The MAGA Civil War Begins

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Speaker 2 Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway.

Speaker 3 And I'm Jessica Tarlov.

Speaker 2 Jess, we have no time for banter. Our producers just had it.

Speaker 3 You gave Corey Booker our banter tag.

Speaker 2 I did. I did.

Speaker 3 How do you think that makes me feel? But I did want to tell you you something really cool.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Well, you've had a great week. Still, everyone buy notes on being a man.

Speaker 3 But I was on a panel at the Jewish Federations of North America and I came to.

Speaker 2 JFNA?

Speaker 3 Yes. JFNA.

Speaker 2 Jaffna? You mean Jaffna?

Speaker 3 I do, but I got to meet four released hostages and listen to them speak. And it was one of the most incredible experiences of my life.

Speaker 3 And the bravery and the stories about one of them, the guy who works for Nvidia,

Speaker 3 was there with his girlfriend, Noah, who got out significantly before him. But he was talking about how he used his engineering background to

Speaker 3 like figure out where he was and actually dig tunnels and got out at one point and then was captured again and put he was chained to a chair for a week and beaten. And like,

Speaker 3 anyway, it was an amazing experience.

Speaker 2 And that's it. My bad.

Speaker 3 Banter over.

Speaker 2 There we go. All right.
Today we're talking about MAGA Civil War, who could replace Schumer as leader in the Senate. And Michelle Obama has some tough love for Democrats.

Speaker 2 I've really come to really appreciate Versley Obama. All right, let's get into it.

Speaker 2 Let's talk about the MAGA Civil War that's spilling everywhere right now, from Congress to Heritage to Tucker Studio Basement.

Speaker 2 You've got Trump losing control of his own movement, caving on the Epstein files, nuking Marjorie Taylor Greene, and watching parts of the GOP revolt on immigration, H-1B visas, and tariffs.

Speaker 2 Then you've got media influencers, Tucker, Fuentes, Megan Kelly, turning the right's worst internal fights into public content. And all of it points to the same thing.

Speaker 2 The post-Trump power struggle isn't coming someday. It's already here.
And it's getting pretty ugly pretty fast. Jess, is this the moment when MAGA finally fractures for real?

Speaker 2 And if Trump can't control the extremists he helped create, who actually ends up leading this movement?

Speaker 3 So, I mean, we have kind of

Speaker 3 billed things as the end of MA multiple times and been completely wrong about it. And I think as long as Donald Trump exists, MAGA is going to exist as well.

Speaker 3 But these fractures do feel like an indication that the Republican Party knows that Trump is a lame duck now.

Speaker 3 Tim Dillon, who is a podcast host and very funny.

Speaker 3 I don't know if you ever heard him, but he said, you you know, this is the end of the Trump administration and the beginning of the lame dog presidency, and it's obvious to everyone.

Speaker 3 I mean, this is the first kind of couple of weeks that I've seen so much public criticism of the president, and it's on a host of different levels. I want to get into my

Speaker 3 three-legged stool of MAGA breakup.

Speaker 3 But you see other names being floated for 2028 that aren't for the lunatics, Donald Trump, but for the non-lunatics, just JD vans.

Speaker 3 You know, people returning to conversations about, like I've seen Ron DeSantis popping up, like if he could have a resurgence, people looking at Marco Rubio.

Speaker 3 A lot of that is, you know, because of the fracture over Israel, which is one of the legs of those stools.

Speaker 3 Ted Cruz positioning himself, according to an Axios report for 2028, as the guy who's willing to stand up to Tucker Carlson and the kind of anti-Semitic or anti-Semitic curious wing of the party.

Speaker 3 So it does feel like it's different in that sense and that

Speaker 3 it could be exploited even further. You know, I want to get your take, and then I want to talk about my stool.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 people keep using the term lame duck.

Speaker 2 This feels like more than that. A lame duck is someone that has.

Speaker 3 It's like a dead duck.

Speaker 2 Or a duck everyone's all of a sudden shooting at.

Speaker 2 It feels as if Marjorie Taylor Greene's pollster or internal consultant or strategist has been the most, is the most seminal person in the world right now.

Speaker 2 I used to think it was Epstein, but someone has said to Representative Green, look, if you not only go after the president, she's not just disagreeing with him.

Speaker 2 She's directly, she's firing shots across his bow. We've never seen kind of one of the leaders of the evangelists or the acolytes do that.

Speaker 2 A lame duck is someone who has no power, but everyone's just like, treats you like pop-up, right? Oh, aren't you cute? But I'm not going to take you seriously.

Speaker 2 Whereas it feels like there's mojo on behalf of the Republicans right now to actually come out against him.

Speaker 2 People have decided there might be political opportunity in directly taking on the president's idea, specifically around Epstein.

Speaker 2 And it feels like we're going to see more of it because I would argue MTG's decision to do this has paid huge dividends for her.

Speaker 2 All of a sudden, she's been thrust into the national stage as someone who is seen as reasonable. Your thoughts?

Speaker 3 Reasonable. You're pushing me.

Speaker 3 I think that we still have to kind of see in a post-Epstein files release world, what Marjorie Taylor Greene looks like.

Speaker 3 And I was thinking about her appearance on Mar and how it was like 70% kind of normal, but then she still has the kook in her. Right.

Speaker 3 And a lot of that was genuine, you know, how she came up through the system.

Speaker 3 And she posted either this morning or last night. Um,

Speaker 3 you know, I was six years die hard MAGA and I meant all of that.

Speaker 3 And And that doesn't come undone because the president tells you you can't run for Senate and you're mad about the Epstein files in totality.

Speaker 3 So I don't, I want to get, don't want to give her too much credit for it, but it will be interesting to see how he deals with the caucus post-release of the files. So they're voting today.

Speaker 3 So we're recording on Tuesday morning in the House.

Speaker 3 There's reporting that it could be unanimous, that all of these Republicans who had been backing Trump about this and out over their skis saying it's a Democratic hoax, now that they've backtracked because Trump has sent up the flare that everyone's got to backtrack, that they'll vote for the release.

Speaker 3 Then it'll go to the Senate. I imagine it'll be unanimous or close to unanimous there.
Trump's going to have to sign it.

Speaker 3 But the anxiety within the White House, which I think is legitimate, rests on the fact that it probably won't. be enough, right?

Speaker 3 The people who want these files out there, especially the conspiracy addled-brained folks on the base, expect that there is a pedophile list because Pam Bondi told us that there was.

Speaker 3 Remember back in that interview, I think it was in February on Fox where she said the Epstein list was sitting on her desk.

Speaker 3 Now, I don't think that that's the case, and they've been trying to do damage control since then.

Speaker 3 But there are a lot of people out there who believe that this cabal of pedophiles or pedophile adjacent folks are running the government and running the world want something more than just a few more documents than we've already seen.

Speaker 3 And House Oversight Chairman James Comer has said that. He said that the DOJ has turned over what they're legally allowed to turn over.

Speaker 3 Now, I don't trust Comer as far as I could throw him, but he's signaling something that I think is going to come to fruition, which is that this is going to be a dud.

Speaker 3 I don't know exactly what denomination of dud, but people are not going to get the goods that they're expecting. And I think that that will continue to roil this.

Speaker 3 civil war within the party, which brings me to my stool. So one leg of the stool is the Epstein stuff.

Speaker 3 So that's for the conspiracy theory folks like a Marjorie Taylor Greene, but then also kind of normy Republicans who are concerned that there was a pedophile with a sex trafficking ring and that he was connected not only to the president of the United States of America, but all of these powerful people.

Speaker 3 So that's like a Thomas Massey, who I would not put in the conspiracy theory bucket. I mean, he's a little, you know, a little libertarian crazy, but not that crazy.

Speaker 3 Then you have the folks that are splitting with Trump on policy.

Speaker 3 So whether it's tariffs, what he said about H-1B visas, and that Americans aren't talented enough to do these jobs, this idea of a 50-year mortgage, which seems absolutely stupid.

Speaker 3 And then to a lesser degree, what's going on with immigration enforcement. With moderate Republicans, that's something that is swaying them.

Speaker 3 And you saw that in the exits out of Virginia and New Jersey, where people are saying this isn't worst first, right? You are actually even detaining American citizens at a certain point.

Speaker 3 There are tons of lawsuits.

Speaker 3 we have over 170 americans that have been in ice detention like that was not what was supposed to happen then you have the third stool which i think is at least the most salacious in all of this which is the fight over israel kind of the battle for the soul of the america first aspect of the party with the tucker carlson and nick fuentes interview kevin roberts from heritage totally bungling it the fact that megan kelly and candace owens i should actually separate Megan Kelly and Candace Owens, because Candace Owens is totally out of her mind.

Speaker 3 Megan Kelly is choosing a path that makes maybe some sense for her downloads in the immediacy, but in the long term, I think makes her a pariah within the Republican Party when they realize that they can't win another national election.

Speaker 3 Living in this kind of conspiracy world where 30 to 40 percent, a conservative writer estimated that this guy, Ron Dreyer, that 30 to 40 percent of Republican staffers in Washington under the age of 30 are Guipers or Nick Fuentes fans.

Speaker 2 You said 30%?

Speaker 3 He estimates 30 to 40% of Republican staffers in Washington.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'd love to see that.

Speaker 3 And if you look at that text chain, remember the GOP staffer text chain that Politico published?

Speaker 2 Which is shocking.

Speaker 3 Yeah. So how do you like my stool?

Speaker 2 I think it's actually, I thought that was impressive.

Speaker 2 The fight over Israel. Yeah.
It's an interesting one. I went to a dinner last night and with one of my role models, a guy named Sam Harris, and we had an extended conversation about Israel.
And,

Speaker 2 you know, it's

Speaker 2 going back to World War II,

Speaker 2 there was a large communist. You love World War II.
I'm that guy. I know it's your age, right?

Speaker 3 You're just like the World War II guy.

Speaker 2 My favorite movies are anything starring Hitler. I just, when everyone's asleep, I turn on, you know, AE and I watch World War II in color.
You know what I'm saying? It's the Battle of the Bulge.

Speaker 2 It's going to be a good night. I'm that guy now.
But in Germany, pre-World War II or leading up to World War II, people forget there was a very strong communist movement.

Speaker 2 So there was the fascist slash Nazi movement. There was a very strong communist movement, far left, far right.

Speaker 2 When you get really to the extremes, they become more and more similar and they kind of meet in the middle, that whole horseshoe thing.

Speaker 2 And they were both very nationalists, enemies from within, weaponizing young, dissatisfied men. It's not your fault.

Speaker 2 And I find that whenever the extremists on the far left and the far right meet, you know it's a really bad fucking idea. Like they meet.

Speaker 2 The far left started the anti-vax movement and then the far right embraced it and then from a different angle. And I find that the far left and the far right both share anti-Semitic views.

Speaker 2 And so this really is a decent litmus test. If the extremists on the left agree with the extremists on the right, you know, danger Will Robinson.

Speaker 2 And then I just want to go over Calcium Polymarket, which I'm fascinated by. These are these platforms where people can wager on events.
But what it does is it illuminates the wisdom of the crowds.

Speaker 2 Now, some people would say it's perverted because the mayoral bets, it ends up meant much of that capital came from China and the Gulf, which means our elections are being fucked with again.

Speaker 2 But anyways,

Speaker 2 these markets to me are just fascinating because they're so far have been more right than wrong. When they bet, you know, I thought it was so smart when they said 60-40 Trump over Harris.

Speaker 2 I thought, oh, I'm betting on Harris. And of course, Trump won.
These markets tend to be very good at predictions. Anyways, in terms of

Speaker 2 the odds on Kalshy, who will be the Republican nominee in 2021, this blew my mind. So Tucker Carlson's 3%, Glenn Youngkin, 3%, Ron DeSantis, 3%.
I think that's low.

Speaker 2 I think people don't give Governor DeSantis enough credit as a candidate. Marjorie Taylor Greene, 5%.
I'd put her at less than one. There's no fucking way they're letting someone,

Speaker 2 you know, it's like if conspiracy was a person, it would have her hair cut.

Speaker 2 And again, my favorite, my favorite thing is she has the energy of a woman who shows up to Costco with a, you know, demanding to return a rotisserie chicken that's already half eaten.

Speaker 2 You know, she's just that person. She's, there's definitely, you know, there's definitely.

Speaker 3 And also our fearless leader.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 There you go. Yeah.
There you go.

Speaker 2 What's my other favorite one? Oh, she has the political nuance of a leaf blower at 6 a.m.

Speaker 2 So Donald Trump, 5%.

Speaker 2 Okay. Constitution, Constitution be damned.
I mean. Marco Rubio.
I'd probably put that higher, actually. Marco Rubio, although I think biology is going to take him out.
Marco Rubio, 9%.

Speaker 2 And the thing that blew me away, Jess, J.D. Vance on Calci is polling at 51%.

Speaker 3 That feels

Speaker 3 at this moment. That feels high to me.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Because I don't, the thing I, I mean, there's a few things the presidents have had in common, but one of them, almost all of them, with the exception all the way back to Nixon, I would say Nixon is the last that didn't qualify.

Speaker 2 I find that they're all quite or very likable. They have to be people you'd want to hang out with.
And I don't think J.D. Vance has that likability.

Speaker 2 I mean, I'm biased against the guy because I think effectively he's, he might as well be just an automatron or a robot for Peter Thiel, who I think is an odd person.

Speaker 2 But I don't find him that likable. Are you sure? That does feel high.
Say more.

Speaker 3 I think that it is up there because he's the sitting vice president and Trump has made a few comments about how JD will do great and it'll be JD and Marco. And you would assume, obviously, that J.D.

Speaker 3 Vance would be the top of the ticket and that Rubio would be the VP. But you're completely correct.
I mean, do you want J.D. Vance to represent your team in a debate?

Speaker 3 Yeah, he's a really good debater, but he is completely charmless. I have not.
met anyone who comes out of an interaction with anyone who's like, you know what? He blew me away. He's so personal.

Speaker 3 He's so charming. You know,

Speaker 3 I've heard, I know people who are friends with him, but they don't talk about him in the same way that they do about someone like a Trump, right?

Speaker 3 Where you're really like spending time with him and you know that even though I abhor everything he's done to this country, I understand a world in which Donald Trump is a good time, right?

Speaker 3 That you'd want to watch a fight with him. He doesn't drink, but grab a drink.

Speaker 2 Very charming. People love him when they meet him.

Speaker 3 Totally. And, you know, there are, we know why people like Donald Trump, the good and the bad of it.
But I totally feel that way about J.D. Vance.

Speaker 3 And I think that his inability to take a definitive enough stand in support of not only Israel, but even his own wife, who has been attacked by Nick Fuentes.

Speaker 3 You know, he's gone after their mixed race children.

Speaker 3 He's called his Usha Vance a jeet, you know, and he is in this battle online where he attacked a journalist who was attacking his deputy press secretary, who happens to be Tucker Carlson's son.

Speaker 3 And he goes after the journalists a lot harder than he goes after anyone who is a fan of Nick Fuentes.

Speaker 3 And I think it just says something really bad about his character, but also his understanding of the moment.

Speaker 3 You know, you want to build the biggest tent possible and you want to get as many votes as you possibly can.

Speaker 3 But even paying lip service or kind of letting in Nick Fuentes' adjacent thinkers into the party apparatus is a bad call. There are just some things that are not worth it.

Speaker 3 And being in bed with Groipers has got to be one of those things.

Speaker 2 Aaron Powell, you're exactly right. I think that, I mean, they called it the sister soldier moment with Obama, that at some point you demonstrate leadership.

Speaker 2 Everybody wants to sort of like, okay, they're crazy. I don't agree with them, but wink, wink, I'm going to put up with them in hopes that they stay on my, on my team.

Speaker 2 Real leadership is calling out people in your own party and just saying, this is not productive.

Speaker 2 I think there's a huge opportunity now for someone who wants the Republican nomination to just come out and say, not even mention his name, but to say that the Republican Party is the party that ended slavery.

Speaker 2 A key component of us and why we have earned respect and been one of the two parties in America is at a very fundamental level, we flatly reject these stupid, dangerous ideas.

Speaker 2 There's a huge opportunity for a Republican to say that because it's not going to be one

Speaker 2 over getting

Speaker 2 groupers.

Speaker 2 I mean, they're going to vote for the Republican, whoever that is. It's finding moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans who will vote for you that'll swing the election.

Speaker 2 I just want to comment for a minute. I'm fascinated by the media side of this.

Speaker 2 Tucker Carlson... His interview of Nick Fuentes, for example, has garnered over 6 million views.
And just to give you a sense for that, we're obsessed with still cable news.

Speaker 2 Fox News averages just 1.4 million views and only 132,000 in the core demo of 25 to 54. So Tucker's reaching probably five to 10 times the core demo.

Speaker 3 That's across the whole day, though, right? The programming, the Fox number. Because like the five is 3.5, 3.7 million.

Speaker 2 That's the average viewership. Oh, God.
Yeah, across the show, across Fox.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. And quite frankly, it's massively taken up.

Speaker 2 The median is probably closer to half a million. If it wasn't for your show, by the way, folks, Jess is on a show that's the most viewed show in all of cable news by far.

Speaker 2 CNN gets $200,000 or $300,000. A big show gets $500,000.
Just a show gets $3.5 million, which pulls that number. Without your show, I bet that number would be closer to half a million.

Speaker 2 Anyways, my point is he gets 10 times the viewership of an average show on Fox and probably 20 times the average listenership of a show on CNN.

Speaker 2 People just don't realize how powerful these these podcasters are becoming.

Speaker 2 And I was almost, I won't say not a fan of Tucker, but I have found his, I've liked the fact he's willing to color outside the lines, go against his own party on certain things.

Speaker 2 I think he's an outstanding podcaster. And then I remember who the fuck Tucker Carlson actually is.

Speaker 2 And he lets someone come on his show and say, I'm a big fan of Stalin and doesn't push back on him.

Speaker 3 He says, I'll circle back and then never circle back.

Speaker 2 Yeah, sir. And, or,

Speaker 2 or tries to

Speaker 2 play Middle East geography with Ted Cruz and quite frankly, like you said, I like you said, comes up with these kind of anti-Semitic light positioning and for some, you know, decides to very much go after Israel.

Speaker 2 And I understand there's a difference between being anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. I get it.
But it just seems like Tucker's very often, early and often, anti-Israel. And that's his right.

Speaker 2 Well, listen to me with all these fucking land acknowledgements. Anyways,

Speaker 2 but one of the things I really hate about big tech is that I don't think this clown, Nick Fuentes, would even exist because this is what happens.

Speaker 2 You are where you spend your time, and people spend, get two-thirds of their news now from social, or two-thirds of people get their news from social media.

Speaker 2 And the algorithms just fucking love Nick Fuentes because anytime he speaks, he inspires hundreds or thousands of comments.

Speaker 2 Anytime there's a clip of him online, and every comment is another Nissan ad, which is another, which is more shareholder value for meta.

Speaker 2 So they take that content and they elevate it beyond its natural reach.

Speaker 2 And the reality is, I don't think a third of congressional staffers would even know who fucking Nick Fuentes is if this content, if this noxious content wasn't elevated beyond the reach it would typically get organically.

Speaker 2 But when you're seeing him everywhere, to a certain extent, and then Tucker Carlson platforms him, to a certain extent, what they're doing is they're literally creating a monster.

Speaker 2 And that is they're elevating his content and ideas above the reach it would get on the merit of its own ideas.

Speaker 2 They're creating a non-organic monster here, and that is

Speaker 2 his content is being elevated well beyond what it would get on its own merits, because the algorithms love incendiary, controversial content, which is Latin for

Speaker 2 misinformation that is especially vile. And it's these far, these, quite frankly, people on the far right and the far left, the algorithms just love them.

Speaker 2 Whereas, reasonable policy discussion of people who are somewhere in the middle, the algorithms are like, hold my beer.

Speaker 2 You're not going to get, you're not going to inspire the kind of fight online that's going to get us the money we need.

Speaker 2 In sum, when Tucker Carlson platforms him, which I just think is really poor judgment on his part and doesn't push back, and then he says these ridiculous things, and social media absolutely loves it, and you're getting clips of Nick Fuentes from different people all over the place, his ideas start to seem a little less crazy and you start thinking, well, maybe this is where America's headed.

Speaker 2 So this,

Speaker 2 again, I think we're going to look back and we're not going to realize the level of mind control and influence these for-profit algorithms had on us. All right.
Thank you for my TED Talk.

Speaker 2 Let's take a quick break. Stay with us.

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Speaker 2 Welcome back. So the knives are out for Chuck Schumer.
But here's the twist. He's not stepping down anytime soon, and the people who want him gone don't actually have the power to make it happen.

Speaker 2 Still, with Schumer now the most unpopular Democratic leader with his own base and a 2028 primary that's starting to look like a career-ender, everyone in Washington is asking the same question.

Speaker 2 Who replaces him when the dam finally breaks? Jess, if Schumer limps into 2028 as damaged as he is today, who actually has the coalition to become the leader in the Senate?

Speaker 2 Well, first off, who do you think primaries him? And also, who do you think becomes the leader in the Senate?

Speaker 3 I don't think he gets primaried. I think that he just announces his retirement, which honestly makes sense on the actuarial table.

Speaker 3 Yeah, like it's,

Speaker 3 it would be a lot. He has grandkids, all the things.

Speaker 3 Like, I do think, and we talked about this last week when the eight Dems voted to open up the government and Gene Shaheen said straight up, you know, leadership knew what we were doing, that that moment was Chuck Schumer's decision that he was not going to run.

Speaker 3 for reelection, that he was like, okay, you know, this is what I think is the smart and responsible thing to do, which maybe that will be borne out, right?

Speaker 3 That there was no other route out of this shutdown and that you needed to open up the government. And, you know, maybe we get an ACA vote, though.
It sounds like we're not going to.

Speaker 3 But so I don't think this is an issue of, is AOC going to primary Chuck Schumer?

Speaker 3 Chuck Schumer's not thinking that he's going to be on the ballot and he shouldn't because you are supposed to pass the torch and you are supposed to go on and enjoy your life after you've had a great career in public service.

Speaker 3 You know, progressive groups who love, love to to primary, who love to go after more moderate establishment, whatever you want to call them, Democrats have been pushing the last few weeks for Chris Van Hollen to get up in Schumer's face and make a bid for leadership.

Speaker 3 Van Hollen has said that he's not doing that. Bernie gave an interview where he was asked about Chuck Schumer being in leadership.
And he said, like, what's the point in this conversation?

Speaker 3 Because Chuck is in the job right now and no one is going to try to push him out before he's ready to go, which I think may even happen before the 2028 election.

Speaker 3 But my pick for future leader of the Democratic Party, well, I have two, but my top pick is Amy Klobuchar.

Speaker 2 I love that you said that. I agree with you.

Speaker 3 Yeah, she's just the best. You know, she's already in leadership.
She's the number three Democrat.

Speaker 2 Smart, strategic. Smart.

Speaker 3 Like she's centrist. She's pragmatic, but she also fights.
And that's what everyone's looking for right now.

Speaker 3 That's why we have to kind of like throw out our old conceptions of what a mushy moderate means. Moderates are raging.
Look at the sign behind me. And I think Amy Klobuchar just totally fits the bill.

Speaker 3 She's 65. I think having someone from the Midwest is also a good thing.

Speaker 3 You know, New York and California are always tough.

Speaker 3 So I like her. I like her fight.
I like her smarts. When I interviewed her for the podcast, I thought she was just fantastic.
And then another

Speaker 3 person also in leadership who I like, who will end up being the whip when Durbin goes out, who's retiring is Brian Schatz from Hawaii. And he's a great policy guy.
Everybody likes him.

Speaker 3 He's progressive, but has the trust of, you know, the more centrist Democrats. And he's my second choice, but Amy is my top.
What about you?

Speaker 2 I love that. And it's weird.
I'm wrestling with on an existential or personal level.

Speaker 2 committed, I really want to devote a decent amount of my time, treasure, and talent to trying to to flip Congress back and then get involved in a give a bunch of money and attention to, or what's a bunch of money for me, to great candidates

Speaker 2 to try and take back the White House. And I'm struggling with, for me, the most important thing is electability.

Speaker 2 I'd rather have someone I'm not total alignment with on policy who's more likely to be elected.

Speaker 2 Because

Speaker 2 to me, the priority isn't the best Democrat. It's just getting, it's just making sure we don't have more of this nonsense from the far right.

Speaker 2 And if I were just to vote on, support someone just based on what I perceive as their competence and their policy and their intellect, I would, my, my choice for president would be Senator Klobuchar.

Speaker 2 I just think she's incredibly, I think smart needs to be the new black. And that is, it really helps to have someone in the White House who has an IQ

Speaker 2 and the temperament and the judgment to make very difficult decisions on the fly and is pragmatic and understands the real politic of foreign policy and economics, but also is grounded in empathy.

Speaker 2 Like, okay, at the end of the day, my gag reflex is not to try and accept a plane or have a crypto scam. It's to try and help people.
And

Speaker 2 I think Senator Klobuchar has both of those. By the way, she has a reputation for not being an easy person to work with.

Speaker 3 No, tough as nails.

Speaker 2 And people use a different word because she's a woman. If it's a man, it's a leader.
People use different words for a woman.

Speaker 2 But I like the fact that she's a bit, you know, she's not, she's not nice is what I've heard.

Speaker 3 She's Minnesota nice.

Speaker 2 Well, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 But in terms of electability, I'm like newsome, newsome, newsome.

Speaker 2 And I don't,

Speaker 2 I'm struggling with, do you, do you advocate for the person who's most electable or the person who you think would actually do the best job if they, if they were elected.

Speaker 2 Anyways, this is what keeps me up at night, Jess. This is what keeps me up at night.

Speaker 3 That and your prostate.

Speaker 2 Sorry, is that a problem? There you go.

Speaker 3 Sorry.

Speaker 2 I'm just trying to be a little more like four or six times.

Speaker 3 The good thing about if Amy ends up the Democratic leader in the Senate, like that's a huge job that she's very deserving of.

Speaker 3 And I don't know if she's even thinking about running for president again, but it gives her something.

Speaker 2 As Senator Booker said, they're all running.

Speaker 3 yes especially if you've already run before but I you know I went to an Amy rally in Des Moines uh before the primary and it was

Speaker 3 it was a lot of fun it was full of women just like me it was like overeducated white women um and it was right after she came out with that line about how every ex-boyfriend is donated to her campaign and that there's no other candidate that could say that and I just you know She feels like one of us.

Speaker 3 And I really like her for it.

Speaker 3 And I hope that she gets that job if that's what she's after, because I think it's very well deserved and that she'll be a great guiding force for the Democratic Senate coalition going forward.

Speaker 2 When Senator Schumer entered Congress in 1981, the median price of a home was $69,000.

Speaker 2 The average tuition for public college was $900 and $4,000 for a private institution. Ronald Reagan had just been inaugurated.
AIDS was discovered that year.

Speaker 2 And MTV launched the year that Senator Schumer

Speaker 2 came to power. And my favorite is the biggest movie is the year that Senator Schumer, or then Representative Schumer, was elected.
Raiders of the Lost Ark on Golden Pond, really nice film.

Speaker 2 Superman 2, don't know it. Arthur, funny, and Stripes.
And then the best film of the year. Well, the funniest was a Cannonball Run, but the best film of the year, a wonderful film.

Speaker 2 Did you ever see Chariots of Fire?

Speaker 3 Yes. I've seen that little film.

Speaker 2 That little film.

Speaker 2 That was an outstanding.

Speaker 3 But it also was a long time ago.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's the point of all this. Senator Schumer should take a page out of the MTV playbook, and that is, MTV has come and gone.
It closed down last week. MTV is no longer a thing.

Speaker 2 Anyways, with that, we'll take one more break.

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Speaker 2 Welcome back. Before we go, let's talk about First Lady Michelle Obama, who just said the quiet part out loud.
America still isn't ready for a woman president.

Speaker 2 She pointed to Kamala Harris's failed run, called out the men who can't be led by a woman, and shut down again any fantasy that she'd ever run herself.

Speaker 2 Classic Michelle, blunt, funny, and a little brutal regarding where the country is. And her comments land as Democrats face their own identity crisis.

Speaker 2 Rampu replaces Schumer, who carries the torch nationally in a post-Trump era. Let's watch a clip of Michelle over the weekend.

Speaker 10 Do you think that that impacts the room that we've made for a woman to be president? Well, as we saw in this past election, sadly, we ain't ready.

Speaker 10 That's why I'm like, don't even look at me about running because you all are lying. You're not ready for a woman.
You are not.

Speaker 10 So don't waste my time.

Speaker 10 You know, we got a lot of growing up to do.

Speaker 11 And there's still, I'm sadly, a lot of men who do not feel like they can be led by a woman. And we saw it.

Speaker 2 God,

Speaker 2 I think she's so good. I mean, some of the best parenting advice I've ever received that really resonated with me came from the first lady.

Speaker 2 I think she's so practical and sounds like such a good parent. You know,

Speaker 2 you're not their friend. You're their parent.
It's taken me a long time to figure that out. You need to have the hard conversations now.

Speaker 2 You know, in other words, we sometimes need to be assholes such that they don't grow up to be assholes. I think she's so smart and practical.
But right there, she just said the quiet part out loud.

Speaker 2 And I've been saying this.

Speaker 2 I think the easiest way to lose the election and then not have a female president for the next 20 or 30 years would be to run a woman again.

Speaker 2 Because if you look at just the data, the primary qualification to be an elected official in America is a college degree. It's like, I don't know, 94, 97 percent.

Speaker 2 We've been graduating more women from college now for about 30 years, and yet only 27 percent of our elected officials are female.

Speaker 2 We've gone from 18 percent of C-level positions in the corporate America to 27 in the last 10 years.

Speaker 2 The number of women elected to some form of parliament globally is growing, but it seems to be a little bit flatlining in the U.S. at 27%.

Speaker 2 And I think it's because we are still a highly luxist and sexist nation. And I worry that, and just going back to Senator Klobuchar,

Speaker 2 I am meeting with a presidential candidate this morning, and

Speaker 2 this person does not appreciate what I've said several times. And that is, I've said, no one under six feet is going to be elected president.

Speaker 2 And I don't care if it's a man who's vertically challenged or a woman. I just don't think it's going to happen.

Speaker 2 And I think she said it in a way that's much more compelling, and she's the right messenger. You're not ready for me.
You're not ready for a female president. I do think we'll have a female president.

Speaker 2 She will be a Republican who has the reputation for drone-striking families if they run a stop sign. It's going to be a very Margaret Thatcher-like figure.
But I think it would be a huge mistake.

Speaker 2 And I hate to say this for the Democrats. And I don't think they will.
But anyways, I'll stop my word salad. What are your thoughts on First Lady Obama's talk?

Speaker 3 Well, I have the same anxiety that you do. And there was a method to the madness of picking the most bland character in Joe Biden to be the candidate in 2020.

Speaker 3 And we ended up winning an election that way. But I feel like Michelle is kind of sick of telling people no.

Speaker 3 Like we've been asking her to run for president because she has that Oprah-like appeal where people, no matter their politics, really gravitate to Michelle Obama.

Speaker 3 And I think a lot of that, you know, connects to what you were saying about the parenting advice.

Speaker 3 We all read her first book and that scene where she's crying in her car and her lunch break with Chipotle and she's had to run to get Halloween costumes and Barack is spending too much in Springfield and she feels like she's doing all of this alone.

Speaker 3 Like that resonates, right? That feels like I may have had this extraordinary life, but I'm just one of you, which is what we want to see in our electeds, right? We want that relatability.

Speaker 3 And she gives an insanely good speech. I saw her at the DNC.
I saw both of them speak. And I didn't meet one person that night.

Speaker 3 I don't know if you were still there for her and Obama's night, but everyone thought Michelle gave the better speech. And Obama even admitted it when he came out.

Speaker 3 He said, like, it's impossible to follow that, right? You know, and he does a great job. But I want to be a little glass half full on this topic because I think that

Speaker 3 as we see more and more important victories for women in politics, like we just saw Abigail Spanberger and Mikey Sherrill win those races, right? Those are two, I don't know exactly how tall they are.

Speaker 3 They don't look huge to me, but you know, blonde moms who have great records, of course, and served our country, but they're not huge, imposing figures, right?

Speaker 3 They don't present masculine, frankly, at all. And

Speaker 3 they kicked ass in those races by huge margins. And I should note, there was a woman on the other side of the ballot also in Virginia.

Speaker 2 They were such superior candidates. So, I mean, they were just totally outclassed.

Speaker 3 Totally, but 14 and 15 points isn't just winning. That's a rout, especially considering what happened in 2024.

Speaker 3 And I think that when Michelle says, well, we saw what happened with Kamala, like Kamala wasn't a candidate that the party chose to lead us. And that hurt her enormously.

Speaker 2 It was a coronation, not a competition. That's the biggest criticism I think you could have of the whole process.

Speaker 3 And if it had been even a mini primary, which is what Pelosi had wanted,

Speaker 3 maybe Kamala would have been the winner. I mean, being VP gets you a lot of cred, as it should, or maybe she wouldn't have been, but her candidacy would have felt different to people.

Speaker 3 And I will go to my grave feeling like it was also a winnable race.

Speaker 3 If a few key things had been done differently, you know, know, the interview with The View, if she, you know, I thought her interview with Brett Baer was actually good on special report, but you know, done an ounce better and shown people that she's got that commander-in-chief vibe and had a good response about the attacks, like the trans ad and things like that.

Speaker 3 Not that you have to get down in the dirt with people, but just to basically say, absolutely not, that isn't happening. And frankly, it did happen on your watch.
I think it could have been different.

Speaker 3 I want to say, though, the other female candidate, Hillary Clinton, won the popular vote by 3 million votes.

Speaker 3 And I have seen nobody from Nate Silver to the person you meet on the street who doesn't think that the Comey letter coming out 11 days before that election and key mistakes like not going to Wisconsin, which her husband had been saying,

Speaker 3 you got to go and do that, could not have swung a few hundred thousand votes in the key states. And that was in 2016.
So take 2016

Speaker 3 United States and put that at 2028 United States. And I feel like with the right female candidate, it could be possible.
I am still scared, but I wanted to make that case.

Speaker 2 In my view, it's always what they did wrong. And market dynamics will Trump individual performance.

Speaker 2 I think Vice President Harris delivered one of the strongest individual performances in political history in that debate performance. She just absolutely slaughtered the guy.
It was great.

Speaker 2 And she was given basically 11 weeks or whatever it was to run an American-style election. I I think she did her level best.
She made some mistakes. She's kind of a bland candidate.

Speaker 2 I've always said she kind of brightens up a room by leaving it. She just doesn't have that same

Speaker 2 gravitas, charisma. I don't think anyone affiliated with Joe Biden and quite frankly, incumbency and more of the same was going to win the election.

Speaker 2 And I think if they'd had a competition, it would have produced a candidate who could have positioned himself as, one, I am not President Trump and two, I am not not Joe Biden.

Speaker 2 I am not President Joe Biden.

Speaker 2 And I, and this person could have gone a little bit on the offensive around what was wrong with the Biden administration and positioned themselves as a little bit of outsider.

Speaker 2 I think that person might have, might have won. But the vibe I get from the First Lady, I don't know if you feel this way.

Speaker 2 I'm a huge fan of Presidents Obama and Clinton, and both kind of heroes of mine. But I can't help it.
I sometimes wonder: did we elect the wrong Obama and the wrong Clinton? You know, it's just,

Speaker 2 I think Secretary Clinton is the great president we should have had. And I'm really disappointed.
I don't,

Speaker 2 you know, I don't like dynasties, but it's a shame that I would love to see First Lady Obama run for Senate. I think she'd be such a powerful voice for the middle class.

Speaker 3 She hates

Speaker 2 politics. And she's probably done.
She won't give it up. Well, and they're on David Geffen's boat in Capri.
I mean, they got a pretty good life.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they got a pretty good life.

Speaker 2 All right, Jess, before we go, we're working on our end-of-the-year mailbag episode to answer some of your burning questions on all things politics.

Speaker 2 Send us a 15-second voice recording to ragingmoderates at profgmedia.com. Again, that's ragingmoderates at propgmedia.com, and we might include yours.
All right, that's all for this episode.

Speaker 2 Thank you for listening to Raging Moderates. Have a good week, Jess.

Speaker 3 You too.

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