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USAA! Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, Republicans in Congress are picking literal fights with each other.
Joe Biden gets advice from progressives on how to talk about the economy. The New York Times thinks Donald Trump is less vulnerable than other Republicans on the issue of abortion.
And Biden pollster John De La Volpe joins to talk about the president's challenge with younger voters. But first, MAGA Mike Johnson looking more like Rhino Mike Johnson now that he passed a bill to keep the government open that doesn't cut a single cent of spending or include any of his weird right wing policy kinks.
It's probably why the bill passed with mostly Democratic votes and 95 Republicans voting against it. The Senate also passed the bill, and now it's off to Joe Biden for his signature.
Bad news in all of this is that for some reason, the bill only funds half the government until January 19th and the other half until February 2nd. So we get to relive this shit show after the holidays.
There's also no plan to pass funding for Ukraine, Israel, humanitarian aid for Gaza or help for Americans dealing with natural disasters.

So no welcoming Mike Johnson's to the resistance just yet.

But Dan, how was he able to pass a temporary funding bill with mostly Democratic votes and so many Republicans opposed?

Isn't that the exact thing that cost Kevin McCarthy his job? It is, John. It's the exact thing that cost Kevin McCarthy his job.
So I think there are a couple of things here. One, I think every new Republican speaker gets one mulligan and this is his, right? So you're going to let him get away with it.
Two, McCarthy lied repeatedly to the caucus saying no CRs, no CRs, no temporary bills, no clean CRs. Johnson, and I say this quite lightly to his very, very minimal credit, did tell Republicans before during his nominating speech to be speaker that this was the plan, that he wanted to do a short term extension so they could pass all of the appropriations bills and then be in a position to negotiate with the Senate of the White House.
Now, there are some wrinkles in that plan because they have been unable to pass almost any appropriations bills and they can't even get them to the floor. But at least he this was not a surprise to most Republicans, even if they didn't want to put their name on it.
He didn't betray them, per se, in a way that Kevin McCarthy did. And and Chip Roy and some of the other hardliners are still pretty pissed about this.
Yeah.

But I also think he just gets a little more leeway because they see him as true MAGA and not a lying D-bag like Kevin McCarthy.

White House initially criticized Johnson's plan and Democrats in Congress had a mixed

reaction.

Do you think that so many of them ended up voting yes because the bill didn't have any

cuts or bad policies and there's no other way to keep the government open i feel like you're leading the witness with that with that question but yes of course this is well you know they're funding the government at last year's levels was actually better than it would be if we were funding it at this year's levels under the budget caps and here's what i don't get why the white house initially put out a statement that was like there his extreme plan blah blah blah i was like it seems like a fine plan there are a lot of budget nerds who think that the laddered cr process is irresponsible the laddered cr by the way for all you fucking dorks out there is no you not dork if you're explaining it to people they're not the dorks the dorks are us for all of you i'm sorry that's what i meant for all of you who aren't fucking dorks that's what i meant to say um is the fact that that half the government's being funded till january 19th and the other half till february 2nd which i don't even get that it it is a let's not explain it all i will say about it is it's a stupid idea designed to appeal to stupid people and therefore you got 57 of the republican caucus to vote for And Democrats went along because who gives a shit? It's better than shutting the government down over the holidays. Right.
And I guess the only other thing that they, that Democrats didn't get, which we're about to talk about is like Ukraine funding, Israel funding, Gaza aid, natural disaster aid. And it does seem like shutting the government down over that is also not a, not something you want to something you want to do before the holidays you think uh no thank you no thank you so how the hell do you think that gets done uh all that aid and like does it get done and two-part question if for some reason johnson tries to pass a more permanent funding bill that's as acceptable to Democrats in January.
Won't the hardliners just vacate his ass? Let me take the second part first. Probably there.
There is a question about whether there is an appetite for another month long shit show in an election year. There's a chance they might probably tend to eat their own in the odd years and then kind of line up with each other in the even years.
But it's very, very possible

because all it takes is one asshole to do it. And there's a plethora of assholes who could do it.

On the question of aid. Really no idea how it gets done.
I think there are a couple of options here.

One, the Senate passes something, sends it to the House. Tremendous public pressure is put on the House.
And eventually, Johnson lets it go through with mostly Democratic votes. That probably also ends in the vacate his ass scenario that you put forward.
Two, the House refuses to do anything other than Israel aid. The Senate eventually buckles and agrees to just do Israel aid.
And then I think the other stuff may never get done because passing Ukraine aid on its own through this House may be close to impossible. Third option is, and this is will lead us into the next topic, is trial by combat, where one Republican fights one Democrat and the winner gets to decide who gets aid.
Yeah, I i i feel like with all of these every time we talk about government funding government shutdown and it seems like there's a solution it's just kicking the can down the road to an inevitable showdown where there will be a shutdown or we will lose another republican speaker so sad but like i just don't like at some point, the these assholes are going to want their MAGA speaker to act like a MAGA speaker. Right.
And so they're not just going to let Johnson pass some full year funding bill that doesn't have a bunch of extra cuts in it beyond what they already what Kevin McCarthy already agreed to with Joe Biden. So I just feel like this confrontation is coming at some point, but who knows? And then on Ukraine and Israel, I do think that if you have a bill that has bipartisan support in the Senate, and then they try to jam the House and it's up to Mike Johnson to put the bill on the floor, and there's a, at least some group of Republicans in the House who want to pass it it which we know that's true so then you've got democrats and republicans in the house democrats and republicans in the senate joe biden and the white house all saying to pass this bill and mike johnson's just gonna hold it up like that's it's a lot of pressure i could see he could just decide you know i want to do it because who cares and i don't want to get my ass vacated, but who knows? And every other time in recent history where that's happened, and it happened a fair amount during the Obama years, the House would eventually buckle.
It happened on Fiscal Cliff. It happened on extension of the payroll tax cut.
It happened on aid for victims of the Hurricane Sandy and other natural disasters. But we were not in a world where it only took one House Republican to throw the entire thing in the chaos it may be and that and johnson may decide this that the only option is to shut the government down like he sort of has to drive the car off the cliff to teach everyone in his party that gravity exists right so you you have to might not do it it may fail but he eventually under that that's essentially what happened in 2014 with that shutdown um when it was over obamacare is that once you once the government was shut down the political pressure mounted so much that enough republicans asked for you basically gave in and that you could see that having to happen again but if the government shuts down there's not a great path for reopening it again with this house under these dynamics cool cool all right

now for the fun stuff for some reason this is the week that republicans all over capitol hill lost

their final shreds of sanity and dignity with tantrums and meltdowns so epic that they nearly

led to several physical altercations first up james comer house oversight committee chair who's

trying to impeach joe biden for among other things uh loaning his brother money when he wasn't even an elected official or a candidate. Well, according to Story in the Daily Beast, it turns out that James Comer also paid his brother $200,000, quote, related to the dealings of a family company that appears to have never existed on paper.
Who knows if it's shady or not? It seems like it could be shady, but clearly the same thing that he's accusing Joe Biden of doing. And so when Democrat Jared Moskowitz asked Comer about the story during a hearing on Tuesday, things got a little heated.
Let's listen. You all continue to, you look like a smurf here, just going around and all this stuff.
You have gone on TV and said the president did something illegal. You're doing stuff with your brother.
The American people have the same questions. Why should they believe you? Mr.
Chairman, this seems to have gotten under your skin. That bell means this is the first of a couple fights that we're about to talk about.
Dan, what do you think of the old I'm not a hypocritical crook, you're a Smurf play? Smurf feels like a very dated reference, I have to say. What a weird...
Jared Moskowitz does not look like a Smurf. Did you see what he was wearing? No, but I just...
He had on a particularly blue suit this day. Oh, okay.
It is a dumb comment uh not befitting a member of congress let alone just a grown adult but there was context for it in the blue suit okay well that's fair look i'm here just to give people the facts point point for comer on that one no no no no no no no no i'm just trying to give you and our listeners slash viewers context for what's happening here. And just

just to give everyone some real info, Mike Johnson the other day said there doesn't seem to be

evidence yet for an impeachment of Joe Biden. Well, guess what? James Comer's flailing around

in hearings and he's he's getting accused of things that he's accusing Joe Biden for. He's

got no evidence. Doesn't seem like it's going well for them.
Well, Mike Johnson put out a statement

on Tuesday, Tuesday or Wednesday, I think, reiterating his belief that Joe Biden has

committed impeachable offenses and that he should we should bring everyone in under oath because

Thank you. Well, Mike Johnson put out a statement on Tuesday, Tuesday or Wednesday, I think, reiterating his belief that Joe Biden is committed impeachable offenses and that he should we should bring everyone in under oath because every non insane action in a Republican Congress requires a much larger insane reaction.
And so because he passed this CR, he has to like triple down on the fake impeachment, fake impeachment. Yeah.
All right. fight number two.
This is when things get really good. At another hearing on Tuesday, right across the way on Capitol Hill, Senator Mark Wayne Mullen of Oklahoma, real person, real name, got so triggered by testimony from the president of the Teamsters union, Sean O'Brien, that he stood up and challenged him to a fight.
So this is a time. This is is a place.
You want to run your mouth? We can be two consenting adults. We can finish it here.
Okay, that's fine. Perfect.
You want to do it now? I'd love to do it right now. Well, stand your butt up then.
You stand your butt up. Oh, hold on.
Oh, stop it. Is that your solution? No, no, sit down.
Sit down. Hold it.
Answer the questions. All right, you know one, if I, he made a lot of statements, right?

And his statements are fiction at best.

Fiction, I read them.

What?

Hold it, answer the question, please.

I can't understand them, to be honest with you. Do you think Bernie Sanders woke up on Tuesday expecting that he would have to stop one of his colleagues from beating the shit out of one of his witnesses.
Things in this day and age rarely exceed expectations. But when I clicked on that link the other day, I could not.
It was one million times better than I thought. It was unbelievable.
Them standing up, the witness making fun of him, just truly great stuff. I had heard of Mark Wayne Mullen before, but I didn't know a lot about him.
Senator from Oklahoma. This did lead me to Google him.
Oh, nice. Because he was very mad that Sean O'Brien called him a greedy CEO.
By the way, the whole hearing was about trying to pass the PRO Act, which helps people join unions. Mark Wayne wanted everyone to know that he's not anti-union, but he's tried to stop unions from being organized around his businesses.
And he's worth over $30 million. Mark Wayne.
And he is so extreme. He once said that if his wife's life were at risk during pregnancy, he wouldn't want her to get an abortion.
That's just a fun fact about Mark Wayne Mullen from Oklahoma. He is a person serving in the U.S.
Senate. Got up, tried to challenge this guy to a fight.
Now, in case you thought that Mark Wayne felt any kind of shame over this incident, think again, because this is what he said afterwards. And keep in mind, too, this isn't anything new.
Andrew Jackson challenged two people or nine people to a duel when he was president. And he also knocked one guy out at a White House dinner.
There's been canes before in the Senate, too. Maybe we should bring some of that back.
And it'll keep people from thinking they're so tough. I'm not afraid of biting.
I will bite. Biting? Well, I mean%.
Yeah. I'm in a fight.
I'm going to bite. I'll do anything.
I mean, I'm not above it. And I don't care where I bite, by the way.
He wants to bite? And he doesn't care where? Alexander Hamilton never bit, by the way. Do you think someone in his staff proposed the caning dueling talking points? I mean, we should bring caning back.
I'm going to bite and I don't care where I bite. What the what is going on in the U.S.
Senate with Republicans? Look, these are the Senate is filled. The Congress in general, particularly the Republican, the Republican caucus and both House and Senate is filled with a lot of very angry assholes who don't like to work very much and have been working for like a month straight.
So I think they're all at the end of their ropes and losing it. Well, Dan, finally, we have saved the best for last.
Disgraced former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, known to his fans as the backbencher from Bakersfield, seems like he is definitely not over getting ousted by MAGA hardliners. They stabbed him in the back, so he allegedly elbowed one of them in the back, also on Tuesday.
Must have been a full moon. Here's Republican Tim Burchett on what went down and McCarthy's response.
At that time, I got elbowed in the back, and it kind of caught me off guard because it was a clean shot to the kidneys. And I turned back and there was there was Kevin for a minute.
I was kind of what the heck just happened. And then I, you know, I chased after him.
Of course, he's a, you know, he's the type of guy that when you're a kid would throw a rock over the fence and run home and hide behind his mama's skirt. And he just, you know, that's not the way we handle things in East Tennessee.
We we have a problem with somebody, I'm going to look them in the eye. If I would hit somebody, they would know I'd hit him.
He said he knew him. He said he was in pain that you hit him so hard.
Oh, come on now. That's what he said.
You know, you just don't expect a guy who was at one time three steps away from the White House to hit you with a sucker punch in the hallway. I mean, first of all, it feels like Kevin McCarthy probably was that kid.
Oh, yeah, 100%. Very perceptive.
Tim Burchard, whoever you are. I think you kind of had him dead to rights on that one.
Yeah. Do we really think that Kevin McCarthy meant to elbow a fellow member of Congress walking by while he was talking to an NPR reporter? What do you think? I feel like this is a trick question.
Like, what's the right answer here? Like, am I defending Kevin McCarthy? I know. I'm not trying to get you to defend Kevin McCarthy or Tim Burchett.
I'm honestly curious because it's like, I don't know. That seems like a risky move.
Seems like, I don't know if you'd want to. It's just silly.
I don't i don't a couple things i would be surprised if his go-to move is a running secret elbow to the kidney like that doesn't seem right that's what during live interviews because yeah in fairness like you're not if you're talking to the press or into a microphone you're not paying attention like if someone were to elbow me in the kidney right now i would come as a surprise second when kevin m Kevin McCarthy said, if I hit them, they would know it. I find that one also hard to believe.
Also very hard to believe. All these guys, whether it's Mark Wayne Mullen, the secret spot biter, or Tim Burchett, or like just stop pretending to be tough.
You are members of Congress. Mark Wayne Mullen was a mixed martial arts expert.
This is what I also learned about Mark Wayne Mullen.

Kudos.

I don't know. I don't want him elbowing me or

biting me anywhere. When people

everyone's like, these guys are members of

Congress. They should act better.

They're adults. I don't care what their job

is. I don't care if you're in Congress,

anything else. You just don't act like this.

Let's not raise Congress

up to a pedestal anywhere in polite society. Don't elbow people't chase after them don't threaten them to a fight in the middle of nowhere or in the middle of a hearing over nothing like it it basically like the equivalent of in someone's office during a meeting just standing up and trying to do that across the conference room table it's insane i've done that a few times with love it i believe it I believe it.
In this case, who are you, the secret Elbow-er? Are you the-

I'm not the Elbow-er or- done that a few times with love it i believe it i believe it in this case who are you the secret elbower are you the who like or the biter i just who is who is love it who is love it in this story jared moskowitz yes of course there's one more addendum to this story because none of these morons can just let shit go uh here's Burchett giving a post-fight interview on Newsmax that got way more interesting than anyone expected. He also has 17 million dollars in an account that he'll be messing in a lot of people like mine and Nancy Mace's campaigns, I'm sure.
I don't know if he does that with Nancy Mace. She could come back at him with some stuff that he doesn't want out there in the public, I think, if you

know what I'm saying. Yeah, she

she's already told me. She said, I hope he

does that with me and

she'll take care of him.

What?

What? What does Nancy Mays got on Kevin McCarthy?

Of all the things that we have talked about

in this section,

that is the question I am left with

more than anything else. I don't know what to say about that, Sean.
I really don't. Drop the goods, Newsmax guy.
I'm going to be refreshing Punchbowl to see if Jake Sherman delivers on the subscription money I pay him. Unbelievable.
Unbelievable. Speaking of people who don't belong in Congress, I realize this wasn't on the outline, but we have to talk about it.
Because it just happened. A bipartisan ethics report from Congress that was just released Thursday morning says there is, quote, substantial evidence that George Santos violated criminal laws, which has led him to announce he will not be running again in 2024, though he will probably also face another expulsion vote in the House before then.
Among other things, the report says that Santos spent campaign funds on Botox, designer goods, fancy trips to Atlantic City, and OnlyFans. The thing that is so good about this is I've been in back-to-back meetings

since early this morning at East Coast time,

and I am learning all of this for the first time.

Really?

It is glorious.

I'm so happy to surprise you with this.

I knew that the ethics report came out,

and you've never deviated from the outline before,

so I thought I was safe.

But I had not read the details yet,

and so I do want to quibble with one thing. As someone who grew up in the mid-Atlantic region, there is no such thing as a fancy trip to Atlantic City.
I've been there a few times and I understand what you're saying. Yeah.
I thought you were going to say as someone who has an OnlyFans page. It's my sub stack.
Which has Tommy once suggested to you, you should call it Only dance some people have an only fans some people have a sub stack i'm more in the sub stack crowd yeah only dance it could have been it could have been the message box it could be that's so great oh my god that's such a good point it does feel like this expulsion vote should go forward i mean we talked before about how you know jamie raskin katie porter some other democrats were like we want him to have due process. Part of the due process was about like, you know, he's been indicted, but he hasn't been convicted.
But also that there hasn't even been a House ethics process yet. Now there is a House ethics process.
They had access to more evidence than the public about George Santos's potential wrongdoing. And so the fact that the ethics committee now says, oh, yeah he he's probably committed a crime and it's a bipartisan ethics committee yeah i'd vote for that expulsion i don't know who wouldn't yeah i think that's it i mean i know who won't the republicans who can't afford to lose one house vote right right right right but among the democrats yeah for sure and it really and you know we talked about this after that vote the i think there is a very legitimate argument that we should at least let the you don't

someone has to be convicted to be expelled from Congress.

But the official governing body of the House should render or finish its investigation before you have that before you actually expel someone. So now let's have I'd be very interested to see how Republicans vote on this.
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Restrictions apply. USAA! Okay, back to our reality, where Democrats fight each other with polling cross tabs and messaging memos.
After a week where Democrats argued about the validity of a New York Times poll taken a year before the election, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Data for Progress did something useful. They commissioned a poll that doesn't focus on the horse race, but on the most effective economic message for President Biden and Democrats.
We will dig into the data in a second, but the main takeaway, which they reportedly shared in a meeting with White House officials, is that it is extremely difficult to convince voters that the economy has improved and much easier to persuade people that Biden's plans are better than Trump's plans. Dan, what did you think of the poll and the recommendations? I think, as you said, an incredibly useful exercise, right, for all of the complaining and screaming about polling.
This is what it's ultimately for, not to tell us what's going to happen, but how to give us the guidance and strategic advice to get the outcome we want. And I think there's two very incredibly useful findings here.
The first one is that we have to start by acknowledging that people aren't happy with the economy. And I think for a long time, particularly over the last, you know, basically the last six to nine months, there's been this sense that perceptions of the economy were a lagging indicator that the economy was actually getting better because all the macroeconomic numbers suggest it is.
So people are eventually just going to like wake up one day and be happy about it. Or we're going to like grab them by the lapels via their TV screens and phone screens and make them realize that.
But I think we are the persistent and growing negative perceptions about the economy, I think, suggest that there's something else going on. One, the macroeconomic numbers we have used previously to suggest a good economy through the lens of politics don't work anymore in the same way.
And our friend Mike Podhorzer was on Ezra Klein's podcast, and he talked about this. And he made the point that in previous eras, before we lived in this world of really yawning economic inequality, prosperity was shared.
Under Bill Clinton, for example, when GDP went up, everyone benefited. That's not how we live anymore.
Those benefits are not being distributed equally. That's one.
Two, we talk about inflation all of the time. And inflation is coming down in a report today on wholesale prices that is now actually below pandemic levels.

But people don't care about how much costs are going up. They care what costs are.
And then we still, I don't think we have a way of understanding the political environment in a world of interest rates. So I think we are past the point of like trying to make people feel good about the economy and try.

We have to speak to where they are, because as we've said before, on questions of in politics, the customer is always right. And this is where the voters are.
Then the other point is comparison. And what I found really interesting in this poll was they tested a number of messages.
And the best comparison against Trump was that narrowed the gap on economic approval the most had to do with Trump's support for big tax cuts for corporations and supporting corporations. And so that's like a real formula and roadmap for Democrats to adopt going forward that I think can be very, very, very useful.
Just to dig in on this, because I think a lot of folks have wondered if the media's refusal to cover the improving economy or refusal to cover it extensively enough has contributed to the bad feelings about the economy. So what they did in this poll, which I think is very smart, is that they presented the poll respondents with some information about the economy.
They said, economists have found that the rate of inflation is going down and unemployment is at a record low. Which statement comes closer to your view? One, the economy is not getting better for people like me.
Or two, the economy is getting better for people like me. Not getting better, 70% is getting better, 30%.
And there's also, you know, there's been some speculation that maybe people's views of the broader economy is bad because the mute music is bad and all they see the headlines are bad, but their personal financial situation is good. This suggests that's not the case.
Then they added some messaging to the two choices and they even gave them, you know, the economy is not going in the right direction for people like me. We need to change direction and reverse Biden's economic policies, or we should not return to the chaos created by Trump.
Our economy is beginning to turn a corner after a few tough years felt across the world. I trust Biden more than Trump to crack down on corporations that inflate the price of gas and food and fight for people like me.
That brought it down to 50% Trump, 43% the Biden statement. And so it's like it narrowed it a little bit, but it's still the statement, we need to change direction and reverse Biden's economic policies, still won out, even when you had that messaging.
And to your point, what really changed the polling was talking about both of their visions for the future and what Biden and the Democrats would do and what Trump and the Republicans would do. And so when you say like the most effective statement, which made people trust the Democrats 15 points more than Republicans on the economy was Democrats support increasing Social Security benefits, increasing taxes on billionaires and fighting big drug companies to lower prescription drug costs.
That made people trust Democrats more than Republicans on the economy. So I do think it's about like it is about recognizing that people are still struggling, that costs are still high, that prices are still high, even though inflation is coming down.
And that Joe Biden and the Democrats have been fighting on your behalf and will continue to fight on your behalf if you return them to office. If you return Trump to office and the Republicans, this is what they did last time they were in office, cut taxes for billionaires, and this is their plan going forward.
And I think that is a message that's gonna be much more effective, gives Democrats a lot better chance than just saying over and over again, look how many jobs we created, look how many of this we created, the media's wrong, the media, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like that's just, it's not gonna work.
It's not gonna work. Yeah, I mean's it really shouldn't be that complicated and there is this level i think of elitism in this idea that these people are all just too dumb to realize how great the economy is right which is yes such elitism which has been pervasive and it's not mo not all and not even most democratic messaging but a lot of the political conversation around the economy is that view is that people would are getting their cues from c, not their bank account, or their grocery bill, or trying to figure out how to pay just the basic cost of living.
And so we just have to, it's really not that complicated. And the messages here are the ones that have worked in every campaign prior.
And so we just have to do that. Now, you've written about other polling that shows more people approve of Joe Biden when they hear about his accomplishments.
Is that because telling people about his economic accomplishments is different than telling people that the economy is good or that he fixed the economy? Yes. I think that there is sometimes a sense in politics that reelection campaigns, whether you're running for mayor, Congress, Senate or president, is like a report card where it's like you have if you do these things, the voters are going to thank you by sending you back to office.
And that is the exact opposite of how it works. They're not going to vote for you for what you've done.
They're going to vote for you on what you're going to do. And these accomplishments are not so people say, oh, thank goodness Biden brought us this economy.
Because there is some tension of saying, look at all these great things you did, and the economy is also not yet great. What the reason you tell you have to tell people these things is it gives them a foundation of belief of what you're going to do going forward.
It builds credibility with voters. And because of changes in the media environment, voters have never, ever in time been more ignorant about the huge things that president has done than they are with Joe Biden right now.
I mean, it is mind boggling. Like the Inflation Reduction Act should be akin to either the stimulus or the Affordable Care Act under Obama.
And now those things may not have been popular in their time, but they were known. Here you have all these popular things and no one knows.
And if you tell that to people, it gives them a reason to believe that Joe Biden can do more things like that in the future. If they think he has done nothing in the first term, why would they elect him in the second? Or why would they believe him when he says he wants to do X, Y, and Z in the second term? Yeah.
And I think part of the reason they're not as known is the information environment, as you said, but also there's a huge fight over the Affordable Care Act and a huge fight over even the Recovery Act. And I think the Inflation Reduction Act, while most Republicans voted against it, the fight was about what Joe Manchin would allow in the bill, and then it passed, and it just didn't break through.
And then the Republicans did not spend a lot of time attacking it after it passed. They kind of moved on to the next, you know, crazy conspiracy theory.
Yeah, it helped the knowledge of and approval of Obamacare immensely. The Republicans kept trying to repeal it every two seconds.
Yep. So the economy is usually the number one issue for voters in every poll, but abortion is right up there too, especially for Democratic voters.
Biden wants to pass a law protecting abortion access for every American. Trump's out there bragging about ending Roe v.
Wade. And yet, this week, the New York Times wrote that Trump is, quote, showing surprising resilience on the abortion issue, appearing less vulnerable than fellow Republicans, despite his key role in shaping the Supreme Court that overturned Roe v.
Wade. A story made a lot of people on the internet very mad, including the Biden campaign, which criticized the media and specifically the Times for its Trump coverage.
What do you think? Is Trump less vulnerable on abortion than the typical Republican? I think I'm going to do, we're going to do one of those very Pots of America-like things where we try to hold two competing notions in our head at the same time. I think it is fair to say- Everything is binary, left and right, black and white.
Pick a side. I think it is fair to say that overall the press coverage of trump is not as good as it should be right it is too often through horse race coverage not actually focusing on what he's doing although i will say the times has written a lot of stories recently in great detail about all the terrible things trump plans to do if he wins um Yeah, just because it's longer than a tweet, their very long, well-reported story about his fucking terrifying immigration plans was outstanding.
All the Project 2025 stuff from the Times and others, that stuff is happening. Now, people aren't seeing it in the way we'd want them to see it because of the information environment, because long stories don't get attention like they used to.
The anger over this specific story, which is written for the Upshot column, which is basically a polling analysis column for the New York Times, seems a little misplaced to me, I will say. Yes, the problem being pointed at is correct broadly.
This was not probably the right target for that, because what that article says is actually true. It is, there is, we should stipulate that Donald Trump is absolutely vulnerable on abortion because he is the person walking this planet most singularly responsible for returning Roe v.
Wade. Yes.
He is absolutely incredibly vulnerable on it. But voters don't yet hold him accountable in the way they should.
And there are a couple of reasons for this. One is, and if you listen to focus groups, you, or you listen to the focus group podcast from Sarah Longwell, who just had an episode on this, if you ask Donald Trump if he is anti-abortion or pro-choice, my shocking number of voters will say he is personally pro-choice.
And some of them, and I've heard this from multiple people who do focus groups, will put up their hands and say, I would bet Donald Trump has personally paid for abortions. Yeah.
Because he is this thrice married, New York, sad wannabe playboy who cheats on his wives, people, he has this sort of aura of liberalism on cultural issues that has allowed him to win ever voters he wouldn't otherwise get. And you see it in the polling, right? In that Times poll, which is what this godforsaken, horribly derided piece was written on, Biden has a nine-point advantage on the issue of abortion.
It's one of his biggest issue margins across the thing. But Trump gets 14% of the voters who trust Biden more on abortion.
Well, and in that same poll, four out of 10 Trump voters believe abortion should be always or mostly legal. That's a big chunk of his, that shows that either people don't consider voting for him again a threat to abortion access, or they don't agree with his position on abortion and know it, but are voting for him for other reasons.
There's a very interesting question in that Times Square. They asked people what was more important to their choice for president.
Economic issues like jobs, inflation, et cetera, or social issues like

abortion, democracy, and guns. Economic issues won by more than 30 points.
And that is a number

that's gone up 12 points in four battleground states since 2022. So what should Democrats do

here besides tweet at the Times, cancel our subscriptions, all that kind of stuff?

We need to challenge Joe Kahn, who I think is the editor of the Times, cancel our subscriptions, all that kind of stuff? We need to challenge Joe Khan,

who I think is the editor of the Times now,

to a fight.

No.

Biting allowed or not allowed?

Look, everyone can bring one weapon to the combat.

Elbows.

If you want your teeth to be the weapon,

you can do that.

Elbows to the kidneys.

That's okay.

All right.

Look, I think there are a couple of things here.

One, there is,

and I think this is one point where the critics are are of the broader coverage of Trump and abortion are correct. It's always like Donald Trump has been so careful on abortion.
He's so smooth on it. The guy brags about overturning Roe v.
Wade every time he's in front of a microphone. There is a internet's worth of clips of Donald Trump saying incredibly damning, unpopular, extreme things about abortion all within the last year and a half.
Like also, and there's a very famous one from the 2016 campaign where he says women deserve some sort of punishment. Yes, yes.
And of course, their campaign, of course, knew how damaging that was. And then they later tried to walk it back.
But he is on video saying, yes, women deserve punishment. And so we should be sure we, the broader us with our networks and our friends and family and Democratic super PACs and campaigns, showing those clips to people just in their own words.
We don't need fancy political ads. We don't need voiceovers.
Just like video of Trump saying those things over and over again. Do you remember in 2012 when we polled early in that campaign and we discovered that Mitt Romney's support for defunding Planned Parenthood was incredibly damning? Voters hated that.
They also, it's a very analogous situation. Voters also didn't believe that Mitt Romney would actually support that position because he had been this pro-choice governor of Massachusetts.
It's very similar to Trump in the sense that people thought he's kind of faking it on the social stuff to get through the primary. And so the Obama campaign went up in, I think it was April, with sort of a low-level cable buy that was very targeted at women voters and also young voters about Romney wanting to defund Planned Parenthood.
And it went up and never came down. And I think you can see a similar thing happening here where you try to do that now the second thing i think we ought to do and you see this in the times poll where even one of the most unpopular things that the times polled is support for a federal uh abortion ban yes there's even a significant number of people who strongly oppose the federal abortion ban who are voting for trump and i think that's in part because for it may be they're prioritizing other issues, but in some cases, they don't think a federal abortion ban is going to happen.
And so we talked about this last week, but we have to make that a central part of this campaign. Every single day, Donald Trump wins with a Republican Congress federal abortion ban.
And I think that's really important because in a lot of states, because of the great work that happened in 2022, like whether it's Michigan or Wisconsin or Pennsylvania, they have Democratic governors. They've, in Michigan's case, passed an abortion referendum to guarantee access.
And we need people to understand in those battleground states, even if they feel safe right now in this very short period of time, that a Trump victory would mean abortion is banned everywhere in this country. There was also a story in Axios this week.
The Heritage Foundation, which is the idiots behind Project 2025, is urging all Republican candidates for president to unilaterally prohibit mailing abortion drugs, which are the most common, safe and effective ways of getting an abortion. Trump has been vague about this, but Republican senators said that they insist the next president does this.
Obviously, Mag and Mike Johnson in the House wants this to happen. So this is not even, you don't even have to put Congress into the equation here.
Donald Trump could unilaterally ban abortion medication. And yes, it would go up to the Supreme Court and there's all kinds of legal theories whether that would hold up or not.
But he could do that and I'm sure, and so I would run those ads now and also force him to have to answer it now while it's still a primary. Start running the ads now about how the Heritage Foundation and all these people that are doing Donald Trump's plans for 2025 want him to unilaterally end the ability to mail prescription abortion medication.
So I think that's a it's got to be perspective because I think you can a lot of people you can get a lot of people to believe that he's the one responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade because he brags about it all the time.
But people are going to vote based on what is going to happen to me in my life if this person becomes president. And so we have to push towards Trump's plans for the future as much as we talk about things that he's done in the past.
Democrats also in 2022 talked about, Biden said, give me a filibuster proof Senate majority and we will pass a law codifying row and we should get back to that because we haven't heard a lot about that in a year and I think that's an important part of this campaign there are going to be states where like potentially Arizona and others that have abortion referendums that guarantee abortion access like the one we just saw in Ohio but we should do that and I think you a really important point here, which is Donald Trump is going to put all of the worst people in government, like MAGA, Mike Johnson, clone bureaucrats, and they're going to use every lever of power they possibly have to try to destroy reproductive freedom in this country. And that it's banning abortion medication, everything they do, right? Everything that Joe Biden, his administration tried to do tried to do after the dobbs ruling they're going to undo that and do things a thousand times worse because they're going to care a lot less about what is legal and appropriate uses of government etc and it's it is a it is a nightmare donald an election of donald trump as president whether it gets a republican house republican senate or not is a nightmare for reproductive freedom in this country agreed right.
A few quick housekeeping notes before we head to break. We are excited to announce Inside 2024, our new monthly podcast series available exclusively for Friends of the Pod subscribers.
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Joining us today, he's a pollster who's been focused on understanding young voters for the last few decades, and he most recently served as an advisor to Joe Biden's 2020 campaign. He now says that when it comes to young voters, the president is in trouble.
John De La Volpe, good talking to you again. Welcome to the show.
Thanks so much for having me, John. It's great to be here.
So when you and I last spoke before the 2022 midterms, you were confident that young voters would turn out in big numbers and potentially make the difference for Democratic candidates. You were right.
You do not seem as confident that young voters will do the same in 2024 for Joe Biden. What changed over the last few years? Well, over the last few months, actually, over the last year, John, for me, the best predictor of whether we can expect an average, above average or below average turnout are a set of attitudinal measures that we developed over a couple of decades ago.
And those attitudinal measures, when I look at that set of data in 2023 compared to the same point in the 2020 cycle in the spring of 2019, I see increasing levels of cynicism across just about every significant socioeconomic and demographic group, which means that there is less confidence, not just about Joe Biden, but there's less confidence in the system. There's less confidence in politics can serve the people and to make the systemic changes that young people care about.
That's the warning sign that I'm most concerned about right now. And I guess if you look back over the last year or two, is this increasing sense of cynicism about government? Has it just built gradually over time and now it's really hit a breaking point? I think a lot of it is about expectations.
So just to give you a little bit more of a backdrop on this, from 2014 to 2018, we saw cynicism went down by, I think, 15 or 16 or 17 points as youth participation increased by that same number, 16, 17 points from 2014 to 2018. This is a relatively new phenomenon.
And I think it's certainly complicated. There's not a silver bullet.
There's not an easy explanation. I think it has a variety of different reasons behind it, one of which is, of course, the challenges of communicating, especially from the bully pulpit, you know, in a kind of algorithmic, you know, series of bubbles that people find themselves in.
But I think another part of this conundrum, frankly, is that because of the concern around mental health, both pre and post COVID, what we've continued to find is this connection between negative feelings about the country, the direction of the country, and negative feelings about mental health. Which means, John, that younger people, millions of younger people are choosing to turn away from current events, choosing to turn away from the news to protect their own mental health, because there's a correlation around that, which means that they're less willing, less able to see some of the positive news that's been happening.
Because as I've written many times, I don't think there's been an administration, certainly in my lifetime, that's been more youth focused, more youth centric than the Biden administration. However, a lot of those accomplishments just aren't being felt yet or being communicated in ways in which they can understand.
That's fascinating to me. Do you have data that points to young people disengaging from the news to protect their mental health? Because the other, you could also see a factor being just the media environment itself has become so fractured that if someone is, let's say, only getting their news from TikTok or Twitter or wherever it may be, they are in either an ideological bubble or some kind of other bubble where they're getting just not the good information or not the best information? So a couple of things, one of which is the more you follow the news, the more closely you follow the news, the more closely you follow politics, the more likely you are to support President Biden's reelection, right? So we've seen that for a while.
The more you know, the better off that campaign feels to people. But I published a study on my substack, JDV on Gen Z.
And it was about how happy are you, okay? And it had 30-something variables. And I looked at it across generations.
The best predictor of whether or not a Gen Z-er or a young millennial was happy that particular day was their views about basically politics, the instability that they felt, the concerns about climate, the economy, our place in the world. That was the number one predictor, more than personal relationships, work, school, their finances, et cetera.
When we looked at other generations, Gen Xers and folks older, the number one predictor wasn't politics, though that was important. It was health, your health and the health of those around you.

So I think that's something that really needs to be understood because before this isn't

just a persuasion mobilization game at this point.

Before that, we can have a meaningful conversation with young people.

We need to kind of respect kind of kind of where they are with their mental health. And we also need to basically show them the impact that they've already made, that we have a different and better country because of them.
One thing I'm confused about, though, is if you would think that the people who are most engaged with the news and following the news most closely would be pretty bummed out. But you're saying that those people do tend to vote for Joe Biden, but it's the people who are more disengaged.
Are they disengaged from the news, but just have a general sense or general feeling that there's chaos in the world and that things are going bad and that politics is going bad just from their periodic scanning of headlines?

Yes, because those are the headlines that stick, right? The negative headlines, you know, and the extreme amount of chaos that they've not just felt over the last year or two, but literally, John, over their entire lifetimes, right? This is a generation, Gen Z, which is really not known, maybe an evening, maybe an evening of hope in optimism in 2008. Right.
But they don't remember 9-11, which means they don't have a memory of 9-11, which means they don't have a memory of September 12th and 13th when we all put flags up, regardless of which kind of red or blue county we're in. So it's just not just the chaos of today.
It's this chaos that's been that's been building up over the course of their lifetimes. So you just did an audio essay for The New York Times where you played a few clips from a recent focus group you conducted with young voters.
Let's take a listen. I vote.
I just don't think it makes a difference sometimes. Like, yeah, they for us, but are they really for us? Really? So the comments from the young voters in that group reminded me of what you call the modern trickle-down effect theory.
Can you explain that for people? Sure. Well, the original trickle-down effect was supposed to be positive, right? During the kind of Reagan era, the idea was that the super wealthy and corporations, the more money they made, the more that would trickle down to help the working class folks.
Instead, what I've heard in multiple focus groups over the last couple of months is that rather than the wealth trickling down and making all of us feel better off, it's the reverse. It's a negative trickle down effect where the problems, the challenges, the wars from previous generations are trickling down and having an inordinate impact on those who are most vulnerable.
And again, that gets to, I think, kind of the cynicism that is driving much of the disaffection with two-party politics today. So in some ways, it's generational, not even in a left-right divide, but almost a top-bottom, which is like young people feeling like the older generations have screwed so much shit up for them and that the people in power are also, you know, in older generations.
And so they take some – they, you know, hold them accountable for that. Right.
It's something that connects Democrats, Republicans, independents alike, you know, and there are many examples of that where younger people, even across parts of the lines, have more in common than younger Democrats and older Democrats and Republicans and older Republicans. The thing is, and the thing that to me is often frustrating is that this is a generation who, despite the cynicism, every single year are becoming more progressive.
Right. Who are asking.
They understand that we need government to to to work in collaboration with other institutions, private, et cetera, to solve these challenges. So they're not like disagreeing.
Their values are aligned with the Democratic Party. They're just not seeing the Democratic Party right now as being as delivering as much as what I think they've actually delivered over the last couple of years, to be honest.
You were saying in early November that the president's handling of the war in Gaza could cost him potentially decisive support among younger voters. Can you talk about where most young voters are on this issue and what you think Biden can do to keep or regain their support? It's obviously an incredibly complex issue.
I did a review of the polls in the second half of October. And when you look at overall approval ratings among younger people towards Biden's handling of Israel and Hamas and Gaza, only about a quarter or so said they approved, you know, and that was basically on the low end of a series of issues.
So they disapprove of him more on this issue than other issues. And what is of concern is really about a potential disconnect over values, that what young people, specifically young progressives who were so critical to not just voting, but the energy around the 2020 cycle, they're concerned about a lack of recognition for civilian life on both sides of that border.
And that's, I think, what is really kind of driving this. They don't support Hamas, of course.
They see what happened October 7th as a savage terrorist attack, but they also are more upfront in terms of basically completing to have new thinking around the best ways to protect civilian children, women, etc. I mean, it seems like there's only what Joe Biden can do about this is either join the calls for a ceasefire or somehow condition aid to Israel based on Israel taking different actions or conducting the war differently.
it feels to me and and you tell me because you've been in the data, that this is more than a Joe Biden can fix this problem by talking more to some of these young voters and reengaging them. It feels like they need a policy decision here or that feeling's not really going to go away i think i think i think young people want to see the president as a as a peacemaker right they want to feel good about the president they want to feel good about themselves in the country and the degree we talked about them watching a lot less news and there's a lot of data that indicates that there's basically watching 39 less news according to pew than they did at the same time during the Trump administration.
So some of the news that is breaking through are obviously the horrific images on October 7th and beyond. And that just is something that really, I think, is having a greater impact on how younger people thinking about politics and government than some people might otherwise suggest.
Beyond Gaza, what else do you think the Biden campaign and Democratic candidates should do over the next year to win the votes of younger voters? I think it's not a one step, it's a two or three step system. The first thing they need to do is they need to recognize, as I said earlier, that there's a better country because of what young people did before.
President Biden, Vice President Harris are not in office. Donald Trump is without younger people.
And what that means is we have the first African-American female in the Supreme Court. We have the first significant gun violence prevention legislation in not one, but two generations.
The largest investment in climate, $127 billion, last I counted, in student debt relief, and we can go further. So I think the first thing is to recognize the important part that young people played, thank them for that, recognize that, and let them know what has been delivered.
But then to say, there's no guarantee that obviously any of this continues without kind of further engagement. So I think they really need to kind of build some trust that being part of a system actually had tangible results.
That's the first part. And then the second part is it's a very different electorate.
They need to also kind of build messaging around that a vote for Bobby Kennedy, a vote for Cornel West, a vote for anybody other than Biden or staying home is a vote to reelect Trump. And they'll have to be reminded in terms of what that means.
I was going to ask about that because it's a sort of a delicate thing to handle. Obviously, young people choosing third party or independent candidates or choosing not to vote at all seems like an especially serious threat to the president's reelection.
And of course, if the president loses, as you mentioned, we get Donald Trump. What do you what would you say to a young voter who is considering one of those options? Because there's some debate whether you say,

oh, well, if you're doing this,

you're just going to vote for Donald Trump.

And then that sort of puts people on their heels

and say, well, it's my choice

and why are you telling me what to do?

Or do you say,

these third-party independent candidates,

they are not going to be able to fulfill

the promises they're making

because they're not going to win?

Or how would you handle that? I don't think I would even think about handling that now for nine months. Instead, what you need to do is understand why they're looking at third-party candidates.
They're looking at third-party candidates because they don't think that, as you heard in the clip, that they don't think that voting has made a significant difference in their lives, the lives of those people that they care about. And I think it really needs to focus on the tangible difference that government has and will continue to make when they engage.
I think that's going to be critical. And thinking about messaging and comparing yourselves to third-party candidates, it's not going to be as effective if they don't have trust in the system.
Yeah, you've been talking a lot about sort of focusing on like communicating Joe Biden's accomplishment, the Democrats accomplishments. How much would you focus on that versus focusing on the contrast between both Biden's accomplishment and his forward looking vision and what Trump would do in a second term? Certainly, I think what we learned from 2022, right, is there is that balance, that chemistry between positive and negative partisanship, right? Certainly, there was concern about Americans continuing to feel like they're losing their rights.
And we saw how many rights were lost because of Trump's Supreme Court. So absolutely, that has to be an important factor of this.
But listen, John, I don't know at this point, what the right mix of cocktail is between the negative and the positive partisanship. All I know is that we need to.
And listen, that's why I wrote that. Listen, I didn't write that headline.
Of course, you know, they have editors, the New York Times who write headlines. But I do think that your listeners and the people who support democratic campaigns and

causes need to appreciate the fact that despite the fact we've had three incredible turnouts

among young people, we can't guarantee that.

Every cohort is new, it's different, and we need to kind of build up faith in the system.

But of course, I think there will be a significant part of the contrast. I think when I look back, you know, at 2018, right, that was, I think, the right combination.
You had the deep concern about the first couple of years of Trump administration with the hope of what the March for Our Lives, what David Hogg and his friends were doing. That was like an interesting, I think, combination of factors, I think, that really lifted youth support.
And it's going to be something similar because it's a terrific story. There's a terrific story.
I think, you know, when Vice President Harris was on her college tour, she had incredibly enthusiastic audiences. She literally showed up where they were, not just on social media, but literally kind of, you know, in the quads and in the auditoriums of some of these colleges.
And she spoke to young people, she listened to young people, and I think they responded. And I'm hopeful and expect that Democrats can do this.
But again, the reason I, you know, wrote those pieces and I've been have been thinking about this is these underlying concerns I have from the attitudinal data that has been highly predictive for now a couple of different decades. And the sooner that we recognize that, the more I think we can all engage in helping young people appreciate the importance of civic life and participating specifically in this next campaign.

Well, last question, you mentioned Vice President Harris sort of going where voters are.

In a media environment or an information environment that is this fractured,

this rampant with misinformation on platforms or emotional polarizing content,

like what's the best way to communicate?

Who are the best, most trusted messengers to reach young voters where they are? I think other young voters. I think other young voters.
And I think the White House, honestly, you know, you probably know better than I, but the White House, I think the first couple of years have done a terrific job at empowering kind of younger activists, bringing them kind of inside to share some of their accomplishments, to listen for advice on other ones. And I think that was a big part of the democratic success in 2020, in 2022 midterms, a big part, that you had kind of alignment among many of these progressive groups.
And we need to continue to do that. I sense, I sense, based upon the number of text messages I have on my phone, that some of those progressive groups.
And we need to continue to do that. I sense, I sense based

upon the number of text messages I have on my phone, that some of those progressive activists

are questioning some things now, which is related to Israel and Gaza and Hamas. But it's really

about, I think, kind of empowering those kind of micro, whatever you want to call those micro

influencers, those everyday folks and mentors to communicate. It has to be, of course, from the top down,

that needs to be improved, but certainly kind of on the, you know, from the grassroots up.

John DeLaVolpe, thank you so much for joining Pod Save America again and

talking us through this and keep in touch over the next year.