Raging Moderates: How Obamaworld is Elevating Zohran Mamdani (ft. David Axelrod)

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Speaker 7 Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Jessica Tarlove.
Today I'm joined by the one and only David Axelrod.

Speaker 7 He's the former senior advisor to President Obama, founding director of the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics, CNN chief political analyst, and the host of the Hackson Tap podcast, which I absolutely love.

Speaker 7 David, welcome to the show. How are you?

Speaker 8 So good to be here. I'm pretty good.
Yeah? Pretty good. Yeah.

Speaker 7 Like you could be better. Or is that just?

Speaker 8 Well, there are things that are up in the air as we speak today, including the Cubs and the Brewers.

Speaker 7 Is that ahead of Russia and Ukraine for you, or is it about the same?

Speaker 8 It's very close. The great thing about sports, Jesse, is that you can be incredibly intense about it and no one dies.

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 8 So

Speaker 8 I'd have to put Ukraine above that, but

Speaker 8 headed to the ballpark later today.

Speaker 7 So that's great. And I probably should have known this many moons ago, but as I was reading about you historically, because I feel like I know current you must have had a lot of time, man.

Speaker 8 I'm old.

Speaker 7 You're not that old, but you're old enough that you went to Stuyvesant.

Speaker 8 Stuyvesant High School.

Speaker 7 Yes, and I grew up in Tribeca and still live in Tribeca.

Speaker 7 And I remember probably the most intimidating day of my life was taking the Stuyvesant test, which I did not do well enough on to go to Stuyvesant, but waiting in that corridor.

Speaker 8 That's a travesty.

Speaker 7 It's okay. I think they feel good about who's gone through there, and I ended up fine.
It just cost my parents a lot more money.

Speaker 8 I'll tell you, a few years ago, I went and I made the graduation speech at Stuyvesant High School like half a century after I graduated or something.

Speaker 8 And the valedictorian spoke before me and said, the firefighters are New York's bravest, and the police are New York's finest. And they said, but here at Stuyvesant, we're New York's smartest.

Speaker 8 And so I quickly rewrote my remarks while I was sitting there to turn it into a homily about the value of humility.

Speaker 8 So

Speaker 7 did the valedictorian understand that you were cooking him or her?

Speaker 8 I don't think so. That's part of having humility is understanding that you're being talked about.
But

Speaker 8 anyway.

Speaker 7 I like it. And that kind of doesn't surprise me just running into those kids on the street.
But some of them definitely are New York's smartest.

Speaker 8 yeah i loved it it was a little bit different place there was a more diverse student body and uh that was in the late 60s so we spent as much time on the streets as we did in class and it was an interesting time i got a lot out of it actually you know who my english teacher was frank mccourt really yes he was a substitute english teacher and my english teacher took ill and he took over the class.

Speaker 8 So there was it was an interesting place to be.

Speaker 7 The only thing I've got that's

Speaker 7 pertinent to the news cycle is Jeffrey Epstein taught at the school that I went to. So I would much rather have Frank McCord.

Speaker 8 Boy, I can only imagine the stories that people had to tell there.

Speaker 7 Yeah, I got nothing, though, which makes me feel a lot safer. Yes.
But what a wild tale that is.

Speaker 8 Oh, my God.

Speaker 7 Anyway, I did not mean to go Epstein so early. It's not even in the script.

Speaker 8 Played the Epstein card, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 7 And now I'm going to do redistricting.

Speaker 7 We're going to be talking about Newsom entering the redistricting fight where Ukraine and Russia peace talk stand and Obama world's response to Mom Dani.

Speaker 7 All right, let's dive in. California Governor Gavin Newsom throwing himself right into the middle of the fight that could reshape both his image and his party's future.

Speaker 7 He launched a push to redraw California's congressional lines, a very aggressive counter to Republican-led redistricting in Texas, which is driven by Donald Trump.

Speaker 7 If he succeeds, Democrats could gain up to five new House seats and shore up four swing seats, possibly flipping the control of Congress. But it's a big gamble.
The ballot measure could fail.

Speaker 7 He's actually asking the people, which I think is a very good thing.

Speaker 8 I think he has to by law, but yes. Oh, really? Yeah.

Speaker 7 Well, he's made it out like he doesn't have to and that he's just a good guy. So, all right.
Well played, Gavin. You tricked me.

Speaker 7 But the Terminator himself, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is kind of the father of the Independent Redistricting Commission, is opposing it.

Speaker 7 Supporters like Nancy Pelosi call this bold leadership that Democrats need.

Speaker 7 But now layered on top of this, Trump says he wants to ban mail-in ballots altogether, even floating an executive order to, quote, help bring honesty, which is his strong suit, to the 2026 midterms, despite his own party benefiting from mail voting in recent cycles.

Speaker 7 David, how are you feeling about the redistricting fight? The Texas Democrats have returned home. So the few weeks that we had them on the lamb is coming to an end.

Speaker 7 And I imagine that Governor Abbott is going to be able to do whatever Governor Abbott wants to do.

Speaker 8 Which may have been inevitable. They certainly drew attention to the issue.

Speaker 8 Look,

Speaker 8 this is a theme that's going to course throughout our conversation because it goes into the other topic as well. It's really important to understand Donald Trump's philosophy.

Speaker 8 It's not conservative or liberal.

Speaker 8 It's simply this, that the world is a kind of corrupt dystopia, kind of the hunger games, and the strong take what they want, however they can get it, and the weak fall away.

Speaker 8 And rules and laws and norms are for suckers. I mean, that's what he truly believes.
I think that's one of the things that draws him to a guy like Putin who shares that worldview.

Speaker 8 And it extends to this. Look, I live in a state of Illinois that has a pretty gerrymandered map,

Speaker 8 14 to 3%, you know, 82, 83%.

Speaker 8 This has been pointed out by Republicans, but we live in a country where each state makes its own rules, and it's very hard to sacrifice the advantage when the other side is not.

Speaker 8 And this is a constant problem for Democrats because they believe in rules and laws and norms and institutions.

Speaker 8 And when you're in a political battle with Donald Trump, it's asymmetric warfare because he does not.

Speaker 8 And so, you know, he called the governor of Texas, who by all accounts reluctantly agreed to reintroduce redistricting in the middle of a 10-year period, which is highly, highly unusual,

Speaker 8 in order to try and get five seats. You can imagine the conversation, you know, that it sounded a little bit like what happened in Georgia, you know, just find me five seats.
And Abbott dutifully did.

Speaker 8 So then Democrats are faced with, well, what do you do about that? If the rules are being changed in the middle of the game, do you stand on principle and do you stand on?

Speaker 8 Because what we're facing right now is completely unchecked power.

Speaker 8 You know, the Congress has not only delegated to Trump much of their prerogative under law, but also they have completely abdicated their responsibility to act as a check, to act as an oversight on the executive branch and on the president.

Speaker 8 And imagine if he wins the midterm elections, which he would not under current course and speed, I don't believe.

Speaker 8 Imagine if he does, how unbridled and how emboldened he would be, knowing that, you know, there is no check, there are no inspectors general, the Congress is sidelined, the courts are twisted up, you know, he's making it harder for media organizations.

Speaker 8 So there's a lot at stake here. And I say this as someone who believes that gerrymandering has been part of the problem for us.
But you can't partially reform.

Speaker 8 You can't partially reform, especially in this environment. And so, you know, people say, well, Newsom's just trying to score some points for 2028.

Speaker 8 He might be, but sometimes the politics and the merit of the mission marry up. And I think in this case, he's doing what's appropriate.

Speaker 7 Yeah, it feels that way to me as well. And I like the fact that these new maps only exist until 2030.
And then the Independent Commission comes back into play.

Speaker 7 And he gave a news conference on Friday, and he had all the members of the Independent Commission there speaking in favor of this, which I thought sent a really important signal that these are extraordinary times and we really believe in this.

Speaker 8 So the cynic, and I'm sure there are plenty who said it,

Speaker 8 it's a weird kind of independent commission if they show up to affirm the governor, you know. But I listen, I think that that's right.

Speaker 8 The problem is, the political problem, the challenge is, you know, it's always hard to explain in politics. And so this is a kind of convoluted workaround.

Speaker 8 And it remains to be seen whether they'll accomplish it. I mean, voters have to approve this.
They'll have to approve this in November.

Speaker 8 In the polling that I've seen, it's ahead, but it's not a slam dunk. And you got to believe that there's going to be a ton of money spent to try and defeat it.

Speaker 7 It's supposed to be a couple hundred million dollars that'll probably come on both sides. And I heard there might be one Republican donor in particular who would spend up to $100 million.

Speaker 8 Well, you got to, but you better believe the president's going to make sure that the no side has as much money as it needs. And maybe his buddies in Silicon Valley, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 7 That's no one. I would love another cycle where I have to listen to what Peter Thiel wants again.

Speaker 7 But

Speaker 7 redistricting aside or kind of the mechanics of it, this is obviously changing the way that the country and at least the Democratic Party is viewing Gavin Newsome.

Speaker 7 So his approval rating is ticking up mostly with women. I think he's still minus 25 with men, which might be a jealousy thing because he's so good looking.

Speaker 8 Well, I'd kill for his hair, you know.

Speaker 7 I mean, same. And like, my hair is fine and I'm a woman, but

Speaker 7 everything is working for Gavin Newsom. And, you know, picture perfect family.
There are a lot of reasons if you're just looking at the aesthetics of everything.

Speaker 7 I have concerns about having a nominee that ran California because you can poke a lot of holes in that with homelessness and drugs and whatever else.

Speaker 7 But I was really struck by the first video that his team put out about redistricting because he had this line where he said, this is a serious moment in American history.

Speaker 2 And so we are here to meet this moment head on.

Speaker 9 We will not be complicit.

Speaker 7 And that's literally what every Democrat I have spoken to since Trump was inaugurated has said that they want to hear, that they overwhelmingly don't want Democrats to play nice.

Speaker 7 They don't want to hear about bipartisanship. I just want to know that you understand the gravity of the time that we're in and you're meeting this moral moment.

Speaker 7 And Scott, who is on a nice month-long vacation, so thank you again for joining me.

Speaker 8 Only because he didn't invite me.

Speaker 7 Yeah, well, he definitely didn't invite me. He doesn't respond to my text messages famously.
Sometimes I get a thumbs up.

Speaker 7 If you text and say, I had a great time with Jesse, then he'll probably have an answer.

Speaker 8 I will definitely do that.

Speaker 7 Please do that. That would make me feel better.
But, you know, Scott wants someone to start running.

Speaker 7 And I understand why a Governor Shapiro, Wes Moore, Gretchen Whitmer, whoever is going to be in might be waiting a little bit because it's still three years away and you need to kind of assess the scene.

Speaker 7 But Newsom is, I mean, he hasn't said I am running for president, but I don't think anyone looks at him and thinks this isn't someone that's.

Speaker 8 I don't think you need a lot to deduce that. You don't need the Goodyear blimp with a banner stranding behind it.

Speaker 7 He's I don't need my political science degree to tell you that Gavin Newsom wants to be president.

Speaker 8 No, and you know, look, he's out after this term. And,

Speaker 8 you know, he has an advantage over not just those two, but J.B.

Speaker 8 Pritzker, who's been a little more forward-leaning, who clearly is running because he'll be free and clear to travel the country after 2026.

Speaker 8 And, you know, if he passes this bill, if that helps offset whatever chicanery Trump has planned for 2026, and it's not just going to be this,

Speaker 8 you know, that'll be helpful. But I would just caution, having gone through a lot of presidential races, that we are at like mile marker two of a marathon.

Speaker 8 And right now, Gavin Newsome is having a spurt, but there are a lot of tests in a race for president. So, you know, I wouldn't deduce from this that he will be the nominee of the party, but

Speaker 8 this is a great opportunity. And look, he is a great political athlete.
He is quick. He is a great performer.
He's smart. So, you know, he has

Speaker 8 a lot of assets. But as you point out, there are vulnerabilities as well over the course of a long political career.

Speaker 8 I don't think the party's going to punish him for having once been married to Kimberly Guilfoyle. But there are other things that will come up.

Speaker 8 And I did have him on my own podcast when I was doing the Axe Files podcast. And I did say, like, what were you thinking?

Speaker 8 And he said, well, she was a lot different than, which I accept, you know. But in this moment, you know, he is going to get a lot of, because Democrats are frustrated.

Speaker 8 You know, I hear this all the time. What are we going to fight?

Speaker 8 And then you say to people, well, what does that look like? And it's like, oh, I don't know.

Speaker 8 Because the fact is, when you have all the levers of power under your control,

Speaker 8 there's not that much. You can use dilatory tactics and so on, but there's not that much.

Speaker 8 to do. So Newsom now has something to actually do.
And I think that is advantageous for him. It's one way to strike back that is actually tangible and real.

Speaker 7 Yeah, it's definitely had the desired effect in terms of social media. I know it might sound trivial, but Democrats have been really bummed out that our representatives are so bad on social.

Speaker 7 And some of the videos are very earnest and charming, I guess. But we haven't really broken through.
And now he has like billions of impressions and Trump isn't using all cash.

Speaker 8 It may be because some of our leaders came to politics well before the social media age.

Speaker 7 That might have something to do with it.

Speaker 8 Even the television age. I don't know.

Speaker 7 Well, some of them, but I don't want to name names, but everyone knows that we've got an age problem. Yes.

Speaker 7 Definitely. Do you think that Trump going after mail-in ballots is going to work out for him? Because there are a lot of Republican states that are very pro using mail-in ballots.

Speaker 8 Well, the irony of the whole mail-in ballot thing

Speaker 8 was that it traditionally favored Republicans. Republicans.
And honestly, honestly, early voting mail-in ballots.

Speaker 8 The thing about the Trump campaign in 2024, aside from the spectacle of Trump himself, it was very well run and very smart.

Speaker 8 And they knew from the beginning that they were going to have to compete on the battlefield of early voting and mail-in ballots. So they cut Democratic advantage there.

Speaker 8 But I think it's meant to wound Democrats and hurt Democrats because Democrats tend to vote early and tend to use these ballots. But, you know, there's a whole different dynamic in a midterm election.

Speaker 8 The biggest problem for Trump is that there are a lot of voters who are Trump voters who really aren't irregular voters and aren't regular Republican voters.

Speaker 8 And the challenge that they haven't yet solved through several cycles is how do they overcome that?

Speaker 8 And that's, you know, as a Democratic Party, and I think this has some issues with it, but as the Democratic Party has become more of the party of college-educated, sort of metropolitan voters

Speaker 8 who are habitual voters, that's a big advantage in lower turnout elections. And so the big challenge for Trump and the Republicans in the midterms is going to be how do we get a big turnout?

Speaker 8 And how do we get our voters out who are not habitual voters, who are skeptical and cynical about the system?

Speaker 8 And the added problem for them, Jesse, is that a lot of those voters were motivated by the economy. and that ain't so good.

Speaker 8 You know, for all of Trump's bluster, you know, I used to hear Biden brag about Bidenomics during the campaign, and I used, and I said then, you can't jawbone people into feeling what they're not experiencing.

Speaker 8 You can't tell people up is down and down is up.

Speaker 8 Trump is trying because he thinks he could sell anything to anybody, but whether he can succeed over time, you know, now if the economy actually does improve, and the signs right now aren't real encouraging because of some of the things he's doing, if the economy were to improve, that would improve his chances.

Speaker 8 So all these little things may have some impact, and they're certainly designed to change the game. But the larger forces at play may be too much for him to overcome.

Speaker 7 Aaron Powell, Jr.: Yeah, historically speaking, Democrats should have a good midterm.

Speaker 8 Absolutely. Look, the last time an incumbent party won seats in the midterm election was in 2002 after 9-11.
George W. Bush picked up, I think, six seats in the House.

Speaker 8 And I think Clinton picked up some seats in 98. And some of it was a backlash to the Republicans going after him on the Lewinsky stuff.

Speaker 8 And some of it reflected the fact that there was a rip-roaring economy at the time.

Speaker 8 So there's a reason, Jesse, why he is.

Speaker 8 doing what he's doing. Yes, he's like, he knows that he is climbing uphill on this, and I think he's deathly worried.

Speaker 8 He's lived this once with a House of Congress that was actually fulfilling its obligations, and it wasn't good for him, and he doesn't want to go through it again.

Speaker 7 So I've spent a lot of time socially, which makes me sound like a loser, but professionally and in my regular life, thinking about a lot of the themes that you just mentioned and the numbers, right?

Speaker 7 That Donald Trump is underwater, general approval when it comes to the economy, immigration, which were his big two issues.

Speaker 7 I just always have this anxiety that Trump has defied history so many times and that he's also working to consolidate power at such an incredible pace that we just don't really know what we're in for.

Speaker 7 Yeah, no. You know, that you go to sleep and you wake up and D.C.
is militarized, right? And the same thing happened in Los Angeles.

Speaker 8 We've gone from

Speaker 8 zero to Hungary very fast.

Speaker 8 Yeah, no, it's look, Donald Trump is not ever to be underestimated.

Speaker 8 And I think the great advantage he has, in addition to that he is maybe one of the greatest salesmen in the history of the world and can sell anything, is that he has all this power now and he's consolidating it and he's neutralizing sources of opposition.

Speaker 8 But, you know, perhaps his greatest advantage is the Democratic brand is degraded. And that's something, I mean, I think that, you know, I would urge Democrats,

Speaker 8 yes, you have to challenge challenge Trump on all of these trespasses on democracy.

Speaker 8 You have to challenge him on all of the broken promises around the economy, which is really the principal reason he got elected.

Speaker 8 There's plenty to challenge him about, but you also have to address the things that caused you to be still to this day a degraded brand.

Speaker 7 You don't think that they have yet or that we're not doing a great job?

Speaker 8 No, I don't.

Speaker 8 I think that the fundamental problem, and I started hinting at this before, was the Democratic Party has increasingly become a party of metropolitan college-educated voters, and it still fashions itself and still believes itself to be the party of working people.

Speaker 8 And certainly, as opposed to the sort of kleptocracy that we see right now,

Speaker 8 it compares well on that front.

Speaker 8 But the truth is there is this attitudinal thing where Democrats approach working people, particularly the white working class, but working people generally, because we saw an erosion among Hispanics and younger black men too, approaches them as sort of as missionaries and as anthropologists.

Speaker 8 And they show up and they say, we're here to help you become more like us. And we know what you need.

Speaker 8 And we're going to fight for what you need. And it's laden with a kind of maybe unintended disrespect, but that's how it's felt.

Speaker 8 Because those folks deserve respect. You know, when we had a pandemic, you'll remember.
I do.

Speaker 8 You and I and a lot of people were fortunate enough to sit in front of our computers like this

Speaker 8 and make a living safely at home. Then there were a lot of people out there who actually had to go out and work and risk themselves.

Speaker 8 to grow things and make things and ship things to protect us and to care for us. And we cheered them.
We cheered them as essential workers. Remember, we called them essential workers.

Speaker 8 You may have been on your balcony banging pots. I don't know.

Speaker 7 Oh, all the pots. I don't cook.

Speaker 8 So finally they got use.

Speaker 8 You borrowed pots and banged them?

Speaker 7 Literally from a next-door neighbor who I ended up marrying, which was a nice COVID surprise.

Speaker 7 But yeah, we thought that we were heroes for that. And I remember the Atlantic piece about this, about us calling them essential workers.
And it was this pushback that basically just said, F you.

Speaker 7 Right. Like, we don't want to have to be doing this.
We would love to be able to be sitting inside now.

Speaker 8 Well, beyond that, the pandemic goes away and they sort of become invisible again.

Speaker 8 And so that's a real issue. And the Democratic Party has to do as much listening as talking and approach people with respect, not just for what they do, but for what they think.

Speaker 8 And that's a problem.

Speaker 8 The second thing is, I think that there's a general sense among a large number of Americans that the system has failed them, that the system is rigged, that they're working harder and harder to keep their heads above water, that their kids' prospects are less good than theirs were when they were kids, all of that,

Speaker 8 and that the system is corrupt in many ways. And honestly, it's more corrupt today than at any time in my lifetime.
And the Democratic Party is not exempt in that indictment.

Speaker 8 Democrats have to take a good hard look at that and talk about the future. You know, Donald Trump's doing a teardown.
And the question is: what are you going to build after that teardown?

Speaker 8 Are you simply going to restore what was there? Because you hear a lot of that. We're going to just fix all of

Speaker 8 that's not what people want. They're not interested in rebuilding what was the status quo.
They want something better. They want something new.

Speaker 8 They want something that will actually respond on a daily basis to their concerns and not the concerns of big-money lobbyists and campaign contributors.

Speaker 8 So the Democratic Party has to, if it wants to succeed, become the party of renewal, not just restoration.

Speaker 8 And you can't be the party of the status quo, and they've been maneuvered into being the party of a failed status quo.

Speaker 8 So I think there's a lot of thinking to be done and a lot of work to be done to put the party in a position come 2028 to be successful.

Speaker 8 And honestly, the quicker that happens, I think the candidates who are going to do well in 2026 are the candidates who recognize what I'm saying and who have something a little bolder, a little more authentic, a little bit more connected to people's lives to say.

Speaker 7 Yeah. I think, I mean, I don't want to make everything about the generational issue, but I've been doing this for about a year now and spoken to some incredible representatives.

Speaker 7 And I do notice that on the younger end of the spectrum, there are really innovative, exciting ideas that people have.

Speaker 8 Love them.

Speaker 7 Jake Auchinclaus, Ruben Gallego, Pat Ryan, Mallory McMorrow, I had on, who was super exciting.

Speaker 8 Marie Glusenkamp-Perez, you should talk to her. Oh, I should.
She's really interesting.

Speaker 7 I like how she, it doesn't matter how small it might seem to people. She's like, I am all about improving the lives of the people that I represent in this space.

Speaker 7 And, you know, last time I checked, that's what you were supposed to do. That's what you got hired to do.

Speaker 8 Right. And that's why she's gotten elected and re-elected in a district that Trump has carried three times.

Speaker 7 You know, I get it that everyone thinks their brand of politics is better, but I can't stand when folks tear down the people who have won these tough elections.

Speaker 7 Like I was listening to your Hacks on Tap episode a few weeks ago when you had on Alyssa Slopkin, and you can have disagreements with her about certain policy.

Speaker 7 You want to talk about Israel, et cetera. Like she wants to see that the people criticizing her couldn't have won.
Right.

Speaker 7 So would you rather have a senator from Michigan or would you rather just complain?

Speaker 8 And, you know, as much as anything, Alyssa is very, very much in in touch with her constituents. She knows what farmers and working people in that state are feeling and going through.

Speaker 8 She's commonsensical. She is willing to challenge both parties when necessary.

Speaker 8 And that's why she's successful, and that's what it's going to take to be successful, because as I said, the status quo is unacceptable to large numbers of people who, and the bullshit meters are tuned up very high.

Speaker 7 They're feeling it. Yeah.
Abigail Spanberger, a great person like that as well. And Mikey Sheryl.
Yeah.

Speaker 7 We're going to take a quick break. Stay with us.

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Speaker 7 Welcome back. On Monday, Ukraine's President Zelensky was at the White House with a group of European leaders, a sharp contrast to his rocky solo meeting with Donald Trump earlier this year.

Speaker 7 The visit followed Trump's high-profile sit-down with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, which failed to deliver a ceasefire, but allegedly sparked talk of a broader peace deal.

Speaker 7 Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, called the summit a breakthrough, though I didn't actually see much evidence for that.

Speaker 7 He said Putin agreed to U.S.-backed security guarantees for Ukraine, though the Russians are not confirming that. Allegedly, he eased his demands on land swaps, also not seeing confirmation of that.

Speaker 7 And Trump has shifted his own position, dropping the push for a ceasefire and instead aiming for a full peace agreement.

Speaker 7 The move clashes with Zelensky, who still insists fighting must stop before negotiations. And Secretary of State, Marco Rubio is cautioning that the U.S.
is nowhere near a deal.

Speaker 7 So basically, we have no idea what's going on. I want to reiterate for our listeners, we're recording this on Monday, but you know, 36,000-foot view.

Speaker 7 David, what did you make of Friday's summit in Alaska? And how are you feeling about the prospects of a deal that doesn't include remaking the USSR?

Speaker 8 Well, look,

Speaker 8 Friday itself was kind of a nothing burger, at least from the outside, because Trump went in with fire and brimstone about how he was going to demand a ceasefire.

Speaker 8 And if he didn't get a ceasefire, he was going to take punitive action in the form of sanctions that he's been threatening for months and that Congress has been poised to impose but haven't because he didn't want them.

Speaker 8 And then,

Speaker 8 you know, he went in like a lion and came out like a kitten, which has been the story of his relationship with Putin.

Speaker 8 And, you know, I go back to what I said before, you know, you hear a lot of people say, well, what does Putin have on Trump and all of that? I have no evidence of that. But I'll tell you this.

Speaker 8 I do think that they share this worldview. I think Trump admires Putin.
Remember what Trump said when Putin invaded Ukraine? He said, it's kind of genius.

Speaker 8 Kind of genius. Like if you can snatch a country, why wouldn't you?

Speaker 8 Because that's the way he views the world. And

Speaker 8 so Putin is telling him, look, we've got the advantage.

Speaker 8 We're just going to keep plowing away. I'm willing to go the distance on this until they submit.
You know, so this is the best you're going to get right now.

Speaker 8 I want this territory, the additional territory in the Donbass, which happens to be the most strategic territory that is being contested. He doesn't have it right now.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 I'll stop the war. Well, you know what? If you're a Ukrainian,

Speaker 8 you know, this guy has twice violated past pledges not to invade. So why would they accept his word? Now, Vladimir Putin's word is worthless.
So then comes the issue of security guarantees.

Speaker 8 And, you know, Trump apparently said, well, the United States might participate in that. What does that look like? But I'll tell you this:

Speaker 8 I always try and look at it from the standpoint of the politics of everyone involved.

Speaker 8 I think Zelensky is going to have a very hard time selling that kind of land concession or any land concession, but certainly that land concession to the Russians or in any way certifying that is Russian land.

Speaker 8 So we'll see. But you could see overnight, you know, because in the modern era, at least in the world of Donald Trump, we do the most sensitive diplomacy on Truth Social.

Speaker 8 Overnight, he said, well, it's up to Zelensky. He could end the war right now.

Speaker 8 Well, yeah, if you surrender, you know, I think someone should tell Trump, though, that Neville Chamberlain did not win a Nobel Peace Prize, that capitulation is not the same as making peace because it doesn't endure.

Speaker 8 You know,

Speaker 8 I thought that Rubio was right when I saw him on TV yesterday. He said that it has to be verifiable, it has to be enforceable, and it has to be enduring, whatever agreement they make.

Speaker 8 Otherwise, you're going to be right back here. Again, I'm with Putin.
I know Trump believes, oh, Putin would never do that to me.

Speaker 8 First of all, whether he likes it or not, Trump won't be with us forever. But maybe he thinks he can outlive Putin.
But I'm not sure anybody who comes after Putin will be all that much better.

Speaker 8 But I heard Trump doing his exit interview with Sean Hannity on your network there. And I made note of the fact that he said, well, it's really up to Zelensky now.

Speaker 8 And the fear out of this summit was that Putin would dictate the terms and then Trump would then try and force Zelensky to accept them.

Speaker 8 And everybody was was relieved when the post-press conference seemed to indicate, no, there really wasn't a deal and so on.

Speaker 8 Last thing on this, and I'm sorry you put in a quarter and got 10 plays here. No, I love it.

Speaker 8 As an American, I understand that you have to deal with foreign leaders on the terms you have to deal with them on when you're trying to negotiate something.

Speaker 8 But let us be clear, Vladimir Putin is a tyrant and a thug and a murderer, okay? He is a murderer.

Speaker 8 And for him to land and get full honors from a president of the United States with a military flyover and a red carpet and then, you know, lavish praise on the back end

Speaker 8 was disgusting to me. You know, Trump didn't have to do that.
I think Putin plays Trump like a strativarius. You know, when Barack Obama met...
Putin in 2009, Putin was the prime minister.

Speaker 8 Medvedev was the president, but Obama met with both. And in that meeting, he said to Obama kind of darkly, you know, you, you're an educated man.
I'm just an old security apparatchik.

Speaker 8 But he is an old security apparatchik, and he's brilliant at it. And Trump's the easiest mark on the planet.

Speaker 8 Every leader in the world now knows that all you need to do is flatter Trump and embrace whatever themes he wants embraced, and he will treat you well.

Speaker 8 What did he say when he heard Hillary Clinton on your podcast last week say she would nominate him for the I'm going to have to start liking her again. I'm going to have to start liking her again.

Speaker 8 That is the... That's it.

Speaker 7 He's so simple.

Speaker 8 Trump's very simple. If you're nice to him, he'll be nice to you.

Speaker 8 So Putin has this all gamed out. She, I think, on some level has some of that.
gamed out. All the Europeans understand now, you know, Zelensky was a late adopter to this for reasons I understand.

Speaker 8 But now everybody comes with a bouquet, you know. But I think he admires Vladimir Putin.

Speaker 8 I think he thinks Putin is tough and smart and made himself unbelievably rich while serving as president and conducts himself by the rules of the world the way the world really is, which is you take what you want however you can get it.

Speaker 7 Yeah, that's been, I guess, one of the more depressing lessons that I've been learning over the past few years.

Speaker 7 I've always been a kind of eternal optimist, you know, class half full type person, didn't want to take the Hobbesian view of everything, that it's just nasty, brutish, and short.

Speaker 7 And I don't know if it's just the Trump years that have pulled me over to that side, but I very much feel that way.

Speaker 7 And when I see these world leaders come together, and I agree with you that the Europeans want to be there as some sort of protection for Zelensky, and it takes a lot to get Macron to leave a vacation, right?

Speaker 7 A stylish Frenchman who wants to be by the beach. But I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist and you said, I have no evidence.

Speaker 8 You can go far in this business that way, you know?

Speaker 7 I do know that. Yes.
I'm trying to keep some semblance of normalcy, though, to be true to my brand. But I do think that something meaningful when they were in the beast by themselves.

Speaker 8 Yeah, that was ominous.

Speaker 7 I think that those moments mattered a lot, whatever.

Speaker 8 I mean, you know, it would help be helpful. I mean, like I said, I don't have any evidence of what that might, what might be.

Speaker 7 No, no, none of us do. But isn't it more fun when you don't?

Speaker 8 Well, I mean, but what I was going to say is if Putin had the most compromising material on Trump, would he behave that much differently than he is right now?

Speaker 7 No, and he's gotten, you know, it's not quite Helsinki level where Trump stood next to him and said he didn't meddle in the election. Right.

Speaker 7 But one of the pieces of reporting that the Times put out that I think was the most disturbing to me was that Trump and Putin really bonded over how much they hate Joe Biden.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 8 Well, that's part of Putin's genius, right?

Speaker 7 A hundred percent.

Speaker 7 But it also plays into all of these sideshows that we have going on right now that they're trying to relitigate the 2016 election and that Tulsi Gabbard wants us to believe the idea that Putin wanted Hillary Clinton to win versus Donald Trump.

Speaker 7 And maybe it's just that I work in conservative media, so I can foreshadow what the next few days of my life is going to look like. But I don't want those days of my life to look that way.

Speaker 7 You know, you want to be having a substantive conversation about, you know, what could have happened and what Zelensky reasonably could give up without completely selling out his country.

Speaker 7 And I'm always struck by the fact that, you know, how you have the list of demands, right? What Russia wants and what Ukraine wants. And the Russian demands never change.

Speaker 7 Literally, Vladimir Putin in four years has not even put comma

Speaker 7 something new. It's exactly the same, including the denazification of Ukraine.

Speaker 7 And watching Trump backpedal on True Social and even seeing how much someone like Marco Rubio, who does have moments where he looks like his old self,

Speaker 7 right, hedging on the Sunday shows and Steve Wittkoff just seemed totally out of his depth, frankly.

Speaker 7 But watching Rubio, I feel like he's the one with the most tells of the administration. Mike Waltz was as well, but Mike Waltz is no longer in that kind of position.

Speaker 7 And that's really concerning to me.

Speaker 8 I actually ascribe to Rubio being both the National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, the fact that Trump showed some public irritation with Putin.

Speaker 8 I thought, well, maybe Marco's whispering in his ear about some of this. But at the end of the day, you know, we'll see what happens here, but it doesn't feel good.

Speaker 8 You ever see the Manchurian candidate? Yeah, of course. The first version, the 62 version, much better than the second.
Yes.

Speaker 7 My parents made sure that I had that kind of education.

Speaker 8 Yeah. So anyway, enough said, go ahead.

Speaker 7 It's a valid point, but it also, I don't know, I'm scared to get over my skis because you talk to intelligent people who watch what goes on and they say, well, can anything be true except the absolute worst case scenario in all of this?

Speaker 7 And then the right pushes back and they say, you're insane.

Speaker 7 And you're stuck somewhere in the middle.

Speaker 7 But I want to make sure, because you mentioned when Obama met with Medvedev and Putin, you know, the Obama administration, the Biden administration, and the Trump administration have all tried to have some kind of reset with Russia.

Speaker 7 And it was literally called that in the Obama administration. And I should note as well that Trump is the only one who's tried to do it twice, right?

Speaker 7 The other ones, once they saw him for who he was or who he has always been, they backed off.

Speaker 7 But are there any lessons from what went on during the Obama years that you think are important to understand for the moment that we're in now?

Speaker 8 Well, I'll tell you what, when Obama met with Putin, the first 57 minutes of what was supposed to be a one-hour meeting, which turned into a two-hour meeting, which worked out to my benefit, by the way, because then I got to sit with Gorbachev for 45 minutes while he was waiting for Obama.

Speaker 8 So that was an incredible treat. The reason he was late was because the first 57 minutes, I think, were a diatribe from Putin on all the indignities the West had heaped on Russia.

Speaker 8 So, you know, that was, I think, a foreshadowing. Medvedev, who's now turned into like a troll for Putin on social media, was actually a much more reasonable figure back then.

Speaker 8 And they did get some stuff done that was valuable. But,

Speaker 8 you know, it's obvious that Putin was the power behind the throne there. And when he resumed his presidency, things really backslid.
And

Speaker 8 as you point out, not just in this negotiation, but for the last 20 years, Putin's fundamental motivations have been the same. He wants to try and reconstruct the Soviet empire.

Speaker 8 He wants to restore Russia to a position of leadership in the world. He wants spheres of influence, which is something that Trump also believes, that the strong sit down and carve up the world.

Speaker 8 I mean, I don't think Biden didn't understand that lesson. I think if there's a critique, you know, the Republicans like to say Obama didn't do anything when they took Crimea.
He did.

Speaker 8 I mean, they imposed very tough sanctions.

Speaker 8 They kicked them out of the G7, which I think did wound Putin, who has basically lived in a kind of exile on the world stage since that time, only to be ushered back in by Donald Trump in Alaska last week.

Speaker 8 But I think Biden was, you know, I think if you look back, you'd say at a moment when Russia was on its back legs and in deep deep trouble in this war, perhaps we should have provided more in terms of weapons.

Speaker 8 I mean, I think that's a very respectable argument.

Speaker 8 But the big thing is Putin is Putin. Putin has, you know, grand expansionist dreams and is willing, as we can see, to sacrifice millions of his people to that goal.

Speaker 8 And we need to approach him in that way. And so when you say to the Ukrainians, well, he's going to give you a letter, so good news.

Speaker 8 If that's really the case, you know, I'd be deeply, deeply worried about him.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 7 Hillary also said, besides the Nobel Peace Prize line, that character just doesn't change that much. And there's no one that's more true of than Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.

Speaker 8 Putin is as consistent as can be. And by the way, on this issue of what he was up to in 2016,

Speaker 8 it was not even a secret. It was very open how much he hated Hillary Clinton because he thought, as Secretary of State, that she had meddled in his internal affairs, in his politics.

Speaker 8 And so he was going to, he was out to punish her.

Speaker 8 I expect that he started out with no expectation that he could actually shift the outcome of that election. He just won the lottery, you know.

Speaker 7 You just get lucky sometimes in those meddlesome women, making it difficult for you. We're going to take another quick break.
Stay with us.

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Speaker 7 Welcome back. Before we go, Zaran Mandani's upset win in New York's mayoral primary has split Democrats.
Party leaders are very nervous.

Speaker 7 But Barack Obama, he picked up the phone, congratulating Mondani, offering advice, and talking about hope in dark times. And Obama World, that's you, David, seems to be lining up behind him.

Speaker 7 And I guess I want to hear if you think that that's the right phrasing.

Speaker 7 You visited Momdani's HQ. Patrick Espart is advising.
Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer are checking in with his team.

Speaker 7 All of this is happening even as leaders like Hakeem Jeffries and Christian Gillibrand hold back.

Speaker 7 What's going on?

Speaker 8 Well, first of all, let me say Patrick invited me to come over and meet Mom Donnie, and I was interested in doing it because

Speaker 8 he won an impressive victory in New York, and he seemed like an interesting person, and

Speaker 8 I wanted to see what was going on there. And I went over, and he indeed is interesting, and I think more thoughtful than his detractors would suggest.

Speaker 8 But I didn't know that Obama had called him, and he didn't mention it. And I didn't know that John and

Speaker 8 Dan were in touch with him either.

Speaker 8 But we all probably gravitated to the same place, which is this guy ran a very positive campaign and captured the imagination of a lot of New Yorkers, and especially younger New Yorkers, who

Speaker 8 have come to believe that

Speaker 8 through their own lived experience, that New York is unaffordable and that the city is rapidly becoming a city of the super rich and the very poor, and middle-class people are scuffling with ridiculous prices and costs and so on.

Speaker 8 That was a winning message.

Speaker 8 And honestly, it's a message that while New York is a special case, nationally, I think people are experiencing that. So I think that's a lesson that people can learn.

Speaker 8 I told Mom Donnie, I don't agree with every proposal that he has,

Speaker 8 but I know he's asking the right question, which is how do we make this a livable and affordable city for all New Yorkers and not just for the wealthiest?

Speaker 8 And he won, and he got, and he's the candidate of the Democratic Party. He won in part because young people voted in larger numbers.

Speaker 8 The early vote, for example, I think 25% of those early voters were voters who hadn't voted in mayoral elections before, and they were mostly young. That's good for the Democratic Party.

Speaker 8 You want to bring people back in. And

Speaker 8 I think it's a, I don't think that I living in Chicago or people living around the country, I don't think they should substitute their judgment about what they would want in their cities for what New Yorkers think is right for their city.

Speaker 8 And so and I think we don't go around screening mayoral candidates for ideological purity on every issue. I know that the Middle East, look, I'm the son of a Jewish refugee, okay?

Speaker 8 So Israel is important to me, and there are 15 million Jews in the world. Israel came into being after the Holocaust, 6 million Jews killed, and I know what it meant to my grandparents.

Speaker 8 I know what it means to subsequent generations that that is a safe place, a refuge for Jews.

Speaker 8 And at a time when anti-Semitism is welling up, that doesn't mean, though, that one has to embrace the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu.

Speaker 8 And you can love Israel and hate some of the policies of Netanyahu. I associate myself with that.

Speaker 8 And there are some issues on which I, you know,

Speaker 8 I disagree with Mandani relative to the Middle East. But he's not running for Secretary of State.
He's not going to make foreign policy.

Speaker 8 If he can make New York more affordable and livable for all its citizens, more power to him.

Speaker 7 Yeah, and that would be nice as one of of those younger-ish people. I mean, elder millennials, so I'm not young, young, you know, a New Yorker.

Speaker 8 Well, everything's relative. You're young to me.

Speaker 7 That's true. I was not at Stuyvesant in the late 60s.
Yes. But I've had to, you know, Mom Danny was not my choice.

Speaker 7 Actually, I had no choice in the field that I was actually interested in and was very disappointed that there wasn't a more.

Speaker 8 Did you vote?

Speaker 7 I did vote.

Speaker 8 Where did you rank Mom Danny? Are you willing to say?

Speaker 7 I actually didn't rank him. Oh.
I just voted for Cuomo.

Speaker 8 Oh.

Speaker 7 Yeah. Of Cuomo voters, I think that was the most common way of doing your ballot.
I haven't said that out loud, and I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of flack for it.

Speaker 7 But I mean, it's been pretty clear that I voted for Cuomo because I did think the New York Times editorial board, where they came down on this, where they basically said, I don't like him, but I think that of the field, he's going to be able to do the best job.

Speaker 7 And I still.

Speaker 8 I would have had to undo their persuasive editorials about why he should leave the governorship.

Speaker 7 It was a miserable situation for people. And then I saw and I started to pay more attention to Mandani and why people were gravitating towards him.
And I have, I'm at peace at this moment. I am,

Speaker 7 you know, not thrilled necessarily about some of the issues surrounding Israel. And I'm very critical of Netanyahu.
I don't, I think he's a criminal. I don't think he should be in this job anymore.

Speaker 7 I wish he had been out years ago.

Speaker 8 There are a lot of Israelis who would agree with you.

Speaker 7 Yeah, majority of Israelis would agree with me. But, you know, Mandani

Speaker 7 has not been perfect in addressing people's concerns. And there are a lot of Jews that still have them, but he also got 45, 46% of the Jewish vote.

Speaker 7 And Brad Lander, you know, made that happen a lot of ways.

Speaker 7 I don't know if he would have been as supportive if there had been an alternative to Cuomo, like if Dan Goldman had run or a Richie Torres or somebody else. But we are where we are at this point.

Speaker 7 And I think that this look of not supporting the Democratic nominee who won so overwhelmingly is just sending a signal, like we were talking about in the first part of our conversation, to Democratic voters that we're status quo folks.

Speaker 7 We like it the way it's always been.

Speaker 8 Well, listen, I mean, consider what's being said,

Speaker 8 that you

Speaker 8 should set aside the nominee of the Democratic Party and vote for a governor who had to resign in disgrace and make him the mayor of New York, someone who frankly hadn't expressed an interest in becoming mayor of New York and wanted to...

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 8 And who Donald Trump apparently has now at least covertly embraced. I mean, they've had discussions and so on.

Speaker 8 I mean, one of the things that makes people cynical about politics is the, well, you know, I don't like this person, but I fear the other person more.

Speaker 8 And honestly, that is one of the things that's turned a lot of young people away from the Democratic Party. Like, how about voting on the basis of hope and on aspirations and so on?

Speaker 8 Momdani is going to have to prove himself. I think he's going to be the mayor of New York.
I should too. And we'll see how he governs and who he brings with him to govern.

Speaker 8 I'm Patrick Aspard, who was our ambassador of South Africa, was in the Obama administration as a political director in the White House, House, who has a long history in New York.

Speaker 8 Patrick's a good guy, a very experienced guy. And there are other people around him who say to me, like,

Speaker 8 he's going to pursue his goals, and he has a progressive outlook, but I think he's going to be open to ideas and open to talented people.

Speaker 8 And I don't think it's going to be the sort of dystopic vision that

Speaker 8 Andrew Cuomo and the people who are trying to get him elected paint.

Speaker 8 So we'll see. But I'd rather take a bet on a hopeful candidate than on a cynical one.

Speaker 7 So you think hope and change

Speaker 7 can still win out?

Speaker 8 I'll tell you what, man,

Speaker 8 I can't get rid of that bug. I still believe in it.

Speaker 7 It's one of the best bugs that we've had.

Speaker 8 I still believe that the core of democracy is our ability to use the tools that we're given. And this is why maintaining the democracy is important.

Speaker 8 Use the tools that are given to us to try and perfect our country and perfect our union. And when things aren't working, to chart corrective courses or other courses and explore other ideas.

Speaker 8 That's part of the genius of America. That's what's inspired the world, or one of the things.
So, yeah, I still believe in that stuff.

Speaker 8 And what I saw when I went over to his headquarters were a lot of young people who did as well. And I thought that was a very encouraging thing.

Speaker 7 Yeah. It would be nice if we could get back to those vibes.
Yeah. For sure.
David Oxelrod, thank you so much for your time. This was awesome.

Speaker 8 Jesse, pleasure to be with you.

Speaker 8 Invite me back. Definitely.
Anytime Scott goes on another month-long vacation.

Speaker 7 Yeah, or even with Scott. We could all hang.

Speaker 8 Yes, we should go hang on whatever yacht he's sailing and maybe do one on the back deck, you know?

Speaker 7 The way that Scott bops around the world is a sight to behold. He's amazing.
Yeah.

Speaker 8 He is sui generis. Sue generis, one of a kind.

Speaker 7 100%.

Speaker 8 But you got a good thing going here, so thank you for inviting me.

Speaker 7 It was my pleasure. Thanks for your time.
That's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to Raging Moderates.
Our producers are David Toledo and Eric Junikiss.

Speaker 7 Our technical director is Drew Burroughs. Going forward, you'll find Raging Moderates every Wednesday and Friday.

Speaker 7 Subscribe to Raging Moderates on its own feed to hear exclusive interviews with sharp political minds. This week, I'm talking to my co-host on The Five and the host of Guttfeld, Greg Guttfeld himself.

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