.

Speaker 27 It's all about values and who you are and your character and how that informs your leadership.

Speaker 24 That's what people are looking for.

Speaker 15 The speakers tonight understood the assignment. Yes.
They knew what they were supposed to do. All of their speeches were not about themselves.
Even Doug Emhoff's speech was not about himself.

Speaker 15 It was all about Kamoa and their family and what she did for their family. It's what Obama and the former first lady did.
It is just, they got it and they executed on it in a very effective way.

Speaker 3 And it's always good to see

Speaker 50 a strict scrutiny guest make it big.

Speaker 8 No.

Speaker 26 A guest and a guest of a guest.

Speaker 47 That's right, yeah.

Speaker 9 Because Kamala Harris went to the strict scrutiny show.

Speaker 15 Which is also one of the most charming things.

Speaker 51 Yeah. Yeah.
Because no one knew. We did.

Speaker 13 Like, she just showed up at the strict scrutiny show, the live show in DC, sat in the front row to cheer on Doug.

Speaker 54 Second guest of Scrut Scrutiny.

Speaker 15 We're now three circles removed from the Kamala Harris interview.

Speaker 24 We seek.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 8 We're going to get it. We've had it before.

Speaker 8 We're ready. She'll be back.

Speaker 27 I ran into her on an airplane once, and she came up and gave me a hug and shook. Like, she couldn't have been nice.
She's like a normal person. She's friendly.
She's nice. That's who she is.

Speaker 52 Extremely normal.

Speaker 7 All right.

Speaker 22 So after Doug, Michelle Obama took the stage.

Speaker 55 High expectations for Michelle Obama, right?

Speaker 35 Because she always gives the most incredible speeches.

Speaker 22 She always knocks it out of the park.

Speaker 24 And man, she fucking met them tonight.

Speaker 9 If not exceeded them.

Speaker 7 Let's listen to Michelle.

Speaker 40 She understands that most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward.

Speaker 40 We will never benefit. from the affirmative action of generational wealth.
If we bankrupt a business,

Speaker 40 if we bankrupt a business or choke in a crisis, we don't get a second, third, or fourth chance.

Speaker 40 If things don't go our way,

Speaker 40 we don't have the luxury of whining or cheating others to get further ahead. No.

Speaker 40 We don't get to change the rules so we always win. If we see a mountain in front of us, we don't expect there to be an escalator waiting to take us to the top.

Speaker 40 no

Speaker 40 we

Speaker 40 put our heads down

Speaker 40 we get to work in america we do

Speaker 40 something

Speaker 57 unfortunately

Speaker 57 we know what comes next

Speaker 57 we know folks are going to do everything they can to distort her truth

Speaker 57 My husband and I sadly know a little something about this.

Speaker 57 For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to try to make people fear us.

Speaker 57 See, his limited, narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking, highly educated, successful people who happen to be black.

Speaker 37 So wow, that was...

Speaker 27 I mean, that was one of the best convention speeches I've ever seen.

Speaker 27 I mean, I think the way she tied Kamala Harris's mother and her own mother and wove their story together to talk about her values was incredible.

Speaker 16 The way she

Speaker 27 sliced Donald Trump in half and made him so small

Speaker 27 and went harder at him than almost any other speaker, but did it in language that was just less harsh and

Speaker 27 nasty, it was unbelievable.

Speaker 27 There was also a whole section where she, where there's some very real shade thrown at annoying politicians who demand to be stroked and loved and donors who need to be called that was very funny and you could felt deeply felt.

Speaker 16 Really, really interesting. That's what I was actually thinking.
We went out, we watched it from the floor, which is awesome. And

Speaker 16 what I was thinking about when I was watching the speech is she doesn't like an amazing and very difficult job of speaking both to people that barely pay attention to politics and the hyper-engaged partisans and pundits and politicians and activists with a message that kind of works for both.

Speaker 16 It was just really an incredible thing.

Speaker 27 I wish you were like stop checking 538 and do something. Yeah.

Speaker 26 Which I will not do, but I will do something. But I will also check 538.

Speaker 8 You can do both.

Speaker 9 Votesave both.

Speaker 27 Go to votesaveamerica.com.

Speaker 21 We're actually doing that. That's

Speaker 15 how you get doing something.

Speaker 27 75,000 volunteers to show up. We got 40,000 now.
We need 35,000 more in the next 25 days. Votesaveamerica.com slash 2024.

Speaker 8 That's

Speaker 8 right. Pretty good.

Speaker 21 Pretty good.

Speaker 16 I'm saying I want 75,000 on top of the 40,000.

Speaker 16 It's not inclusive for me.

Speaker 22 Dan, what did you think?

Speaker 7 When they go low, love it goes higher.

Speaker 15 Barack Obama is the best speaker in the Democratic Party, but the second best speaker in his family. Yeah.

Speaker 35 Which he said in his speeches.

Speaker 15 Yeah, it is just the way, like every person who is in politics should watch all of Michelle Obama's convention speeches, starting in 08. and every single one.

Speaker 15 And I watched the 2021, which is one of the starkest warnings about Donald Trump because you remember they were just videos.

Speaker 15 They were just two-camera remarks.

Speaker 15 And she talks like a normal person to normal people. There is no speechifying.
There is no lofty rhetoric about the founders or you're not like cosplaying the Kennedys in your head when you do it.

Speaker 15 It's just like, it always sounds like if you've ever had a conversation with Michelle Obama, it sounds like this, right?

Speaker 15 When she's telling you to do something, she's asking you to do something, she's explaining something to you, it sounds like this, and it is just so effective.

Speaker 15 And in her 2020 speech, she said, you all know I hate politics, right?

Speaker 15 So me doing this tells you how serious I'm paraphrasing the situation is, and that's the vibe, right? She's not political. And there was a genuine

Speaker 15 love and affection for Kamala Harris that was so powerful in there.

Speaker 9 Yes. Like that she understood her life.

Speaker 15 She understood her experience. A kindred.

Speaker 9 And they have become friends.

Speaker 26 They're close friends.

Speaker 27 They both live in D.C., they hang out.

Speaker 15 It's just, it's very, I thought it was just very, very meaningful the way it was done.

Speaker 10 I've been thinking about the reason that the way she went after Donald Trump was so effective, like why that was.

Speaker 22 And I think it's like we've heard so many lines from politicians.

Speaker 31 politicians we love over the last however many years now about Donald Trump and some of them are like really harsh and really slam him and I think that like her indictment of him was like the most devastating even though it wasn't as sharp because like she told a story about him and about like what he represents versus what like Americans actually value in life.

Speaker 3 And she did it with like a certain subtlety.

Speaker 46 It wasn't very subtle to like, everyone understood that it was like a full frontal attack.

Speaker 33 But it's always bothered.

Speaker 25 I have this thing where everyone who criticizes now, like when they go low, we go high.

Speaker 46 I think it was a misunderstanding of what that meant.

Speaker 23 I've always thought it was a misunderstanding.

Speaker 48 She was not saying with when they go low, we go high, like they get down and dirty and attack

Speaker 12 and we turn the other cheek and do that.

Speaker 60 She kind of corrected it tonight. She was like,

Speaker 10 they're really small and we have to go really big.

Speaker 46 And that's what she did in her indictment of Donald Trump.

Speaker 20 It was much bigger than like cheap applause line attacks.

Speaker 22 It was like, he does not stand for what we value as Americans.

Speaker 46 And I thought it was like so much more powerful.

Speaker 61 There's something.

Speaker 8 look

Speaker 16 Doug's speech into Michelle's speech, into Barack Obama's speech were, I think, pound for pound, the three best speeches in a primetime that I've ever seen.

Speaker 16 And I think it's because each of them started from a place of, why am I here? And what is the single most effective thing I can do?

Speaker 16 What is the speech only I could give that's the most persuasive speech I can personally give for Kamala Harris?

Speaker 21 What are the strengths I bring to achieve that?

Speaker 37 Which is electing Kamala Harris.

Speaker 16 Every person on that stage tonight cares and understands how important it is to fucking win.

Speaker 16 And what they were focused on is trying to figure out the best and most exquisite case that they can make based on who they are, their values, their experiences,

Speaker 16 their kind of place in, you know, whatever, American politics, to make that argument. And they each did that, and it was incredibly effective.

Speaker 27 And one thing I think, like, well, it's a feeling I feel when I watch them now post-presidency, and I wonder if you guys feel this way, which is that they, I worked for Obama from 2004 to 2013.

Speaker 12 They

Speaker 27 endured so much racism and bullshit and just like vicious attacks, especially Michelle.

Speaker 51 Yeah.

Speaker 27 And they had to, in some sense, turn the other cheek on those attacks, or at least not directly call them out as racist when they were.

Speaker 24 For example, the birther stuff.

Speaker 27 We never said, hey, that's racist, Donald Trump. Stop doing that.
Because we knew Barack Obama would be called an angry black man.

Speaker 35 He'd be accused of playing the race card, right?

Speaker 27 It'd be the OJ trial all over again, right?

Speaker 8 Well, and he took the high road.

Speaker 27 But now he's like, I don't have to do that. And she doesn't either.
And they can just be brutally honest and respond to him in the way he deserves.

Speaker 47 Donald Trump, that is.

Speaker 60 But even now, they also knew that, like, it's not like they just had to turn the other cheek because they would be accused of playing the race card.

Speaker 46 They knew that, like, again, to Lovitt's point, politically, the best thing to do to actually win the election and advance the cause is to not get yourself.

Speaker 46 baited into what the Republicans want, which is like an argument and debate over identity and over race.

Speaker 22 And even the way she did it tonight, when she said like, and he is, he wants to make people afraid of just two, of us, of two people who just happen to like work hard and become successful and rise to a high station in life who happened to be black, right?

Speaker 32 Who happened to be black?

Speaker 13 And like just the way, that was just like a perfect way.

Speaker 21 It's elegant. It's an elegant way.

Speaker 27 It's a phrasing, but she's directly calling out the racism in the attack.

Speaker 20 Of course, but in a much more elegant way than I think most Democrats do.

Speaker 15 There is just something about the way a lot of the the Democrats last night went after Trump that was very

Speaker 15 overly online. It's like referencing something that went viral that Trump did or some controversy only known to political junkies.
It's very like MSNBC.

Speaker 27 You didn't think the Curfe video was good?

Speaker 24 Didn't work.

Speaker 15 Or Potsdam America Referential, right?

Speaker 15 And the way the Obamas did it was they talked to people about Donald Trump where you would understand the critique if you don't follow politics because that is our audience.

Speaker 24 Right.

Speaker 11 That is the only audience that matters.

Speaker 46 It is not to like send a thrill up the leg of Democrats who are going to vote no matter what and work hard no matter what.

Speaker 24 Those Democrats were thrilled in there, let me tell you.

Speaker 22 And she, again,

Speaker 59 the reason she's so good is that she, like, the audience in the room was like just, it was crazy.

Speaker 62 It was electric.

Speaker 26 And no one rode the applause better than her.

Speaker 27 She fought, she shut down so many silly chants and things going on. She's like, kept going.
Yeah.

Speaker 13 All right.

Speaker 11 Last but not least, noted Chicago native Barack Obama closed out the night with a speech to the delegates.

Speaker 59 Let's listen.

Speaker 63 Here's a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago.

Speaker 63 It has been a constant stream of gripes and grievances that's actually been getting worse now that he's afraid of losing the common.

Speaker 63 There's the childish nicknames, the crazy conspiracy theories,

Speaker 63 this weird obsession with crowd sizes.

Speaker 63 It is one of the oldest tricks in politics from a guy whose act has, let's face it, gotten pretty stale.

Speaker 56 We do not need four more years of bluster and bumbling and chaos.

Speaker 63 We have seen that movie before, and we all know that the sequel is usually worse.

Speaker 63 America's ready for a new chapter.

Speaker 63 America's ready for a better story.

Speaker 56 We are ready for a president, Kamala Harris.

Speaker 55 Kamala Harris won't be focused on her problems.

Speaker 55 She'll be focused on yours.

Speaker 63 As president, she won't just cater to her own supporters and punish those who refuse to kiss the ring or bend the knee.

Speaker 63 She'll work on behalf of every American.

Speaker 36 All right, so I should just close, I, you know, once a staffer, always a staffer, I volunteered to help a little.

Speaker 37 Look at the speech a couple times.

Speaker 15 I mean, don't knock the three changes I made in the speech.

Speaker 13 There's one very important change.

Speaker 15 Let's not let people behind.

Speaker 21 We don't want that.

Speaker 9 There's one very important change, but I should do, Dan.

Speaker 5 Dan included the dick joke.

Speaker 8 Oh, Dan, the dick joke.

Speaker 27 That makes sense.

Speaker 21 Just so you all know, that was just in the moment. That was just in the moment.

Speaker 3 He just put his hands on the podium.

Speaker 28 I don't know. Maybe it wasn't.

Speaker 21 Or

Speaker 16 maybe he knew all along that that was a dick joke and nobody else did but him.

Speaker 11 I will not comment on it.

Speaker 9 Or what do you guys think of Obama's speech?

Speaker 15 What is this journalistic ethics you've adopted for one second?

Speaker 9 A journalistic ethic is just weird to be like, oh, well, I was like talking to him about the speech.

Speaker 16 His badge says report all of a sudden has gone to his fucking hate TikTok over here.

Speaker 8 I've been watching this guy for a long time.

Speaker 8 We're here because of him. I think our conflicts are well known.

Speaker 16 Here's what I was feeling when I was watching this speech. First of all, it was very moving, especially

Speaker 16 he talked about Michelle's mother and how much it reminded him of his grandmother. It was very emotional.

Speaker 16 What I was thinking when I was watching the speech is we've I think one of the most frustrating and dispiriting parts of the last decade has been for a lot of people voting against Trump, stopping Trump at all costs, it's obvious.

Speaker 16 Of course we must stop this man. Of course this person shouldn't be in power.
And for a lot of people it isn't obvious. It feels like it shouldn't be 50-50 and yet it is.

Speaker 16 And what I really appreciated about this speech is instead of wringing our hands and being like endlessly sort of like, why is Trump here? Why is Trump here?

Speaker 16 This was a speech about why it was obvious, why it should be obvious, right?

Speaker 16 What are the values that he doesn't uphold that if you think about it, if you're reminded of what you care about, it will become obvious.

Speaker 16 This was a speech about making it obvious to people for whom it is not, why obviously somebody like Trump shouldn't be in power. and it was an incredibly effective argument for that reason.

Speaker 41 I agree with that. That's great.

Speaker 15 I think one thing I would just say just being in the room because I don't think it came through on TV is that there was obviously like uproarious applause at times but people especially when he was like talking about the country and polarization and the kind of country we can be and should be, like the audience was wrapped.

Speaker 15 Like they could not take their eyes off it. It was like a very, very powerful

Speaker 15 place to be for that conversation. It was like he had the audience in his hand.

Speaker 15 Just the thing I would say about this speech is, and this has been true of every Obama speech dating back to 2004, is that most politicians, and particularly Democrats, particularly in the Trump era, operate from the assumption that

Speaker 15 the only thing that keeps people from voting for us is ignorance. And Obama has always understood that people who may not agree with us come at that from a place of experience and knowledge.

Speaker 15 And that is our job to persuade them. It's not just that we yell our message in their face loud enough they'll get there.

Speaker 15 It's that they have a set of experiences in their lives that may make them feel not immediately welcome in our party. And it's our job to welcome them in.

Speaker 15 And this was true of the first, of Michelle Obama's speech, it's true of Mark Obama's speech, you're starting to space of persuasion, right? Everyone is someone we have to persuade.

Speaker 15 And if they don't agree with us, they don't agree with us on everything.

Speaker 15 But the reason they don't agree with us is not because they're wrong or they're stupid or they don't follow the news or they're ignorant or they've been hoodwinked or whatever else.

Speaker 15 It's that something in their lives has not worked out the way they wanted or they don't fully or they just in their life experience don't agree with us on something.

Speaker 15 So we have to go get them and bring them in. And that is just such a powerful force and it's just so different than I think what we hear a lot in this era from politicians.
Yeah, I mean honestly it

Speaker 27 brought me back to 2004 and being on the floor of the DNC in Boston. And some of that was like very purposeful and deliberate.

Speaker 27 There were allusions to those lines like conventions have always been good to, you know, a skinny guy with a funny name was the line in 2004.

Speaker 27 But it was also a patriotic story about freedom, about being an American, about things we have in common,

Speaker 27 shared hopes, shared dreams. It was just like it's a beautiful vision of America.

Speaker 27 And of course, like 2004, you got your policy section for Kamala, and you got your tough hit on Trump, like there was a tough hit on Bush back then.

Speaker 27 But ultimately, like it was a speech for everyone about bringing people together. It was patriotic.

Speaker 27 And it was a, you know, just like a guy who loves the country and wants you to too and wants it to be a little bit better and thinks we can make it better if we try to come together again and get past the last eight to ten years, basically.

Speaker 49 He approaches these speeches like an organizer because he was an organizer.

Speaker 14 And to Dan's point, when he talked about the speech,

Speaker 59 one of the first things he thought about was towards the end when he said, like, sometimes we think that winning is all about like out-yelling the other side or scolding people or I mean this is what your point right and what we really have to do is actually like go out and listen to people and talk to people and persuade people and like give people the grace that we would give our loved ones if we don't agree with our loved ones and it's in similar to Michelle right

Speaker 49 you make political points by talking about relationships and the way that we are with people that we love and it's about values but not in the like consultant value talk like talk more about the middle middle class and optimism.

Speaker 8 Just name your values because you work. Right, yeah.

Speaker 25 But like real actual values, like the way you go through life.

Speaker 9 And the other thing he really wanted to do when he did in the Trump section was,

Speaker 37 and this has actually been a theme of a lot of the speakers, which is, you know, Trump.

Speaker 33 has been seen and talked about as a threat to democracy.

Speaker 20 We talked about this last night, an existential threat to democracy, which we all believe he is.

Speaker 37 But, you know, nine years into this fucking Trump era, he's he's also like a clown and a fool.

Speaker 49 And attacking him that way, and Julia Louis Dreyfus talked about this with us during our interview that you're going to hear, it's like the way to like go after the supposed strength of an autocrat or a strong man is to just make them seem foolish because they hate getting made fun of.

Speaker 5 And he sort of mocked Trump and Michelle mocked Trump.

Speaker 14 And like the, I think mocking Trump while still acknowledging, and Obama acknowledged in the speech too, that he can be dangerous.

Speaker 23 Like clowns, clowns with a lot of power can still be dangerous.

Speaker 9 We've all seen it.

Speaker 8 Exactly.

Speaker 21 We all get it, right?

Speaker 48 That's an important point.

Speaker 10 But you gotta, but like, and just like, and just like Nate, like the exhaustion, the exhaustion of having a person who wants to be a leader, who is in our lives all the time, who only fucking cares about himself, is only complaining about himself, whining all the time, and

Speaker 25 contrasting that with Kamala Harris, who cares about people, who is like wakes up thinking about people, like that is a powerful contrast.

Speaker 3 And it was Biden's contrast as well, right?

Speaker 10 It's like a through line from the whole campaign.

Speaker 16 Yeah, there's something about what Obama is doing up there, which is he is,

Speaker 16 he's not saying you're not wrong to be pissed or that there aren't people that you want to scold that are frustrating you. He's saying it's not the most effective thing.

Speaker 16 And being effective is all that matters. This was a night about being effective.

Speaker 16 The speeches themselves were models of what it means to be effective and what he is saying in the speeches. This is how you be.
Is Donald Trump a threat to us?

Speaker 16 absolutely but what's the most the most effective case you can make and one of the ways that we can be effective

Speaker 58 if you're talking to someone who doesn't think Donald Trump's a threat right you still need to get their vote and part of what he's saying is

Speaker 16 hey we want to be a party people want to join right want to be a place that that everybody feels welcome does that mean that people aren't wrong and hold views that we find abhorrent of course it does but what is effective what is practical what brings people in and that like that was just so refreshing this was a night about winning there has been so much talk over the last month about how the parallels between kamala harris 24 and barack obama 08 right the just the the packed crowds the energy but i think like just we've known them for a long time

Speaker 15 they see those parallels too not in just not in the superficial crowd and way but just in the kind of campaign she's running and the kind of politician she is right she is running a fearless campaign where she knows she's the underdog, right?

Speaker 24 Like, do we,

Speaker 15 it seems like a small thing for most people out in the world, but pulling off, going live at your convention is a situation where one person tripping over a wire could embarrass the shit out of you on national television in front of 30 million people, or whoever we're watching tonight.

Speaker 15 But they did it anyway because they, you know, Barack Obama always says: if your name is Barack Hussein Obama, it doesn't matter what the polls say, you're an underdog.

Speaker 15 And if your name is Kamala Harris,

Speaker 15 you're an underdog. And she's running like an underdog.
And she's also trying to build a movement that's about people,

Speaker 41 not her, right?

Speaker 15 It's like Kamala Harris for the people, Kamala for the people is what, or a future for the people.

Speaker 16 And you just, I just really felt their

Speaker 15 passion for her and what she stands for and the kind of president she would be in those remarks. They were putting it on the line.
Michelle Obama did not have to speak at this convention.

Speaker 27 Yeah, she wanted to. And it's 08-like in that people are genuinely excited about her and people are getting involved and reading about politics who normally don't pay a lot of attention.

Speaker 27 I think we're all probably hearing that in our lives.

Speaker 27 What's different than 08 is look, I didn't agree with John McCain on a lot of issues, but if he had been president, I was like, well, he's a good man. You know, he's got to core decency to him.

Speaker 27 He'll do some things that I think are abhorrent, but I don't think that he's going to damage the country.

Speaker 27 Donald Trump is an existential threat to the nation, to democracy, and also people are excited about Kamala Harris. That's a pretty potent combination.

Speaker 15 And the other thing that's similar is that

Speaker 15 Obama was about turning the page on an era that had been going on for an overly long time. It was basically like Bushes running against Democrats for a long time.

Speaker 15 And this is, Kamala Harris represents an end to this nine fucking years of Donald Trump. Yeah, right.
And the Democratic Party has not gone forward since Obama.

Speaker 15 You know, to his great credit, we went backwards. Right.
Hillary Clinton ran, right? And then Biden stepped up. and ran.
And we've never hit the post-Obama era. We've never turned the page on this.

Speaker 15 And we've had almost a decade where every single moment was about Donald Trump. And Kamala Harris, and I think the way people are so excited is there is a promise of something different, right?

Speaker 15 And that is what her campaign is not about Trump, it's about her. And I think that is very compelling.
And that's sort of what you heard in some of Obama's remarks tonight.

Speaker 46 I also think

Speaker 25 AOC last night, Doug Amhoff, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, all very different people, some in politics, some not, some different ideological persuasions.

Speaker 16 Just shout out, Doug. You're in that sentence, man.
Great job. Incredible.
An entertainment lawyer.

Speaker 8 Also, married up.

Speaker 15 That would be an an amazing dinner party

Speaker 50 you would not think there's like a common thread that like binds all those people together but they all did something similar with their speeches which is like invite people in to this movement to this party who may not pay close attention to politics may not necessarily be with us and all of them are trying to grab people who just may not necessarily be with us and bring them in there's a moment with doug that i really liked where he said kamal harris is a joyful warrior but but just because you're joyful doesn't mean you're a warrior.

Speaker 16 She's a warrior. And there's something about that that, like,

Speaker 16 the thing Trump does is throws people off their game, and they're just not being thrown off by Trump. She's not running away from being joyful.
They're celebrating the laugh.

Speaker 16 They're like, it really is a campaign that also just reflects the lessons of the last nine years. It's figuring out, it's like,

Speaker 16 the Democratic Party has adapted to Trump. And in Kamala, for the first time, you really see a campaign that's built around his moves, that kind of sees ahead of his moves.

Speaker 22 Well and Michelle did a good job foreshadowing too at one point.

Speaker 23 She was like and things are going to get tough and people are going to get nervous and she's been there and you're going to see the polls and you're going to, it's going to happen.

Speaker 46 Like everything's feeling great right now, but times are going to get tough and when they do, keep this feeling, keep this work going.

Speaker 27 She goes so big, but then she also goes real small and it's like, you are going to get to work. You're going to make that call.
You're going to give money.

Speaker 27 You're not going to whine about getting touched by the political director. I love it.
She's so actionable with her like demands.

Speaker 15 The last thing I would just say is if you are a Democratic politician, you're a speechwriter, you're a one-to-be communications director, the speeches you just laid out, AOC, Doug, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, watch those speeches.

Speaker 15 And don't emulate the cadence. Yeah, right.

Speaker 8 It's not the cadence.

Speaker 21 I'm not copying them, especially since they're all so different.

Speaker 15 It is just, look at how they gave the speeches. Look at how the speeches weren't about themselves.
Look at how they told a story. It's just, look at how they were not trying to go viral.

Speaker 15 None of them were trying to go viral.

Speaker 8 Right. No.

Speaker 9 It just, it was. There's a lot of Barack Obama's stuff like in the room.

Speaker 10 Like you said, it wasn't like thunderous applause because he was like thinking about the audience.

Speaker 16 It's hard to pick out a moment, too, because it really is like an argument made over the course of a speech.

Speaker 27 It's a lot of amens. Yeah.
Mind us.

Speaker 27 You guys hear the guy last night when Biden was speaking who kept being like, Joe in his bag.

Speaker 8 I love that guy.

Speaker 21 It was so good.

Speaker 8 That guy's my favorite. Enough of that.

Speaker 10 Later in the show, you're going to hear our interview with Julia Louis Dreyfus.

Speaker 9 But when we come back, our really fun

Speaker 3 conversation with Kamala Harris's good friend and our senator from California, Lafonza Butler.

Speaker 8 And we came away.

Speaker 16 We're huge fans.

Speaker 39 What is the secret to making great toast?

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Speaker 34 Joining us tonight, fresh off her convention speech here in Chicago, is California's junior senator, our senator, and a longtime close ally of Kamala Harris, LaFonza Butler.

Speaker 9 Welcome to the pod, Senator.

Speaker 8 Thank you for having me.

Speaker 32 So you've known Kamala Harris for 15 years.

Speaker 22 A lot of the country is just getting to know her, even though they know that she's vice president.

Speaker 64 Can you tell us something about Kamala Harris that not a lot of people know but should know?

Speaker 69 I think everybody knows everything, so I'm just going to tell you everything I know about her. How's that? So look, I think she is one of the funniest, fun

Speaker 69 people that I have ever been around.

Speaker 69 She is warm in ways that you just couldn't really imagine. She's had to be an executive in office over and over again, and just to see her with my daughter

Speaker 69 and to see her

Speaker 69 hang out and invite my daughter over to a pool party at the VP's residence, right? And

Speaker 69 show her a good time, but also to see her grab the face of... a stranger's kid and tell them how important they are and tell them how much the country is counting on their leadership.

Speaker 69 You know, to me, that's the best picture of Kamala Harris that I can give to the American people. It's a person who's fun and fun-loving, but

Speaker 69 not afraid to make hard choices while having a good time.

Speaker 37 That's great.

Speaker 20 You were to decide a lot of the 2020 campaign as a senior advisor.

Speaker 64 What was it like being an advisor to her during that period and what lessons do you think she learned from that campaign?

Speaker 69 Look, I think that she

Speaker 69 has learned very much how to go about introducing herself to the country.

Speaker 69 I think that was a critical objective of her 2020 campaign. I think she did a good job in places where she was able to sort of dig in and spend some time.

Speaker 69 And I think the way that she's been in partnership with President Biden,

Speaker 69 giving her the opportunity to not just travel the country, but travel the world and really understand

Speaker 69 how

Speaker 69 to communicate quickly, effectively,

Speaker 69 but yet completely

Speaker 69 about particular issues, about herself. And I think that's an incredible skill that she has sharpened.

Speaker 69 And I think we're all witnessing the execution of this campaign, her ability to do that in a stronger way.

Speaker 35 Yeah.

Speaker 16 That's been, I think, so refreshing and exciting for people.

Speaker 16 Even people who were excited about Vice President Harris, if Bo Biden stepped aside being a candidate, or even people that love her are blown away by how she has just taken on this mantle, this incredible amount amount of pressure, and performed so well and in such an authentic way.

Speaker 16 And it reminded me, I think, you know, we interviewed Kamala Harris back in 2017, 2018, and an incredible person on stage.

Speaker 16 Was there some recognition that I think during that 2020 campaign, whether it was not talking about being a prosecutor

Speaker 16 or all this sort of politics around lanes and all the rest, is there a lesson there about what not to do, about how to disregard criticism, or what do you think?

Speaker 69 Look, I think there's, you know, in a crowded primary field,

Speaker 69 I think that experience was probably one that maybe will be unique for that period of time.

Speaker 69 And we had such qualified, extraordinary candidates in that primary. Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Corey Booker.
It was really the best of the best

Speaker 69 of the bench of the Democratic Party. And I think all of them were trying to figure out, you know,

Speaker 69 how best do I make the strongest impression possible. And I think truly the lesson for

Speaker 69 so many of us that were on Net Camp Cane is just

Speaker 69 forget about all of that.

Speaker 69 It is just

Speaker 69 be who you are, show up as authentically as possible, but with clear passion about what it is that you care about and a vision to communicate to the American people and let the chips fall where they may.

Speaker 69 And so I think what we see in this, in the execution of this campaign, but frankly, I think throughout the

Speaker 69 vice presidency and service with President Biden,

Speaker 69 since Dobbs and that Dobbs decision, she has just decided that there's so much at stake that she's not going to get it perfectly every time, but she's going to get it right every time because she's going to show up and be who she is and talk directly to the American people.

Speaker 69 And that's the, to me, the exciting part about where we are.

Speaker 11 So Joe Biden did something pretty rare in politics.

Speaker 64 He chose to voluntarily give up the chance to stay in power. You did the same thing when you chose not to seek reelection.

Speaker 22 How did you come to that decision?

Speaker 69 You know, it's interesting. I

Speaker 69 I became a United States Senator in 48 hours.

Speaker 69 Senator Feinstein passed away late Thursday, early Friday morning.

Speaker 69 The governor, Governor Gavin Newsom, really had to figure out what his options were, and I think he spent a lot of time doing that on Friday. I got into conversation with him late Saturday.

Speaker 69 My family and I were on a trip in Colorado and were flying back on Sunday when the news broke, and my mom found out the same way that everybody else did that I was going to be a United States Senator.

Speaker 69 And I literally was sworn in on Tuesday morning, October 3rd. And so for

Speaker 69 me to be able to have the time to think about how do I serve my country and my state in this

Speaker 69 unprecedented and unpredicted moment is different from do I want to spend my life doing this.

Speaker 69 And in order to really, I think, show up as the kind of senator that Californians deserve,

Speaker 69 it's got to be somebody who knows that this is what they want to spend their life doing.

Speaker 69 And for me it was, I have a nine-year-old daughter. She's going to be 10 in two weeks.
The commitment that I had already made was that I was going to be the best mom for her.

Speaker 69 And

Speaker 69 I had already made a commitment. And what I, after going across California and really assessing, could I raise the money? Could I get the endorsements?

Speaker 69 Could I change the playing field by taking endorsements away from folks who are already in the race?

Speaker 69 The answer to that was yes, and I knew that to be true and so the question had to just become is it something that I wanted to do?

Speaker 21 And I didn't.

Speaker 69 And so I didn't.

Speaker 16 That's interesting. You really thought about it.
You got into it.

Speaker 8 Oh no, I did the work. I got into it.

Speaker 69 I could tell you where the money was going to come from. I could tell you what endorsements I was going to take.
Yeah, I did the work. I considered it.

Speaker 69 I was clear with Governor Newsom. I would not accept the appointment if I couldn't, if it was his expectation that I wouldn't.

Speaker 11 Because people thought that, right?

Speaker 16 They thought there was some sort of a deal.

Speaker 69 I understand that, but that's

Speaker 69 because they hadn't met me yet. Yeah.

Speaker 69 It's not the kind of game I play. It's not how I roll.
If I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it my way. And I think the governor appreciated that.

Speaker 20 You've been in politics for a long time, activist, organizer, advisor.

Speaker 11 Having been in the Senate and been in an elected capacity, what did you learn about politics being in Washington that you didn't already know from your long career in politics?

Speaker 69 You know, it's a great question. And I spent a lot of time in my career adjacent to politics.
I'd always sort of

Speaker 69 figured that I was just a step or two removed from those

Speaker 69 in the seat having to make the decision, but having the influence

Speaker 69 to be able to persuade, persuade, engage, communicate effectively with those who are making the decision. And so now being the person that gets persuaded and engaged and communicated to effectively

Speaker 69 definitely

Speaker 69 changes the dynamic, but it has helped me to appreciate what I think is a fundamental element that we need to develop

Speaker 69 our muscle in, and that is the partnership between the advocacy community

Speaker 69 and committed elected leaders. We see those old photos of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

Speaker 69 sitting in the president's office and in negotiation and conversation with folks around the March on Washington.

Speaker 69 Those are the conversations, those photos capture the kinds of relationships necessary to produce the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act and the Housing Rights Act.

Speaker 69 And so I think that we've got to figure out how we bring more

Speaker 69 strategic collaboration between the advocacy community as well as the elected officials. And that's the thing that actually made it, made it, has become more real for me being in the seat.

Speaker 16 Is there something you think advocates, is something you came to understand that you realize, oh, this is something advocates are getting wrong or something you wish they understood now that you've been in this seat?

Speaker 69 I think at the end of the day, it's about power, right? Like

Speaker 69 getting to the outcomes that we want to achieve is about assessing, do I have enough power, do we collectively have enough power to get there?

Speaker 69 And what I would love for our advocate community and being a part of it, I put this on myself as well, is that we spend a lot of time talking to the elected officials who we know are on our side.

Speaker 69 And we don't spend enough time building our power with the folks who need to be persuaded.

Speaker 69 And so does that make us think about our coalition formation differently in order to actually move the needle and get the next three votes that

Speaker 69 we need to. Do we change who goes to the meeting? Do we adjust our messaging a bit? And so not just spending so much time with the folks who are with us,

Speaker 69 but actually doing the hard work to figure out how we find common ground with those who might not naturally be with us.

Speaker 20 That's a great lesson to learn, I think, for all of us.

Speaker 23 Senator Lafonso Butler, thank you so much for coming on Pod Save America and thanks for being our senator.

Speaker 28 Thank you, Valentine.

Speaker 8 Are you going to run for something else? I am not.

Speaker 16 That's a shame.

Speaker 8 Are you sure?

Speaker 69 I am not running for anything else right now.

Speaker 44 Oh, I like that right now.

Speaker 44 She's going to go be a mom for a while. I am.

Speaker 8 Great.

Speaker 69 Thank you all so much.

Speaker 11 Okay, we're about to go to break, and when we come back, you're going to hear our conversation with Julie Louis Dreyfus.

Speaker 14 But before we do that, I want to call your attention to a moment from Kamala Harris's event in Milwaukee tonight.

Speaker 40 No, no,

Speaker 40 we haven't already won. 77 days of work to do, my friends.

Speaker 21 Someone in the credit said, you've already won.

Speaker 3 Like, it's a fucking participation.

Speaker 21 What are you talking about?

Speaker 16 Was it Michael J. Fox from the future?

Speaker 8 I hope so.

Speaker 23 To her point, we haven't already won.

Speaker 13 That's our job.

Speaker 7 We got to do the work.

Speaker 20 That's why we're very excited to announce that Vote Save America has set a big goal.

Speaker 3 As we mentioned, 75,000 volunteer sign-ups for their 2024 Organizer Else program by September 17th, National Voter Registration Day.

Speaker 20 Votesave America is the absolute best at providing the highest impact ways you can take action right now to support down ballot races in must-win districts and build momentum for the Harris Walls ticket.

Speaker 11 So we've got currently 40,000 volunteers in the program, which means ambitious goal, very necessary, but only achievable with you.

Speaker 7 So go to votesaveamerica.com slash 2024 to sign up.

Speaker 3 This message has been paid for by Votesave America.

Speaker 10 You can learn more at votesaveamerica.com, and this ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee.

Speaker 17 When we come back, Julia Louis Dreyfus.

Speaker 39 What is the secret to making great toast?

Speaker 65 Oh, you're just going to go in with the hard-hitting questions.

Speaker 39 I'm Dan Pashman from The Sporkful. We like to say it's not for foodies, it's for eaters.
We use food to learn about culture, history, and science.

Speaker 39 There was the time we looked into allegations of discrimination at bon appetite, or when I spent three years inventing a new pasta shape.

Speaker 54 It's a complex noodle that you've put together.

Speaker 39 Every episode of the Sporkful, you're going to learn something, feel something, and laugh.

Speaker 54 The Sporkful.

Speaker 39 Get it wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 2 Welcome back to Pod Save America.

Speaker 17 Julia Louis Dreyfus.

Speaker 47 Yes.

Speaker 67 Thank you for welcoming me back.

Speaker 24 It's good to have you back.

Speaker 55 What are you doing here in Chicago at the convention?

Speaker 67 I just happened to be here and I thought I'd pop in. It's a great great town.
I actually went to college here. You did?

Speaker 54 Yes. Where'd you go to school?

Speaker 4 Northwestern.

Speaker 67 Oh, nice. Yes.

Speaker 67 I'm here because I am a tried and true Democrat, number one.

Speaker 67 And

Speaker 67 I came specifically for a few events, including

Speaker 67 I am hosting a panel of all the eight Democratic female governors.

Speaker 67 I'm doing that,

Speaker 67 I guess, today, this afternoon is how

Speaker 67 I should say it. And

Speaker 67 the link is in my bio. You guys are going to put the link because you can live stream it.
And it should be hopefully, I mean, you know, to be honest with you, I hope it goes well.

Speaker 67 But it's eight people.

Speaker 54 What are you guys going to be talking about?

Speaker 8 I don't know. You just want to be able to do it.

Speaker 21 Are you asking them all questions?

Speaker 58 Yeah.

Speaker 67 Okay. And so I've got a list of things.
You know, by the way, they have this complete, you may know this already, but you know, they have this camaraderie. They've got a text chain going.

Speaker 67 They're all, it's a real.

Speaker 29 That sounds like a fun text chain, it actually does, right?

Speaker 67 And

Speaker 67 so they're a very close group. And so I think it's going to be interesting to hear what leadership is like from their point of view.

Speaker 21 That's great. Yeah.

Speaker 16 I think maybe you start out by really insulting Kathy Hochul so that the rest know to be afraid of you.

Speaker 67 Or come to her defense.

Speaker 21 And then we see the sort of the connection of the group and

Speaker 21 connection.

Speaker 16 Or divide them.

Speaker 67 Or divide, yeah. Well, that'll be easy.
Because it's women. It's easy to ruffle up women.

Speaker 11 This is not your first fray into politics.

Speaker 64 You've been really involved in the last several years in the Trump era.

Speaker 28 How did you?

Speaker 54 Pre-Trump too, by the way.

Speaker 8 Pre-Trump too. Yeah.

Speaker 20 How did you make the decision to be active in politics, which is sometimes tricky for a celebrity of your status?

Speaker 67 You know what?

Speaker 67 I had this feeling that if I didn't, I would feel guilty.

Speaker 67 So

Speaker 67 I had a feeling of responsibility. And I never, ever, ever, ever purport to be an expert on the issues, because I ain't.

Speaker 67 But what I do try to do is shine the spotlight on people that I think should have a spotlight on them

Speaker 67 and

Speaker 67 and I'm very focused this election too on multiple down ballot races so I'm doing a lot of work to raise awareness of various state legislature races and so on in various states.

Speaker 67 Because, you know, sometimes raising funds or awareness for those

Speaker 67 smaller, as it were, campaigns, Not so small anymore in the sense that state legislatures have so much power and authority. And

Speaker 67 I think it's,

Speaker 67 you know,

Speaker 67 a few hundred dollars can go a very long way in races like that.

Speaker 16 Do you ever find, because there are plenty of people that aren't willing to do that. They're just like, I stay out of politics.
I don't want people to know what I think about politics.

Speaker 16 I want to be involved.

Speaker 8 I understand that.

Speaker 15 Do you like...

Speaker 16 Do you ever talk to people who feel that way and try to persuade them that they actually should, that it's worth it? Do you have any regrets about doing it?

Speaker 67 Talking to people about that?

Speaker 16 Or just like,

Speaker 16 are there any downsides? Have you felt downsides to becoming active in politics? Because there are plenty of famous people who could be shining a light on issues who decide not to.

Speaker 67 Oh, gosh, that's a good question.

Speaker 67 No, I don't think, speaking for myself, there hasn't been a downside for me.

Speaker 67 I do feel frustrated sometimes with certain people that I know who don't sort of,

Speaker 67 I don't know, use their celebrity for good. You know, I've said said this before, but I'm quoting Norman Lear.
He used to say, celebrity is something you can spend, and

Speaker 67 you can spend too much of it.

Speaker 67 You can, in fact. And so one has to be careful and thoughtful about

Speaker 67 where you choose to spend it. And I choose to spend it in this way.

Speaker 3 So what do you think of the switch, the big switch?

Speaker 3 Is it going to be a Biden convention?

Speaker 54 Now it's a Harris convention?

Speaker 67 Well, I have to say, first of all, it was absolutely the right thing to do. I'm delighted delighted that it happened.

Speaker 67 It really,

Speaker 67 in my view, absolutely cements Biden's legacy as a hero

Speaker 67 in American history. This is just an extraordinary moment in politics.

Speaker 67 I just cannot get over what's happened in such a short period of time. I am so excited.
I really am lingering. It's a strange feeling.
It's a strange feeling. Yeah.

Speaker 67 And isn't it fascinating how they have just tripled down on joy and light?

Speaker 67 It is,

Speaker 8 and

Speaker 67 please, Tim Walls, Tim Walls,

Speaker 67 oh, and the fact that he has taken,

Speaker 67 he's he's,

Speaker 67 how can we say this, he has burst the bully bubble by

Speaker 67 not empowering him, even though should Trump be re-elected,

Speaker 67 please may it not happen, that would be a terrible thing. But he is letting others know that we mustn't be afraid.
We must approach this with

Speaker 67 strength and humor. We should laugh at this guy, and it really bothers him when we do.
And it kind of takes his power away from him. It's just good old-fashioned handling a bully tactics.

Speaker 58 I was going to ask you about that, because so your character on Veep, Selena Meyer,

Speaker 29 found herself in an almost identical situation to Kamala Harris, but she has the personality of Trump,

Speaker 7 or more like Trump, at least.

Speaker 8 So, like, do you have a- Much more like Trump.

Speaker 29 Do you have advice for Kamala Harris on how to approach Trump?

Speaker 11 And you think that the mockery is and humor is a good way to approach Trump?

Speaker 67 Well, I mean, she's obviously found her voice and her authentic voice. I mean, that is in evidence, I think.
I don't know if you guys agree with that, but

Speaker 67 I mean, it is completely.

Speaker 67 I feel like she's found herself in front of our eyes. And

Speaker 67 as far as presenting herself and

Speaker 67 very

Speaker 67 really and honestly, we can tell this is who she is when she speaks. And she takes him very seriously, but she also takes his

Speaker 67 behavior not seriously. And I think that's important.
She does both at the same time.

Speaker 16 So I want to ask you about your career just a little bit.

Speaker 8 Okay.

Speaker 8 That's okay.

Speaker 67 Yeah, sure. It's not that interesting though.

Speaker 8 By the way, we, well, anyway, I was going to talk about our plane ride. Oh, yes.

Speaker 67 We were on the same flight coming here.

Speaker 8 I heard.

Speaker 20 I just got Tony Goldwyn.

Speaker 10 He got you.

Speaker 67 He got me, and we were almost diverted to Milwaukee.

Speaker 16 Milwaukee because of Air Force One landings.

Speaker 28 Yeah.

Speaker 69 Joe Biden.

Speaker 8 My God.

Speaker 21 We were almost Trump voters by the time we landed.

Speaker 8 Exactly.

Speaker 35 I was very jealous when I heard this.

Speaker 67 I know. I thought we were going to be renting a car and driving from Milwaukee to Chicago together.

Speaker 8 A dream come true. It would have been really good.

Speaker 16 So you've led multiple hit shows.

Speaker 54 Not a lot of people can say that.

Speaker 8 Okay.

Speaker 8 Okay, keep going.

Speaker 45 Okay. So

Speaker 16 there's a lot of people that they're incredibly funny in one time and place. Yeah.
They don't really evolve. They get kind of stuck.
How have you thought about staying curious?

Speaker 16 about evolving as a performer even in different times? Just, you know, Seinfeld Seinbelt and V,

Speaker 16 as big as it can get, completely different styles, completely different tones.

Speaker 67 Yeah.

Speaker 67 Well, at the risk of sounding like an,

Speaker 8 can you swear on this show? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 67 Like an asshole artist type.

Speaker 67 I

Speaker 67 have never approached my career by thinking of it like that. I approach it by,

Speaker 67 I mean, I really like to work, and I get very excited by material that provokes me

Speaker 67 in a good way.

Speaker 67 And

Speaker 67 so that's been the driver. And then I've just lucked out.
But I mean, that has been the driver.

Speaker 67 There are certain

Speaker 67 pitfalls to show business that I think I haven't fallen prey to.

Speaker 8 Like what?

Speaker 67 Celebrity stuff.

Speaker 67 There's a kind of success that you can't really focus on on because

Speaker 67 it'll fuck you up, you know? It really will. I think it's really about material at the end of the day.

Speaker 67 And by the way, some things haven't worked out, but I don't have regrets about any of that.

Speaker 67 And by the way, when I say haven't worked out, I mean haven't been huge hits, but that's okay because I have had a

Speaker 67 really

Speaker 67 I've had a really good time playing all sorts of different things.

Speaker 16 Well the reason I was thinking about it is because like, so JD Van says, I love Diet Mountain Dew. And I think that's disgusting.

Speaker 21 You're gross.

Speaker 16 And Tim Waltz says, I love Diet Mountain Dew. And I think I should try Diet Mountain Dew.

Speaker 67 Okay, that's fascinating.

Speaker 16 Well, it's because he has charisma. Of course, there's a policy difference, but like Tim Waltz is charming.

Speaker 67 He has it. He's disarmingly charming.
Yes.

Speaker 16 And I think a lot of times we try to make politics objective, but sometimes some people have it and some people don't have it.

Speaker 8 Correct.

Speaker 30 You have it.

Speaker 16 Thank you. You You do, but like you're not.

Speaker 8 I'm not running for office. I'm not running for office.

Speaker 16 You've played some of the biggest jerks, you've played beloved characters, but the same thing that carries them together is you have this term, this charisma. What is it?

Speaker 8 What is it? Giant, come on. No, I want to know.

Speaker 16 What is it? Tim Walls has it, you have it, Kamala has it. Some people don't.
Ted Cruz doesn't have it. What the fuck is it?

Speaker 67 I can't.

Speaker 67 I think maybe they are, sort of to what I said earlier, I think there's an authenticity in place. I think you're aware of the fact that J.D.

Speaker 67 Vance is not telling the truth about himself, and that you're picking up on that.

Speaker 28 Same is true of Cruz.

Speaker 67 Same is true of Kevin McCarthy. All of these guys, there is a, and by the way, we can differ on

Speaker 67 policy.

Speaker 67 There are Republicans that are affable and charming. They are.

Speaker 67 There are.

Speaker 67 But there is a

Speaker 67 people can smell a fake.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I think.

Speaker 24 Veep

Speaker 37 is

Speaker 20 one of the greatest shows ever, one of the greatest characters ever.

Speaker 11 Like, we are watching it again, my wife and I, like, for the fifth time.

Speaker 28 It's like up 350% now, the number of people who are like watching it now because of the situation we're all in.

Speaker 17 It really is timeless.

Speaker 36 Like, a lot of political shows tend to sort of they age differently.

Speaker 30 And

Speaker 64 I'm just wondering, like, what did Veep, because I also think that it's like the most accurate portrayal of the White House and politics of any political show.

Speaker 23 What did it teach you about politics?

Speaker 8 Well,

Speaker 67 you came and spoke to

Speaker 67 our writers, because we had a lot of people come in who were in the weeds, as it were, and talk to us about that experience.

Speaker 67 You know, it was just a reminder, which is both good and bad, that these are really, honestly, just people like you and I are sitting here just people

Speaker 44 who

Speaker 67 you know wake up have their coffee go to the bathroom you know do everyday normal people things and they just happen to be in positions of government and it's really that simple and it and sometimes it fucks you up and sometimes it fucks you up sometimes it brings out the worst in you sometimes it brings out the best in you so it doesn't it certainly

Speaker 67 it

Speaker 67 one thing that was great about doing the show is that it gave us access to sort of inside politics in a way that was super interesting and

Speaker 67 I'm kind of a nerd for that. I love it.

Speaker 67 But you did get to meet people who were very

Speaker 67 well-intentioned and well-meaning. Both sides of the aisle.
I really mean that. And so,

Speaker 67 yeah,

Speaker 67 it was an extraordinary opportunity to meet people really trying to make the world a better place. Like, really trying to make,

Speaker 39 to do the right thing.

Speaker 67 And

Speaker 67 that can be very inspiring.

Speaker 32 Yeah.

Speaker 23 Julie Lee Dreyfus, thank you as always for coming on Save America.

Speaker 67 Hey, it's my pleasure.

Speaker 35 So good to see him.

Speaker 67 It's so good to see you too.

Speaker 11 Good luck with all the governors tomorrow.

Speaker 67 Oh, what should I ask them? For reels?

Speaker 28 Oh, that's a good question.

Speaker 67 Yeah, come on, guys. Just give me a little something.

Speaker 64 Ask them.

Speaker 4 Ask them to all

Speaker 21 have them give a little advice to Kamala.

Speaker 29 Because they're all going to be very messagey, right?

Speaker 11 Every governor, they're going to get their talking points out, which is great.

Speaker 22 That's their job.

Speaker 67 Yeah, but they're not all, yes, but they're not running. I don't don't think anybody's on the ballot.
And so

Speaker 67 I'm hopeful that maybe we can avoid some of that, but I don't know.

Speaker 16 Some of them,

Speaker 16 some of these governors are from states where they've been able to protect abortion access, and some of them are from governors from states where they haven't been able to.

Speaker 16 And in the states where we, there are states we need to win where, like say Gretchen Whitmer has done an incredible job of making sure that abortion access is protected, but we need abortion to be salient for those voters, right?

Speaker 16 And we found that in states where, like California or New York, people didn't feel like it was as much of a threat, how do they think about making sure people understand the threat Trump poses on abortion when they're working so hard to protect abortion access for their people?

Speaker 67 Right, or they have a red legislature and they're dealing with, yes, exactly.

Speaker 64 Oh, I got one too.

Speaker 64 There has become, there's a huge gender gap opening up in this election.

Speaker 5 There's a gender gap opening up even larger in Gen Z.

Speaker 64 So these younger voters, like there's young men are becoming like more Republican.

Speaker 11 But people like Gretchen Whitmer, people like Maury Healy, they're like governors in states where they have won.

Speaker 14 There hasn't been as big of a gender gap, and they've been really appealing to both men and women.

Speaker 64 And I think talking about sort of the gender split there is kind of interesting to see how they deal with it.

Speaker 11 Because Gretchen Whitmer is beloved in Michigan.

Speaker 14 She wins by overwhelming margins.

Speaker 7 Rural areas, cities, everywhere.

Speaker 60 So it's kind of interesting to know what her secret is.

Speaker 67 Well, I think what we were discussing earlier, I think they really pick up on her authenticity.

Speaker 67 I just read her book when we were on our plane, by the way, and

Speaker 67 it's actually a really interesting read and it's very

Speaker 67 digestible.

Speaker 16 Can I tell you something that I was embarrassed of on our plane ride?

Speaker 67 You were watching The Real Housewives.

Speaker 16 No, I was watching, I looked over and you were reading a physical book, a physical book, and I was like, I have to take out my iPad and watch House of the Dragon. And I was trying to hide my screen.

Speaker 16 And then finally, your husband took out an iPad and I was like, like, oh, thank God. Please don't read a book.
Please don't read a book. And he didn't.
He watched something. And I was like, fuck it.

Speaker 16 We can watch TV. I don't have to feel embarrassed about watching this bad reboot.

Speaker 16 I can be myself. Have a cocktail.

Speaker 67 All right. Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 28 All right.

Speaker 28 Thank you for coming on. Thank you.

Speaker 8 Good luck tomorrow. See you guys.

Speaker 2 That's our show for tonight, but we've got more from the DNC for our Friends of the Pod subscribers.

Speaker 13 Love it and I answered some of your questions, did some behind the scenes, and played take appreciators.

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Speaker 12 Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our producer is David Toledo.

Speaker 10 Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safari.

Speaker 6 Reed Cherlin is our executive editor, and Adrian Hill is our executive producer.

Speaker 3 The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

Speaker 18 Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglund and Charlotte Landis.

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Speaker 12 Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hefcote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kirill Pelavieve, and David Tols.

Speaker 38 Hey, this is Jeff Lewis from Radio Andy. Live and uncensored, catch me talking with my friends about my latest obsessions, relationship issues, and bodily ailments.

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