D.L. Hughley: Kamala Is the Main Character

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Speaker 9 Hey guys, it's Wednesday. So just a reminder that we get really kind of nerdy on the political stuff.
Me, Sarah, and JVL on the next level feed. It comes out late afternoon, early evening.

Speaker 9 So go check that out. I've got an H.R.
McMaster rant that's been boiling in my belly since Morning Joe yesterday. We'll talk about that.

Speaker 9 We might talk about Sarah's little Twitter feud with some of the anti-Trumpers that aren't supportive enough to Kamala for her taste and good on her, good on Sarah.

Speaker 9 So, check that out on the next level feed. Also, just a little bonus, some bonus laughs for you.
Me and Sam Stein on YouTube did a breakdown of Donald Trump's infomercial pushing his NFTs.

Speaker 9 And just if you're not on our YouTube feed, we're doing some funny stuff over there. Go check that out.
Today's guest, it's a doubleheader. We have D.L.
Hewley first. I'm so excited.

Speaker 9 Been a fan of his for a long time. We talk about the Trump campaign's outreach to the black community.
We talk about mixing comedy and politics. It's a great chat.

Speaker 9 And then my buddy Teddy Goff, who knows about as much about digital and data campaigning as anybody out there, I want to talk to him about what the Como team should be doing ahead and also a little behind the scenes from the convention since he was working on that.

Speaker 9 So it's a good convo. Stick around for it.
We'll catch you on the other side with DL Hewley.

Speaker 9 Hello, and welcome to the Bullworld Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller.
I'm just delighted to be here today with comedian, actor, and host of the national radio program, the D.L. Hughley Show.

Speaker 9 It's D.L. Hughley.
He's also on the road doing stand-up on the weekends. He's in Ontario this weekend.
He's in Arkansas. He's in Little Rock, Arkansas.
When are you coming to New Orleans, man?

Speaker 9 When are you coming to New Orleans?

Speaker 11 You know, I've been in New Orleans in

Speaker 11 about two years now since I've been to New Orleans, but we're working on it.

Speaker 9 Let's get it on the schedule. All right.

Speaker 11 Get to the Smoothie King Cinema. It's weird because my...
My oldest granddaughter is named Nola after New Orleans because my daughter has a love affair with that city. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 9 Okay. Well, good.
We'll get it. We'll have great together.
We'll take care of you. I'll get you a purple drink.
We'll be in good shape.

Speaker 11 Yeah, that's what I need. The purple drink.
I need that. That's what I need.

Speaker 9 Well, I've been wanting to have you on forever. I've got caught listening to your show one morning in a cab or something.
And I was like, you know, my D.L.

Speaker 9 Hughley, you know, reference is being a teenager watching the original Kings of Comedy and thinking, why isn't that guy more famous than the other guys? I swear to God, I'm not a bullshitter. So

Speaker 9 I've been going back then, and I kind of didn't realize you were doing politics takes till about, I don't know, six months ago. Right.

Speaker 11 I think politics became a different thing.

Speaker 11 And I think, you know, with the emergence of Barack Obama, who probably has the most ex-Twitter followers as anybody in the world, and then you have Donald Trump, and now you have this iteration of it.

Speaker 11 I think... America's, you know, consumption of politics just became different.
But I've always kind of done the same thing.

Speaker 11 It's just that my frequency was set to a different kind of page, and I don't think everybody was kind of on it.

Speaker 11 But I think now pop culture and politics is kind of morphed into the same kind of animal.

Speaker 9 Yeah, maybe in a way that's unhealthy.

Speaker 11 Right, it is unhealthy.

Speaker 9 It is unhealthy. Have you felt like you had to do it more in the Trump era or did you change your intensity?

Speaker 11 I think the stakes are higher in the Trump area and I think the

Speaker 11 people are more in tune in the Trump area. Like I said,

Speaker 11 obviously because the stakes are higher, but it used to be when a president said something, it didn't show up on social media. Now when they do, it does.
And

Speaker 11 I think people are just, like I said, more in tune to the way they consume it is a different process. Now they don't have to go to a newspaper or they don't have to go to mass media.

Speaker 11 They can get it kind of a la carte.

Speaker 9 I was pretty tickled by your appearance on the convention stage.

Speaker 9 We got Kensinger coming on the Five Thursday. So, I mean, you guys are kind of neck and neck for giving me the giggles up on stage.
And I particularly enjoyed this line and this segment.

Speaker 9 Let's just listen.

Speaker 13 As president, she will give each and every one of us a fair shot in life.

Speaker 13 But I have to admit, I didn't always believe that. I mean, if you told me the 15-year-old me would be on stage supporting a prosecutor and a teacher,

Speaker 13 there is no way that I would have believed you.

Speaker 13 But Because of that, I made assumptions about Kamala's record. And I often repeated them to a lot of people.
Then one day, Kamala invited me to her house.

Speaker 13 She put her hand on my shoulder and she asked me to do some research. Something I had never done.
Something a lot of people I know had never done before.

Speaker 13 Imagine attacking someone's character without a single Google search.

Speaker 13 So I did what I should have done in the first place. I learned that she had done for us exactly what she promised to.

Speaker 13 I believe that your apology should be as loud as your accusation, and I'm here apologizing in front of the whole damn world.

Speaker 9 So I was with you, man. When I was 15, I wouldn't have been, you know, teachers weren't really my bag.
Right.

Speaker 11 And prosecutors were less. And I think, you know, it just, it just really speaks to the maturation of people.
I never would have thought that I'd have been in that same circumstance.

Speaker 11 I never would have thought that I'd have had the mindset I had, the allegiance that I had. I think you become a different person.

Speaker 11 I think what's unfortunate is that most people who grew up where I grew up don't get to have this kind of incarnation of themselves.

Speaker 11 But it was surreal to be in that place.

Speaker 9 Yeah, the prosecutor thing was less the problem for me in the Denver suburbs as a white boy.

Speaker 9 They were targeting me for my minor in possession with the same vigor.

Speaker 9 The second part of that, though, I want to hear a little bit more about that story. So I guess

Speaker 9 it seems to me through the context clues that you were maybe dragging Kambala about her prosecutorial record, and then you had an opportunity to talk to her. So yeah, talk about that.

Speaker 9 What evolved?

Speaker 11 And I actually don't, and this is not trying to obfuscate, but I actually don't think, I think when she ran in 2019, I think it isn't that she just became a different candidate.

Speaker 11 I think the nation in general was different. I think we were going through the George Floyd, Breonna Taylor kind of situations.

Speaker 11 And I don't think anybody was in tune to seeing a prosecutor as a potential president.

Speaker 11 And I also think that if that weren't true, then she wouldn't be having I mean, the first thing that happened when she was running in this iteration of herself is that, you know, black women got on there, black men got on.

Speaker 11 There was this, there was this groundswell that I didn't think existed before.

Speaker 11 But I think, to be fair, I was part of the rationale that she had locked a whole bunch of black men up for truancy and for marijuana and

Speaker 11 all those kinds of things. So I think I was caught up in the maelstorm of people that just kind of felt like that.
And

Speaker 11 to my lament, I think it was just horrible that I never even looked. to see if it was true or not.

Speaker 11 I pride myself on kind of, you know, calling it like I see it, but it's difficult to do that when you don't even see it clearly.

Speaker 11 You know, that was one of the reasons we had occasion to talk, and I actually looked at her record and it was nowhere near what I assessed it to be. So.

Speaker 9 What was her pitch to you?

Speaker 11 Just look at my record. Yeah.
It was look at my record. Actually, it was probably, which is weird because...

Speaker 11 We're at the vice president's house and we're drinking and talking.

Speaker 9 It got heated. It got heated? Yeah.

Speaker 11 Yeah. Because, you know, I'm invited to the vice president.

Speaker 11 I'm thinking I'm going to say what it is I'm going gonna say I didn't you know I think of that old biblical scripture I was Nathan is speaking that you know I was speaking truth to power and I was heated and it was a heated scenario and she was very measured and calm she said all I ask you to do is to to actually look at my record and I went out and I did and I felt this small and

Speaker 11 And I said you know I'm going to do what I can to make this right. I said, I've had, I probably had a lot to do with what happened to you in 2019, and I'm going to do what I can to make sure.

Speaker 11 And it was ironic because this was in November when she was just the vice president of Canada. They were, you know, this is November 2023.

Speaker 11 And I said, I'm going to get you to do what I can to make sure you get elected. I didn't say re-elected.
I said elected. And they thought it was a freudian slip.

Speaker 11 But these months later, it turned out to become fruition.

Speaker 9 Was it a slip, or did you kind of feel that this was where things were going?

Speaker 11 I said it, and I didn't feel as if it was a mistake. And even in Milwaukee, I said it again.
We were were starting to sneak.

Speaker 11 I think, and I said this on stage, I think I've seen a lot of people say a lot of bad things about people. And I participated in it, obviously.

Speaker 11 And I think that when you have made these assertions about people, then you have an obligation to make your apology or your recompense as loud as it is your accusations.

Speaker 11 And I think very rarely do you get a chance to do it. And I did.
And so I truly feel horrible that I believe the thing without even looking. I just don't.

Speaker 11 it doesn't seem like who I am and I don't understand why I did it, but obviously that.

Speaker 9 Where are you at on that now? I mean, how do you balance like the question? I mean, like I said, I'm in New Orleans. I've moved from Oakland.
We deal with all these questions in these communities.

Speaker 9 Like,

Speaker 9 how are you balancing? Like, okay, you need to have some basic level of public safety, but obviously, in a lot of cases, the police have gone way overboard. You know, racial targeting.

Speaker 9 Where do you fall on that balance?

Speaker 11 Well, I guess the 50-year-old me has a different assertion than the 60-year-old me, but I do think this.

Speaker 11 I think getting mad at a prosecutor who has to arrest people or jail people is like getting mad at the dentist because he has to pull some teeth.

Speaker 11 It's just, but the rationale of a 15-year-old guy living in an urban community, I had never seen what a progressive prosecutor would look like.

Speaker 11 I had never seen what, you know, measured justice look like. I got a lot of tough, but not a lot of love.
And people said, DeVict, you're probably old enough to remember, California was Texas.

Speaker 11 It's not a California. This California now was a liberal bastion.
It was Texas. Three strikes are out.

Speaker 11 So it became, you know, in the 90s, 2000, it became a more liberal California.

Speaker 11 Ronald Reagan came from California. Yeah, right.

Speaker 9 Pete Wilson, man.

Speaker 9 Pete Wilson was that era.

Speaker 9 Pete Wilson.

Speaker 11 You know, Richard Nixon came from California. This California that people now know is not the one I grew up in.

Speaker 11 It was one Proposition 13 where they stripped everything down to property taxes and it gutted our communities and people went to jail by large numbers. So there was never,

Speaker 11 if you grew up in a system where

Speaker 11 you see a bureaucracy tear up the things you love, then any agent of said bureaucracy would probably be suspicious to you.

Speaker 9 So where are you at on it now?

Speaker 9 I mean, obviously there's this huge vibe shift from Biden to Kamala and we were kind of like tweeting at each other a little bit during that during that period after the debate.

Speaker 11 Full discourse, I was very angry with the way the Democrats treated Biden. And I still have a problem with the way they did it now.
But I'm very pleased with this outcome.

Speaker 11 But I think that there's something to be said. I mean, I guess that, you know, Biden probably isn't much different than Winston Churchill was.
Once you win the war, then people can't use you anymore.

Speaker 11 But I think ultimately he will be regarded as one of the legislators. I think his legislative agenda rivaled FDR.

Speaker 11 And I think what he's done, I've never seen a president voluntarily give up power for the good of a nation. And that tells you the difference between him and the other candidate running.

Speaker 11 There are men who would rather lose their life than lose the presidential power.

Speaker 11 And I think they'd rather start a war, they'd rather tear this country asunder than to say me stepping aside is in the country's best interest. And I think it was hard for him to reconcile it.

Speaker 11 And I think people, it was hard for me to see him treated that way. But I think I understand what had to happen.
I was, and I think a few people were.

Speaker 11 I don't think it was just me, but I think the way it turned out now could have never possibly foreseen. I'm very happy she's in the position.

Speaker 9 Many of the listeners are with you on that, so they'll be happy to hear that. They're tired of hearing me dogging them.
But

Speaker 9 we're in the moment now. You know, Kamala takes over.
Like, it's hard for me. I was talking about this on the podcast during the time.

Speaker 9 Like, it's funny, because as a gay person, like, I was very sensitive about Pete. I'm like, ooh, I don't know if we can do a gay guy.
I don't know if the country's ready.

Speaker 9 And, you know, like producer, Katie's just Jewish. She's like, I'm not sure we're ready for Shapiro.
Like, people are mad at Jews right now.

Speaker 9 And like in focus groups, in black focus groups, and my aunt said this to me, several, several black women said this to me. They're like, ooh, I'm a little worried about Kamala.
People aren't ready.

Speaker 9 But all of a sudden, it happened. And I don't know.
We're not out of the woods yet. She hasn't won.
But I'm like, what's your sense for how kind of excited folks in the black community are about her?

Speaker 9 And are there still lingering worries about that electability? Or how do you assess all that?

Speaker 11 I think anytime any group that has been on the outside of anything sees a potential for something to happen for the first time, I think there's a lot more trepidation.

Speaker 11 I think you come off Barack Obama. I remember Donald Trump has said because of Barack Obama, we'll never have another black president.
And then four years later, we're on the precipice of it.

Speaker 11 But I think whether you're gay or whether you're Latin or whether you're Jewish or whether you're you know there are all these things that have never been these things before so there's a but I do sense this this is what I do sense I think the prospect of being without the specter of Donald Trump hanging over us is seductive I think it's alluring I think it would be nice to have regular conversations without having these I mean

Speaker 11 you like him or not you like his positive or not he's really done so much damage to every tenant every

Speaker 11 important thing in America, from the press.

Speaker 11 We just can't agree on anything because he decided to tear it all asunder for his own benefit.

Speaker 11 And I think when I hear people, the funniest thing about it is, and this is what crystallizes it for me, I hear people say that Trump hasn't figured out how to deal with her.

Speaker 11 But the problem is she already knows how to deal with him.

Speaker 11 She already knows what to do with him. And I think that is a problem.

Speaker 11 It is her that's getting the bigger crowds, it's her that's uh raising the most money, it's her that's polling the highest, it's her that the meters clamoring to talk to.

Speaker 11 She is in the in the midst of doing something powerful white men always hate, and that's to be irrelevant, they hate to be invisible.

Speaker 11 She's erasing that orange, stubborn stain that nobody could get rid of. Powerful white men who've gotten to tell you the narrative have never had to play defense, always offense, never.

Speaker 9 This takes us to your other good line from the convention, which we'll play here.

Speaker 13 They even have Republicans for Kamala.

Speaker 13 Republicans for Kamala. I guess Donald Trump will finally know what it's like when you get left for a younger woman.

Speaker 9 It's kind of delicious, isn't it? I mean, again, we don't want to get out of our skis.

Speaker 9 We got this debate coming, but it's kind of delicious just thinking about Donald Trump losing to Kamala in particular.

Speaker 11 Right?

Speaker 9 You got to have a little excitement about that?

Speaker 11 I do. I think that it is ultimate.
If you look at the way society viewed black women 20 years ago or 30 years ago, it's decidedly different.

Speaker 11 I think political historians will look at what black women have done in the realm of politics in America, where they were considered decidedly different 30 years ago than they are now.

Speaker 11 And they've risen to the seat of being one of the most important demographic in a political party, in a major political party in the United States of America.

Speaker 11 And they didn't do it with bellicosity or loud. They weren't saber-rattling.
They just were insistent. They just were consistent.

Speaker 11 They're the demographic, the votes at the highest levels of any other demographic. And they have a Supreme Court justice that represents, that is reflective of their experiences.
Black men don't.

Speaker 11 They have a vice president who's reflective of their experience. Black men don't.
They could very well have a president that's reflective of their experience. Black men don't.

Speaker 11 So rather than being jealous or worried or

Speaker 11 I would take that as an opportunity to learn what they've done to arise like this.

Speaker 11 I think if you look at the annals of human history, there's never been a dance for quite like what black women have done in America. So it'd be almost poetic to see it play out this way.

Speaker 9 So Susie Wiles, my former boss, sadly, who is Trump's campaign manager now, she said maybe a month ago, The Atlantic, that there's all this talk about how Trump's trying to reach out to black folks, trying to reach out to black folks.

Speaker 9 And she basically says, that's not true, actually. We're trying to reach out to one demographic, 18 to 39-year-old black men.

Speaker 11 And they're doing it with the machismo stuff they're doing it by like the dent you know woke stuff what's your assessment of that like have they had success with that like what's working what's not working i think that's spot on he is playing to men who respond to fake ass videos with people with bling and talking shit and doing a video and then at the end of that they give all of it back none of it's real all of it is for for the camera all of it's for the gram and and trump plays right into that idea like nobody actually does the shit that they rap about.

Speaker 11 Nobody actually does the, you know, has the things they say they do. So if that is your mindset, then a guy who does the same thing you do would appeal to you.
So I think that she's absolutely right.

Speaker 11 But I also think that those people tend not to vote in high numbers.

Speaker 9 So you're not that worried about it? You don't feel like there's like progress to be made? I don't know.

Speaker 9 Your listeners, your call-ins, like, you know, you're not looking at data, but just like, are you seeing a little bit of Trumpy?

Speaker 11 I think that I hear the same things that everybody else hears. And I think I've I've heard them for years.

Speaker 11 But I also think, and just like when I hear, you know, we could talk about, you know, the young black man, but I also, on the other side, know the Bradley effect.

Speaker 11 So I'm interested to see what people do when the chips are down.

Speaker 11 I do think it is interesting that a man who thinks he can roll out gold tennis shoes and sell Bibles and t-shirts, that says a certain thing about what he expects from people.

Speaker 11 And it's sad that some people actually respond to that. How many, to what degree, I don't know.

Speaker 11 I wouldn't be interested in talking to conversation, having a conversation with people that that did appeal to.

Speaker 9 You're saying Donald Trump's stereotyping people. That's

Speaker 9 hard to believe. What did you think about the whole like, oh, Kamala, turn black?

Speaker 11 That was insulting to me. We live in a country that told us what we were.
This country said that if you have one drop of black blood, you're black, right? It told us that.

Speaker 11 Now it's telling us for political and speediacy's sake that if you have 50% of your DNA, you're black. You're not.
I've seen her be a DEI hire. I've seen her sleep away to the top.

Speaker 11 I've seen her not be black. And now this iteration of her not being even constitutionally able to run, it all means the same thing.
We don't know what to do with you.

Speaker 11 I don't know how she isn't black, but I do know this. You know you're black when the first thing they call you is a DEI.
You know you're black when they insult your intelligence.

Speaker 11 You know you're black when they tell you who you are.

Speaker 11 And I think all those things, I think instantly

Speaker 11 all the people who've had any level of success know what that's like. They know what it's like to have whatever you've done reduced to whatever they think you are.

Speaker 11 And I think that plays whether you're a black woman or a gay person or a Latin person or an Asian person. All of us had different kind of ideas of how that looks.

Speaker 9 Did you see my buddy Bakari Sellers on CNN saying that the same thing that he's like making fun of Trump being like, you know, the time I became black is when I first heard back dad ass up by Jupiter?

Speaker 9 Yeah.

Speaker 9 Yeah.

Speaker 9 Like, is that right, though? It's like the right way to deal with that stuff, being pissed or making fun of him, you know, or both.

Speaker 11 I think that what she does,

Speaker 11 if you grew up in Oakland, you looked that way, you sounded that way, you had a difference.

Speaker 11 And I do find it interesting that the people who've ascended, who have been black, who've ascended to this level, this kind of stratosphere, have had names that are difficult for America to process.

Speaker 11 And I think it says something. I think their experiences have prepared them for all the slings and arrows.

Speaker 11 If you grew up and you were a black dude named Barack Hussein Obama, or you grew up and you were in Oakland and you were named Kamala and nobody knows what you are, you had to to fight identifying yourself your entire life so going through Oakland you know going through a HBCU pleasant of black sorority prepared you he pales in comparison to the gauntlet you had to run through to get there and so I think that's why he's easier to handle but everybody that has ascended they can say their name in a way that makes them whether even when George Bush senior was saying

Speaker 11 Saddam who's like there's a way that they pronounce your name that makes you less than so imagine having your whole life to have one people not accept you because of your name and some people less than you because of your name.

Speaker 11 I think that gives you a callus and armor that prepares you for whatever else happens after that.

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Speaker 9 JD Vance, I would like to hear your take on really quick. He's also a guy that I guess had to have some calluses and armor, but I feel like he's processed it in about as unhealthy a way as imaginable.

Speaker 9 You know, this is a dude that needs therapy instead of being on the VP ticket. But I'm just wondering, like, his whole shtick just doesn't work yet.
Like, say what you want about Trump.

Speaker 9 Like, Trump does the racist stuff, but he's funny, right? And, like, it cuts it. Like, JD just doesn't work, right? Like, is there, do you see anything about him that's appealing?

Speaker 11 I think Trump has charisma, but he also was a game show host. Any dude that hosted a reality show, you kind of judge on a different curve.
JD Vance is a man that takes himself seriously.

Speaker 11 If he believed what he said, then he would be a psychopath.

Speaker 11 But the fact that he, I don't know that he really believes it and is saying it anyway, I think that you can tell that he never expected to sin to this level because he spoke so freely and without regard like he did and it's hard to dig he is a vacant man any man like I heard him talk about how drugs coming over from the border you know almost cause no your

Speaker 11 parents or grandparents were alcoholics that's legal They want on prescription drugs. That's legal.
So you make these, which is a true problem.

Speaker 11 I'm not saying it isn't, but trying to blame a thing, you're more likely to be an alcoholic because you have an alcoholic in your family or a drug addict because you have a drug in your family than people bringing in meth from across the border so he seems insincere at best if you love this woman she's a beautiful woman your wife is beautiful and you love her even though she's not white you say things that are all putting to i don't know anybody who likes you like i can't think of anybody who likes you and and i agree with this you've co-opted the language of the poor to speak ill of poor people like hillbelly elegy you you you co-opted the and that's the thing we all co-opt the language of the the poor, but don't want to do anything for you use their their story.

Speaker 11 My father came here with this and my mother was this and they were this, but you never feel like they need any help at all. That's to me even more disingenuous.

Speaker 9 I've got one more cut for you. We're just going to play really quick for JD.

Speaker 14 I think our conservative idea is that parents and families should determine what children were and what values they are brought up with. You know,

Speaker 14 so many of the leaders of the left, and I hate to be so personal about this, but they're people without kids trying to brainwash the minds of our children.

Speaker 14 And that really disorients me and it really disturbs me randy winegarten who's the head of the most powerful teachers union in the country she doesn't have a single child if she wants to brainwash and destroy the minds of children she should have some of her own and leave ours the hell alone

Speaker 11 if you really believe that if you really believe that my son is is and i don't want to mess with business he's he has asperger syndrome he doesn't want children

Speaker 11 He doesn't want children. And he doesn't want children because he's, and this is unreasonable, but this is his assessment of it.
He doesn't want to potentially give to his children what he has.

Speaker 11 There are people who don't want their children born in this world.

Speaker 11 There are people who don't think they have the wherewithal, the bandwidth, to be, what if you don't want children, but you want to impact them in some kind of way?

Speaker 11 You have another skill set, another gift to give them. I think that this idea, it sounds so much like handmaids tales.
It's scary to me. And I think...

Speaker 11 As galling and I think as horrible a human being as Trump is, you saw him in the kid movie where he's out of your home alone. You saw him on rap videos.
So there's something that comes together.

Speaker 11 JD Vance, it was a movie, then a dude paying $15 million so you could be a senator, and then you saying horrible shit on podcasts.

Speaker 9 Yeah, dude shouldn't have done so many podcasts. Maybe you shouldn't run for anything.
I don't know.

Speaker 9 But it was fun. You brought your kid.
So I've got one personal one for you. I asked the same question to Bakari, so we're going to get to you.
And then I got one comedy question, and I'll let you go.

Speaker 9 You got a granddaughter now? You got two daughters, too, in addition?

Speaker 12 I have two granddaughters.

Speaker 11 Oh, you got two granddaughters two daughters and two granddaughters how's being granddad treating you i never thought this is true i loved my children i never envisioned myself as having children when i was growing up i've been married 40 years so i never envisioned having myself as children i always knew i would but i never it wasn't something i thought about i always know i'd have children and then when i had them i could never imagine life without but i never thought i could love children that weren't mine

Speaker 11 Like I love my grand children so much. I don't even need my kids anymore.
Like I call my daughter. I'm like, hey, how you doing? She's like, hey, how you doing? Just put the kids online.

Speaker 11 You've had your chance. I don't need to talk to you anymore.

Speaker 9 Yeah, since you've had that successful experience, my mother is the same way, by the way. I'm raising a black daughter.
She's six. You've successfully raised two daughters.

Speaker 11 I wasn't successful. I lived.
That's, I don't know if it's you lived.

Speaker 9 They're grown and they got kids. It seems to be doing pretty good to me.
So I'm just, I'm looking for advice. Give me some parents.
What do you got for me? I don't know what a teen daughter's like.

Speaker 9 I don't know what having a black teen is like. You know, I'm sure you've got some tips for me.

Speaker 11 If you live through it, you'll be all right.

Speaker 11 But the thing that I always, I remember when my daughters were growing up and my wife would be, never break their spirit because the very thing that annoys you right now, the very thing that you find so hard to deal with, will be the thing that carries them through.

Speaker 11 It'll carry them on to victory. It'll be the thing that sustains them.

Speaker 11 So the very thing that is annoying you right now, the thing that you think you can't live with, and how does she do it, and how can I put up with it, will be the very thing that resonates and it'll cut through everything and make you so proud of her later on.

Speaker 9 I love that. It's kind of what makes them unique.

Speaker 11 You gotta live through it, though. I ain't saying it's no guarantee you're gonna live through it.

Speaker 9 I'm just telling you, I'm gonna live through it. She's amazing.
I'm gonna live through it. It's awesome.
All right.

Speaker 9 We got to do comedy before I leave you because I was listening to an interview you did with Kevin Hart. And I'm of like two minds about this.
I'm not a comedian.

Speaker 9 You know, so I also, this is another place I'm not coming from. Right.

Speaker 9 But, like, there's all this, you know, you hear Jerry Seinfeld out there, and he's like, oh, you can't do the same jokes you used to do anymore and people get canceled. And I don't know, man.

Speaker 9 Dave Chappelle is selling out Smoothie King Center. Rogan's selling out Smoothie King.
To me, it seems like things are okay, but maybe I'm being naive. I don't know.
How do you assess it?

Speaker 11 I always wondered what that meant because we're grown.

Speaker 11 I think that there are probably some commercial opportunities you can't get. Right, obviously.

Speaker 9 Like network TV or whatever?

Speaker 11 Yeah, like network TV or there's some advertisers that may not deal with you.

Speaker 11 And that's only till, look, Trump got banned for a lifetime on Twitter. And then unless a lifetime of a year and a half, he came back.
So ultimately, it's what you can take.

Speaker 11 I think your only obligation as a comedian or anything else is to be true to who you are. There's nothing I wouldn't say if I didn't want to say it.

Speaker 11 If I believe that if people don't, then that's, you know, there's a new crop of people or potentially not. I don't understand that.

Speaker 11 But when Jerry Seinfeld something like that, you got to remember this was a man who had the apex of commercial success. So maybe for him, there might not be people that deal with him.

Speaker 9 But I I mean, you could air Seinfeld now. You could air the Deal Hewley show now.
I'm just thinking about Shane Gillis got fired from SNL. Now he's back hosting SNL.
He's doing better than ever.

Speaker 11 What won't happen is there are certain things, there are ways you feel. There are people who are so used to being liked

Speaker 11 and so used to people being...

Speaker 11 Jerry Seinfeld did a show about nothing.

Speaker 11 And I'm not knocking. I think,

Speaker 11 obviously, he was, but it was about nothing. Imagine the show that's about something because something requires that you have an intent behind it.

Speaker 11 When you have an intent, that opens you up to more subjective judgment. Like Kevin Hart does things that are not as confrontational.

Speaker 11 So if you do those things, that's not going to, and you do have a commercial apparatus and success that's designed for that.

Speaker 11 I knew that when I got off that stage at the DNC, there would be people that had an opinion. Like we're at 50-50 countries, so 50% of the people might like it.
50% would.

Speaker 11 People that are used to appealing to people with higher percentages might have a problem with that. I think other people don't.

Speaker 9 It's a fair trade for you, though. You're like, fuck it.

Speaker 9 I just got to be me or what?

Speaker 11 I love what I do, and I believe in what I do. And if I didn't, I wouldn't do it.
I mean, I just, I'm on stage every week. I do the radio show every week, five days a week.

Speaker 11 I'm in a position where I get to do what I love. And if I don't want to do it, I don't.
You make enough money, you can do enough things. And I just, I want to do the things I believe in.

Speaker 11 And when you were talking about your daughters, I do not want to live in a world where I didn't make my granddaughters or attempt to make my granddaughters' life better.

Speaker 11 Like my granddaughters are growing up in Georgia right now. When I was born in 1964, I have more rights than my granddaughter, Stevie, who will be a year old in a week, is born with.

Speaker 11 That's tenable to me. I have to be able to do something about it.
And if I can do it for my professional apparatus, I will.

Speaker 9 Well, man, I appreciate you so much. Thanks for coming on this podcast.
You want to go see DA.

Speaker 11 And you're the only dude I've ever seen wear pearls that it looked dope on. The only one.
I was like, well, this dude.

Speaker 9 I don't know if it looks dope. It looks all right.
It might look like a midlife crisis. It might look like a midlife crisis.

Speaker 11 I wouldn't wear them, but I was like, this motherfucker looks fly. Look at him.

Speaker 9 Thank you, D.L. I hope to see you in person sometimes.
All right.

Speaker 9 See him in Ontario on Friday. Little Rock on Sunday.
DL Hughley Radio Show every week. We'll talk to you soon, man.

Speaker 11 Thanks, Him. What's up?

Speaker 9 All right. Thanks to DL Hughley.
That was awesome. Appreciate him coming on the podcast up next.
My man, Teddy Goff.

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Speaker 9 All right, we are back. He was the digital director for Barack Obama 2012, Hillary 2016.
We'll talk about that.

Speaker 9 Now he's a co-founder and managing partner at Precision, a strategy and marketing agency. He heads the corporatist wing of the DSA.
My buddy, Teddy Goff, what's up?

Speaker 12 Hi, Tim. Good to be here.

Speaker 9 That's pretty good. Did I miss anything else on your bio? Anything else you want to share with people?

Speaker 12 No, that's my entire life in three sentences. Triumph, failure, pivot to corporate.

Speaker 9 Okay. Well, I want to talk to you about the convention.
Your colleague at Precision, Steph Cutter, was the head woman in charge over there. So I want to get some convention stories.

Speaker 9 And I also just want to talk about some digital strategy with you. But first, I just, like right before you came on, I was just reminded of that this is the 10-year anniversary of a big moment.

Speaker 9 Do you know what it is? August 28th, 2014. Do you know what happened? No.

Speaker 9 Barack Obama came out to a press conference and wore a khaki suit.

Speaker 12 Oh, is this Tan Suit Day?

Speaker 9 10-year anniversary. We all celebrate.

Speaker 9 Except that I'm not in theme.

Speaker 12 No, you're just in a

Speaker 12 striped polo.

Speaker 9 Were you horrified that day as a homosexual staffer? Did you feel like his sartorial choices challenged you at all?

Speaker 12 No, I feel that he's

Speaker 12 a style icon. You know,

Speaker 12 I wouldn't have chosen the tan suit, but, you know, I feel like he was probably coming from or going to Martha's Vineyard. And, you know, he was giving late summer Martha's Vineyard.

Speaker 12 And I wasn't horrified at all. I was proud of him.
The man has a right to step out a little. You know, it's not an easy job.

Speaker 9 Yeah, okay, that's right. He is, he deserves it.
Obama deserves it. I do think the tan suit scandal was blown a little bit out of proportion.
I know that that's kind of. A little bit.
A little bit.

Speaker 12 Well, you guys, at the time you were still among you guys, had so little on him that you just need, like you were grasping at straws with him. There was just...
You didn't need anything.

Speaker 9 You didn't. This is a nice transition to the convention.
I was having nice ones. Nobody remembers this except me and like Stuart Stevens.

Speaker 9 But at the 2012 convention, we dedicated an entire day to the you didn't build that gaffe.

Speaker 12 I remember that. I remember that well.
I was so infuriated by that because it was so stupid.

Speaker 12 I mean, it's like, it's so stupid.

Speaker 9 You didn't build that. Yeah.
The whole community made that happen. Yeah.
Socialist, communist, Obama. We were struggling, man.
We were looking for whatever we had.

Speaker 12 There wasn't much. Yeah, there wasn't much.

Speaker 9 All right. I want to hear some positive memories.
I want to hear some behind the scenes.

Speaker 9 I saw your Instagram, but my, but the big question that I just have to ask you as a tough journalist is, what was with the choke on Beyonce? All right. People are saying Beyonce's coming.

Speaker 9 TMZ is saying it. Was what was happening back in the war room? Was not anybody just like, hey, maybe we should tamp the Beyonce thing down a little bit?

Speaker 12 I have a funny story about this that I need to probably not tell all of, but I'll tell most of. So as you mentioned, my incredible business partner, Stephanie, ran the entire convention.

Speaker 12 I didn't have anything to do with it until probably two weeks prior when I started getting pulled in to this or that. And so I did wind up being in the programming room for the week itself.

Speaker 12 And, you you know, this Beyoncé rumor is kind of bubbling and bubbling over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday. I'm looking at the schedule.

Speaker 12 There had been for Wednesday like a six or eight or whatever minute block for a special guest, but by, let's say, Tuesday, that was filled in with the word Oprah.

Speaker 12 So I'm looking at the Thursday schedule, and there are no holds for special guests. And I'm like, this Beyonce thing is not...
is not real. There's no time.

Speaker 12 I mean, unless they're scamming us and there's a secret program known only to Stephanie and Ricky Kirschner, but not to the other five people working on this, then there's no possibility.

Speaker 12 But I keep hearing it and keep hearing it. And then I start hearing it from like relatively senior folks in the party and at the convention.
So on Thursday morning, I walk into the...

Speaker 9 White House staffers are tweeting out bees?

Speaker 12 Yeah, so I try, exactly. So I walk into the programming room and I'm so embarrassed to do this, but I have to go to one of my colleagues and be like, I'm so embarrassed to do this.

Speaker 12 Is this Beyoncé thing true? And there's four or five people there, and they all look around and they're like, we don't know.

Speaker 9 We don't know.

Speaker 12 And I'm like, is this because everyone's afraid to go ask Stephanie? And they're like, kind of. So I'm like, well, shit, I'll ask Stephanie.
So an hour or two later, she picks up the phone.

Speaker 12 I don't know who's on the other line, but she goes, okay, one of us would have to know if it were true, right? I'm like, get the fuck out of town.

Speaker 9 So even Stephanie Cutter, who was in charge of the convention, was unsure. She was like, maybe, maybe this is happening above my head.
Maybe, maybe, maybe Kamala.

Speaker 12 So what that referred to, I mean, I died laughing, but what that in fact referred to is, was she coming? Because the fact of the matter is, she wasn't in a program.

Speaker 12 I mean, Stephanie knew, but, but I think it was a little hard to get to the bottom of it. You know, is it possible she's coming?

Speaker 12 And various reporters were calling saying, I've got a source from the Chicago PD that her plane has landed and blah, blah, blah. I don't have her cell phone, so we can't disprove it.

Speaker 12 But it was actually kind of a thorn in the side of the convention team that day because they didn't want that to be the story to the point where they, you know, wound up just having to call up reporters and say it's not, it's not true, just to try to kill this thing dead, which it still didn't.

Speaker 12 And, you know, obviously we all love Beyonce, but you know, the fact of the matter is, first of all, you don't want the data to be consumed with this rumor.

Speaker 12 And second of all, all, you don't particularly want network cutaways to Beyonce every 15 minutes during Kamala's speech. So I was glad she was not there, but all respect to Beyonce.

Speaker 12 And I wish the rumor had been killed a bit sooner.

Speaker 9 Yeah, it did seem to work out. I feel like you could do a social science experiment on how that happened.
Like you're all asking around.

Speaker 9 It's reminiscent on, I'm trying to get my husband's old boss, Heidi Heidkamp, on the pod.

Speaker 9 And it reminds me of there was a rumor going around at her Christmas party that she was going to go work for Trump. And like, we're, everybody was standing in the corner, like kind of talking.

Speaker 9 And it's like, this is on Twitter and stuff. And I was just like, has anybody asked her? And they're like, no, we don't want to, we don't want to ask her.

Speaker 9 And I was just like, well, I don't fucking care. I was like, I just went up to her and I was like, are you going to work for Trump or not? And she was like, no.

Speaker 9 And I was like, your staff thinks you're going to work for Trump. Like, sometimes you just got to clear things up.
You know, it's just important just to say no.

Speaker 12 That's why J.D. Vance should have just clarified that he never

Speaker 12 fucked the couch. Fuck the couch, yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 9 Yeah, it would have been very easy. Just put out a clear statement.
That's, that's, that's

Speaker 9 PR 101. Yeah.
That's PR 101 right there. So Stephanie, refresh me, was she was working on it even when it was supposed to be a Biden convention or no?

Speaker 12 Yeah, because this stuff is going like, I don't know, six, seven months ago, something like that.

Speaker 9 So like, how much of the like read the rejiggering, I like just as an amateur watching it, like you look at it and it's like, well, clearly some of the stuff they rejiggered and some of it's like, all right, we got to do the best we can.

Speaker 9 You know, like Chris Coons is still speaking on Wednesday or whatever. No offense, Chris.
We love you. That had to be challenging, right? Like navigating all the principles.
I don't know.

Speaker 9 Any interesting nuggets on kind of how she overcame that in such a whatever it was, four or five-week sprint there?

Speaker 12 Well, yeah, I mean, I think you're right. I don't want to overstate my Bible.
Like I said, I just kind of got involved in it a couple weeks ago.

Speaker 12 But yeah, I mean, I think you want to reshape the thing in the vice president's image. Not all of the speakers need to change, but all of the speeches need to change.
All of the videos need to change.

Speaker 12 And videos take a while, you know. And the other thing that started happening is there was just so much incoming.

Speaker 12 I mean, I think I'm not oversharing here when I say, you know, certain celebrities and, you know, musical artists and even electeds became more interested in speaking at the Harris Convention than they had been.

Speaker 12 And so you have to just make, you know, you have to make room for a lot of stuff.

Speaker 9 And obviously that means calling up certain podcasters, certain self-important podcasters went from like boycotting the convention to wanting to have wanting to live stream and have a prominent place.

Speaker 12 I think those self-important podcasters have been banned from the perimeter, so not necessarily a boycott of their own initiative.

Speaker 12 But yeah, and obviously some of our great great leaders in the Democratic Party have an interesting relationship with time limits. And so you've got to navigate that.

Speaker 12 So, you know, again, I don't want to overstate my Baby, but I think the thing changed like 100%. I think there was not a single element that did not change.

Speaker 9 I mean, just a final thing on convention stuff, like, and everybody had to just feel overjoyed. I mean, like, the like the big takeaway.

Speaker 9 you know, from the week was like just being able to transition into Kamala, demonstrate momentum.

Speaker 9 And then I think like this sort of big, broad outreach to like the widest possible number of Americans. Like to me, like that was my takeaway from it.

Speaker 9 Like she might not get 53% or 54%, but like the convention was like, we're trying to talk to 54%,

Speaker 9 at least the last three days. And that's what I liked about it.

Speaker 12 Absolutely.

Speaker 9 Did you have a favorite celebrity siding?

Speaker 12 All right. I debated with myself whether I was going to tell this story, but I'm just, I'm just going to go for it.

Speaker 9 This is why I'm a penetrating interviewer.

Speaker 12 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 12 It's the stripes. I can't say no.
So, you know, I had the very cool experience and privilege of being backstage. And the backstage area is tiny.

Speaker 12 I mean, it's a corridor, maybe 10 feet wide and 200 feet long with tiny little offices on either side.

Speaker 12 But, I mean, everybody is back there if they're, you know, an hour before their speech or an hour after. And so, at one point, Spike Lee was back there.

Speaker 12 Now, he was not on the speaker program, but he was brought back there. And he runs into Stevie Wonder, who had just performed.
And I didn't know this, but

Speaker 12 they go way back. And Spike's kind of holding chord.
And there's like a little scrum around them because this is an incredible interaction.

Speaker 12 And I want to just preface this by saying, this was was a joke. I'm not making Spike Lee look bad.
This was in good fun and they were kidding around.

Speaker 12 Spike says something like, you know, Stevie, I always tell people, you performed at my wedding. There's been so much love between the two of us.
And Stevie Wonder goes, yeah, yeah, there's been love.

Speaker 12 That's good. That's nice.
But you never paid me. And Spike is like, doesn't know what to say.
And he's like,

Speaker 12 I guess I, and Stevie cuts him off and he goes, baby, love is love, but money is money, baby. And I'm just there being like, I cannot believe I witnessed this.
It was just the the best.

Speaker 12 And if you're back there, I mean, that was special, but there's just cool stuff happening, you know, all the time as these people run into each other.

Speaker 9 That's also true at the Republican Convention. We have to be fair.
I mean, you know, Trump telling story, you know, Hogan owed Trump money.

Speaker 9 Kid Rock. Trump didn't pay Kid Rock for an appearance at Bedminster one time.
Like there's a little tension there.

Speaker 12 And Scott Bayo seems like a pip in person.

Speaker 9 Charles is in charge. So all the celeb stuff, now getting into your actual expertise, unlike your kind of stolen valor from Stephanie Cutter's work there.
Thank you.

Speaker 9 The digital stuff, it's kind of amazing amazing how much of this is just happens organically. And just as a general comment, political strategists are so overrated.

Speaker 9 Like, there's just bad ones and good ones. Like, you just did a master scan.
But, like, it's the same exact digital team working for Biden as for Harris, essentially. Right.

Speaker 9 And just overnight, it changes. Right.
And Kamala's there, and you have like the attitude is different. The vibe is different.
The memes are different. You have all these celebrities coming in.

Speaker 9 You're in Brat Summer. And literally, the Kamala HQ Twitter is a Charlie XCX Brat logo.
Like it all happens in 48 hours. And it really seems to work.

Speaker 9 All of the data that you look at shows that just the sentiment around the ticket changed. just completely inverted like in the matter of a week.

Speaker 9 So like talk about like how like the best ways to channel that is can they continue to nudge it through November? Do you reach a cringe point? How do you think about all that?

Speaker 12 Yeah, you know, so first of all, I couldn't agree with you more that strategists are overrated, and then when they lose, get, you know, shit that they didn't deserve.

Speaker 12 And, you know, like the thing I used to say during the Obama days, like, you could put a camera in front of Barack Obama, have him say some stuff,

Speaker 12 put that on the internet, and people would be like, I love this. Wow, his digital team must be great.

Speaker 12 And you could do the exact same thing with Jeb Bush, let's say, and people are like, I don't like this. His communications team is not good.

Speaker 12 And that's just how, you know, that's just how it goes.

Speaker 12 So I think the Harris team is doing an incredible job. And I think they were doing a really good and best job they possibly could

Speaker 12 Biden. But,

Speaker 12 you know, obviously, you know, and other people have said this, but obviously, you know, you can get away with a certain kind of meme speak with Kamala that if it were Biden would have just been counterproductive because everybody knows that's not his politics and he has no idea what any of this is.

Speaker 12 But you know, the other thing that I think they're really benefiting from right now, like I think like people always talk about enthusiasm and politics, and enthusiasm is, you know, obviously super duper important.

Speaker 12 But there's this other factor that I think is as important, particularly when it comes to public actions, you know, putting up a yard sign, putting up a poster in your dorm room, retweeting retweeting something or whatever, which is like social acceptability.

Speaker 12 You know, you could be super enthusiastic about someone, which tons of people were about Hillary, tons of people were about Biden, but you know, you put your hand on the stove, you retweet something from Joe Biden, and you get a million replies saying, he's old, I hate him.

Speaker 12 You've just been taught a lesson that you shouldn't do that again.

Speaker 12 And, you know, I think that what we've got going for us right now and what is like absolutely essential to preserve as best we can, and it won't be able to be fully preserved, is people are jazzed about Kamala.

Speaker 12 That's great, but also in many circles in the United States, not all of them, obviously, you can reshare something about Kamala on Instagram, and

Speaker 12 you're going to get a lot of replies, you know, indicating that you've just done a cool thing rather than indicating that you've just done something horrible that makes you look like a complete fucking loser, you know.

Speaker 12 And that's as important, I think, as enthusiasm. And I think that's the thing that we've got to try to figure out how to sustain.

Speaker 12 And one of the things that I think is really helping with that is this whole white dudes for Kamala thing. You know, you can make fun of that.
Maybe it's a bit cringe.

Speaker 9 You You liked that. I did make fun of that.

Speaker 9 I didn't like that. I just don't like self-selecting based on race.
I just, it's not really for me.

Speaker 9 White's groups are not really for me.

Speaker 12 White's groups are not for you now that you switch parties. But, you know, you could have gone to Deadheads for

Speaker 12 Kamala. I don't know.

Speaker 9 I'm going to Yembe's. I'm going to Yembe's for Kamala tonight.
That's much more in my alley.

Speaker 12 But yeah, so I mean, I think, you know, I had mixed feelings about the white dudes thing, but I mean, I think

Speaker 12 it is so important to show people, like, not only is it okay to support this person, it can be cool to support this person it can be cool to do so even if you're like a white dude or a nfl you know quarterback or whatever and i think you know i think it's really important to stay in that at the same time i think and i think they're doing this i don't think i'm telling i'm saying anything that that they don't know vibes are vibes but people are a little smarter than that so i think it's important that we continue to have fun with this election i think the the memes are great and it's great to make fun of jd vance and all of that but you know people do need to understand what we stand for we cannot get carried away with the meme thing not only because it might become cringe but also because it is not enough.

Speaker 12 And, you know, ultimately, you know, people have got to have a pretty clear understanding of who this woman is, you know, what it is she intends to do as president, and not just who Donald Trump is in terms of a boorish figure, but how he would hurt you if he were to be elected president in material ways.

Speaker 12 And, you know, they've got to make sure that that comes through even as they continue to have fun with the memes.

Speaker 9 Like, what do they actually need to do? Like, who do they need to reach? What are some strategies they called you up today and were like, okay,

Speaker 9 we only have 10 weeks. Like, we really got to focus on one group or one platform or one tactic.

Speaker 9 What jumps out at you?

Speaker 12 You know,

Speaker 12 they wouldn't ask that because I think what we have, what I think we need to be able to do as a Democratic Party is do multiple things at once. I mean,

Speaker 9 I know the consultants speak. I know.
Yeah, they got to do all of them. I'm just saying, like,

Speaker 9 what are some high valence?

Speaker 12 I'm all for throwing out certain audiences because I do think we waste money on, you know, like, you know, we love to think that we're going to, you know, win back the Joe Rogan voters.

Speaker 12 And it's like, you know what?

Speaker 12 There's 10 times more people of color and white people, by the way, who are with us more or less ideologically, but who don't believe it's worth their while to go vote, either because they think it's going to take too long or because they think their vote may literally not be counted or because they think nothing ever changes in their lives.

Speaker 12 So they could take the five minutes and maybe their vote is counted and then the next four years are going to look like the last four years.

Speaker 12 And, you know, there are way more of those than there are swing voters.

Speaker 9 This is actually an important distinction because I talked about this group a lot. So let's sit on this for a second because

Speaker 9 like Joe Rogan voters are sometimes a stand-in for the

Speaker 9 I'm a guy and I'm 27 and I'm like generally like socially liberal or whatever. Maybe I don't like all the woke stuff.
I might be black or brown. I might be white.
It doesn't like matter.

Speaker 9 But I mostly consume part of my take. Like I mostly consume sports or just whatever, like, you know, video game, like media.
I don't consume any of this, like regular media. I don't watch cable.

Speaker 9 I don't read the newspaper. Like, but

Speaker 9 they demographically, you would think, might be a Kamala voter. Like, is that like, how do you reach those people? Is that worth even trying to reach?

Speaker 9 Like, where is that voter only worth reaching if they're black or brown, just because that makes them more likely to vote for Kamala and you're just trying to maximize resources?

Speaker 9 Like, how do you think about that?

Speaker 12 You know, I think a couple things on this. I think

Speaker 12 for the most part, there's exceptions to everything, obviously, but for the most part, a person who's kind of a low information voter has made a decision they want to be a low-information voter, either because they're fed up with all this stuff and they just just don't want to hear it, or because, like I was just saying, they have made the not necessarily irrational decision that it's not worth their time and things don't change for them, or because they've chosen to receive bad information and they're having fun receiving the bad information.

Speaker 12 So, you know, there's very few people who like don't know where to turn to look up the issues and look up the candidates if they want to do that. You know, so they've made that choice.

Speaker 12 And so I think we need to understand at a, you know, at as narrow a level as we possibly can, you know, why they've made that choice and what it would take to get them to reconsider that choice.

Speaker 12 You know, I think, you know, for the person who's just, you know, fucking fed fed up with politics and both parties,

Speaker 12 I think odds are the Democrats would be a lot better for their lives than the Republicans are, but that is a person who's going to be very, very, very hard to speak to.

Speaker 12 For the person who has lost faith that their vote's going to count and that the government can do something for them, I think that that is someone that we can reach. But we need to do so.

Speaker 12 We need to understand like they've made these decisions that they've made

Speaker 12 because they don't like what they're hearing from our party, the other party, and

Speaker 12 they're tired of stuff that sounds the same, same, same, same, same, cycle after cycle.

Speaker 12 So like that's one of the reasons I'm super jazzed that Kamala is kind of going all in on housing policy, and I'm not just catering to your Gimbi, you know, sensibilities here.

Speaker 12 You know, like that's something that really, really means something to every 27-year-old in this country. You know, the rent is too damn high.
And you don't hear that from presidential candidates.

Speaker 12 And I think there's a chance that that has the kind of stickiness for people that student debt had for Bernie, not just because it's a young person issue, but because it's an issue that if like real people, and by the way, like 95% of them, you know, you got to be in the absolute upper classes to not care about your rent or have some student debt, care about, and they haven't, you know, heard stuff about.

Speaker 12 So, you know, I think some of it is spokespeople. You know, I think like Tim Walls sounds different, you know, not the same, but in a similar way to how Bernie sounded different.

Speaker 12 I think some of it is platform, you know, I do, despite everything I'm saying, think we should send people on to Joe Rogan. We can't just like.

Speaker 12 refuse to talk to tens of millions of people, but, you know, but I think, you know, ultimately people have got to, you know, feel that something is in this for them, feel that it's plausible.

Speaker 9 You know, we can't be out there saying, you know, we'll abolish rent that's not believable you know feel that there's something plausibly in it for them you wish i know you wish it could and if you know and if they and if they felt like there could you know if they feel like there's a realistic path to a you know five percent reduction in their rent that's you know that's worth the 10 minutes to vote so the highest roi thing on digital at this point you think is is what like trying to like register i like this thing it's different than when you were in like like in 2012 i say this all the time like there's a lot more low-hanging fruit right because like the non-voter like if you could just get them registered into the system, they're probably going to vote for Obama, right?

Speaker 9 But now like the least engaged voters are much more split, right? Like than they were back in 2012, like when it was Romney and Obama, right? And so is the ROI better?

Speaker 9 You know, I don't know. I guess I just, I leave it as an open question.
Like there's 10 weeks. Like you have seen good registration numbers increase for young women,

Speaker 9 black women. Like, is that just it? Just go where the fish are and just try to maximize numbers on digital?

Speaker 12 Sort of. Yeah.

Speaker 12 I mean, look, I think, first of all, like we haven't even touched on the fundraising, but obviously the fundraising is bananas and that allows them to go do all the other stuff, you know, including offline.

Speaker 12 You know, I do think there's huge pockets of people who need to be registered and who would, you know, turn out for us, even if it's only 60-40 rather than 80-20, that could still be good, especially if we have enough data to make sure that we're really doing the most follow-up with the 60%.

Speaker 12 I don't know where there's the most ROI on the internet, but I think, you know, needless to say, everyone.

Speaker 9 You're a digital strategist. You're a highly paid paid digital strategist.
I just want to know where your ROI is at. I don't know.
I'm sorry. I thought I didn't realize that was such a trick question.

Speaker 12 Yeah, I'm used to, you know, I guess different kinds of questions.

Speaker 12 I mean, you know, like, I think, I think they've got to use paid media to reach both whatever number of people we think can be persuaded, and that's not all that many people, but it's some.

Speaker 12 I think we would be making an absolute mistake not to be using paid media to speak to our infrequent voters, our soft voters, and not just at the end with a reminder to vote, but now through the end, reminding them what we stand for.

Speaker 12 And I think getting at this idea, however, we want to get at it, that like government can help you.

Speaker 12 I mean, it's not going to radically change your life in four years, but it is worth believing that things can change for the better if you have a better government rather than a worse government.

Speaker 9 This is worth your time. It's worth your time.
It's a few minutes to get there, but

Speaker 9 this is a good insight. It's like the people that are gettable for combo, that are not engaged, are not engaged because they don't think it's worth their time.

Speaker 9 Like the people that are most gettable, right?

Speaker 12 And they don't think it's worth their time and their faith. They don't want to feel like they've been duped.

Speaker 12 I voted for the Democrats yet again and and yet again, nothing's changed, you know, like makes sense.

Speaker 9 I have one dumb question that people in our Slack, I guess the RLI question was dumb too, but I have a second dumb question, even dumber question for you that people are slacking wondering.

Speaker 9 Why is Donald Trump advertising on the Bulwarks YouTube?

Speaker 9 Are they just doing a really bad job or is YouTube or is advertising targeting a lot harder these days because of the way that the platforms changed?

Speaker 9 You know, how you can do political advertising and like, what's the story with that?

Speaker 12 I wonder if they don't think of you and your audience a little bit. I'm not trying to insult your fabulous audience, but a little bit

Speaker 12 the way that we might think about Joe Rogan. These people who, you know, they're not far left.
Could they possibly be gettable?

Speaker 12 Now, I don't think that's true of your audience, but I wonder if they think that.

Speaker 12 But yeah, to the other part of your question, there is less you can do now, especially on, well, so some platforms don't allow political advertising at all, especially TikTok, which is, you know, it would be great in some ways and horrible in some ways if you could, but you can't.

Speaker 12 You know, certainly the Google platforms of which YouTube is one don't allow individual targeting in the way that they used to.

Speaker 12 So, you know, it's interesting because while the hypothetical capabilities around data have gotten way more sophisticated over the years, the things you're allowed to do with that data have in some ways gotten less sophisticated.

Speaker 12 And so, yeah, you've got to choose by channel, by show, by audience in a broad way rather than a, you know, one-to-one match of human beings way.

Speaker 12 And by the way, the campaigns, you know, to some degree have more money they can spend.

Speaker 12 So, you know, I think those would be some of the reasons why they might be lining your pocket with that, with that Trump coin.

Speaker 9 We appreciate it. Keep on sending it to us, Donald Trump.
It's better than sending it to your lawyers. Okay, while we're making fun of Trump, I got one more.
There's a story here.

Speaker 9 NPR at Arlington Cemetery. Trump was there earlier this week.
Two members of Trump's campaign staff had a verbal and physical altercation with an official at Arlington.

Speaker 9 The cemetery official tried to prevent Trump staffers from filming and photographing in a section where recent U.S. casualties are buried, known as Section 60.

Speaker 9 Trump's spokesperson said that the person that was preventing them from taking the pictures was clearly suffering from a mental health episode. So

Speaker 9 these people are rotten to the core. And I'm just wondering, I'm curious on your take to make fun of them.
but like these things are kind of more challenging. I'm new to deal with this, right?

Speaker 9 With Obama and Hillary, like, you know, negotiating these sorts of situations. Obviously, you just weren't a dick like them, but I'm curious what your reaction to it was.

Speaker 12 Yeah, yeah. You typically don't, you typically don't accuse people of having a mental health breakdown because you've physically attacked them.
That guy, Stephen Cheung, by the way, just seems like

Speaker 12 the absolute worst person in Trump land. You know, it's interesting.

Speaker 12 You know, like I never tried to film a campaign ad at Arlington because it's a disgusting idea, but, you know, you are often dealing with

Speaker 12 people who maybe were victims of gun violence or their children were, or you know, people who are in very, very delicate positions.

Speaker 12 And in the circles and parties that I've always traveled in, you know, you actually like to think about how to treat them with dignity and sensitivity.

Speaker 12 And you do want to get the content or convince them to speak at the convention or whatever it is you're trying to do, but you want to do so in a way that they come away from that experience feeling that you've handled this proper, and that doesn't seem to be the MO for the Trump people.

Speaker 12 But Trump, you know, the other thing with Trump is just like, you know, it's sort of like JD and the, you know, people without children thing.

Speaker 12 Like there's something deep in Trump's core that just like disdains soldiers who've been wounded or killed in action.

Speaker 12 And it's just like, where does that, I didn't even know that's an opinion you could have. Like, where does it come from? But it just seems endemic.

Speaker 9 I understand the JD thing, at least, right? That's just a cultural thing. Like, he just hates single women and he feels like, you know, whatever, they're annoying.
They're Karens.

Speaker 9 But like the Trump thing, I don't know. There's something, I think it's the bonespurs.
Maybe it's like some sort of jealousy. That's me putting him on the couch.
Could be that.

Speaker 9 We're out of time, but I do have one last question. Are the reason that we're here right now that I'm doing a Never Trump podcast because you didn't run enough digital ads in Wisconsin in 2016?

Speaker 9 Have you thought about that? No. Are you the core problem for

Speaker 9 that? Like at the root of our American troubles right now?

Speaker 12 No, I think that you woke up one morning and the Better Angels of Funature started speaking to you. And that would have happened.
That would have happened either way.

Speaker 12 I think a President Hillary, by the way, would have pulled you into our party even faster.

Speaker 9 I love that counterfactual. Thank you, Teddy.
Please come back soon. This has been delightful, and I appreciate you.
Give our love to Steph. I will.

Speaker 9 Cutter and congratulate her on a wonderful convention, three out of four nights. Really great.
And to everybody else,

Speaker 9 we'll be back tomorrow with one of the key convention speakers who thank God you guys gave such a prime slot to. Good on you for doing it.
Adam Kinzinger on the pod tomorrow. We'll see you all then.

Speaker 9 Peace.

Speaker 9 Feels like you never understand me, so I just wanna try. To be appointed, the apple.

Speaker 9 The apple,

Speaker 9 the apple.

Speaker 9 I guess the apple cut to yellow or green.

Speaker 9 There's lots of different nuances to you and to me.

Speaker 9 I wanna grow the apple, keep all the seeds. But I can't help it, that's alright.
But you don't listen, I need to be appointed. The apple,

Speaker 9 I'm gonna drive, gonna drive, I'm die. I'm gonna drive, gonna drive, hold on.

Speaker 9 The Bullard Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

Speaker 9 This is Martha Stewart from the Martha Stewart Podcast. Hi, darlings.
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