And, This is Pod Save America's Jon Favreau & Tommy Vietor

Transcript

Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.

Speaker 2 Life gets messy. Spills, stains, and kid chaos.
But with Anibay, cleaning up is easy. Our sofas are fully machine washable, inside and out, so you never have to stress about messes again.

Speaker 2 Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics, that means fewer stains and more peace of mind.

Speaker 2 Designed for real life, our sofas feature changeable fabric covers, allowing you to refresh your style anytime. Need flexibility? Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly.

Speaker 2 Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes. Plus, they're earth-friendly and built to last.
That's why over 200,000 happy customers have made the switch.

Speaker 2 Get early access to Black Friday pricing right now. Sofas started just $699.

Speaker 2 Visit washable sofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life. That's washablesofas.com.
Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Speaker 4 No, it's not too soon to start holiday shopping.

Speaker 5 Ulta Beauty's early Black Friday event is happening now through November 22nd.

Speaker 9 Shop $10 beauty minis from brands like Mac and Too Faced.

Speaker 13 Take 30% off Lancome and Touchland fragrances and body mists.

Speaker 17 With new offers dropping every week, our associates can help you find the perfect gifts.

Speaker 22 Head into Ulta Beauty today to shop our early Black Friday event, Ulta Beauty.

Speaker 25 Gifting happens here.

Speaker 27 Want Black Friday prices without the crowds?

Speaker 28 Lowe's gets it.

Speaker 29 Shop their early Black Friday deals and beat the rush.

Speaker 36 $99 is all you need to grab a select seven-foot pre-lit artificial Christmas tree for the holidays.

Speaker 37 And don't sweat what gifts to get, Dad.

Speaker 39 They have up to 40% off select tools and accessories going on now.

Speaker 43 That's how Lowe's celebrates Black Friday early.

Speaker 46 Selection varies by location while supplies supplies last.

Speaker 47 It's the season to come together over your holiday favorites at Starbucks.

Speaker 50 Warm up with a creamy caramel brulee latte.

Speaker 52 Get festive with an iced gingerbread chai, or share a velvety peppermint mocha.

Speaker 54 Together is the best place to be at Starbucks.

Speaker 55 Looking for a gift that's both magical and meaningful? The Story Dream Machine is perfect for birthdays, milestones, and holidays.

Speaker 55 Each machine comes with three stories and even includes a white noise nightlight mode for bedtime. It's a beautiful way to introduce a new generation to the stories you loved growing up.

Speaker 55 Get this magical and meaningful gift for your little one today. Available at Walmart, Target, Amazon, Costco, and LittleTykes.com.
Bring story time to life with the Story Dream Machine.

Speaker 56 This is Gavin Newsom. And this is Pod Save America's Jon Favreau and Tommy v torn

Speaker 56 when did you guys become crooked by the way what the hell is that

Speaker 56 we were always seriously man i mean was that a tell are you guys trying to tell i mean what what are you what were you trying to communicate we named it in 2017 when we started yeah and more people knew pod save america than crooked at first but we thought crooked media like uh it was it was 2017 so it was the height of trump just won resistance he's calling everyone the crooked media and all that kind of stuff we were taking it was tongue-in-cheek you take take it back you weren't just admitting to something no no no but but then it's stuck and now we don't know what

Speaker 56 now it's just here and so i mean but the point is the point i mean this thing is this thing has evolved from 2017 in ways that you can act in hindsight like of course we always knew this was our trajectory our vision our dream but did you have any no bullshit did you have any idea that this thing would be where it is today and you guys would be so multifaceted, not just with one podcast, multiple podcasts and books and tours, everything else?

Speaker 56 No, absolutely not. Absolute luck in timing.

Speaker 57 Me and John, Favreau, and Love It, we sat in John's kitchen and we bought like a website on medium.com.

Speaker 56 We tried a bunch of URLs. I love it.

Speaker 57 We couldn't get like crookedmedia.com. We couldn't get crooked.com for a long time.
We like got into negotiation with the porn king of Arizona.

Speaker 56 Yeah, there's some guy that

Speaker 56 sells porn sites in Arizona that

Speaker 56 crooked media. And he

Speaker 56 wouldn't sell. He just wouldn't sell it.
He

Speaker 56 He was passionate about it.

Speaker 56 So we had to go crooked.com for our website. Yeah, or like get crooked media.

Speaker 57 Anyway, we rolled out like a medium website in one show and called it a company and stood like fake it till you make it for a while.

Speaker 56 We also had no money.

Speaker 56 And we I remember we went to the Bank of America and West Hollywood, the three of us, and we're like, we'd like to open up a bank account.

Speaker 56 And they're like, okay, well, you need to put some money in it. And we're like, oh.

Speaker 56 So we sat there and we like wrote a $25 check or something. We had cash.

Speaker 56 Was that woman's name? Wasn't it Olga or helping us?

Speaker 56 Yeah, she helped us. And that's how we started.
No investor money, no nothing.

Speaker 57 I think John turned to us. He's like, I always sort of thought I'd open a joint account for the first time with my wife.

Speaker 56 Yeah, that is true.

Speaker 56 But was it, were you guys drunk one night and you said, we got some crazy idea or we're just looking for a job, help wanted? What was it?

Speaker 56 So Tommy and Lovett and I, like after the White House, had talked about how there's not enough progressive media, right? And so we'd have, the three of us had been having that conversation.

Speaker 56 Then during the 2016 race, Bill Simmons reached out to me

Speaker 56 because we'd known each other. We both went to Holy Cross.

Speaker 56 And he said, so I have this new site called The Ringer, and I want to do something about the 2016 election because we mostly do sports and culture and stuff.

Speaker 56 But would you be interested in doing like a podcast with us for 2016? And he knew Dan Pfeiffer too. And he was like, maybe you and Dan can do this podcast.
So we started doing it, became popular.

Speaker 56 And then he's like I could do two two times a week and then uh Lovett and Tommy were around and we said let's let's do it and so then we started doing it with uh at the ringer and then when Trump won um we told Bill like look I think we want to build something even bigger than just pod save america and old the time it was called keeping at 1600

Speaker 56 we want to do something even bigger and it's weird to build a progressive media company like under the umbrella of the ringer so we're gonna go on our own and that's what we did. Wow.

Speaker 56 And did you, I mean, you guys are still doing early-on side gigs and sort of hedging your bet. I lived in San Francisco.

Speaker 57 I was commuting down, crashing in his guest bedroom the whole time.

Speaker 56 We had a company together.

Speaker 56 We had a consulting firm. Consulting.
Full-fledged consulting firm. And strategies.
We did speech writing. Speech writing.
So there was speech writing, of course, which is a good gig.

Speaker 57 But like, yeah, but people in my life, when, you know, look,

Speaker 57 going to your wife and saying, honey, I want to move to Los Angeles to start a podcast with my friends in my like late 30s.

Speaker 56 Like, that's a tough thing. You weren't 20.
That's a tough show. She wasn't totally surprised, though.

Speaker 57 Not surprised, not sold.

Speaker 57 Wonderful person, supportive partner, lover.

Speaker 56 Good.

Speaker 56 She came along for the rest. That would be a good clip.
We'll get that out. Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 56 I'm serious. I think we may lead with that.
Thank you.

Speaker 56 It's nice.

Speaker 57 But yeah, I mean, I think, you know, people I love desperately were like, cool, but you got like a fallback, right?

Speaker 56 We do. That was it, but you know, you just, you were all in.
You just knew it was going to. Yeah, once we started Crooked, we realized that, you know, we had to move off of Fenway.

Speaker 56 And also, I think we both had gotten, you know, we'd done it for three, four years. I think we'd gotten sick of writing speeches for

Speaker 56 we had some really great clients. You also end up working with a bunch of people.
Well, you do a company,

Speaker 56 corporate stuff, too. Yeah, the whole thing.
And that stuff is CEOs.

Speaker 56 It is hard after you've been in politics to get really excited and exercised over some CEO who like needs a speech in four weeks and is like, it's urgent. And we're like, it's not that urgent.

Speaker 56 It's a urgent fine. State of the union's urgent.
Exactly.

Speaker 57 I also had this sort of weird, I don't know where it came from, ingrained belief that like I needed to be an adult now and graduate from politics, the things I did with my friend and get a real job, right?

Speaker 57 I don't know why I thought that. And then throughout 2015, I'd wake up at 5 a.m.

Speaker 57 and like just scroll Twitter for an hour and a half or two before doing my job but I was just I was obsessed with politics I could not quit it it's interesting by the way is Twitter the go-to in terms of just trying to I mean and it continues to be right I mean objectively

Speaker 56 I've tried to blue sky I have not and no are you it's just not yeah I get why people go there I just think it's it's it's not fast enough it's not updated enough with the news there's not enough people so where else I mean it's interesting just as you guys prepare for your podcast and you're just staying on top of everything and you're of course making the news which is a big part of the obvious part of your success

Speaker 56 where else what what are you what's your other what is your media habit are you cable folks or you go home turn on rachel matto on monday and wonder when she's coming back tuesday through friday or you know or what i mean honestly there's what what's i never do cable anymore i wake up i read playbook i read axios a.m

Speaker 56 and then um i immediately go to the company slack and people are putting news stories in the slack and then i'm looking on twitter and I try to have about an hour of just reading the news and catching up with

Speaker 56 go to the New York Times, go to the Washington Post, Politico. And then after I do that, then I try to do other things, but I am constantly scrolling and getting back into the.

Speaker 56 Is that the menu for you? Similar?

Speaker 57 I similar stuff, but I'm a sicko like you. Like, we only have Fox on in our office because we kind of like the conservative perspective.

Speaker 56 But then I like to listen to it. By the way, I just walked in, and it's a newsom swearing like a drunken sailor.
With Sean Ryan. Sean Reynolds.
I want to say Chiron. Turns out a drunken sailor.

Speaker 56 You make a lot of appearances on Fox. We do now.

Speaker 56 The more you watch it, you become a character and you're like, oh,

Speaker 56 yeah. But

Speaker 56 you indulge, you're watching.

Speaker 57 Yeah, I listen to like, I try to listen to Tucker, especially around the Iran stuff. I listen to a lot of Bannon.

Speaker 57 I dabble around InfoWars recently.

Speaker 56 You're doing InfoWars. Yeah, I mean, you just can't quit.
I think it's really even after the bankruptcy. Like, you know,

Speaker 56 it's weird.

Speaker 56 Is it the Epstein thing that brought you back to the Info Wars? It was so much fun. It was Iran.

Speaker 57 Like, watching sort of, hearing their arguments on things, I think, is really valuable.

Speaker 56 And also,

Speaker 57 like, there's people who you see only clips of, and you kind of, you caricature them or decide that they're stupid or useless.

Speaker 57 And then if you see them in their kind of home environment, you realize, like, oh, these are dangerous people.

Speaker 56 I love that. And who, I mean, by the way, I could not agree with you more on that in terms of observations.
One of the reasons when I started this podcast, we had those guys on. We had Bannon on.

Speaker 56 We had Kirk on, because I don't think people were taking them as seriously as they should be taking them.

Speaker 56 But who do you, when you guys look at that universe, particularly from the conservative or even conspiratorial conservative side, who are the folks that would be in that category as folks that, you know, are weapons for that grievance, that are folks that we should pay a little bit more attention to?

Speaker 56 I mean, is it, do you still count Alex Jones in that space or is it more the Bannon types?

Speaker 57 Tucker and Bannon are kind of the most,

Speaker 57 they're just really good at what they do.

Speaker 56 But like, look, I think they have the most cohesive ideology, too.

Speaker 57 And they're just like, Tucker Carlson's a very, look, I don't agree with him on most, almost anything, but he's very talented at what he does.

Speaker 57 And he like brings in the, like, I listened to his entire interview with Sean Ryan before I listened to you on Sean's show.

Speaker 57 Cause like initially, Tucker was saying some things about Trump, and Sean was saying some things about Trump being corrupt. And I was like, ooh, this is damaging to Trump.
This is good.

Speaker 57 But then I got sucked in because Sean Ryan's like a Navy SEAL who became a CIA contractor, who became a drug runner for cartels in Medina.

Speaker 56 And I'm like, this is the most interesting fucking guy I've ever heard of.

Speaker 56 You go in his studio, and if you didn't think that was interesting, you just look at all the memorabilia he has and the stories, there's a hinge, and he explains what that hinge did and what it represented.

Speaker 56 And there's machetes and there's all kinds of other things. You got to go to that, huh?

Speaker 56 And I even got it, by the way, for the record, for the 10 reporters that have already called, have you registered it? First, I haven't received it yet. Have you reported it as a gift?

Speaker 56 I haven't yet received the invoice yet. All of that

Speaker 56 that will be taken care of. Just on record.

Speaker 57 You didn't leave for like 15 hours or something.

Speaker 56 Yours are four hour interviews, right?

Speaker 57 Four hours. Did you not pee? Can you believe four hours?

Speaker 56 Did you pee during this? We had one quick break.

Speaker 56 By the way, I got to say about that guy,

Speaker 56 it's a hell of a resume.

Speaker 56 There's a decency to him. Oh, he seemed great.
Meaning, he's like, he talks about his family. I just, for me, the character is about, I want to talk about your kids, talk about your wife.
Yeah.

Speaker 56 A sense of community contribution.

Speaker 56 He's a good human being. I was really, I was, he created a sort of safe environment where, you know, I mean, that's where you, how else are you going to spend four damn hours going back and forth?

Speaker 56 I haven't had a four-hour conversation with my wife, my closest friends, my parents in as long as I can remember, like four hours.

Speaker 56 Well, this is only scheduled for three.

Speaker 56 So I admit I missed them all

Speaker 56 as well.

Speaker 57 I don't know Sean Ryan's politics. I did like come away just feeling like he really wanted to connect with you as a human being and he seemed curious, and I really respected that.

Speaker 57 There was one very funny moment in the interview where you're doing this, like, thoughtful answer about masculinity and politics, and you sort of do this long thing.

Speaker 57 And Sean goes, Do you know what the number one most searched porn term?

Speaker 56 I laughed out loud. I texted your salh when I got that, and I was like, Wow, didn't realize incest porn was going to come up in our

Speaker 56 2:30. 230.

Speaker 56 Hey, guys, legit, you listened. I mean, that was, uh, yeah, that was way deep in.

Speaker 56 Well, I thought he asked me, well, I don't know now. We're going to get into the condom conversation.

Speaker 56 Did you sign the condom conversation?

Speaker 56 You know, very funny during the condom one because I could hear, I could, I could see the wheels turning in your mind because he was like, did you have anything to do with the condom lot?

Speaker 56 And you're thinking, like, is he for it? Is he against it? Like, I can't tell. He doesn't do 2,000 bills a year.
I mean, it's been seven years. I mean, I may have done something.

Speaker 56 Like, I feel, should I feel guilty? Am I proud of it?

Speaker 56 And then he was like, no, I think porn is really bad for our kids. And I was like, oh, you're like, okay, okay, that's where it got.
on that side of it. Okay.
That's fine. You.

Speaker 56 So what, you know, look, it goes to what you guys were trying to solve for back in 2017, that the right at the time, it wasn't even the big podcast, was probably, or was, was a not dominantly right-wing radio, right?

Speaker 56 That you were kind of up against. And some emerging,

Speaker 56 who was sort of the dominant right-wing podcaster in 2017, 18? Or were there any that would really stand out? Do you recall? It's funny.

Speaker 56 I don't think it was like a big deal back then. I'm sure like the Ben Shapiro kind of emerged around that time.
Daily Wire time. Daily Caller, Daily Wire.

Speaker 57 I don't know the dates in my head. Right.

Speaker 57 But yeah, I think those guys did a really smart thing.

Speaker 57 The right-wing donors invested earlier and helped them build infrastructure, and they all invested in YouTube early and built shows there and audience there.

Speaker 56 There's something about the format which we stumbled into, like we didn't plan this,

Speaker 56 but we had complained to each other and anyone who would listen how cable and like television interviews just,

Speaker 56 they force you into sound bites because you only have a five-minute hit. 100%.
And so you just don't get to have those conversations.

Speaker 56 And before, like at one point, Lovett and Tommy and I pitched a television show that was going to be like a like Pod Save America on TV before we did the

Speaker 56 podcast. Everyone's like, no.

Speaker 56 Well, every time we did it. We did an HBO thing out of you.

Speaker 56 Yeah, that was just our podcast.

Speaker 56 But then it was like, when we tried to pitch that show, it wasn't working partly because we're like, the conversations we want to have are longer than like television executives would want to fit into a show.

Speaker 56 And once we started doing the podcast, we realized, like, oh, you get to have conversations that are more in-depth, nuanced. People are more likely to be themselves the longer you talk to them.

Speaker 56 And you can sort of make the points you want to make without sounding like a fucking talking point machine. And was YouTube the weapon for you to really scale this? I mean, was it the visual?

Speaker 57 When did it become more of a visual medium than just online just voice there were some like inflection points seemingly in podcasting I think one of them was 2017 when

Speaker 57 there were a lot of like OG podcasters who came along before that time like Simmons and Mark Marin and lots of folks but I think there was a a lot of growth in 17

Speaker 57 which

Speaker 57 Got us a lot of people's like first podcast was us. We built a big RSS feed.

Speaker 57 We actually didn't invest enough into YouTube until pretty recently, and that was a mistake and it's a deficit we're trying to build out of. But that just takes reps.

Speaker 56 I think we didn't even film until the pandemic. You weren't even filming.

Speaker 56 Because I remember there's a little, we have like a Dan Pfeiffer on the phone and a picture of Dan because Dan's in San Francisco. And so we used to do that because Dan would just agent the phone.

Speaker 56 There was no, yeah. And then in the pandemic, we all started doing Zoom.
And then I think after that, we were like, now we got to do a whole studio and we'll do filming.

Speaker 56 What do you guys think is the biggest, I mean, if you look back at some of those early podcasts with you guys, what's the biggest change, perceived or otherwise, intentional or just happenstance in terms of how you approach interviews versus how you approached them before?

Speaker 56 Have you become more or less fill in the blank? What?

Speaker 56 Argumentative, passive?

Speaker 56 Good question. You know what I've been trying to do is

Speaker 56 approach interviews thinking, what do I actually want to know from this person?

Speaker 56 And not think about it in terms of like, what is the audience going to need and want and be happy about? And I also think that

Speaker 56 I'm trying not to interview politicians like they are interviewed on cable,

Speaker 56 which I think I sort of automatically fell into when we first started doing it because

Speaker 56 that's the example that you have.

Speaker 56 And when you interview them like that, they're more likely to just give you the talking point stuff.

Speaker 56 And when you sit down for a while, then

Speaker 56 you get more interesting stuff. You break them down.
You break them down. And it's not even like, oh, you finally get news out of them that their staff's going to be pissed about.

Speaker 56 It's just, you know, like

Speaker 56 just listening to you for four hours on Sean Ryan, it's like, I knew I got to learn more about you than I've learned in many other interviews. You know, it was just...
Jesus.

Speaker 57 And like, not to, not to blow smoke, but I don't think there's a lot of Democrats that could just hang like that for four hours. Like everyone's like, oh, Democrats go on Rogan.

Speaker 56 It's like, well, not the wrong Democrat. You know what I mean? Like, that's not going to help our case.
Yeah.

Speaker 57 But yeah, I think

Speaker 56 to your question about Rogan came on that podcast, too, from that first question, which is

Speaker 56 what I was expecting.

Speaker 57 That was

Speaker 56 an audience question. The first one, I'm like, whoa, okay.

Speaker 56 I got a gun and then I got a gun. I see the back seat question.
Oh, with Rogan. Anyway, rocky start.

Speaker 58 If you have ever worried about the safety of your home, you need to hear this. Right now, Simply Safe is giving This Is Gavin Newsome listeners early access to their Black Friday sale.

Speaker 58 Here's why SimplySafe is the only security system you should trust to keep your home safe. Typical security systems don't really prevent someone from entering your home.

Speaker 58 They just react once someone is already inside. Real security stops a crime before it even starts.
That's why over 4 million Americans trust SimplySafe.

Speaker 58 SimplySafe takes action before a criminal gets into your home. The moment someone steps onto your property, AI security cameras identify the threat and alert SimplySafe's live agents.

Speaker 58 Agents take action immediately, confronting the criminal and, if they need to, triggering sirens and dispatching the police. SimplySafe is like having your own personal security guard.

Speaker 58 And right now, you can take 60% off any new system with early access to SimplySafe's Black Friday sale at simplysafe.com/slash Gavin. That's simplysafe.com slash gavin for 60% off.

Speaker 58 There's no safe like simply safe.

Speaker 2 Life gets messy. Spills, stains, and kid chaos.
But with Anibay, cleaning up is easy. Our sofas are fully machine washable, inside and out, so you never have to stress about messes again.

Speaker 2 Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics, that means fewer stains and more peace of mind.

Speaker 2 Designed for real life, our sofas feature changeable fabric covers, allowing you to refresh your style anytime. Need flexibility? Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly.

Speaker 2 Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes. Plus, they're earth-friendly and built to last.
That's why over 200,000 happy customers have made the switch.

Speaker 2 Get early access to Black Friday pricing right now. Sofas started just $699.

Speaker 2 Visit washablesofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life. That's washable sofas.com.

Speaker 37 And don't sweat what gifts to get, dad.

Speaker 46 Selection varies by location while supplies last.

Speaker 47 The holidays are back at Starbucks, so share the season with a peppermint mocha.

Speaker 47 Starbucks signature espresso, velvety mocha, and cool peppermint notes, topped with whipped cream and dark chocolate curls.

Speaker 57 No, I do have a bone to pick with you, though, because when you launched...

Speaker 56 Four hours, you got more than a bone. I mean, I got an entire

Speaker 56 skeleton.

Speaker 57 When you launched this show, I had been trying to, I've been in talks with Steve Bannon because I was trying to book him.

Speaker 56 And my strategy with this was trying to get Steve on.

Speaker 57 I do think it's interesting. And I was kind of hoping to drive a wedge between the kind of populist wing and the Elon wing of the party because they were just starting to fight, right?

Speaker 57 And then you had him on, and I was just like, well, shit. I can't do that now.
You know, I'm old news. You're old news?

Speaker 56 Steve's got a

Speaker 56 derivative of this newsome guy.

Speaker 57 Steve's got a new crush. You know, I can't even talk to him.

Speaker 56 You started big with like Bannon and Charlie Kirk, and now you're at us.

Speaker 56 I had Dr. Phil.

Speaker 56 Yeah,

Speaker 56 that's good. That's good.
Even Newt Gingrich, who helped run my recall. You need filler guests every once in a while.
Yeah, no, filler guests.

Speaker 56 So, but

Speaker 56 back to that, just, I mean, when you talk about that, it's serious. I mean, you guys, you've sort of raised the bar, your own expectation, your own excellence.

Speaker 56 I mean, how do you, I mean, how important are guests to you guys versus just staying current on the news and providing an insight that may not be offered anywhere else because of your own experience.

Speaker 56 I mean, how stressed are you about getting a banan type or getting whoever's, you know, I mean, getting, you know, Jeffrey Epstein's, you know, cousin on who we'd love to talk about, who's really in the list.

Speaker 57 Booking Epstein would be huge. Yeah.

Speaker 56 By the way, I'm told he's alive. Some say.
Some say.

Speaker 56 When in doubt, some say. Yeah, some say.

Speaker 56 Some say.

Speaker 57 Many people are saying that. Some say.
I would say that we spend the most time on the news portion of the show, which is like kind of the first like three blocks because that's when you just

Speaker 57 it just takes a lot of for me it takes a lot of preparation to feel prepared and have something to say and to feel

Speaker 57 to reduce my own anxiety about doing something I just have to like work until I feel comfortable 100%

Speaker 57 the guest

Speaker 57 for I think early in the show we felt the need to go for names or electeds or to check a box in some way and now it's a little more freewheeling like what is interesting to the audience And also, you know, I think we were very much a democratic safe space, and we still are, and we're trying to think of ways to like

Speaker 57 change it up.

Speaker 57 You know, like I Glenn Greenwald on the other day on my foreign policy show, like, not someone that a lot of Democrats love, but has a really interesting perspective on freedom of speech, and we wanted to hear it.

Speaker 56 Yeah, I had, I talked to Ross Dauphet on offline about his book on religion and like the existence of an afterlife,

Speaker 56 which the, I would say, our audience was a little like,

Speaker 56 what are you doing? But I was like, you know what? I read the book. I found it interesting.
I want to talk to him.

Speaker 56 I also like,

Speaker 56 we are always going to be Democratic strategists because that was our life in the White House. And so each show I see as like balancing a couple different equities.

Speaker 56 One is want to make it interesting for people. The other is I want to give people good information and not just bullshit and give them the details that they need.

Speaker 56 And then I want to make sure we are persuading people,

Speaker 56 either people who aren't persuaded who are listening or

Speaker 56 people who are already persuaded who are listening, but might be talking to their friends and family.

Speaker 56 And we sort of want to give them advice on how to convince other people to get involved in politics, to vote for Democrats, right? And so

Speaker 56 that's part of it too. And then we also want to be honest so that when you know, Democrats fuck up or do something that we disagree with, that we can say it and say it respectfully.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 56 When did you guys, I mean, it's you obviously we talked, I mean, it's obvious to anyone who listens to you guys, but it's not just a podcast in a nutritional sense.

Speaker 56 You've kind of, to your point, sort of built a movement. The book itself was about democracy, is about civic engagement.

Speaker 56 You lead with action, not just complaints and gripes. You talk about what people can do to get mobilized, organized.

Speaker 56 But one of the things that's really been remarkable to watch is how successful you've been on the road in building out events. Was that always part of the original theory of the case?

Speaker 56 Was that sort of table stakes in 2017 said, yeah, and we'll do this, but we're going to do big events. We didn't think anyone would show up.
No.

Speaker 57 We had this amazing agent named Kevin Shivers, who worked at WME,

Speaker 57 now is at, I'll put the name.

Speaker 56 Casey Wasserman.

Speaker 57 Sorry. Now is it, we had this amazing agent, Kevin Shivers at WME.
Now he's with Casey Wasserman, who was like, trust me, let me build this touring thing for you. I promise you it'll work.

Speaker 56 And we're like, okay, buddy.

Speaker 57 And the first time we did an event,

Speaker 57 there were like folding chairs, and we didn't realize that we had to end the event. And Lovett had to run off at like hour three to go pee.

Speaker 56 And government. Jay Angel was on the stage with us.

Speaker 56 Taking questions about light rail.

Speaker 56 It was a late night in Seattle. There's a lot of show on the show.
We're definitely talking about the same Jay Angela. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 57 And like, yeah, we slowly evolved and like kind of figured it out. But what we noticed over time is that a lot, often the best shows were in red states because it turned into this like little revival.

Speaker 56 Get it. Totally get it.
I was just in South Carolina and did seven, nine events.

Speaker 56 And to the same, every time I'm in a red state, it could be Alabama, Mississippi, was out there for Biden, specifically going to the Red States on his behalf, intentionally not going to the blue states.

Speaker 56 And every, I mean, the state of mind there is just more of gratitude. Thank you for showing up.
Exactly. Thank you for not turning your back.
Arkansas was the same way.

Speaker 56 And so I'm not surprised to hear that. It didn't surprise me even with Bernie on the tour saying, well, you're part in red rural parts of California or red parts of the status.
Of course. Yeah.

Speaker 56 I mean, you're going to get that energy. Well, because there's still, you know, 20, 30% of those red areas are still Democrats.
And those Democrats are starved. Yeah.
Starved. For someone.

Speaker 56 But I also think that, I mean, what I've really loved about the touring is just...

Speaker 56 You spend too much time in a studio with just

Speaker 56 your co-hosts. And

Speaker 56 you do lose, lose, you like, what are people talking about? What's interesting? You don't get that just by like looking online and looking on Twitter

Speaker 56 and just being around people. Like, I get energy from that.

Speaker 56 And then, when we go and do campaign stuff before, like, midterms, and we go do, you know, we knock on doors and do canvassing, and just like getting to meet people and talk to them, it does inspire you because you're like, okay, all is not lost.

Speaker 56 There's a lot of good people out there who care about this shit. And, you know, they just want to know what to do.

Speaker 56 And Trump treats it like he treats going to events like he's a a comic on the road yeah he tries out new material he sees what plays he comments back to them about how it's playing in real time and he like he focus groups everything he does in that sense it's interesting you say that because he the whole news he calls me new scum and he goes oh audience loves it audience loves it and it's just it's just like he's i mean he says so it's applause so he's like hey man i gotta i gotta go you know they gotta go with my it's my base it's my base nothing person it's a way of him saying nothing personally

Speaker 56 i'm like really okay jesus

Speaker 56 But it's interesting, just, I reflect on what you guys are doing, reflect going back to Charlie Kirk and turning point, obviously this weekend, and there was a sort of turning point as it relates to the Epstein stuff.

Speaker 56 We've danced around that a little bit and watching Megan Kelly, who's like, I think, gone full mega. She's always danced around, but is now fully in.

Speaker 56 And Charlie, and of course, Bannon and the who's who.

Speaker 56 teen off. But before we get into Epstein, I mean, what do you think of what Kirk is doing and how he's doing it? And are there cues? Are there lessons? Are there concerns?

Speaker 56 Should be

Speaker 56 cautionary flags for Democrats. Should we be doing some similar things, but from the prism of progressive politics? What's your sort of over-under on what they've put together?

Speaker 57 I think it's really smart and strategic. I thought it was interesting, just

Speaker 57 for present day, I thought it was interesting that they allowed so much space for conversation about Epstein. Because like,

Speaker 57 Charlie, like, to a large extent, I think, kind of

Speaker 57 trades his credibility for a seat at the table, right?

Speaker 57 Like, he will be on Team Trump eventually, but he felt the need to let some air out of that balloon, and it was notable, and not something the Democrats always do.

Speaker 57 I think we sometimes suppress arguments, and we should do more of what they did. It's interesting.
I will say, what he's built is super impressive.

Speaker 57 It did help that he got a ton of like big donor and fossil fuel money early on because they were kind of worried about libs on campus.

Speaker 57 And I think we need to think about long-term infrastructure and party building like that.

Speaker 56 I mean, one thing that Charlie Kirk also did that was probably smart is he goes to these campuses and finds libs to debate and is not afraid to debate. And I think we are,

Speaker 56 there's enough of us now sort of turning the corner on that in the Democratic Party, but for a long time it was, don't go on Fox. There's no use in debating these people.

Speaker 56 And I get the reasons reasons for that, but it's also like if you can't defend your ideas live

Speaker 56 in front of another person who you disagree with and who may be crazy extreme, but you disagree with them, they've got an audience and people are paying attention.

Speaker 56 And if you're one of the, you know, the majority of people who don't pay close attention to politics in this country,

Speaker 56 then when you hear one person's message, and even if there's filled with lies and all kinds of extreme stuff, and you just hear the other side is just talking to themselves, like you're just naturally going to say, well, I don't know,

Speaker 56 at least they're showing up, at least they're debating.

Speaker 2 Tired of spills and stains on your sofa? Wash away your worries with Anibay. Anibay is the only machine-washable sofa inside and out where designer quality meets budget-friendly prices.

Speaker 2 That's right, sofas start at just $699.

Speaker 2 Enjoy a no-risk experience with pet-friendly, stain-resistant, and changeable slip covers made with performance fabric.

Speaker 2 Experience cloud-like comfort with high-resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing. The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity, and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime.

Speaker 2 Shop washablefas.com for early Black Friday savings, up to 60% off-site-wide, backed by a 30-day satisfaction guarantee. If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund.

Speaker 2 No return shipping or restocking fees. Every penny back.
Upgrade now at washable sofas.com. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Speaker 37 And don't sweat what gifts to get dad.

Speaker 43 That's That's how Lowe's celebrates Black Friday early.

Speaker 60 Every holiday shopper's got a list, but Ross shoppers, you've got a mission.

Speaker 61 Like a gift run that turns into a disco snow globe, throw pillows, and PJs for the whole family, dog included.

Speaker 64 At Ross, holiday magic isn't about spending more, it's about giving more for less.

Speaker 63 Ross, work your magic.

Speaker 56 It's interesting to me too, and

Speaker 56 we'll circle back circuitously a little bit to Epstein. But I did when I did that first podcast with Charlie Kirk, first of all, he was gracious enough to come into the studio and do the first one.

Speaker 56 And I made a comment that got a lot of blowback, including at home, because my son, quite literally, 11-year-old, was actually heard the night before and woke me up early, say, are you seriously meeting with Charlie Kirk?

Speaker 56 I'm not going to school. You're taking me with you.
I'm like, I thought it was a joke the night before. I thought he was just playing with me.

Speaker 56 But it's on his, he doesn't have a, we don't have a phone. He doesn't have any TikTok.
It's just the YouTube that's on his school tablet.

Speaker 56 And it was wired in this space, and here's where I'm going, a space where I started knowing, you know, he starts talking to me about Jordan Peterson.

Speaker 56 He says, hey, dad, I don't know, Andrew Tate, you know, I think they were misrepresenting. You know, they're not as bad as you think.
You know, Andrew Tate's coming to California.

Speaker 56 He just said something bad about you. You're going to respond.
You know, and you know, he's got, I mean, and I'm like, what? 11-year-old? Yes. Wow.
How do you know about Andrew Tate?

Speaker 56 What's this Jordan Peterson stuff? And how do you know about Charlie Kirk? And I started talking to his friends the same thing. And he started getting it through just, frankly, just game stuff.

Speaker 56 He wanted to watch YouTube games. He started, you know, he's 11.
Now he's older, but he's 12.

Speaker 56 But he's, you you know, he's trying to get in shape now, and so his like body stuff, and this whole quote-unquote, it's overused or misused or even mislabeled, but this manosphere, this sort of space, which then gets to Epstein, gets to these conspiracies, gets to these darker pizzagate places, and gets to where we are today in our politics.

Speaker 56 I mean, you guys,

Speaker 56 you've been... part of this ecosystem broadly defined, but what do you make of these subcultures and how serious those algorithms are and what that means to our body politic?

Speaker 57 I think they're really serious. I mean, like, there's schools and school districts and I think the UK and Australia that developed entire curriculums to combat Andrew Tate.

Speaker 57 Like it's a real crisis in a lot of places. He's incredibly, I mean, what was it, 2018 or 2019? He's the most Google person in the world or something like that, right? So it's real dangerous.

Speaker 57 I do think one thing someone pointed out. to me that really stuck with me is a lot of the kind of pipeline to conservative influencer spaces are through self-improvement.

Speaker 57 It's like dating advice, crypto, get rich,

Speaker 57 how to get jacked.

Speaker 56 And we're like, there's not that

Speaker 57 wellness.

Speaker 57 I know you talked a lot about RFK and sort of your relationship with him. And, you know, that's the thing I hear more than anything else from people in California.

Speaker 57 And also, you know, my wife and I had a bunch of fertility challenges. And then now we have small kids.

Speaker 57 So there's sort of a pregnancy or small kid algorithmic control, right, that gets you lots of stuff that takes you to antivacs or takes you to Jordan Peterson saying, you know, women are objects, right?

Speaker 57 And it's incredibly dangerous, I think.

Speaker 56 Two big trends. One is there's a crisis of trust in this country.
And there's, you know, we're probably distrust in almost every institution, government, media, business.

Speaker 56 And some of that is just the actual, you know economic statistics right and there's inequality and there's a whole bunch of other things around that and then there is a a crisis in masculinity and I think I'm actually interviewing Ruth Whitman for offline tomorrow who wrote boy mom

Speaker 56 and my wife was reading boy mom first and then I read it and and her whole point is that like she doesn't want to call it toxic masculinity anymore she says it's impossible masculinity because it it's a standard that um it's impossible for boys to live up to now.

Speaker 56 Because you're either funneled into like, you've got to be super tough and alpha and get strong, or if you go, but also you're supposed to be

Speaker 56 tender and you're supposed to be emotionally available to women. But if you do that, then you're not masculine, right?

Speaker 56 And so you look like these boys are growing up stuck in between and they're becoming lonely

Speaker 56 and they have less confidence in themselves and they have less confidence than trying to, you know, talk to girls.

Speaker 56 And it's easier to stay home and be online by yourself because there's less friction when you don't have to actually build relationships and go through the awkward phases of conversation and making a connection with someone.

Speaker 56 You can just be home, talk to people online, watch porn online and like be lonely. And it's hurting a lot of young men.

Speaker 56 It seems to have hurt our party too because it's been politicized. and weaponized a bit against us.

Speaker 56 Trump seemed to be very in tune and in touch with, and back to this notion of the manosphere, but around the issue of masculinity and that sort of pushback against quote-unquote toxic masculinity and how that was used as a weapon to sort of tear down men.

Speaker 56 Understandably coming out of me too and everything else. But

Speaker 56 where do you see our party, the Democratic Party? Because you see these trend lines. They're now becoming headlines.
It's suicide rates that are off the charts.

Speaker 56 It's educational attainment where women are dominating over men. The crisis of not just loneliness, but deaths of despair, overdose rates.
I mean, in every category, boys and men are struggling.

Speaker 56 Where do you see the Democratic Party in relationship to that conversation?

Speaker 56 It doesn't seem to me an easy conversation for a lot of Democrats because they still see men in disproportionate positions of power and influence, men still getting paid more than women.

Speaker 56 And until that's equalized, they may not necessarily want to have the conversation about what's lying underneath.

Speaker 57 Yeah, I mean, I think I was it, Theo Vaughan or somebody talking about this

Speaker 57 who's a comedian sort of in the so-called manosphere. We need a better term for it, right? He's like a very popular comedian and podcaster who was talking maybe with Bernie about

Speaker 57 the way he and some friends of his community sort of reacted to being told they had that male privilege or white privilege. And he felt like, well, I'm sort of like dead broke.

Speaker 57 So that may exist in the world. And it's not me.
And I think it closed off a conversation rather than opening it, right?

Speaker 57 So there's a part of it that's like just messaging and how you talk about these things. I think

Speaker 57 if you frame it the right way, people will listen to you. But then also, you know, you talked about this with Sean, like Trump is so malleable.
Like he's for the thing that's happening, right?

Speaker 57 So he was against crypto. And then a bunch of, if you read the New York Times, they had a big piece on how he was

Speaker 57 lobbied. A bunch of them came to him and were like, we can make you a shitload of money and get you a ton of contributions for a super PAC or whatever.
And he was like, sign me up, right?

Speaker 57 And

Speaker 57 that is, you know, making him hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars.

Speaker 57 But also, there's a lot of men who think of crypto as an opportunity to catch back up in an economy where they feel left behind by economic inequality and all the things that are bad about capitalism.

Speaker 57 And I'm not saying that we should be super for crypto for that reason, because I think a lot of people get scammed and people get hurt. But it's like, how do you not sound like

Speaker 56 you're going to poke your eye out with that thing to everybody right like and we're scolding them I think the other challenge is we have to do more showing and less telling and just more setting an example for young men as opposed to like when you you see the Republicans and they're like joking around and having fun and then you hear the Democrats and the Democrats are like we have commissioned a study and we will find the young men in the wild and we will approve

Speaker 56 him.

Speaker 56 Do not cancel the young young man when you see him in the wild.

Speaker 56 It's like, it's just really, because it's just like how we are. We analyze everything.
And it's like, just fucking be a normal person.

Speaker 56 Just be yourself, you know? But the other big thing that happened is, of course, the pandemic. And you're seeing this within Gen Z.
Like,

Speaker 56 there's two Gen Z cohorts now. And the ones who were graduated when the pandemic hit are still pretty democratic, even the men.

Speaker 56 And the ones who were in high school or in college when the pandemic hit, the gap between how the men voted and the women voted is the biggest of any generation, any other generation.

Speaker 56 And I said those, and I don't know, I mean, I'm hoping because I have a five-year-old and it's almost two-year-old.

Speaker 56 And I'm hoping that, you know, now that we have a generation below them that didn't grow up in the middle of the pandemic, that it could be a little bit better.

Speaker 56 But that's still a whole generation of kids who dealt with the pandemic who I think are, and we don't talk about it. I mean, you were talking,

Speaker 56 we don't talk about it because no one wants to. No one wants to.
Because it's a little PTSD and no one wants to go back to that, but that really fucked people up. How do you?

Speaker 56 Especially in your formative years.

Speaker 57 How did you guys deal with being at home, you're the governor of a state and you have four kids?

Speaker 56 Well, not only four kids, I had 400 protesters and drones overhead and people with bullhorns waking the kids up at night. That was an extra wrinkle.
It's a little extra wrinkle.

Speaker 56 I mean, I had little Dutchie who didn't know any better with his Nerf guns going up there and acting like he's a little member of the military and hiding out and looking at people.

Speaker 56 I'm like, brother, you're actually going to get shot because someone's going to believe that's a gun. Trying to explain that to a six, seven-year-old.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 56 And having ways of getting out of the house where we had to sneak out the back for

Speaker 56 it seemed like a couple years. And it ended up with my oldest daughter being homeschooled because of what was happening in the class when we did come back and just getting bullied and hit.

Speaker 56 So, I mean, it is. look,

Speaker 56 I think the biggest,

Speaker 56 I think we have an obligation.

Speaker 56 We have an obligation to have an honest, thoughtful, reflective analysis, not least of which from a policy perspective, but we have to for our own sanity in terms of our own personal, the trauma everybody went through, and we're all suppressing that.

Speaker 56 And people are acting like, oh, yeah, it's fine. I don't want to talk about it.
No, yeah, well, it's good. Okay, yeah, learning a lot.
I mean, it's just what? Who? Yeah, no, good. It's good.

Speaker 56 And so, I mean, it's just people went through. I mean, it was social unrest.
It wasn't just a pandemic. It was everything happening on the streets and sidewalks.
You talk about the National Guard.

Speaker 56 I had the second largest deployment in U.S. history during that time of social unrest after George Floyd here in California.

Speaker 56 And then obviously all the supply chain issues and the inflationary scars and wars. And now Trump again.
I mean,

Speaker 56 it's been a hell of time. So we got to unpack all that.
But look, I want to unpack just a few other things with you guys as I've got your time.

Speaker 56 As we figure out these algorithms, as we figure out how we're all living together

Speaker 56 online, but feeling more and more isolated, alone.

Speaker 56 But I need to understand, was Trump on the Epstein list or not? I need to know from the two of you. Was Trump on the damn list?

Speaker 56 I think he is worried that he is somewhere in the files so like i don't i don't even know if there's a list like i'm willing to believe that there's just no list okay but there's clearly tons and tons of documents that the doj has and he has now because he's gone through a criminal trial and been charged a couple other times he knows and and ran the justice department once before he knows that there are plenty of court filings and documents that have all kinds of information in it.

Speaker 56 And, you know, the standard to put something in an indictment is obviously not the same.

Speaker 56 So I'm sure he is concerned that, yeah, maybe he's not on a list as a client or whatever, but he's somewhere in there and it could be embarrassing.

Speaker 56 And, you know, so he told Pam Bondi, do not release it. Stifle this?

Speaker 56 I don't know. Yeah, well, do you think Pam Bondi independent? How in the hell do you not know that? You seriously think Pam decided on her own as an independent source for the AG? Mr.

Speaker 56 President, I just want to let you know, here's my decision. I won't be reduced to eliminating or providing any file.
Give me a damn break. Come on, man.

Speaker 57 My theory, and this has always been the conspiracy is hiding in plain sight.

Speaker 57 This guy was a rich, powerful creep with rich, powerful friends, and he used those associations to get this sweetheart deal from Alex Acosta, who was then the U.S.

Speaker 57 Attorney in Florida, became the Secretary of Labor.

Speaker 57 They included a non-prosecution agreement.

Speaker 56 Secretary of Labor under Donald Trump. Under Donald Trump.

Speaker 56 With Pam Bondi as the AG of Florida. I'm now getting down my own.
That is, that's

Speaker 56 a threat. But so now, but you're right.

Speaker 57 Like, look, I'm like not a very, I'm very not conspiracy-minded because having worked in government, you see that like.

Speaker 56 Well, you were suppressing all the UFOs. Yeah, that.
And all you guys had to write speeches suppressing. Tommy also did Benghazi.

Speaker 57 Yeah, I did Benghazi.

Speaker 56 Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi. But also, no one can keep a secret.

Speaker 57 You know what I mean? Like, no one, we could fuck up a one-car parade in the U.S. government at times.

Speaker 56 Like, there's no way you can like. Well, you kept a secret about chemtrails.

Speaker 56 Why have you done that for all these years?

Speaker 57 Well, but to your point, like, there was a document that came out this week because of a House investigation into the JFK assassination where we learned that the CIA has been lying about having an agent in South Florida who was like running this group of anti-Castro students.

Speaker 57 They've been lying about it for 60 years. They lied about it to the Warren Commission, they lied about it to the House Investigative Committee, they lied in the 90s to a committee on assassinations.

Speaker 57 And you see stuff like that, and you're like, and also they named the dude who was running those guys in Florida to be the congressional liaison to stifle the investigation in the 70s.

Speaker 57 And you're like, okay.

Speaker 56 All right. So trial is a skepticism.
Yeah.

Speaker 56 So now I can't. Now you guys are lying to us about UFOs, and you had conversations with Obama.
Tell the truth. Honestly, UFOs, if they're

Speaker 56 more to know about UFOs, you must have had conversations with Obama. Tell me

Speaker 56 you were sitting there, you guys are relaxed, second term, everybody won a couple martinis, and you're sitting there and you go, come on, come on to the big boss. Tell the truth, man.

Speaker 56 What have you seen? I had never been that into

Speaker 56 UFOs, but I wish I had. If they were more...
Wouldn't Donald Trump have said something? He would not be able to shut his mouth about UFOs.

Speaker 56 We would have gotten something from Donald Trump. Like, Obama, no.
Obama would trust you guys.

Speaker 56 I really don't know if I trust you.

Speaker 57 But this is, I think, the thing, I think people think out there about classified information, which is if you have a top-secret clearance, then you can just go into the secrets library and kind of leaf through.

Speaker 57 And I don't really think there's a deep state per se, but there are career people and there's a lot of inertia, and they're like not given goobers like me access to the good stuff.

Speaker 56 I had top secret clearance, I had never looked at any classified information.

Speaker 56 I got edits back from the CIA and DOD on speeches, and they would sometimes just like cross things out with no explanation or whatever. I guess I just have to take that.

Speaker 56 What'd they cross out?

Speaker 56 Tell us, tell us. That's why I remember.
I was like, this isn't anything. That's your book.
And I'm like revealing those things.

Speaker 56 What is happening?

Speaker 57 Well, then the cool thing that would happen was there would be a crisis.

Speaker 56 We just do that on signaling.

Speaker 57 And then in a crisis, like something would happen, and you'd go to a meeting and they'd they'd be like, we know this, this, and this, through this means.

Speaker 56 And you're like, holy shit.

Speaker 57 Like, we could do some stuff.

Speaker 56 So that's how it would kind of come out.

Speaker 2 Time for a sofa upgrade. Introducing Anibay sofas, where designer style meets budget-friendly prices.
Every Anibay sofa is modular, allowing you to rearrange your space effortlessly.

Speaker 2 Perfect for both small and large spaces, Anibay is the only machine-washable sofa inside and out. Say goodbye to stains and messes with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics that make cleaning easy.

Speaker 2 Liquids simply slide right off. Designed for custom comfort, our high-resilience foam lets you choose between a sink and feel or a supportive memory foam blend.

Speaker 2 Plus, our pet-friendly, stain-resistant fabrics ensure your sofa stays beautiful for years. Don't compromise quality for price.
Visit washable sofas.com to upgrade your living space today.

Speaker 2 Sofas start at just $699 with no risk returns and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Get early access to Black Friday now.
The biggest sale of the year can save you up to 60% off.

Speaker 2 Plus free shipping and free returns. Shop now at washable sofas.com.

Speaker 37 And don't sweat what gifts to get dad.

Speaker 9 Shop $10 beauty minis from brands like like Mac and Too Faced.

Speaker 60 Every holiday shopper's got a list, but Ross shoppers, you've got a mission.

Speaker 61 Like a gift run that turns into a disco snow globe, throw pillows, and PJs for the whole family, dog included.

Speaker 64 At Ross, holiday magic isn't about spending more, it's about giving more for less.

Speaker 56 All right, so let's talk about what else came out. This morning, Donald Trump, as we do this pod, this morning, Trump allegedly talked to the delegation out of Texas and said,

Speaker 56 not dissimilar to him, saying, find me 12,000 or so votes in Georgia, I need five Republican additional congressional representatives. We need to redistrict Texas.

Speaker 56 How serious a concern is that for you in terms of the midterms? I mean,

Speaker 56 I think it's a serious concern.

Speaker 56 I think that they also run the risk, if they redraw the maps, that if there's a big wave, that basically they're asking some Republicans to take on more Democratic voters than some districts.

Speaker 56 So it could backfire.

Speaker 56 It's crazy that they're and the way Trump talked about it when he was asked today, he was like, yeah, it's just picking up five seats.

Speaker 56 I'm just picking up five seats. Like he's just grabbing groceries.
Like he's calling calling Raffensburg. Yeah, right? And then he also...
He also said he's like in some other red states.

Speaker 56 Maybe we'll do some in other red states, too. Well, maybe we'll do it here in California as well.
I was going to ask you about that because the challenge is this little constitutional problem.

Speaker 56 That's what I'm going to ask. Yeah, yeah, I know.
So what do you have to

Speaker 56 mean of a

Speaker 56 big majority in the legislature? There's Korean ideas. We have ideas.
We have ideas. I mean, the fact is, I mean, let me ask you this.

Speaker 56 I actually, so I'm one of the few Democrats back in the day when we created the Independent Redistricting Commission, which I think personally, I think should be the case in every state. I agree.

Speaker 56 This is ridiculous. This gerrymandering is outrageous.
I don't like it on either side. And so I supported that.
I remember doing that.

Speaker 56 I was mayor of San Francisco at the time when that initiative went forward. I think Governor Schwarzenegger, who was promoting at the time, was the governor.

Speaker 56 And I got a lot of grief from my own party for supporting it, which was interesting. But I think it's the right thing to do.

Speaker 56 That said, if these guys are playing by a totally different set of rules in democracies in the balance, which you can start to go down that, it's not even a rabbit hole and argue may be the case if we're not able to get some system of checks and balances in two years, particularly going into the 2028 election where they can wire a lot of things from that position of power and influence.

Speaker 56 Is it right for me to explore? It's a question for you guys. Is it appropriate for the governor of California to explore potential alternatives?

Speaker 56 It's absolutely appropriate, like to the extent that you can find a legal avenue to do it. Yeah, right.
Well, there's that. There is that.

Speaker 56 But I mean, you know,

Speaker 56 the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, right, that was going to create a national

Speaker 56 independent redistricting thing. And I think it's either national or not at this point.
That's how I am.

Speaker 56 I am also for it nationally, but we're not, it's just like, you know, the results of Citizens United, right? Which is like, we can't unilaterally disarm in the face of them

Speaker 56 exploiting these decisions and these weaknesses in the system.

Speaker 57 Absolutely. But kind of the stuffy-headed question is

Speaker 57 it's not like a moral question, but it's a question of,

Speaker 57 yes, of course, we can't unilaterally disarm, and I agree with you, and I don't think we should, but there is a more nuanced question of like what is the upside and value of presenting a message to voters that we're actually better?

Speaker 57 You know what I mean? And it can be like we don't take pack or lobbyists' money. We believe in principle, like we wouldn't do this redistricting thing because it's wrong.

Speaker 57 I'm like, I'm not agreeing with the things I'm saying right now. I think like we have to win.

Speaker 56 You're very persuasive.

Speaker 56 I mean, I'm feeling very guilty right now. No, but

Speaker 57 there is a question. Like, we need like a reform agenda.
What is that?

Speaker 56 No, I'm with you, man. No, it's the worst part.
You don't want to become them. I mean, they win if you become them.

Speaker 56 And they shouldn't implicate us into their just mischievous and

Speaker 56 illegal ways or immoral ways. I mean, this is hardly illegal.
Now, the question for California, in terms of Texas, they have more latitude. In California, it's interesting.

Speaker 56 You go back, you could do a special election, so we can go back and do that and change the state constitution that created this. We'd have to move immediately.

Speaker 56 You could do two-thirds of the legislature, do it urgency, I could call a special election. And then you'd spend hundreds of millions of dollars both sides weaponized.

Speaker 56 It'd be one of the, you know, it'd be a big sideshow for something going on. It would absorb a lot of resources, literally and figuratively.
Or there are some other...

Speaker 56 theories of the case, and that's what we're also exploring, that is relates to the Independent Redistricting Commission.

Speaker 56 It states in the Constitution explicitly that every census they will do one redistricting. It doesn't say what happens in between.

Speaker 56 And the legislature is then afforded some latitude in between.

Speaker 56 And that's a legal theory that a lot of legal scholars have advanced. And full disclosure, we're looking at.

Speaker 56 Now, I'm looking at it in the spirit, sort of the stoics, of you know, not becoming your enemy, mindful that I rather maintain the higher ground, some moral authority, not just formal authority.

Speaker 56 But when I look at the ground that these guys are leveling and the core tenets of our democracy, our republic being literally taken down in real time, I'd be in peril of being judged not to have lived if I don't at least explore an alternative to save our country.

Speaker 56 It's the way I feel. I know it's a little romantic or a little overstated, bloviating, but I feel that way.
I mean, if these guys are literally going to rig

Speaker 56 de facto the outcome in November next year?

Speaker 56 I can't just sit back passively, can we? Look, I think

Speaker 56 the way you are framing it and started to frame it as we first started talking about this, which is if you had your way, there'd be independent redistricting all across the country.

Speaker 56 And that is not the reality we live in right now. And now before the midterms, they're trying to just pick up five seats.
Like, that's just a reality that we're dealing with.

Speaker 56 Santis is talking about doing. He says, well, we had an extra one there.
We gave up.

Speaker 56 And they moved first on this.

Speaker 56 And I think if you were talking to, again, just a normal person who doesn't pay attention to politics closely and asked you about it and you explained it that way, I think people would understand that.

Speaker 56 I think people would be like, well, yeah, it's politics. It's competitive.
And you're not going to be able to just sit down and take it because you didn't want to. dirty your hands on it.

Speaker 56 And you'd be like, look, it's a shitty solution. It's not the way I want to do it.
But

Speaker 56 the alternative is that they just redistrict everywhere they're in control and just steal a bunch of house seats and pick their voters everywhere.

Speaker 56 Yeah, and it's not that, it's the consequences of that that are pretty outside. Well, that's awesome.
You talk about your two kids, your two kids, my four kids.

Speaker 56 I mean, this is what kind of world you want to live in. I mean, we're already seeing.

Speaker 56 Do you guys are you, and forgive me, sort of moving slightly off topic, but does this shock and awe shock even you? Are you in awe?

Speaker 56 of how much this guy has done in the first six months, the damage he's done, how aggressive he's been?

Speaker 57 Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 57 I knew there would be horrible things. I knew that, look, people held up mass deportations now, signs at rallies, right? Like, that part shouldn't have been a surprise.

Speaker 57 Sweeping up at random, seemingly, Venezuelan men and sending them to a transnational gulag in El Salvador where they're being tortured

Speaker 56 is shocking.

Speaker 57 Shocking to me. I think it shocks the conscience.

Speaker 56 I am constantly testing myself on

Speaker 56 making sure that I am not

Speaker 56 trying to exaggerate the threat

Speaker 56 and

Speaker 56 cry wolf. Because I do worry that maybe even in the first term, the first Trump term, like I look back on some of the things that I said then and thought then, and I was like, did we

Speaker 56 reduce our effectiveness by taking everything to an 11?

Speaker 56 And now, I really do believe,

Speaker 56 like, especially around immigration. I mean, that stuff.
And look, I was, after this last election, I was out there saying, you know what, we should have taken the border more seriously.

Speaker 56 And look, we're Obama people from immigration. When Obama would say, we're a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants, and we're going to do deportations, but we're going to try to

Speaker 56 prioritize recent arrivals, criminals, people with records, and then we're going to try to do something for the people who've been here for decades and are working.

Speaker 56 And you have to get in line, learn English, AFE, all that.

Speaker 56 And I'm like, I think that's where most Americans still are. And Cardi got away from that.

Speaker 56 So I was very, but once he took office and he started doing what he's doing, like, it is worse than anything I ever thought.

Speaker 56 That sending them to the third countries, especially some of these third countries that are just fucking like, you know, war-torn and

Speaker 56 picking up citizens, picking up, you know, people with legal status. Yeah.
It's really

Speaker 56 scary. Or Or if they're nearby a Home Depot or they are standing adjacent to a day laborer or at a car wash.

Speaker 56 I think, you know, it's just, I'm just sort of fascinating because as we stand here today, just back to just sort of this normalization, there are 5,000 U.S.

Speaker 56 military in the streets that have been deployed by the President of the United States. He hasn't deployed in his first term.
He didn't deploy any troops, ground troops, anywhere in the world.

Speaker 56 He hasn't deployed any other ground troops in the first six months.

Speaker 56 He's only deployed them in the United States to the state of California and here in L.A., which just in and of itself is sort of remarkable and sobering to consider and think about.

Speaker 56 Almost a thousand U.S. Marines and federalized 4,000 of the National Guard.
And people quite literally are being disappeared. And it's not an exaggeration.

Speaker 56 I mean, I've been with, I was with a 16-year-old kid. Mom and dad disappeared.
He didn't even know how to get back in his house. He has no brothers and sisters.

Speaker 56 You know, barely learning how to do his laundry. They just disappeared 20-plus years going to the same fields in Ochnard and disappeared.

Speaker 56 No contact, no consideration for this kid who was born in Ventura County and was still in school while the raid occurred.

Speaker 56 And how the hell, the other party.

Speaker 56 I think it was one thing for Trump to advance this. It's another to see Speaker Johnson and these goddamn guys just completely complicit at this moment.

Speaker 56 You know, as he's sitting here quoting Bible verses, it's getting pretty. It's getting worse.
It's going to get worse because because

Speaker 56 they are not getting the 3,000 arrests a day that they want.

Speaker 56 And they are also, you know, today, like, I saw news that the IRS is going to turn over a lot of information so that they can figure out who's undocumented.

Speaker 56 They're trying to take all the state databases. It's crazy.
I mean, all of that, they're coming.

Speaker 56 I mean, like, all, I mean, can you imagine every state that people, you know, with the confidence the state would never turn it over? Of course, we don't want to, now being compelled to turn over.

Speaker 56 So they're going to start cross-referencing all of that.

Speaker 56 The other challenge I worry about too is like, I don't,

Speaker 56 they do this partly because they really want to get rid of all the undocumented immigrants in this country and maybe legal immigrants too.

Speaker 56 But they also want to spark a backlash from us. Like they want, they want us to react.
They want us to overreact.

Speaker 56 And so when there are people in the streets, even if it's like a couple blocks downtown in LA, of course they love that.

Speaker 56 So I'm also mindful, like I don't want to say anything that's going to, but then I hear them, and like, right before you came in, Stephen Miller was on Fox, and he was like, Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass, their rhetoric is

Speaker 56 literally encouraging people to kill ICE agents. And Will Kane on Fox is just like, oh, you know,

Speaker 56 of course. That is insane to say.

Speaker 56 That is an insane thing to say. It's insane.
It's disgraceful.

Speaker 56 Quite the goddamn contrary. Just, yeah.

Speaker 56 I mean, that's a dangerous thing. I have empathy for these

Speaker 56 damn. I mean, come on, I've got these, I just think about our National Guard.

Speaker 56 These are, we had 30, almost 3,000 of these guys that were in your backyard, man, in L.A. And people were coming up.

Speaker 56 The biggest problem we were having was so many people coming up doing selfies, thanking them for the help during the fires and after the fires and doing the traffic management.

Speaker 56 These are the same kids that now have been told to put masks on.

Speaker 56 These are police officers and firefighters.

Speaker 56 They literally are being taken off the streets. They're paramedics.
They're teachers that are supposed to be teaching summer school. And they're being used as pods.

Speaker 56 So, I mean, Stephen Miller, I care about those kids. You don't.
You're using them as pods. That's right.
You're using the military as damn pawns. And that's why I've been,

Speaker 57 I know you get this better than anyone, but like, it's so, I heard it in your conversation with Sean Ryan because he's like, I saw the clips on X and it looked like hell and those Waymos.

Speaker 57 And like, just explain to people the disconnect from what they saw on social media and the reality of living in Los Angeles.

Speaker 57 Like, first of all, this city is so scarred from those fires that were six months ago and they were absolutely terrifying.

Speaker 57 Just imagine you're a listener, you're going to bed, you have two little kids and you're like, is my house going to burn? Am I going to be able to drive out of here?

Speaker 57 Like those are the thoughts people were having, right? So six months, whatever, a few months later,

Speaker 57 These communities in Los Angeles, mostly Latino communities, immigrant communities, are being terrorized by these ICE agents, wearing masks, throwing people into unmarked cars, not wearing uniforms.

Speaker 57 And like they're not getting criminals off the street. And my friends are like, oh, well, aren't there horrifying protests? No.
No. It's like three blocks downtown.

Speaker 57 It was completely manageable by the LAPD. They've taken care of bigger messes.

Speaker 56 It's 1,600 CHP and

Speaker 56 LAPD. I mean, 1,600 surrounding a couple square blocks.
I mean,

Speaker 56 it's Orwellian what these guys are putting out. And I told people, too, like, this is why we also have to remember, too, for the guard, for the police, even for some ICE agents, too, right?

Speaker 56 Like, you can't make them the enemy. No, that's it.
Because, first of all, a lot of the people. Democrats need to be careful about that.
That's my point. Yeah.

Speaker 56 I mean, when we say abolish this or abolish that, I mean, we're still climbing out of the damn defund police stuff. I know.

Speaker 56 And, you know, even, you know, we've had some well-known Democrats defund ICE back in the day. I mean, just,

Speaker 56 I hope we're, this is exactly, I mean, that truly is what these guys want right now. It is just so easy to be like, we need immigration enforcement in this country.
We do. We do.

Speaker 56 We don't need a fucking secret police that answers to Stephen Miller. The largest private secret police in the world now with the money that's coming in from this big, beautiful betrayal.

Speaker 57 Wasn't there a California bill that said that they would have to not wear masks to the business?

Speaker 56 So back to you guys asked that very stubborn question about, well, what about the Constitution and the law on the issue of redistricting the question of the Constitution and the law as it relates to a state's right to enforce or determine the enforcement or demand a prescriptive act of a federal agent, meaning can we legally enforce the federal rules around masking?

Speaker 56 And so it's an open-ended question. That said, there is not only a bill, it's being amended this week, it will be on my desk very shortly.

Speaker 56 And

Speaker 56 based upon how it reads, we're making a lot of amendments. But how could I not sign that? Just if nothing else, to send a message.
I I mean, no identification, no warrants.

Speaker 56 I mean, I'm sitting there, you know, I mean, how many states, you got people running around concealed carry.

Speaker 56 I mean, if some masked person came up to me and tries to throw me in the back of a white van,

Speaker 56 I mean, how in the hell are we not going to have some problems? Which has been happening, right? Like, there are people who've impersonated ICE officers who are trying to assault people, rob people.

Speaker 56 And it will only, and you know, I mean, you know that's going to get worse. And so it's not an unfair question.
Like, I understand the doxing.

Speaker 56 They They always go to these exceptions and they try to prove that as a rule. So there's some balance.
Anyway,

Speaker 56 we're just going to, there's a federal, obviously the way to solve for this, what Corey Booker and a few others, I think Padilla's got a bill with Booker to do it at the federal level.

Speaker 56 And in the absence of that, states are going to have to try to push back and see what we can and test fate in the courts and see what the limits are.

Speaker 56 But and by the way, we've had wild success in the courts. California's sued more than any other state.

Speaker 56 We're winning 80 plus percent, or at at least the preliminary injunctions and winning some of the early decisions, as we did with the 122 lawsuits we had against Trump 1.0, won the vast majority.

Speaker 56 So they still, the overreach in this administration still is next level of legendary.

Speaker 2 Time for a sofa upgrade. Introducing Anibay sofas, where designer style meets budget-friendly prices.
Every Anibay sofa is modular, allowing you to rearrange your space effortlessly.

Speaker 2 Perfect for both small and large spaces, Anibay is the only machine-washable sofa inside and out. Say goodbye to stains and messes with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics that make cleaning easy.

Speaker 2 Liquids simply slide right off. Designed for custom comfort, our high-resilience foam lets you choose between a sink-in feel or a supportive memory foam blend.

Speaker 2 Plus, our pet-friendly, stain-resistant fabrics ensure your sofa stays beautiful for years. Don't compromise quality for price.
Visit washable.com to upgrade your living space today.

Speaker 2 Sofas start at just $699 with no risk returns and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Get early access to Black Friday now.
The biggest sale of the year can save you up to 60% off.

Speaker 2 Plus free shipping and free returns. Shop now at washable sofas.com.

Speaker 28 Loece gets it.

Speaker 37 And don't sweat sweat what gifts to get, dad.

Speaker 47 The holidays are back at Starbucks, so share the season with a peppermint mocha.

Speaker 47 Starbucks signature espresso, velvety mocha, and cool peppermint notes topped with whipped cream and dark chocolate curls.

Speaker 60 Every holiday shopper's got a list, but raw shoppers, you've got a mission.

Speaker 61 Like a gift run that turns into a disco snow globe, throw pillows, and PJs for the whole family.

Speaker 63 Dog included.

Speaker 64 At Ross, holiday magic isn't about spending more. It's about giving more for less.

Speaker 56 Let me ask you guys this in closing.

Speaker 56 It was interesting to hear your former boss a couple of days ago at a fundraiser in New Jersey. And he said, you know, Democrats need to step up.
I know you guys have been talking about this.

Speaker 56 And we need to be more aggressive, more assertive. But he also implied, you know, let's not look for the guy or guy on the white horse to come save the day in 2028.

Speaker 56 Let's get our shit together every day between now and then

Speaker 56 and not lose sight of what's right in front of us.

Speaker 56 Give me your over-under on assessing your former boss's comments, the timing of them, the tonality. Yeah, you're on the spot.
Don't give me the political answer. Don't be a politician here.

Speaker 56 And don't even be a pundit. Tell me personally, personally, what's your sort of sense tonally of where the party is as a leader of the party?

Speaker 56 Barack Obama made these comments. Obviously, they've been debated.

Speaker 56 They resonate with me. How do they resonate with you?

Speaker 57 Look, I think that what's been heartening in the last few months is the way you've seen individuals step up. different Democrats stepping up, right? Like a lot of people have said comments to me like,

Speaker 57 I didn't really like Gavin Newsome, but I like that he's fighting. And I think I might like him now, right? Like Chris Van Holland going down to El Salvador, meeting at Brego Garcia.

Speaker 57 Like, I didn't know I was a big Chris Van Holland fan, but now I am, right? So people are stepping up in ways, big and small.

Speaker 57 One thing we're working on here at Crooked Media is we have a pilot program going where we're trying to encourage our audience that live in Arizona, Texas, and North Carolina to run for office at every level.

Speaker 57 Dog catcher, you know, like school board, everything, because we just don't want any race to go unopposed. I think we've got like a thousand people who've tried to sign up so far.

Speaker 57 So we're just trying to like rally people, have people feel like they have agency and they can do something, especially in this moment. I think Obama's comments are right.

Speaker 57 I think he's also in a tough spot because a lot of people miss him. They feel like he's been absent.
They want him to speak out on more things.

Speaker 57 I think it was especially complicated for him during the Biden administration because there's a bit of a fraught relationship there.

Speaker 57 And there were just, you know, some issues that people probably really wanted to hear Obama on, like Gaza. He was just the wrong messenger.

Speaker 57 Like, Joe Biden thinks that he is the Netanyahu whisperer and was not going to listen to anybody else on that.

Speaker 57 So I do think, like, would I love to see Barack Obama out there more? Yes. I think sometimes

Speaker 57 us political advisors, us hacks, I'm looking at John, not you.

Speaker 57 We get in a mindset where it's like you save your powder and you go out two weeks before midterm.

Speaker 57 And that's how you win an election and i think what donald trump taught us is he did constant care and feeding of this kind of media world built their audiences built his profile uh built a brand for maga and himself and that was more effective and we need more of that like kind of you know 24 7 365 work i think there's a few things going on with him and um you know one of his comments i think he said something like we can't be it's too much navel gazing

Speaker 56 you know yeah And if you, again, we talked about this earlier, if you look at the news and you look at news about Democrats, it is inevitably Democrats talking about how to win back someone we lost and what do we do and what's the future of the party.

Speaker 56 So there's a lot of navel gazing, which we always do as a party, especially now that we've lost a second race to Donald Trump. So I think people's...

Speaker 56 I think people are not trusting, when I say people, I mean like Democratic politicians, a lot of them, are not trusting their instincts anymore because you're like, how does Donald Trump won the presidency twice after an insurrection?

Speaker 56 After, you're right, like, and so maybe nothing I believed about politics is right, right? So there's a lot of, there's extra caution. And so I think he was talking about that.

Speaker 56 I think he, I know he is like extremely concerned about this. I also know that he believes that

Speaker 56 he has a very big presence and that when he's out there that a lot of that a lot of other people don't get oxygen and he feels very strongly that he needs to make way for a new generation i also think there's i was president for eight years i gave you this much of my life and i like i can't keep doing this all the time like there's a little bit of that yeah but i also know that when he gets out there

Speaker 56 like you know i winds up yeah i like worked with him around the i worked with him around the convention and that was like his he was first back doing the convention speech and he was like he the more we worked on it the more he got into it and he was like and now i'm psyched and i'm ready for the speech and this is is great and I want to hit the trail.

Speaker 56 So it's like, he is still a political animal, but the longer you're out, I think the harder it is to get back in.

Speaker 56 And I do think there is, I think there's plenty of space between Barack Obama being out there every day in Donald Trump's face, which I don't think is a good idea,

Speaker 56 and

Speaker 56 not doing much at all. I think there's a big space in between there, and I think he's just got to figure out how he's going to be the most useful because that's how he thinks, right?

Speaker 56 It's not like, what about my brand or what about this?

Speaker 56 How can I actually be useful in moving the ball forward? What's actually going to be most effective coming from me?

Speaker 56 And because he's, you know, cerebral like that, and I think that's probably what he's trying to figure out. Are you guys just your over-under on 16, or excuse me 16, 26? 26.

Speaker 56 I mean,

Speaker 56 sitting here today with all you know, the big, beautiful bill, smart. A lot of the provisions don't,

Speaker 56 I mean, we're going to assert, but we can't prove the impacts necessarily on a lot of them, some very much so, but some will be delayed intentionally.

Speaker 56 What's your over-under in terms of how we're going to fare? I will say on

Speaker 56 the bill, Tony Fabrizio, Trump's pollster, had a memo today, and he found in most of the battleground districts, Republicans running behind. He also tested

Speaker 56 the extension of the ACA credits and found that it is wildly popular to extend those credits.

Speaker 56 And that is going to start, people are going to start getting those notices this fall right away that their that their premiums are going to go we're expecting uh two million people to have premium increases on that just in california alone two million and we expect based upon legitimate conservative pre prior experience 600 000 people will drop out because they can't afford the premium increases so just that alone that's not the 3.4 million in california that we expect would lose under medicaid our medi-cal separate and above 600 000 just on that alone so that's interesting and I appreciate that memo coming out and that being illuminated.

Speaker 56 And

Speaker 56 his suggestion is that Republicans should vote to extend the credits.

Speaker 56 We'll see if they actually do that. Because it's sort of separate and above in the bill.
But look,

Speaker 56 when we passed the Affordable Care Act, we owned everything that went wrong with the health care system. And guess what?

Speaker 56 Now they passed Trump's health reform, and they gutted Obamacare to give rich people a tax cut. So they own.
everything that goes wrong with the health care system at all.

Speaker 56 Your premiums go up, you're pissed at your insurance company, your rural hospital closes down,

Speaker 56 it's all on Trump, and rich people get a tax cut, and by the way, you're paying for more, you're paying more higher prices because of his dumb fucking tariffs, right?

Speaker 56 So I think I feel good about the midterms, but I also feel like Democrats need to,

Speaker 56 and I know a lot of strategists don't agree with this, but I think Democrats should talk about what they'll do if they have power again.

Speaker 56 And now you have to be careful because we went back to the House and Senate. Basically, all we can do is stop harm.

Speaker 56 We can send out subpoenas too, but like who knows if they'll even respond to the subpoenas. So like we don't have, we can't overpromise, but I think we can say, look, this is part one of a two-part

Speaker 56 step, you know, a two-part thing here where we take back the Senate and the House and then hopefully take back the presidency. And then when we do that,

Speaker 56 this is our ideas. Like this is what we want to do for people.
Well, let me end on that because now we're extending this one quick time because on that, it's just so interesting.

Speaker 56 So I had Frank Luntz on my pot and I had Gingrich. And obviously, we're going to talk about the contract on America or with America or however you want to

Speaker 56 phrase it. And it was really interesting.
Frank calls balls and strikes about Newt, and Newt obviously will toot his own horn.

Speaker 56 And it's just interesting the perspectives. But the potency of that at the moment was obviously outsized.

Speaker 56 The political utility of having an agenda, holding yourselves to account on the agenda, sort of scoring your own progress and having some transparency.

Speaker 56 It wasn't just that as a document, as a weapon to get into power, but how they actually utilized it.

Speaker 56 Is that something the Democratic Party should be working on along the lines of what John just said? I mean, we

Speaker 56 right now. Yeah, yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 57 I think like,

Speaker 56 like,

Speaker 57 I am, I'm hopeful about 2026. I feel like you kind of have historical trends.
And also, the thing I'm really watching is just inflation and prices.

Speaker 57 And, like, the tariff stuff, it has not bit yet, but none of it makes sense. Like, we're putting a 50% tariff on Brazil today today because we think Bolsonaro, who tried to stage a violent coup.

Speaker 56 Bolsonaro is a national security.

Speaker 57 She's a national security emergency that was necessitating a 50% tariff, right? So like none of this makes sense. He's not addressing costs.
That's what people really care about.

Speaker 57 And I think that'll bite him in the ass. I hope, I hope, I hope.

Speaker 57 Healthcare stuff, maybe we'll figure out if we can sell that. But I think Democrats have done a lot of work trying to figure out what went wrong in the last election.
Media, podcasts, like,

Speaker 57 hey, it turns out Biden was old.

Speaker 56 We haven't done a lot of work too by the way we're we're guilty yeah we've done it but we've been doing it right we're no but like we haven't but we're we're not the party like we haven't done a lot of work on ourselves like how do we fix our brand problem how do we how do we make you think the you didn't like the 27 in march and then the nbc poll oh yeah like what at least we got 27 i mean could have been 25.

Speaker 57 could have been two could have been how do we become a party that people want to first of all a movement people want to be a part of that is fun and inspiring and exciting and also just policy positions that get back to first principles like anti-war for working people ethical right like what's our reform agenda and i think like whether it's a contract for america or like a policy proposal there's got to be an alternative that you can turn to that isn't just trump bad and thinking back to the 2020 primary how many fucking debates did they go into the minutiae of medicare for all proposal implementation implementation right which is what we do like imagine if instead of like arguing about this this, we were just like,

Speaker 56 what's a big goal that people can grab onto, right? Which is Trump has done that. Mom Dani did that in New York, right?

Speaker 56 What if we just said like, all right, no one ever has to pay over 10% of their income for health care?

Speaker 56 And

Speaker 56 well, we're going to,

Speaker 56 look, we're going to, it's going to be a mix of credits, government expansion, whatever. We're going to figure it out.
That's our goal.

Speaker 56 Everyone who works should be able to live in a house and never be homeless. That's it.
We're going to figure out where to build more houses. We're going to figure out rents.

Speaker 56 Like, I just think that we get into the policy details of how we're going to get it done. And we need to be more like, here's a big goal that people can grab onto.
And

Speaker 56 it's a good contrast with them. And then just go from there.
I love that. And just to close the loop on this,

Speaker 56 who does that? I mean,

Speaker 56 you say it through the prism of our presidential aspirants, and they're all putting out their damn white papers, and they're trying to shape the party conversation.

Speaker 56 You have the sort of DLC version of this, and the Bruce Reed folks in Alfrom, and we need a version of that 2.0,

Speaker 56 community opportunity responsibility type agenda that can frame broadly those values and then we can back into them. Is it Nancy Pelosi working with Jeffries? Is it Ken Martin? Is it state Democratic

Speaker 56 parties? Is it Mayor

Speaker 56 this or governor that? I mean, who is it?

Speaker 56 Look,

Speaker 56 I think California has always led the way. And should continue.

Speaker 56 For those listening, if you saw this son of a bitch's face, really, really,

Speaker 56 happens here first, we're America's coming attractive. That's what I say.
We are the laboratory. That's this.
You know what?

Speaker 56 On that, we will close to all you listening from the great state of California. It's been Mohan.

Speaker 56 This was really fun. Thank you for

Speaker 56 having us on. I like having you on the other side of this deal.
Honestly, I love it.

Speaker 56 Thank you guys.

Speaker 12 Skip the stress and shop up to 30% off site-wide during Pura's Black Friday sale.

Speaker 12 Enjoy exclusive discounts on premium, long-lasting single fragrances,

Speaker 12 curated gift sets for everyone on your list, and sleek modern diffusers for home and car.

Speaker 12 Spend less time shopping, more time enjoying.

Speaker 12 Get set for gifting season only at Pura.com.

Speaker 37 And don't sweat what gifts to get, Dad.

Speaker 56 Hi, I'm Kate Harmon.

Speaker 65 My dad had Parkinson's disease, and when he passed away last year, I promised I would do everything I could to find a cure. That's why I joined a study from the Michael J.
Fox Foundation.

Speaker 65 They're researching the link between smell loss and brain disease, and they need volunteers. The first step, take a simple scratch and sniff test.

Speaker 65 It's free, mailed to your home, and takes only 15 minutes. Request yours at mysmeltest.org/slash get started.

Speaker 66 That's mysmeltest.org/slash get started.

Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.

And, This is Pod Save America's Jon Favreau & Tommy Vietor

Press play and read along

Transcript

More episodes from This is Gavin Newsom

And, This Is Governor Newsom Live At The DealBook Summit With Andrew Ross Sorkin

And, This Is How The World Looks At Us Under Trump With Ian Bremmer

And, This Is A Final Election Day Push With Aaron Parnas

And, This Is Flooding The Zone With Truth Ft. Ben Meiselas of MeidasTouch

And, This Is How To Solve The Climate Crisis With President Clinton