Welcome to the Find Out Podcast

Speaker 1 Hi, everybody, and welcome to the first episode of the Find Out podcast. My name is Tim Fullerton, and I'm going to try to be the wrangler of my other five co-hosts here.

Speaker 1 You've heard us talk a lot about needing to create a space for people to organize and get together, in particular men on the Democratic side.

Speaker 1 So, we are very excited after a 40-minute delay as all of us were trying to get our shit together and talk to you guys today and tell you a little bit about what we are doing here, what you can expect from us, and also how we all can work together to make sure that the next election turns out much differently than the one we just had in November.

Speaker 1 So, to kick it off, we are going to kick it off, and I'm going to kick it off and give it to Zach, who was the one that actually came up with this idea. So, we put him in charge.

Speaker 1 So, if you have any complaints, please send them Zach's way instead of the others.

Speaker 1 So, Zach, tell us a little bit about about what we're doing here today. Sure.

Speaker 2 I mean, I actually made a TikTok to sell these guys on doing this.

Speaker 2 And I think it's an important thing because the biggest issue that I have right now looking at just left-wing media, right-wing media, right-wing media is killing us.

Speaker 2 And they're killing us because of, at least in my mind, perceived authenticity, right? They are not authentic people, but they come off as saying what's on their mind, right?

Speaker 2 And I looked at podcasts and pretty much everything the left does in social media and went, nobody's doing this. Nobody's doing this at all.

Speaker 2 And then we have a larger group chat, but six of us are in a group chat where we kind of just shoot the shit and talk like real human beings.

Speaker 2 And we don't have like a, you know, we're just being ourselves. And I couldn't find anywhere in left-wing media where that was like the point.
It exists.

Speaker 2 Like people are being themselves, but there's nothing that was made to go like, hey, let's just have an honest dialogue with no filter in it.

Speaker 2 That's a huge problem for the left and it needs to be solved. And I think like we can't solve it on our own, but we can contribute to trying to start to solve it.

Speaker 2 So, like, my intent was, let's get a bunch of very opinionated guys together and not hold back. And that's kind of what this is hopefully going to be.

Speaker 1 And for a little more background before I kick it to the other guys, like, we all were part of something called White Dudes for Harris, which you may have heard about in the summer last year.

Speaker 1 I was one of the organizers of that group. And one of the tasks that I was given as part of that group was to find

Speaker 1 white men, TikTok influencers to help carry our message and also to get people together. Because as Zach said, there isn't really anything on this side.

Speaker 1 And Democrats tend to be rather splintered from a lot of the time. And so we all met each other there.
And

Speaker 1 that's part of the reason why you are not seeing any female co-hosts here. That doesn't mean we won't have female guests and things.
But

Speaker 1 this was born out of a project where we understood that men are the toughest demographic for Democrats. And so we need to to create places where guys can come and talk about politics

Speaker 1 the way they normally do about anything and

Speaker 1 make it a welcome place for people who are maybe didn't vote this time

Speaker 1 or are moderates or even disillusioned with Donald Trump and are looking for a place to come. So that's really where we came from.

Speaker 1 And then we've got three other four other guys here who haven't spoken yet. I don't know if somebody wants to chime in about why they're here.

Speaker 1 I'm going to look at Chris.

Speaker 1 Actually, Vic, you were the first person on, so you go.

Speaker 4 Okay. And first off, everybody, the reason why you can't see Luke's handsome, moving young face is because of a storm and internet connectivity.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 But, oh, crap, what was I supposed to say?

Speaker 1 Why are you here, Vic? What are we here?

Speaker 5 I'm doing as a weather forecaster.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 I'm here because, you know, when

Speaker 4 when donald trump was the official nominee i was like what the

Speaker 4 i couldn't believe that they would do that and then i determined that it was super important for everybody

Speaker 4 to do everything that they possibly could to stop it and living out in the sticks far away from anybody i'm like well what the hell can i do i could knock on every door in my little town it's not going to make a difference i made a video people liked it i made another video people liked it So here I am.

Speaker 1 Very cool.

Speaker 1 And Vic, Vic's videos were actually featured a few times, I think, from the Harris campaign and some others, because Vic had quite an opening and also a look

Speaker 1 that, you know, from a stereotypical perspective, if you looked at Vic, you might think he is a Republican because he is in a rural conservative area and he's got a 10-gallon, you know, can hear a little bit of drawl.

Speaker 1 And so the, the, I thought the brilliant opening was the, I'm a 56-year-old gun own and white guy. And if Kamala Harris thinks I'll vote for her, she's right.

Speaker 1 And, but I think like it also showed Democrats that there are different types of Democrats out there. And we do not all look and sound like I do as an East Coast person.

Speaker 1 And I think that's a really important, uh, important thing to bring front and center. So I speak to you.

Speaker 1 You voted for him crap. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.
Right.

Speaker 1 It's just because people just don't know.

Speaker 1 And we got another person that's from a rural area. And that's, oh, that's rich.
How did you come to be with this motley crew?

Speaker 5 Yeah, well, I think, like almost everybody here, I got a message from you, if I recall correctly.

Speaker 5 And, you know, I think what has been really remarkable is

Speaker 5 I started making these videos, you know, seven months ago, and it was just like, hey, I'm just going to try making a TikTok about things I believe in. And

Speaker 5 it was remarkable how fast

Speaker 5 they they got traction with the whole country. All sorts of people who look and sound and believe differently from me.
And yet we found this shared thread.

Speaker 5 And so then when the group of us started connecting and chatting, what was amazing was how quickly we realized

Speaker 5 we're across the whole country, but we're all having the exact same shared experience with our peers,

Speaker 5 people we went to high school with, people we went to college with, all of our friends that might be progressive, our male friends that might be progressive, their relatives, their cousins, their siblings.

Speaker 5 They all like there's just this world one click outside of our bubble. And it's the same story everywhere.
And that's that

Speaker 5 if you don't, if you weren't raised like with progressive values or if you don't live in a progressive area, you have this caricature of progressivism or liberalism or leftism or whatever you want to call it in your head.

Speaker 5 And I just saw a video the other day, actually, one of our favorite

Speaker 5 right-wing, I'm trying to think of the best possible way to not get in trouble, but one of our favorite right-wing individuals who's trying to save America,

Speaker 5 she said that,

Speaker 5 sorry, she made a video about how when you think of a liberal, it's just, you know, a blue-haired weirdo from Seattle. And

Speaker 5 it's like, no.

Speaker 5 Where is this coming from? But

Speaker 5 when you then get out in these rural areas and you talk to people, you realize where it's coming from. And it's coming from right-wing content creators, whether that's Rush Limbaugh and AM Radio,

Speaker 5 rest in peace,

Speaker 5 or

Speaker 5 any of his proteges that have come afterward. There is an entire machine of people,

Speaker 5 mostly white men, telling other white men that all liberals are blue-haired weirdos from Seattle and San Francisco and New York. And so, you know, getting together and

Speaker 5 getting behind White Dudes for Harris was like, okay, as long as Harris is in this name,

Speaker 5 it doesn't sound bad. But when you take Harris out and then it's just a bunch of white dudes,

Speaker 5 it's actually like quite funny and pretty ironic because we realized, hey, we actually have a role to play here.

Speaker 5 And we like nobody else is doing it. And so, you know, let's give it a shot and let's try to do something real because the need is.

Speaker 5 the need is evident and our viewers and our followers have have made that much clear.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And I mean, I think that the reaction that we have gotten from this has been overwhelmingly positive.
I mean, across, because we've all talked about it a little bit on our channels.

Speaker 1 And, you know, and I think another thing that, you know, there's a misconception about liberals is that, you know, for example, the majority of our veterans are not.

Speaker 1 And we've actually got two veterans here on this, Vic, who we've just heard from, and also Chris,

Speaker 1 who I think you were a sergeant in the Army. Is that correct?

Speaker 6 I was. Yeah.
Once upon a time, I was a forward observer in the United States Army.

Speaker 6 Now I've got kind of a weird job. I'm a professional Nazi hunter.

Speaker 6 So that's what most of the people who are following me to this podcast know about me.

Speaker 6 But, you know, I've been in the nonprofit space for about 20 years. And

Speaker 6 I have watched

Speaker 6 now with hindsight. I understand what has happened.

Speaker 6 I have watched right-wing billionaires kind of groom guys like Pete Hegseth and Charlie Kirk by supporting not just them projecting their messages forward, you know, out into the public, as I have done for, you know, through nonprofit, but to create a sustainable business.

Speaker 6 And what they did was they recognized a market demand. And I think that all of us recognized a market demand on TikTok.

Speaker 6 My first viral video of any kind ever was when I think I saw Vic's video and I and I basically did a riff off of it. And I started it off kind of trolling.
And I was like, I am a combat veteran.

Speaker 6 I am a bearded, tattooed, business-owning job creator. I pay more taxes than most people in this entire country.

Speaker 1 I drive a pickup truck.

Speaker 6 I have a concealed carry license. You really think that I'm voting for Harris? You damn right I am.
And people like lost their fucking minds.

Speaker 6 And what I realized was, you know, that there are,

Speaker 6 I think, too few of us who are willing to come forward and say, you know what, we need to get out there and we need to project our voices into this and we need to fill the vacuum that has been left by

Speaker 6 left-wing, Democrat, progressive, whatever you want to call them,

Speaker 6 you know, funders. You know,

Speaker 6 I am a nonprofit CEO. I run two nonprofits, right? It's a constant struggle.
Pete Pete Hegseth and I got started at the same time. He was pro-Iraq war and I was anti-Iraq war.

Speaker 6 That motherfucker, excuse me, that guy

Speaker 6 is the Secretary of Defense. And I'm still scraping pennies together trying to make, you know,

Speaker 6 trying to run Veterans Fighting Fascism to stop a fascist takeover of the country, right? So that was an investment.

Speaker 6 that Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers made in Vets for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America two decades ago, and this is what they've got.

Speaker 6 So my objective here is to convince not just the grassroots, but the people who are moving money, the people who are moving the resources, that they need to find somebody half my age.

Speaker 6 I'm going to be 40 this year. They need to find people half my age and invest in them now, because that's how Charlie Kirk built an empire.
It wasn't because he was a genius.

Speaker 6 It wasn't because he was pitching something unique. It was because he had support

Speaker 1 yeah it's 100% right and uh there

Speaker 1 i don't know if anybody watched this this week it caused a lot of um angst on the left but the um

Speaker 1 the interview that uh gavin newsom did with charlie kirk uh i i don't agree with platforming people like that but i will say i you know listening to it the first 20 minutes well first of all it's very clear that Charlie Kirk is like putting on a show.

Speaker 1 He is smarter than he lets on and he is not a dumb guy.

Speaker 1 And I think like regardless of what you think politically about it, it was interesting to hear that perspective and be like, oh, these guys are not just falling all over themselves into success, which sometimes it feels like they are, they, they know what they're doing and they are well-funded, uh, Chris, as you said.

Speaker 1 Um, and then you also mentioned uh

Speaker 1 finding people that are half your age, and it's not quite half, but we have a younger person on this group that this, the last person who hasn't spoken yet, which is Luke, who is still a college student.

Speaker 1 And I would say, probably of all of us, the most aggressive with his TikTok content. So, Luke, Luke,

Speaker 1 tell us why you're here.

Speaker 3 Well, to start out, if you've seen my videos, you know the passionate rage that typically gets exhibited.

Speaker 3 Now, I imagine that directed entirely towards a laptop here about 40 minutes ago, because that's what was going on. I mean, these guys literally heard garbled fuck for about 45 minutes.

Speaker 1 But after that,

Speaker 3 the way I got involved is I got a message from Rich

Speaker 3 wherein he saw my biggest video, the one about free lunch, and said, Hey, we'd love to have you come join this group chat. And I was like, Well, okay, I don't really know who you are, but sure.

Speaker 3 And I joined this group chat, and lo and behold, it's a bunch of

Speaker 1 old people.

Speaker 3 But I had a lot to learn.

Speaker 1 So I joined, and you know, I've learned like so much.

Speaker 1 I love it. I love it.

Speaker 3 But the reason I started,

Speaker 3 I'm both the youngest in age and youngest in account of everybody that's on this. And the reason I started is I watched Democracy fucking die November 6th.
Like, I watched it from a laundromat.

Speaker 1 I was like, well, this is trash.

Speaker 3 And like the next three days, I bitched to everyone in my life constantly. And I got to the point where they're like, all right, we get it.
It sucks. And like, it's just bringing everybody down.

Speaker 2 So I said, fine, I'll go bitch to the internet.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 3 it started out as just like a kind of a sarcastic

Speaker 3 critique of what was going on. And it's very much turned into rage.

Speaker 1 Which I'm totally good with knowing being that guy.

Speaker 3 But anyway,

Speaker 2 that's how I got started.

Speaker 5 Yeah, you know, it's funny.

Speaker 6 Can I riff off that real quick? So

Speaker 6 what Luke is getting at, this like channeling of rage, is something that I have done professionally for a long time.

Speaker 6 And I think that it's something that's really frowned upon in progressive and liberal circles is to like acknowledge that you

Speaker 6 are rageful, right? Trying, instead, you're supposed to therapy it away. No, you can't hunt fucking Nazis for a living and not be a rageful like maniac, right?

Speaker 6 Like, and somebody needs to do what I do, right?

Speaker 6 So what Luke is channeling right here,

Speaker 6 I hope that people are willing to to invest in because what Luke is doing is helping other people of his demographic understand

Speaker 6 that there's a platform to stand on. And people like us, we can take heat

Speaker 6 in ways that other people with other identities can't, right?

Speaker 6 Going back to my job, like the reason I can do my job is because if I call the cops because something's going on, I don't have to to be afraid of those cops, right?

Speaker 6 So, so that is why I feel an obligation to do that.

Speaker 6 And I know Nazi hunting seems pretty different from podcasting, but the world that we live in today is like every one of us, all of us who become creators and express our opinions, every one of us gets threats nowadays, right?

Speaker 6 Like it's it's not just the people and the hard jobs.

Speaker 2 It's true. I mean, I think we've all gotten, I don't know if all of us have gotten death threats.
We've all gotten at least like aggressively yelled at by complete strangers.

Speaker 2 I get that every single day. I don't know if you guys get it every day, but like every single day I get a DM.
We're like, holy shit, this guy really hates me.

Speaker 1 Well, and that's part of the playbook too, right? Like that's the reality is that they are trying to scare people into compliance. And I think that it is.

Speaker 1 It has been successful in a lot of cases. And they have shaped and shaped the narrative that we are continually fighting against for years now.

Speaker 1 I mean, like, you know, you look at Joe Biden, which I will still say is one, he will go down, I think, as the best one-term president that this country has ever had.

Speaker 1 He did tremendous things to get us out of COVID. The economy was roaring, no matter what those guys on the conservative side say, which is factually incorrect.

Speaker 1 But we have been losing the messaging war, partially because we don't have a network of liberals.

Speaker 1 or liberals, Democrats, whatever you are, progressives, what you want to call yourself, where you can find content no matter what you're interested in.

Speaker 1 And I think that's that's part of what this is all about is like, look, like we're going to talk about some really bad shit, but we're also going to joke around.

Speaker 1 Like, you know, we have to get through this.

Speaker 1 And I think trying to emulate some of what they have done on the right, not the content for sure, but the structures, like a lot of their stuff is, if you like their politics, their stuff's entertaining, you know, and we are bad at that.

Speaker 1 We want to describe policies and like, that's important, but like we're losing hearts and minds. And I think that is the biggest issue.

Speaker 1 And I think that's why, you know, I think between all of us on TikTok, there's like 2.5 to almost 3 million followers.

Speaker 1 And that's pointing to a need to service a community that isn't getting stuff from,

Speaker 1 I think, the traditional Democratic Party or cable news or media at this point.

Speaker 1 And that's part of the reason that we are doing this because no one is talking to this large swath of people who do not like Donald Trump, but also like maybe they

Speaker 1 consume a lot of conservative media. So they have some, um, you know, some thoughts about us that are just simply not correct.

Speaker 1 And so I think that's another mission here: is to just be like, we're just regular dudes.

Speaker 1 I'm the only one really that has worked in what you would call the establishment, or as Joe, as Vic likes to give me shit, on the inside, which I have not done in many years.

Speaker 1 But I think like, you know, it's one thing for me, you know, oh, you worked for this person and that person. So clearly you have a bias towards the Democratic Party.

Speaker 1 But like, look at these other five guys in this group, too. Like, they're all across the country.

Speaker 1 I think, Vic, you've had a little dose of politics, but everybody else is like, you know, Chris is hunting Nazis. And, you know,

Speaker 1 I'm a former Republican.

Speaker 1 Oh, I didn't even realize you were a Republican. Yeah, I was a Republican for almost all my 20s.

Speaker 1 We agreed that we agreed

Speaker 5 you weren't going to bring that up in the first episode.

Speaker 2 Honestly, I think a lot of my followers don't even know that because I didn't talk about it, but I do like talking about it. I think it's

Speaker 2 well, I think, honestly, if you were to erase Donald Trump from the Republican sphere, I probably wouldn't, I would be an independent, not a Democrat, but I think you have to pick a side at this point.

Speaker 2 You can't just waffle in the middle.

Speaker 2 Yes, I'm the Dick Cheney of the Find Out podcast for sure.

Speaker 2 I mean, look, I have perspectives that go all across the place, but I think, you know, look, the thing that I think is so simple for Republicans is that their message is simple, right?

Speaker 2 And that's what makes it easy for them to coordinate all this stuff is that like, they prey on people's inability to see a bigger picture.

Speaker 2 And I think that's a lot why all of us got so successful is we're able to simplify what is, you know, already in like an oversimplified narrative. We're able to simplify why they're wrong.

Speaker 2 And, you know, I think if the Harris campaign had done a better job of doing that, they probably would have won. But, you know, I think we have become successful because we tell an easy story.

Speaker 2 And that's exactly what the right does. And an easy story is just inherently more entertaining.
And that's why the right is doing so well with this stuff.

Speaker 6 I just need to butt in real quick.

Speaker 6 Tim, you're breaking your own rule. You're wheezing into your microphone.

Speaker 1 Oh, God.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry. I yelled at these guys for like 10 minutes about not doing that.
And then I'm the one that's doing it. So I apologize.

Speaker 5 It's that sleep apnea.

Speaker 6 It's coming back.

Speaker 6 So, you know, I think that my politics and political evolution, it happened earlier than Zach. But

Speaker 6 when I got out of the army in 2007,

Speaker 6 I was self-described far-right. Now, that term doesn't mean today what I feel it meant back then.
This was pre-Tea Party.

Speaker 6 But I was, you know, the first political awakening that I ever had was Ron Paul. It was libertarianism, was, you know, get the government out of my life.

Speaker 6 You know, as someone in the army, I was uniquely sensitive to the government being in my life. And that perhaps drove me really hard in that direction.

Speaker 6 But we are proof that you can go from, you know, regular Republican, libertarian, even Donald Trump Republican over to,

Speaker 6 I think,

Speaker 6 the side that supports reality in today's politics.

Speaker 1 Because

Speaker 6 I'll be honest, I went to college after those Ron Paul years, and it was only then that I studied Economics 101. And I was like, oh, okay, I'm a fucking moron.

Speaker 6 So let me shut up for a little bit and learn some more.

Speaker 5 Isn't it amazing how,

Speaker 5 sorry, isn't it just amazing how it feels like only liberals are able to even utter that sentence that you just uttered? Like

Speaker 5 the completely horrific lack of self-awareness on the right, especially among right men, where

Speaker 5 not only can you not say, like, I was wrong, or I'm an idiot,

Speaker 5 but you can't even let yourself think in that direction.

Speaker 5 It's created this world where it's like they're on top of the mountain and they're so fragile and have all the power and still view threats and see themselves as a victim everywhere.

Speaker 5 Like they've just put themselves in this little bubble of delusion.

Speaker 2 They're a Karen party. That's all they are.

Speaker 2 That's all they are. All they do is complain.
Like you watch any Trump speech, it's 90% complaining. It's like, how can this be the guy they like? All he does is bitch and moan.

Speaker 2 It's so, like, I watched his speech uh to the doj yesterday where he said that cnn and msnbc are illegal and i spent 10 minutes just being like how could anybody watch this and be like yeah i dig this guy like this guy is he's stupid like it's it's a hard it's he actually is like it's hard to watch him talk but people dig him and i it's still like i think he's changed too which is interesting because like back in 2016 I would watch him and be like, he's funny.

Speaker 2 He's always been stupid. Yeah, he was always stupid, but he was so like entertaining back then when he wasn't as old that it was like, you know, he masked it.
And now he's too old to mask it.

Speaker 2 He just comes off like, what are you talking about? You're not, you're not interesting. You're not funny.
You're just like angry now.

Speaker 2 And the angry version of Trump is just not, it's, it's, it's so much worse.

Speaker 1 But here's the, but here's the, and I, I'm going to beat a dead horse on this, but like.

Speaker 1 They don't see that, though, because they are in a, they are in an echo chamber. They're in documents.
Fox News, podcasts, uh, influencers,

Speaker 1 some media outlets where they don't hear any of what we're saying. Like, so many Trump voters have come to me and said, Aren't you glad that the border is now closed?

Speaker 1 I'm like, the border's not closed. What are you talking about?

Speaker 1 And in fact, border crossings at the end of Joe Biden's term were lower than they were during the final months of the Trump administration. So I'm not saying that there

Speaker 1 were not or are not problems at the border. Like, frankly, and Biden, the Biden-Harris administration agreed with that too, because they had a bill to put 1,500 more border agents on the border.

Speaker 1 But Donald Trump basically poisoned that and went and said, you're going to hurt my chances at winning if you pass this bill.

Speaker 1 But like,

Speaker 1 they don't hear any of this. And this is why this stuff is important.
They don't give a shit about policy, though.

Speaker 2 That's the thing. Like, they don't, they, they don't give a fuck about policy.
They care. Like, it's all about the presentation of what Trump is putting forward.

Speaker 2 And they like the presentation of like, this is wrong. I'm going to fix it.
The end. Like, that's what they like.
They don't give a shit about the details at all.

Speaker 2 Cause when you show it to them, they're like, no, that's not true.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it is.

Speaker 2 That's why we need a million more Luke's.

Speaker 1 Right. We do.

Speaker 3 Well, that's the funny thing that Chris was talking about, like, the rage thing, and they're so fucking completely unself-aware.

Speaker 3 Well, they'll get on me in my comments about how you're just, you're just angry. And then they'll proceed to call me just like a laundry list of slurs.

Speaker 2 And it's like, well, you're obviously pretty angry too.

Speaker 3 Like, let's not, let's, you know, pot meat kettle here, buddy.

Speaker 5 No, I want to go back to something that Luke said because I was hoping it would, it would come back back up organically but i think it's so incredibly important see luke is where i i know that zach and i were both um maybe 10 15 years ago where he he mentioned talking to his circle about politics and how quickly they get burned out because when you are

Speaker 5 especially if you're in a red state or a red area or a red family you've got your three four people who are like the willing listeners to your political rants and that was me on facebook um you know through 2005 or six to about maybe 2015 2016 really up to about where where trump was elected the first time um

Speaker 5 8 000 character you know 30 000 character rants and sometimes they'd have 150 200 comments below because it was one or two right-wing trolls engaging with my like seven liberal friends.

Speaker 5 And then I'm losing friends and losing friends and, you know, people in my family, my immediate family, or my, not my immediate family, but extended family members are unfollowing me because like, well, I don't want to talk about politics.

Speaker 5 And it gets you looking at like, who is my audience and who, who is my community?

Speaker 5 And so many of us, when we're in a Republican area, our community is whoever we went to high school and college with and whoever we were raised around. And

Speaker 5 we lose that. Like I lost that over 10 years.

Speaker 5 I posted almost no political content for the past, you know, up until I started doing this.

Speaker 5 And I know that the rest of you guys had a similar experience in different ways where unless you're doing it professionally, there's just not a lot of juice there.

Speaker 5 There's no return.

Speaker 5 And so when you get around to thinking, well, maybe there's a different way to build a community. And you immediately hit an artery and you tap into this vein.

Speaker 5 And I've got, you know, over 500,000 followers in seven months.

Speaker 5 And I know everyone here has had a similar trajectory where the second we started doing anything, we didn't even think we were good at it. Our talking points are all over the place.

Speaker 5 Our videos are six minutes long. You know, we're trying to figure it out.
And people are still just going junk and just latching on. And clearly, there's this massive unmet need in the market.

Speaker 5 And it makes me think of Ronald Reagan's old, like, the silent majority thing. I'm like, I think we might be the silent majority, but we just gave up on our red communities and stopped talking.

Speaker 5 And so we lost, you know, half of the country because all of us,

Speaker 5 we just put our keyboards down and we didn't want to keep bombarding the same people with the same,

Speaker 5 you know, repetitive talking points.

Speaker 1 I think it's a really good point. And I think that as we try to understand that, say, 35%

Speaker 1 of the Republican vote that is Trump, I think,

Speaker 1 when we're trying to figure out why these people are for him, I think, honestly, it is very, very simple.

Speaker 1 He doesn't blame them for anything and he he makes it seem like that they are America and no one else has been helping these folks or at least they're not getting the information about things that could help them.

Speaker 1 And so they see him waving the flag. I mean, today he posted a video of like bombing some ISIS leader.
And like, it seems kind of silly, but it's also just like he projects.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's false, but like he projects like American strength. Look, I'm killing this ISIS person, winning.
Exactly. I'm killing.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
Right. Well, when we'll get to that, we'll get to that in a minute.
And that'll be definitely a contentious one.

Speaker 1 But, you know, I think one of the things that I think Democrats need to, and we were learning with the white dudes for Harris stuff about the deficit that we face is like,

Speaker 1 as Rich, as you said, we have to start talking to people and not talking at. people with them, talking with them and not at them.
And I think it is a long process.

Speaker 1 But I think podcasts like this, like we've got, you know, a wide age range. It's all men, some veterans, some people, you know, some people who are in the political world, some not.

Speaker 1 And like, it's kind of a representation of men across the country and just be like, it doesn't all have to be some, some far leftist like telling you that you're wrong and an idiot.

Speaker 1 Like, I think, you know, this is why this is so important, but we have to reframe, I think, our conversations with them. Otherwise, we'll just like, we'll never get any of them.

Speaker 1 I don't think we'll get the majority, but even if we sliced off 5%,

Speaker 1 the dynamic changes completely. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And it's who you're aiming at, right? Because like there is a group, like Trump is successful because he activated a group of people that didn't ever vote and didn't give a shit about politics at all.

Speaker 2 And it was this like disaffected group of America that was just like, politicians don't talk to me, so I don't care. And then Trump showed up and they went, ooh, I like this guy.

Speaker 2 So they have no context for liking anybody else or going any other direction anyway. So I feel like that group is just unreachable.

Speaker 2 Like I think they're gonna, they're gonna live and die with Trump because Trump is the one who brought them to the tape, to the party.

Speaker 2 Where we need to focus our attention are the people who decided in this election, oh, I'm going to vote for Trump because all the other shit doesn't matter. I just want a little bit more money.

Speaker 2 Or like little, you know, little things like that. Like, I think the Trump's just a straight shooter.

Speaker 2 So, you know, like the little things are you, if you just give them a little information, they'll shift their mindset. It's, you know, they're gettable.
And I think the 5% is right.

Speaker 2 That's where you get it from. But like trying to talk to MAGA,

Speaker 2 you can't. They're just in the rabbit hole and they're going to probably live and die in the rabbit hole.

Speaker 2 But there's definitely a chunk of people in this country who are either misinformed and able to be informed correctly or just like not interested because of the vitriol, the whole thing.

Speaker 2 And it's like, okay, that's fine. But in the end, you're not participating results in things like Donald Trump being re-elected.
So maybe rethink that approach to things.

Speaker 4 I've been leaving out the people who didn't vote because she's a woman.

Speaker 2 Right. That's a, that's, look, there's a lot of reasons people didn't vote, but that's one that I think, you know, is a fuck those people.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 It's going to be a huge problem down the line. But then again, I don't think, like, I think a woman could easily win the presidency.

Speaker 2 I think that Kamala Harris was just faced with such a horrible set of circumstances being in that position. Like, Joe Biden really fucked us over.

Speaker 2 I mean, him just deciding to run again in 23 was like the death knell for this election.

Speaker 2 So I don't think you could have put anybody in front of Trump, and I think you would have bulldozed through him anyway, just because of the circumstances.

Speaker 2 So like, I do think being a woman is a detriment running for president at this point, but I don't think it's like a thing that can't be overcome even if you re-ran the election without Trump.

Speaker 1 I think a woman could win.

Speaker 5 I think there's something really important to call out in that exchange, which is

Speaker 5 if you guys recall 2007, 2008, Barack Obama's coming in. You know, it's obvious what's happening in this.
Like, there was no stopping anything that happened then.

Speaker 5 And yet, coming off of, what, $2 trillion in spending on the war on terror, the war in Iraq, something along those lines,

Speaker 5 coming off of or going into the Great Recession, which was evident was going to be catastrophic by the end of 2008.

Speaker 5 George W. Bush's approval rating was about 25%,

Speaker 5 which means no matter what happens in this country, one out of four people cannot be spoken to.

Speaker 5 You cannot connect with them. And so, whether it's the MAGAs or the Sarah Palins or the Michelle Bachmans or the Tea Party, it doesn't make a difference.

Speaker 5 You can't. You can't fix them.
You can call them an idiot. You can talk to them with empathy.
You can share news links with them. It's all fake news.

Speaker 5 They didn't call it fake news 10 years ago, but that's what they were calling it. You can't trust anybody.
Everything's a lie.

Speaker 5 But once you set those, and so if you focus exclusively on those people, that's where you get this like doom spiraling on the left where like, well, we'll never fix these people.

Speaker 5 He's going to run for a third term. There are 25% of people who will absolutely say Trump should run for a third term.
He should be a dictator. This is the best future for America.

Speaker 5 They were the same people who thought George W. Bush was just doing a bang up job in November of 2008.
And so we have to, like to Zach's point,

Speaker 5 let that part go.

Speaker 5 We can't fix them. And if they want to take it upon themselves to fix themselves, then that's great.
But if we focus on that middle 50, you know, the 25% one way or the other.

Speaker 5 There's a lot of room there that we don't understand because we're in the weeds. We understand the issues.

Speaker 5 But those individuals they're kind of at arm's length and that's where if we connect with them make them laugh they think well maybe these people aren't so terrible there's something there well and i i the 2008 thing is really interesting too because you know That was actually a landslide victory that Barack Obama had.

Speaker 1 I mean, we won Indiana,

Speaker 1 North Carolina, two that we have not won since. Indiana is not even in the conversation anymore.
And Indiana, a little bit, because Barack was from Chicago.

Speaker 1 And like, I think there were reasons for that. But I think there's a lot from us to

Speaker 1 learn from what Republicans did after that, right? Like that's when the Tea Party sprung up. All of a sudden, they cared about spending.

Speaker 1 They didn't care about the $2 trillion war or the $2 trillion tax cuts that

Speaker 1 primarily went to wealthy people and did nothing just to grow the economy. So we all know it was really about the black president with the funny middle name, right?

Speaker 1 But the reality is they created a movement. They had media apparatus with them and they became a force.
I mean, like we, you know, I was

Speaker 1 I was at a nonprofit when the we were they were both doing the ACA and the climate bill. And at first we were like, oh, we're going to get both of these things because Barack Obama's polling at 60%.

Speaker 1 We're going to be able to bulldoze right through this. No.

Speaker 1 Like we got health care and then healthcare.

Speaker 1 while it was still worth it, I would go back and do it again, like killed us in the midterms and we got wiped out.

Speaker 1 And that's because they've got, they, they know how to organize organize their people.

Speaker 1 And, you know, that rage machine that they have built, like they're always, we're talking about they're always mad about something. It's because they're fed that.

Speaker 1 You know, like, oh my God, there are, but yeah, I mean, it's like, oh, my God, kids are like using litter boxes in schools, which never, never fucking happened.

Speaker 1 Never happened. I know.
And I have friends that aren't that rabid Republican who mentioned it to me.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, can you go online and find one, one specific moment of fact that that happened and no one can do it? But they have an apparatus. And like, this is why I keep harping on it because, like,

Speaker 1 with the shutdown stuff, which we can get to in a second here, but like, Devon, I've been saying things, but nobody, nobody heard it. Well, here's the thing: you know, like, yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 5 I sent litter boxes to school just to try to be in the recent.

Speaker 1 Nobody used them. Nobody used them.
It was the

Speaker 5 kiddie crash, like, it was like lavender.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 no, that no dust type. Oh, that's right.
That's super scoopable, right?

Speaker 5 With the little slotted spoon.

Speaker 5 And nobody used any of it.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 man, that's a bummer.

Speaker 2 What was I going to say? Oh, yeah. So the challenge, even going back to then, Obama's first term, Obama had.

Speaker 2 the possibility of just jamming the shit down everybody's throat and just doing exactly what he wanted and he didn't do it.

Speaker 2 And I think that's a, that's a segue into what we're going to talk about with, you know, with the Democrats here is because Democrats don't have the teeth that Republicans have.

Speaker 2 Obama could have pushed all the way to Medicare for all if he wanted to. He didn't, I don't think he wanted to, but you know, he, he had to meet very much in the middle.
And that shellacked him.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's exactly, he did, he just, he said, you know what, I'm going to compromise.

Speaker 2 At this point, the one good thing Trump has done for the Democratic Party is letting them know compromise is not valuable. Attacking when you have the power is valuable.

Speaker 2 And that's something Democrats never learned. And now I think they finally are at least getting the picture of like, we are not in a compromise position at this point.

Speaker 2 We are in the position of once we get power back, when Trump inevitably fucks up the entire country and he can't win the midterm, it's going to be like, there, this is what you should have done the whole time.

Speaker 2 Although I have probably little faith in Democrats, so maybe it won't happen that way.

Speaker 4 Totally blame Pelosi and Schumer for all of the moderation of Barack Obama.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think you're right on that. I think

Speaker 2 they have this sort of worrisome approach to everything. And look, sometimes it's valuable.
Like why I think with the CR vote, I think it was valuable in this moment.

Speaker 2 But I think there's moments where you have all the tools to make substantial change change and you go, eh, I'll compromise for the sake of just not getting yelled at. That's kind of what they did.

Speaker 1 So I, I, uh, for those who don't know, I worked in the Obama administration for five years, and I will push back on the healthcare part of it.

Speaker 1 And the reason is, and I'm sorry to go inside baseball, but we had

Speaker 1 10 to 15 senators at that point who were almost Republicans. Like, I think even if you had them today,

Speaker 1 they might, they probably would not be part of the Democratic Party. Ben Nelson in Nebraska is one of them.

Speaker 1 Joe Lieberman in Connecticut is another one. And yes, we had 60 or 59 or whatever it was, but the reality was in the negotiation.
Yeah, it definitely in quotes.

Speaker 1 The reality was like

Speaker 1 many Democrats at that point were dead set against Medicare for all and

Speaker 1 even a public option. And there was a public option in the House bill.
And it got taken out because Joe Lieberman and Max Bacchus from Montana, Ben Nelson from Nebraska Nebraska all went, hell no.

Speaker 1 And we needed, we couldn't actually lose a voter. So he did, you know, to defend the president a little bit, he he was faced with a choice.
Yeah. Go all in with Medicare for all and fail.
Potentially.

Speaker 1 Well, or get healthcare coverage for 20 million Americans, which is what we ended up doing.

Speaker 1 And we're still fighting that fight.

Speaker 1 But like, and the other thing, and I know this is going on a little bit, the thing I will critique the president on is that we had built, because I was on the campaign too, we had built a digital force

Speaker 1 of donors and activists. And the decision was made after the election that

Speaker 1 all of that would get rolled into the DNC. There were some of us who thought that that should be an outside entity that would have been used to get electeds to pass the president's agenda.

Speaker 1 And instead, it got rolled into the DNC and essentially destroyed.

Speaker 1 And that is part of the reason why he couldn't, he didn't actually have a muscle to get some of those voters because it had been swallowed up by this bureaucracy. And this is what the DC, you know,

Speaker 1 this is what the DC consulting class does. Well, yeah.
I know because I was in it. That's the problem.

Speaker 1 And they didn't want an outside source. And we are still dealing with that.
What? What is this? 16, 17 years later. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, it's also like to me, just to end that point, I think it's a leadership style thing as well, right?

Speaker 2 Like the Trump is just kind of being like I'm the dictator of the Republican Party you're gonna do exactly what I say this is what we're doing and not to say that I think Democrats should mirror that exactly but Obama had a position at that point in time where he could have been like I don't give a shit what you think you're voting this way or I'm gonna fuck you over and like that I think as much as I don't love that approach all the time in these big moments sack up and say that shit it's enough like it Obama should have gone to all those senators who could get to that 60 and been like I don't give a shit if you have reservations I'm gonna torch your ass if you don't go for this because it's the most important thing we're going after right now.

Speaker 2 Shouldn't be doing it all the time like Trump does for any little petty grievance, but for big shit, Democrats got to sack up.

Speaker 1 Hey, look, I agree with Zach on something.

Speaker 5 Well, that was my take on the whole continuing resolution issue. I mean,

Speaker 5 we,

Speaker 5 and I wrote about this, um,

Speaker 5 so it's top of mind. Um,

Speaker 5 we are terrified to sacrifice anything or take any risks. And, and when I, when I look back at like uh, Obama's debacle with

Speaker 5 guns and Bibles or guns and religion, right? Was what he said in Pennsylvania. He was caught on a hot mic saying they turned to their guns and religion.
Everybody lost their mind and he apologized.

Speaker 5 He like went on an apology tour across the country, you know, saying, like, I should never characterize,

Speaker 5 you weren't wrong. Right.
And, and, and, and, and it doesn't have to be bad, right? Like,

Speaker 5 just lean into it and say, hey, we've given you reasons to turn to your guns and religion. Like, you could just say that, but instead, it was like, oh, that was a really insensitive.

Speaker 5 Does Trump go around apologize? Like, he wins because he just doesn't care.

Speaker 5 He will sacrifice every possible thing that is required, even things that he never wanted to sacrifice or never intended to sacrifice.

Speaker 5 If there's an opportunity to throw that under the bus to win, it'll be like, oh, here, you know, take my kids.

Speaker 1 Just right under the bus.

Speaker 1 He never apologized for anything. No, no, of course not.
Never.

Speaker 1 Didn't he apologize for

Speaker 1 the Hollywood sacrifice?

Speaker 1 Which is really an apology. He did.
It's locker room.

Speaker 1 Whatever the fuck he said it was. No,

Speaker 1 it was a statement. He didn't say it.
I didn't say it verbally.

Speaker 1 What an arrest.

Speaker 4 I'll bet if Musk demanded an apology for something, he'd give it.

Speaker 2 They're buddies. I mean,

Speaker 2 he has the Trump unlock tool.

Speaker 1 I don't know what the hell he's got, but

Speaker 1 I think that's true.

Speaker 1 He's got all the money in the world. That's all.
He's the richest man in the world. Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 5 It does help to have a million Trump unlock tools. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 let's go to the CR because we do have, this is first of all, this happened yesterday recording on Saturday, that 10 Democrats went along with the entire Republican caucus to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open.

Speaker 1 And we're going to dive into this because there's differing opinions here, but the reality is there was a lot of anger on the left that Chuck Schumer, the minority leader from New York, basically at one point said I wasn't going to help.

Speaker 1 And then all of a sudden, he did. And so did the other senator from New York where Chris and I are,

Speaker 1 Kirsten Gillibrand also voted for it so I want to hear from everybody about their takes on this

Speaker 1 and I'm going to go to somebody that hasn't spoken very much which is our friend Luke

Speaker 1 up at the corner Luke what do you think of the CR

Speaker 3 I think

Speaker 3 I think it was spineless of him to act like he was going to you know stand up to him for a while and then back down the second he had a little fucking bite.

Speaker 3 I mean, the Democrats are routinely the party of hand-rigging, but they fucking like they gave me just like a little bit of hope that they were going to do something for once.

Speaker 3 Whether it was a good choice or not, they were going to do something. They had like an action plan, and they had, you know, people were firmly in support of it.
And then he backed the fuck down.

Speaker 3 I mean, there were people at his office in New York. They were like, what the fuck are you doing? And he said, all right, whatever.
And I can't stand that.

Speaker 3 If you say you're going to do something, fucking do it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I think Democrats have a problem with seeming weak.
and people don't like people going back and forth.

Speaker 1 It's not even the question, right, about was it the right thing to do, which I don't think it was, but like that, there is an argument to be made there.

Speaker 1 But the, I think Democrats are just constantly like going back and forth.

Speaker 1 And like, there's a reason why, I mean, you know, Bernie Sanders, who's kind of a Democrat, kind of not a Democrat, like there's a reason why he's so popular is he doesn't back down and he says so like, I don't understand why Democrats can't learn this

Speaker 1 because it just seems like Luke here 100% right. Like if we had just said the government is too important and we're going to like keep it open,

Speaker 1 I probably would have disagreed, but I would have at least understood. This just feels weak.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the messaging sucked. It was terrible.
That I can agree.

Speaker 2 I mean, I'm probably maybe Chris will agree with me on this one too, but I'm one of the people who looked at this and said, I think it's actually a good idea to vote to keep the government open.

Speaker 2 I mean, so I look at it like this. I'll zoom out for a second.

Speaker 2 The Republicans faced almost an identical scenario back in, I think it was December or January, whatever the hell it was, near the end of Joe Biden's term.

Speaker 2 Same thing.

Speaker 2 CR had to keep the government open, you know, had a bill in front of them they didn't like, and they, yeah, they negotiated a little better than Democrats did, but in the end, they pretty much capitulated to the original bill and just signed it.

Speaker 2 Because Republicans are strategists. Democrats are not strategists.
Democrats are policy wonks. That's the difference.
Like, Democrats get into the weeds.

Speaker 2 They understand how to functionally make the government work better than Republicans do. Republicans know how to win.

Speaker 2 And the reason Republicans didn't use that moment to obstruct everything, it was a loser approach for them. It was going to make everybody pissed at them.
So the same thing would have happened here.

Speaker 2 And I just don't, like, for me, I weigh the risks and the benefits, right?

Speaker 2 The risk of having the Democrats be the ones who shut down the government right now to obstruct Trump and have a protest vote is that it hands Republicans an insane amount of ammunition to be like, Democrats fucked up the government.

Speaker 2 They shut it down. Everything that's happening here, inflation, egg prices, it all can be tied back to Democrats because you know Trump will use that attack.
line.

Speaker 2 The federal workers firing element with Doge. Now it's like, hey, Democrats sent them all home.
You're handing them a huge arsenal of negative shit to say. And what are you getting in return?

Speaker 2 A little fuck you to them. Like I referred to it one of my sub-stack things.
It's like Democrats want a bar fight right now.

Speaker 2 And a bar fight is no good for anybody because when you wake up in the morning, you got a bruised up face and you got a hangover. Nobody won.
You had a nice little moment.

Speaker 2 Democrats have to understand the time to fight. I agree.
The messaging of what they're going to do could have been way better.

Speaker 2 And yeah, maybe they could have negotiated a little bit harder to try to like adjust a couple of things. But there was nothing in this bill that was like, oh oh my God, we can't possibly have this.

Speaker 2 Like Social Security is not getting cut. Medicare is not getting cut.

Speaker 2 There are bad things in there, but these are the Republican agenda items that are going to be here, whether you shut down the government for a week or not.

Speaker 2 So it's just not a hell, there was nothing in it that was like, strategically, this makes sense long term. It doesn't.

Speaker 2 It makes, it just gives Republicans ammunition to keep going forward and attacking and attacking and attacking.

Speaker 2 We need to let their shitty policies fall apart in front of us and go, look, look how shitty they are.

Speaker 2 And in 2026, we'll fucking roll them because they just can't stand up to the criticism of how badly they handle things. That is what Democrats need to aim on.

Speaker 2 I know a lot of Democrats hate that message because it feels weak and

Speaker 2 patient and all this shit. It's the right strategy.
It's a question of.

Speaker 6 Let me back up, Zach, on that. So I think the metaphor of like Democrats wanting a bar fight is something that resonates with me as a former bar fighter.

Speaker 6 I used to love bar fights until I lost one and I had my left orbital shattered and a bubble on my brain. So I think that when you get your ass kicked, you do learn valuable lessons.

Speaker 6 I have not been in a bar fight since that.

Speaker 1 It was leap day 2008.

Speaker 6 So

Speaker 6 February 29, 2008, my life changed for the better,

Speaker 6 almost dying. But,

Speaker 6 you know, I... I approach this as a policy wonk.
So that's not what most people know me as, but I'm a former lobbyist. I used to work for a major veteran service organization.

Speaker 6 So, you know, going through budgets and authorizations and all that shit is kind of my thing. Like knowing these departments and these federal agencies, some of them, inside and out,

Speaker 6 has been my job for a long time. And

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 6 thing that Schumer failed to message on and what he should have messaged on if the ultimate decision was going to be that he would not go with the shutdown that if you shut down the government, Trump and Musk get to choose what opens back up.

Speaker 6 They are given the power to slow walk reopening things. So we could have,

Speaker 6 if we, the Democrats, if we, the liberals, the progressives, whatever,

Speaker 6 encouraged our

Speaker 6 Democrats, Schumer, to stick to his guns and to shut down the government, we would have achieved everything

Speaker 6 that Musk and the doggy boys have sought out to do in completely dismantling agencies.

Speaker 6 Because once those federal workers get furloughed during a shutdown, the president has the power as to when they get turned, you know, when the machines get turned back on.

Speaker 6 And he could simply say, well, nope, they're already off. I'm not turning them back on.

Speaker 1 Vic, I'm going to turn to you because I have a feeling that you have a completely opposite view of this. We're going to go from one end to the other and then we'll come back in the middle.

Speaker 1 So, Vic, what do you think?

Speaker 4 I got to say, especially some of the things that Zach said, the Republicans would love to hear you saying those.

Speaker 4 The problem with the Democrats in Washington right now is they're looking at these times as if they're any other times in the past.

Speaker 4 And you guys are looking at this continuing resolution as if it's just like any other continuing resolution in the past.

Speaker 4 But it's not, because in a time where we've seen Congress relinquish more and more and more, especially under this president, more and more and more of their power, this continuing resolution puts it in writing that they're going to relinquish more of their power to the presidency.

Speaker 2 I don't disagree with you that Republicans hear what I have to say and they go, ooh, cool, that sounds great. Because they're...

Speaker 2 The difference now, I think, is that Republicans are being very short-sighted as opposed to the past where they were very long on what they're trying to do because they were in a position and they were in the, they were behind Democrats in terms of where the country was going.

Speaker 2 Now they feel like they've won everything and they've got the presidency, they've got Congress, they've got everything. So they're sitting back and just kind of eating it up.

Speaker 2 And they're not thinking, they're not realizing that all of these bad decisions are going to compound.

Speaker 2 And over time, it's going to fuck them really hard because they're making these policies that they can't.

Speaker 4 I'm going to fuck them if we sit back and let them continue to do it to a point where there's no stopping them.

Speaker 2 But that's the thing.

Speaker 1 That's why I hear that argument.

Speaker 4 I'm not sitting back and letting them do it day after day after day.

Speaker 1 No, I get not pushing back.

Speaker 2 But my pushback to that pushback is: I don't see a path where Democrats aren't going to have a chance to take the power back. It just doesn't exist to me.

Speaker 2 Like, I know that there are people out there who worried that Trump is going to fundamentally restructure government to the point where we can't even have elections.

Speaker 2 I don't think we're going to get anywhere near that territory. Yes, are we going to give Trump an insane amount of power compared to past presidents? Sure.

Speaker 2 But to me, I look at that and go, I look at Trump's policies and what he wants to do, and I go, good. Let him prove how bad he is.

Speaker 2 We need to at this point because Democrats have been theoretical arguers forever.

Speaker 1 Everything

Speaker 4 is exactly how he's going to do it without ending elections.

Speaker 1 How?

Speaker 4 Because Democrats, I mean, I've made multiple videos begging people to get involved with the Democratic Party at the grassroots level and change the party.

Speaker 4 And after yesterday, my comments on my videos are full. I mean, full of people saying, fuck the Democratic Party, I just changed my registration.

Speaker 4 That's how they're going to pull it off because they're going to get more and more people to say, screw it, I'm not even going to vote because I can't vote for a Democratic Party that won't fight.

Speaker 2 But here's the thing, though. In the end,

Speaker 2 the thing that drives voters are fundamental things that Trump is already fucking up, like the economy and prices.

Speaker 2 And he's making huge promises on all these things that he's not going to be able to deliver on. We know that.

Speaker 2 So I understand in the short term, it feels like all the momentum is with them and they're getting people to disengage and go to the Republican Party or just not get involved.

Speaker 2 But when Trump's promises are not fulfilled in 2026 and 2028, and people are still worse off or just as bad off as when they were pissed off at Democrats, they lose.

Speaker 2 The burden is on them to execute. And there is no way they're going to execute.

Speaker 4 If that was a good argument, Texas would be blue.

Speaker 2 Well, no, I don't think it's more complicated than that.

Speaker 2 But that's my point, as I was trying to make before, is that Democrats have spent all this time warning. Republicans, this is where it's going to go.
This is what's going to happen.

Speaker 2 Nobody listens to the warnings anymore. You have to see it for your own eyes.
Catastrophe is what really creates change in this country.

Speaker 2 Unfortunately, like, I don't want it to be that way, but that's the reality of where we're at.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So I was actually in the federal government for a shutdown, uh, 2013, I believe, and it was like 30-something days.
Um, and I am against 99.9% of shutdowns. They are incredibly damaging.
And

Speaker 1 they like it puts people at risk. I mean, I was at the Interior Department.

Speaker 1 So, like, all of a sudden, you don't have park rangers in national parks, which are wild areas and people get hurt all the time.

Speaker 1 There's all kinds of reasons why I'm against it. I certainly understand both sides of this perspective and I generally tend to sit where Zach and Chris are.

Speaker 1 I think my problem with this one is that it strikes me as lacking any strategy whatsoever. And this is where like I think it hurts.

Speaker 1 Hakeem Jeffries held his conference together minus one Democrat who represents Maine's second district. I'm from Maine.

Speaker 1 Maine's second district, there is one Democrat that could hold that district, and his name is Jared Golden.

Speaker 1 So I give him a bit of leeway for some truly terrible votes on that and on guns and other things. But Jeffries went out and like held them together.
And then Schumer turns around and just capitulates.

Speaker 1 Now, if you had a, and he made, so that meant Jeffries made some of his members take hard votes, some some districts that are pretty, pretty down 50-50.

Speaker 1 And I just think it continues the narrative that Democrats don't fight for anything. I agree that shutting down the government is bad and that it potentially would give them

Speaker 1 something to swing at us.

Speaker 1 But I've also looked at the reactions from Republicans of us capitulating, and most of them seem pretty happy.

Speaker 1 And so it would strike me as not being the case if we actually took power away from them.

Speaker 1 But what I'm hearing and what I've seen this morning so far already is we don't don't even need to talk to the Democrats anymore because why? Why would we?

Speaker 1 They're not going to do the things that we are willing to do. They were willing to let the debt ceiling lapse, which would have caused an economic catastrophe and the likes that we have never seen.

Speaker 1 It would have made 2008 look like a blip. Like they're willing to go there.
And I just. The Democratic brand of being weak and incoherent just seems to have been maximized here.

Speaker 1 And there's no real explanation for it. Like, why did Jeffries do all that if 10 Democrats, including the minority leader, were just going to fold? And that's, that's the problem to me.

Speaker 1 It's like, if you're going to be decisive, be decisive and own your lane and say, we're not going to let the Republicans hurt the American people more with this nonsense.

Speaker 1 Like, but I didn't hear that. I heard a lot of like, oh, well, there's bad things in this, but we got to keep the, you know, and if you're explaining, you're losing.

Speaker 1 And that is where, that's why I, on this one, I would have preferred them to be like, shut it down. They're breaking the government.

Speaker 1 We will open it back up when they stop doing the illegal firings and they stop doing the illegal holding of funds, which is hurting people like meals on wheels.

Speaker 1 Like, these are things that are literally life and death matters. And if they're already going to do that, then it's like, well, let's draw a line in the stand and say, stop it.

Speaker 1 So that's my, that's my frustration.

Speaker 5 Zach, you mentioned earlier, like, you know, who's going to get the blame?

Speaker 5 Quinnipiak did a poll this week and said, who's going to get the blame if the government government shuts down?

Speaker 5 32% said congressional Democrats. 22% said Trump.
And 31% said Republicans in Congress.

Speaker 5 So almost two to one, the blame would have fallen on Trump. But that is, of course, before he goes and then gets the microphone and then gets to reframe it to the country.
So,

Speaker 5 sorry.

Speaker 5 I don't spend a lot of time in debates like this with the circular firing squad for this exact reason.

Speaker 5 Trump, he signed an executive order after they voted to keep the government open to gut seven more governmental agencies, including a broadcast organization with 2,000 employees and 360 million listeners around the world who listen to America-first news so that they can get unbiased news from us because they probably don't have local broadcast stations.

Speaker 5 So

Speaker 5 we were going to lose, or the people were going to lose. There's no way out of this where we either

Speaker 5 we either don't take the loss as the party, which is what we did, or the people don't take the loss. Somebody is going to lose here because, Zach, to your point, everybody loses.

Speaker 5 95% of people lose when Republican policies and Republican leaders are in place. And that's where we need to keep this debate framed because if it's AOC versus Chuck Schumer, we're talking about,

Speaker 5 trying to think of a metaphor, but we're talking about two children in a class arguing when the principal and the teacher and the entire support system are all, you know, domestic terrorists, essentially.

Speaker 5 They're all monsters.

Speaker 5 Like, how could it possibly fall to those kids who have no power left in this scenario to go and fix, you know, to keep the metaphor going, the school system or to fix the problems with the country?

Speaker 5 So I like we could have played this better and won a political fight. Absolutely.

Speaker 5 If we had shut it down and we had just held this up and said, listen, you guys have the White House, you guys have the House, you guys have the Senate, you guys have the Supreme Court, you're doing everything that you want to do.

Speaker 5 How can you not write a bill that can get 10 little Democrats? to just be excited to vote for it. And if you can't do that, what are you even doing in power?

Speaker 5 And then walk away from the mic.

Speaker 5 Go home like the republicans did they voted and they went home so that it would just be forced on the democrats we could have returned that exact same favor played that exact same game said no and go home and then go home to these town halls where the republicans are getting eviscerated i mean it is a bloodbath out there and the democrats then go and hold town halls in Republican areas as many have called for like Bernie Sanders I believe is doing right now with AOC.

Speaker 5 I think Tim Walls is doing it as well. Go to red areas and say, listen, we're trying to to do everything, but elections have consequences.

Speaker 5 And you guys gave us, you took away all of our levers of control. And now this is what happens.
And it sucks. But that's the point of what I was making earlier, or the point I was making earlier.

Speaker 5 Democrats won't risk or sacrifice anything, even though the country already risked and sacrificed all of these things already in November. So allowing those natural consequences to play out.

Speaker 5 Yes, it's painful. Yes, it sucks.
But this was a horrible, horrible lose-lose. And we picked one losing path instead of the other.
And now we've got, you know, seven more agencies being gutted.

Speaker 5 And Trump is just looking like a right-wing hero because he got the Democrats to capitulate. And now he's just going to keep going with what we feared he would do if we let the government shut down.

Speaker 5 So I'm not going to scream at AOC. I'm not going to scream at Schumer.

Speaker 5 I have a, you know, we had two bad options and we picked one bad option. And we have to reframe that and push both bad options on the consequences of the election.

Speaker 1 But we picked a bad option that keeps getting worse.

Speaker 5 I think both would have kept getting worse. I mean, if we, if we shut down,

Speaker 5 I've read a good amount of the analysis both ways.

Speaker 5 And yeah, I mean, if we had, if we had shut down government and then Trump is the last guy standing just saying, you know, fine, this is what I wanted in the first place. Like,

Speaker 5 we don't have a lot of options. So, but that's my point is they both sucked.
Like, we're like 90% losers with either choice. Yeah.
And you can frame them either way.

Speaker 5 We picked the path of minimizing damage, hoping that there's enough left to save in 2026, which I believe there will be

Speaker 5 in 2028.

Speaker 5 But

Speaker 5 it wasn't going to be a

Speaker 5 stone-cold winner either way. And so spending too much time arguing with ourselves implies that there was a clear-cut option to win.
When in reality, we need to just say,

Speaker 5 this is Trump. This is who's the majority leader? John Thune, I haven't even heard his name since he was elected, but this is Trump.
This is your Republican Senate. This is your Republican House.

Speaker 5 This is what they're doing, you guys.

Speaker 5 This is their machine and being operated right now.

Speaker 2 I just want to clarify one thing, other point, just before we get to the end there.

Speaker 2 Everything Rich just said, if Democrats had presented it that way, I would have been all about it. Like that's the thing.
The democratic approach to strategy is non-existent.

Speaker 2 Like if they had gone, hey, we're going to hold this government hostage until you agree to X, Y, and Z and show the American people why those things matter, I'm all about it.

Speaker 2 But they're nowhere near that because there's no coordination. The leadership doesn't exist.
That's the way they should have played it. It's exactly what Republicans did in the last CR.

Speaker 2 They came out and said, okay, you went too far here, you went too far there, and they like scraped away at some of the things Democrats tried to push in there.

Speaker 2 But the bill was largely the same, but they at least fought. But Democrats didn't present that.
So if they had, I would have a different perspective, but I just don't trust their leadership to do it.

Speaker 1 Do you want to exact again? Go figure it out.

Speaker 1 Well, Luke. Yeah, I mean, this is the perfect time.
Oh, sorry. Luke, you want to say one more thing before we wrap? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 Like, the issue with me is not the choice. Like, two bad choices.
That's all you had. But you fucking wishy-washed it so it makes you look like you got no spine.

Speaker 3 Like, just pick which ones you're going to fucking do. Say, this is our plan with it, and move forward.
Like, you had two bad options. No one's faulting you for which one you picked.

Speaker 3 I mean, some people are, but, like,

Speaker 3 the manner in which you did it is more of the issue for me.

Speaker 1 Well, with all six of us agreeing, I think that is a perfect time to wrap up. We even got Vic and Zach to agree twice, which I'm going to call a success for the first Find Out podcast episode.

Speaker 1 For those of you just tuning into us and finding us on various platforms, our main home is on Substack. So please go to findoutpodcast.substack.com.

Speaker 1 We've already got 2,500 of you over there, which is fantastic.

Speaker 1 I think that is where we will be doing some written content and engaging with the audience, probably some live streams and live chats and all sorts of stuff.

Speaker 1 So please go to findout podcasts.substack.com. But I think this was a pretty good first episode, guys.

Speaker 6 Tim, I want to fulfill a promise. So to my Substack followers, to people on TikTok, I teased something.
I said, you're going to find some, you're going to find out a big update.

Speaker 6 Not just about the podcast, but about me personally. So you guys already know this.

Speaker 2 Nobody else does.

Speaker 6 But I'm about to be a girl dad.

Speaker 6 And I want people to like take that not just as an announcement about me, but as an idea of what they're going to hear about on this podcast. I never wanted kids.
I'm about to turn 40.

Speaker 6 I'm about to have a baby girl. And I'm going to be bringing a baby girl into Trump's America.
And that is something that a lot of older millennials are reaching this point.

Speaker 6 They're doing what my wife and I just did, going through IVF. And now we're facing bringing a little girl into a world that has fewer rights than her mother was born with.

Speaker 6 So I needed to fulfill that promise for all my followers.

Speaker 6 But, you know, I just want to thank all you guys for being in this with me. I'm looking forward to having some fun and hearing from our audience on

Speaker 6 whether or not we're bombing on this first episode.

Speaker 1 Well, you job, great news. I mean, we've all said it, but congratulations.
And I think

Speaker 1 five of us have children, and then Luke is also our child as well.

Speaker 3 I'm basically the age of one of your children.

Speaker 1 Maybe on Vic's side,

Speaker 1 Vic's side. I don't know about the rest, but I have six grandchildren.

Speaker 4 Five of them. Yeah.

Speaker 1 There you go. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Also,

Speaker 5 as you call it, a girl dad, and it's the best thing in the whole world. And it is.
Zach, you are too, right?

Speaker 2 I am too. I got a four-year-old girl.
She just turned four last week.

Speaker 2 It's scary having her in Trump's America, but you know, I think my

Speaker 2 end, I have to have an escape patch just in case. So, you know, I ended up getting this guy just in case we needed it.

Speaker 1 You're greenlining this.

Speaker 1 For those of you listening, that was a passport that he just showed up.

Speaker 1 But look, I think it's important to talk about this, right? Because it shows that we're not just doing this for ourselves. We're doing this for our kids.
Like,

Speaker 1 I'm not a girl dad, but I have a kid. And, you know,

Speaker 1 these things matter. And they don't just matter to us.
Like, you know, we're not just in this for, like, you know, I mean, if we were just in this for tax breaks, we'd be Republicans, right?

Speaker 1 But like, we care about what's going to happen to this country after we're gone. And that all begins now.
So we hope that you all are with us on that.

Speaker 1 And I think based on what we have all seen from our videos and Snubstack posts, that people were desperate for a place to get together and talk about this, but also not just be doom and gloom.

Speaker 1 Like, we are in this together. We are going to build a community of people that do not like what's going on.
We don't all have to look the same. We don't all have to talk the same.

Speaker 1 We don't all have to have the same opinions. But the one opinion that we all do have to agree on is that we need to change the leadership in this country.

Speaker 1 And we welcome everybody, no matter who they are, what walk of life, even MAGA folks who are, let's say,

Speaker 1 reasoning curious or logical, logical, cure, cure, curious,

Speaker 1 kind adjacent, kind adjacent,

Speaker 1 to come with us and write to us. And also, I think we'd all be happy to talk to folks offline, too, if they have questions.
So I just want to thank these guys. This has been awesome.

Speaker 1 We've been talking about it for a long time. Maybe Zach someday will share your

Speaker 6 video that you watch to us.

Speaker 1 Also, we had a lot of people helping us behind the scenes.

Speaker 1 Kyle, our editor.

Speaker 1 I also had a guy, Andy Felsati, who runs something called Wright Blogger, who helped me point findoutpodcasts.com at the right right URL. So thank you for that.
I said I would give a shout out.

Speaker 1 And, you know, we're going to have, there's a lot of people we've talked to behind the scenes that are really interested in this.

Speaker 4 So we are glad that Jim Chris's great job with the graphic.

Speaker 1 Oh, yes.

Speaker 1 Chris on my team, I have a company called Fuller Strategies. He did our logo, Chris, my creative director, who definitely deserves kudos because it's a fun play on Isaac Newton's

Speaker 1 theories, which the modern day version is

Speaker 1 fuck around and find out.

Speaker 3 I think you mean Isaac Neutron, you know,

Speaker 1 ancestor of Jimmy Neutron. Yes,

Speaker 1 thank you. Thank you.
Yes. Thank you.
So, thank you, everybody. Find us at findout podcast.subsec.com dot com, and we will see you next week.