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Get your Summer Pass today, only

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at cedarpoint.com. If

0:31

you're a regular Pod Save listener, you've heard us

0:33

talk about the partisan right-wing echo chamber that enables

0:35

conspiracy theories, nut jobs, and — oh yeah —

0:37

Trump. The truth is, we should all get

0:39

out of our bubbles a little more. That's why we

0:41

have to recommend you add the Bulwark podcast to your

0:43

rotation. Tim Miller, my pal, and

0:46

a former Republican operative turned anti-Trump crusader,

0:48

interviews a wide range of guests, from

0:50

celebrities to politicians to everyone in between.

0:52

It's non-tribal news and opinion, not for Team

0:54

Red or Team Blue, but for Team Democracy.

0:57

He's also joined by other members of the

0:59

Bulwark crew, like Sarah Longwell, Will Salatin, and

1:01

former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger. Watch

1:03

on YouTube, or listen and subscribe to the

1:05

Bulwarks podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. What's

1:29

up, Brooklyn? Welcome

1:35

to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm

1:40

Stacey Abrams. That's

1:46

a little insulting. I'm

1:49

Jon Lovett. Playing

1:52

for the crowd there. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm

1:56

Dan Pfeiffer. We

2:01

have a great show for you tonight. Strict

2:03

Scrutinies' Melissa Murray is here to break down...

2:07

break down all the latest Supreme

2:09

Court decisions and non- decisions. Our

2:12

pal Amanda Litman, founder of Run for Something

2:14

is here to talk about yesterday's primaries in

2:17

New York and the

2:19

amazing roster of progressive candidates running up and down

2:21

the ballot this fall. And of course we

2:23

are incredibly lucky to be joined

2:26

by Stacey Abrams in her first appearance as

2:29

a POD save America guest host. What

2:32

a dream. Thank you. Thanks for

2:34

doing this. Thanks for having me. Huge

2:36

cat. Huge cat. Huge cat.

2:38

Alright, before we dig into the news,

2:41

we are here in New York because it's

2:43

Publication Week for our book Democracy or

2:45

Else. Yeah,

2:47

How to Save America in 10 Easy Steps.

2:50

Raise your hand if you bought a copy. Alright.

2:53

Pretty good. Thank you. Thank you. Pretty

2:56

good. The rest of you, hold on a second.

2:58

Raise your hand if you didn't. Raise

3:02

your hand if you planned to but he got you a

3:04

little early. There

3:07

you go. Alright. We're

3:09

trying to get this thing to the top of

3:11

the best seller list. Hey, expectations

3:13

game on the best

3:15

seller list. Somewhere near the top.

3:18

I don't know. I'm sorry

3:20

I did that. We're looking to do this not

3:23

just to to fill our

3:25

insatiable hunger for public affirmation, which

3:28

is even more insatiable for some

3:30

of us than others. But

3:34

because the more people who see this book

3:36

and buy this book, the more money goes

3:38

to Vote Save America and 2024 campaigns

3:42

that are doing the real work to

3:44

save democracy. So and luckily

3:46

Brooklyn's own Greenlight Bookstore is here

3:49

in the lobby selling copies. Stacy,

3:53

you're a best-selling author of

3:55

both political books and seven

3:58

actual novels. You guys Any advice

4:00

for us? Writing words

4:02

down works. But

4:05

I will say this, having actually had a chance

4:07

to read a bit of this, you

4:10

should tell your friends, because this is a

4:12

book that lets you read fast and look

4:14

really smart. And

4:16

that's the best kind of book. I mean, if Dosie

4:19

Eskett figured that out, he may have made it some

4:21

time. That's what

4:23

this does. It is a fantastic primer on

4:25

what's happening, but it's an even better way

4:27

for us to feel good about what we

4:29

can get done. So I would just tell

4:31

people that. Best pitch I've heard.

4:33

That's incredible. I mean, Dosie Esky is rolling over

4:35

in his grave, but for

4:38

us, good. Thank

4:40

you. All right, let's get to the news.

4:43

I don't know if you guys have heard. There is

4:45

allegedly a presidential debate Thursday night

4:49

in Stacy's hometown of Atlanta. Most

4:53

important moment of the campaign so far, the

4:56

current president versus the former president, jacked

5:00

up Joe versus Don the con. It's

5:03

a rematch that nearly 60% of Americans

5:07

claim they'll watch, even though

5:09

0% want to. And

5:13

can you blame anyone, because this

5:16

is what happened the last time these two met

5:18

up. I look at New York. It's so

5:20

sad what's happening in New York, and I'm not sure it

5:22

can ever recover what they've done in New York. I

5:25

want to make sure. I enjoyed it last night

5:27

first. I

5:29

want to make sure. Mr. President, can you let him finish, sir?

5:31

He doesn't know how to do that. He

5:33

has. You'd be surprised. You pick the

5:35

wrong guy, the wrong night, at the

5:37

wrong time. My son was

5:40

in Iraq. He spent a year there.

5:42

He was not a loser. He

5:44

was a patriot, and the people

5:47

left behind there were heroes. And

5:49

I resent Mike Hill. I'm

5:51

talking about my son, Beau Biden. You're talking about Phil. I don't

5:53

know Beau. I know Hunter. How do you want to call him?

5:56

Give me a name. Give me a name. White supremacist and white

5:58

supremacist. What would you like me to condemn? White supremacist. I'm

6:00

right. The problem is stand back and

6:02

stand by. But I'll tell you what. Why did

6:04

you do it over the last 25 years? Because

6:07

you are president. Because you are

6:10

president screwing things up. You're the worst

6:12

president in America has ever had. Let

6:14

people know. We're senators. I'm not going

6:16

to answer the question because the question

6:18

is the question is radical left. Would

6:23

you shut up man. It's hard to get any word

6:25

in with this clown. Democracy

6:30

is cool. Democracy in action

6:32

folks. Who's

6:34

excited for these two to give it another go. Anyone

6:38

know that clip like makes

6:41

me want to throw up but I'm also like hearing

6:43

Despacito and I don't totally know why

6:46

it just puts me in that headspace and from that time. You

6:51

know what I mean. Did everyone

6:53

else get the pit in their stomach when they watched it. I

6:55

got I got the pet every time. Yeah. So

6:58

this debate will be 90 minutes to

7:00

commercial breaks to moderators CNN's

7:02

Dana Bash and the man that Trump

7:05

lovingly calls fake tapper. There

7:07

will be no opening statements no pre written

7:10

notes no talking to advisors during the break

7:12

two minute answers one minute rebuttals

7:15

and when your time is up your mic is muted.

7:18

Sure. Muted

7:21

mics. Stacy we

7:23

have all talked probably too much

7:25

at this point about our experiences preparing

7:27

candidates for debates. You're the

7:30

first guest host to have actually participated

7:32

in a debate as a candidate. Can

7:34

you talk a little bit about

7:36

what it was like what your prep was like

7:39

and how much staffers like us annoyed the shit

7:41

out of you. Given

7:44

that some of them still work with me. No I will

7:47

say I was I was

7:49

resistant to the rigor

7:52

of debate prep in

7:54

part because I don't like sounding stupid out

7:56

loud in front of other people and

7:59

part of the debate prep is admitting all of

8:01

the things you don't know to a group of

8:03

people who are there purely to judge you. If

8:07

I want to do that, you know, I'll go and look in a mirror.

8:10

But I will say part of what

8:13

I learned about debate, and it was the best debate advice ever

8:15

got, it was that I wasn't debating

8:17

the other person. It was an

8:19

opportunity to talk to the people. And

8:22

it's hard to ignore the person that you vehemently

8:25

disagree with when they're standing that close. But

8:29

when you can focus on telling

8:31

people what they need to know, it's

8:33

a lot easier to do it. But debate prep

8:36

sucks. It is over and

8:38

over again, like you're

8:40

giving an answer and much as you're probably thinking,

8:42

like, shut up, slow it down, cut it off,

8:44

and you're trying to count in your head to

8:46

30 seconds, 90 seconds, and did

8:49

you remember that pithy phrase you were going

8:51

to use that was going to make everyone,

8:53

you know, tweet you the next day? And

8:55

if not, you just pretend that you said

8:57

it anyway. So there you go. If

9:00

you were in debate prep at Camp David, what

9:03

would you be giving Joe Biden in

9:05

terms of either advice or

9:07

pharmaceuticals? He's

9:13

debated a lot more than I have. He has

9:15

acquitted himself well, I think, I

9:18

will say in grave seriousness, the

9:20

biggest and most important piece of this debate

9:23

is remembering that most people watching it already

9:25

know what they want. What they need

9:27

is to remember why they want it. We

9:31

have selective memory in this country, which is why we

9:33

have to do this every four years, every two years

9:35

trying to remind people to vote. But

9:37

the challenge and the opportunity that

9:40

President Biden has is

9:42

to tell people that this isn't about just

9:44

what has happened. It's also about what can

9:46

happen. Not the fascist

9:48

storm that is heading our way, but he's

9:51

put a lot on the table and I

9:53

grew up in the south. So he's planted

9:55

a lot. Now it's time to let those

9:57

things grow. And I think if

10:00

he talks to folks. about what's possible and

10:02

why he's the person we want tending the

10:04

garden so I can completely butcher this metaphor.

10:06

I like it. That's the best

10:08

way to get people to do this but as

10:10

much as that clip was interesting,

10:13

watching the fisticuffs is not

10:16

going to be what changes people's minds but

10:18

what will get them motivated and engaged is the

10:20

belief that if they go and do something things

10:23

will sprout and grow and life will get better.

10:25

Yeah that's good advice. So Dan

10:29

a lot

10:31

of smart well-meaning

10:33

organizations from the left to the

10:35

center left have been releasing memos

10:37

and polls about what

10:39

they're hoping to hear and see from

10:41

President Biden tomorrow night. I'm sure you've

10:43

read every word, looked at all the

10:46

numbers. What's most persuasive

10:48

to you in terms of the

10:50

message that Biden needs to drive at

10:53

the debate? Well John I have read

10:55

every word of all the memos and you're

10:57

not gonna believe this but just coincidentally

10:59

their advice for what Joe Biden should say

11:02

at the debate lines up perfectly

11:04

with the policy agenda of the organization. That's

11:06

amazing. And what are the odds right? It's

11:08

very weird. Look in all seriousness there is

11:10

good advice in there particularly around how the

11:12

president should talk about immigration and the economy

11:15

but I think that the best

11:17

way for the president to do this is to

11:19

take it bigger right which is the story that

11:21

people leave here, leave the debate with

11:23

is that every single day Joe Biden wakes

11:25

up he's thinking about you he's

11:27

fighting for you. What does that Trump do?

11:29

Thinks about himself right he's

11:32

running for president to avoid going jail, give

11:34

himself a giant tax cut, go back

11:36

in power so he can exact vengeance on his enemies. He's not thinking

11:38

about you if he gets really like there's gonna be no one in

11:40

the White House who's fighting for you right and

11:42

that that is the right message because

11:44

that is the most obviously and essentially

11:46

true message. Joe Biden's superpowers

11:49

his empathy. The most obvious thing

11:51

about Donald Trump is he's a narcissist who

11:53

cares only about himself right. He what is so interesting

11:55

about him is that he is a grievance politician but

11:58

the grievances are all personal. It's

12:00

people who wronged him. Not people who wronged

12:02

you, right? People who took your job away, shipped your

12:04

job overseas. It's about the deep state and the New

12:07

York Times and the CNN and all the people who

12:09

go after him. And that is absolutely true. Now, this

12:12

part is very hard for people like us who have spent

12:15

over a decade now screaming about how the

12:17

press obsesses over optics. But

12:20

what Joe Biden says in this debate is less important than

12:22

how he says it, right? It

12:24

is gonna be, does he come off as forceful,

12:28

strong, energetic? Does he

12:30

answer the questions of, according

12:32

to the New York Times-Siena poll that was released

12:34

hopefully three hours before this podcast, three

12:38

quarters of the country who think he's too old for the job? Right,

12:41

is he gonna address that? Because that to me is

12:43

the whole kitten caboodle. That's

12:45

what this is about. This is why the Biden

12:47

campaign wanted this debate this early on this day,

12:49

because they thought this was their single best opportunity

12:52

to address that. Because once they address that, that

12:54

opens up everything else, right? It

12:56

makes people listen to him more on the economy. Makes people

12:58

trust him more to protect them and keep them safe. We'll

13:00

trust them more to keep the border secure or to pass

13:02

legislation that covers immigration reform. Because you have to do that.

13:04

And so you're gonna get the right message out, but how

13:07

he delivers that message is gonna be more important than anything

13:09

else. Yeah, and what

13:11

people are waking up worried about

13:14

is not necessarily Joe Biden's age. They're worried

13:16

about cost of living, affordability.

13:18

People are saying they worry about immigration.

13:20

They're worried about abortion access, worried about

13:22

democracy. And what they're looking

13:24

for from Biden is that he is strong

13:27

enough that he can do something about this. And

13:30

then that's where the age issue I think comes in.

13:32

And so I do think a lot of strong

13:34

value statements when

13:37

he's up there is gonna be really important to

13:39

let people know he's gonna fight for them. And

13:41

when it comes to the economy, really

13:44

digging in on, here's what

13:46

I have done. It's a down payment on

13:49

what I wanna do for the next four years. And if

13:51

you give me another chance, we'll keep working

13:53

in this direction. If you go with this

13:55

guy, he only cares about himself and he's

13:57

gonna take us back. The worst mistake the president can make

13:59

of this debate. is to turn this into a

14:01

defense of his record over the last four years. Just can't

14:03

do it. Because what you're doing, and I get it, right?

14:05

This is the mistake every incumbent makes. It's the mistake Barack

14:07

Obama made in that first date with Mitt Romney in 2012,

14:10

is you're proud of what you did. You're not getting enough

14:12

credit. This other guy across the stage room is lying about

14:14

what you did, and so you want to defend it, you

14:16

want to do it. But when you do that as the

14:19

incumbent, you're accepting the premise that your opponent wants, which is

14:21

this is a referendum on the past. So

14:23

you've got to make it about the future. But you can mention the

14:25

things you did, but as proof positive that you're going to do the

14:27

extent of the future. The best comparison with Trump

14:29

is not the economy during Trump's presidency and the economy

14:31

now. It's what they're going to do the economy over

14:33

the next four years, right? And Donald Trump's going to cut

14:35

taxes to the rich people. He's going to pay for it

14:38

by cutting social security and Medicare, and he's going to

14:40

overturn the Affordable Care Act. Like, that's his agenda. So go

14:42

future agenda versus future agenda is a good place for

14:44

the president to be. Tommy,

14:46

you weirdly decided to rewatch

14:48

the first Biden Trump debate from 2020. You

14:51

guys did, too. Without being

14:54

asked. Well, Tommy

14:56

and I flew here on Sunday. Our flight was

14:58

delayed five hours. So we spent the day at

15:00

LAX. We did. We finally got on the plane.

15:02

It was pretty late. And Tommy spent the flight

15:05

watching the first debate. It was a good time.

15:08

And then now we all felt bad. So we all started watching

15:10

it today. And let me tell you, it's

15:13

not a fun watch. Tommy, what were your takeaways from

15:15

that undoubtedly enjoyable experience? Yes, we had a great time

15:17

on the plane. Biggest

15:20

takeaway, unfortunately, it's an

15:22

optics one, which is Joe Biden looked a lot younger.

15:24

And I know no one wants to hear that, but

15:26

he looked younger and he sounded younger. And so I

15:28

totally agree with what Dan is saying, that there is

15:31

a threshold question about his age that he has to

15:33

answer that we saw in the New York Times poll

15:35

where 68% of voters were concerned about

15:37

his age and fitness to do the job. So I

15:39

think what he says might be,

15:41

at some points of the debate, less important than

15:43

how he says it or the vigor with which

15:45

he sort of prosecutes the case. The

15:48

flip side of that was Trump

15:50

was so much angrier and redder

15:52

faced and angrier that he was

15:55

so enraged in that

15:57

moment. And I almost forgotten how

15:59

just. just caustic and nasty

16:01

he was. And of course, we did later

16:03

learn that he had COVID and

16:05

he wound up in the hospital. So

16:07

I guess on some level, it's like kind of

16:10

an impressive performance, you know, to get out there

16:12

and just rage for 90 minutes with

16:14

COVID. He played through it. He's like Michael Jordan

16:16

in that game. The one fact about sports I

16:18

know. That was

16:20

good, the flu game. Yeah, the flu game. Jordan

16:22

flu game. It was like the flu game. Good

16:24

for you. And then poor Chris

16:27

Wallace was just a drunk guy at a bar holding

16:29

onto the mechanical bull like, you

16:31

agreed to the rules. But so

16:33

we'll see how this goes. I mean, the takeaway

16:35

was Trump is going to attack from the very

16:37

first second until the last second. So you have

16:40

to be prepared for that, but also parry

16:42

and respond and get him on defense and

16:45

get that version of

16:47

Trump, this angry, raging, red-faced

16:49

man back on that stage. I

16:54

don't think he has learned discipline in the last couple

16:56

of years, but we've seen the more disciplined campaign. So

16:58

it is a concern. I think Biden

17:00

has to look energetic as we discussed,

17:02

he has to be sharp and

17:05

be on top of things. And then the one thing

17:07

that really did make me rethink was this

17:09

question about the muted mics when they're not

17:11

speaking and the impact. Because I do

17:13

think muting their mics when the

17:15

other is speaking is good for the Republic. Because

17:18

I think most people watch a debate like that

17:20

and they shout over each other. And the response

17:22

is not to blame one or the other. It's

17:24

just to be like, politics is awful. ESPN

17:27

is a channel away, like what are we

17:29

doing here? But I do worry that a

17:32

muted mic could save Trump from himself

17:35

and the ugliest side of him coming out. So

17:37

it made me a little anxious about that. Yeah,

17:42

because I remember too, like watching

17:44

that first debate and when they were yelling at each

17:46

other, it was like, oh, this is just, it's just

17:48

bad. To Stacy's earlier

17:50

point about like the most important thing you

17:53

can do is like talk directly to the

17:55

people. I do think to

17:57

the extent that Biden shows anger.

18:00

or passion, you always want it to be

18:02

like anger on behalf

18:04

of the American people, passion on behalf

18:06

of the American people, and not anger

18:08

at Trump. Like when Trump tries to

18:10

kneel him in a personal way, who

18:12

can let that stuff go? When Trump

18:14

tries to say something that you can

18:16

then come back and be like, look,

18:18

you know, in 2020, you tried to

18:20

throw people's votes away, right? You took

18:22

the right

18:24

to decide women's

18:26

health care away from them. You tried to take 20

18:29

million people's health care away from them, right?

18:31

Like get angry about things that affect people.

18:33

Don't get angry about whatever

18:36

Donald Trump says about, you know, you graduated

18:38

last in your class, which he

18:40

seemed really obsessed with in that first debate. Love

18:43

it. One topic DC is yapping about

18:45

ahead of the debate has to do with fact

18:47

checking. CNN's political

18:49

director said that the debate is quote, not

18:51

the ideal arena for live fact checking and

18:53

that Dana and Jake will be quote, facilitating

18:56

the debate between these candidates. They will not

18:58

be participants in that debate. There's some reports

19:00

that this has annoyed the Biden camp. Trump

19:03

then posted that nobody's as loose with

19:05

the truth as Crooked Joe and accused

19:08

him of lying about his golf handicap.

19:12

What do you make of this? How much, if

19:14

any, fact checking should the moderators do? I, yeah,

19:18

no, I look, we're a couple of fact

19:20

checks away from, from having this whole thing

19:22

locked up. Uh, get a couple more Pinocchios

19:24

out there. Can

19:27

all get a good night's sleep. Uh, so

19:30

yeah, I saw these stories and, and look, I

19:32

love working the refs. Let's work the

19:34

refs. Great. But like we

19:36

were just talking about what Joe Biden has to

19:38

do. Joe Biden has to, uh, defy right wing,

19:40

um, caricatures

19:42

of his performance, assuage people's concerns about his

19:44

age while at the same time reminding people

19:47

of everything they dislike about Trump as a

19:49

narcissist and how extreme he is. The

19:51

moderators can't do that. The moderators can't help him

19:54

do either of those things. Only Joe Biden can

19:56

do that. And that would be true if

19:58

the moderators weren't. Jake Tapper

20:00

and Dana Bash, who are, I think,

20:03

two reporters who are gonna follow up. They're

20:05

not gonna just roll over, but we've seen

20:08

them interview both of these people in

20:10

the past, and not only

20:12

that, how does Joe Biden do both

20:14

assuage people's concerns about his age and

20:17

remind people of the threat Trump poses? By beating

20:19

Trump in a debate. That's how he does

20:21

it. He will

20:24

prove that he is up for the job by

20:26

proving that Trump is not up for the job.

20:28

And so I am less concerned about whether or

20:30

not Dana Bash says, actually inflation is technically down,

20:33

or Jake Tapper jumps in and says, actually murder

20:35

rates were higher in 2020. Then

20:37

I am about any circumstance in which Joe Biden

20:39

is just standing there, and all of

20:42

a sudden Jake is arguing with Trump, and then

20:44

Dana Bash comes down with a fucking folding chair

20:46

on top of Trump's head, and

20:48

Joe Biden is just an observer. Like, I'm not

20:50

interested in that. I'm interested in that. Yeah, I

20:52

love that. That seems awesome. What are you talking

20:54

about? That's the biggest- No, no. See, it's really

20:56

problem solved. I'm talking myself into it. I'm talking

20:58

myself into it. More

21:02

broadly, like, there's

21:04

a lot of reasons to be concerned

21:06

about misinformation about Joe Biden's age, about

21:08

the ways in which the media kind

21:10

of has normalized Trump.

21:13

But man, this debate is

21:15

about Joe Biden answering the concerns that

21:17

Americans have. And really,

21:20

I think any conversation about the moderators is a

21:22

side show. Stacy, if

21:24

the moderators don't fact check Trump, how

21:27

much fact checking do you think Joe Biden should do?

21:29

He should only fact check as a way to talk

21:31

about the future. This

21:33

is what should actually be understood. This is

21:36

how we talk about it. Rule

21:38

number one in misinformation is you don't repeat the lie.

21:41

And so using the lie as a way

21:43

to show his strength, to show his future

21:45

vision, to avoid Dana getting

21:48

up with the chair, those are all,

21:51

like, he could be doing a lot of services,

21:53

both for America and for CNN, by

21:56

using it as a point of entry

21:58

to a larger conversation. that people see

22:00

what possibilities look like. And

22:03

to the point about being reminded of

22:05

just how angry Trump is, not

22:08

taking the bait ticks him off more

22:10

than almost anything else. And so

22:12

being unwilling to take the bait and instead

22:14

being the grownup on the stage, which is

22:17

what he is, that's the best way to

22:19

fact check without having to call

22:21

the question. I think that's so important.

22:24

And I think Biden fell into this in that last

22:26

debate with the wrong guy,

22:29

wrong time, wrong place. That

22:32

is a version of strength. But

22:34

Biden needs to be as strong and steady. People

22:38

think Trump is strong. They may view

22:40

that strength in a malicious way, as many

22:42

of us do and should. But he comes

22:44

off as strong. It's Sarah Longwell, our friend

22:46

who's on this podcast a lot, says he

22:48

gives off raving lunatic energy. And

22:52

so that becomes quite of a strong. So

22:54

Biden doesn't show strength by repeatedly

22:56

punching Trump in the face, literally

22:59

or figuratively, but by

23:02

being strong and energetic in his responses, but also seeming

23:04

steady. Because that's the difference between the two. That's

23:06

how Biden won was Trump, you watch that

23:08

debate and it's a reminder of just how

23:10

chaotic and erratic and alarming Trump is. And

23:12

that was particularly alarming at a time of

23:14

national crisis like we were going through in

23:16

the pandemic at the time. And so Biden

23:18

had people looked at Biden. They said, that

23:21

is a steady hand on the wheel

23:23

in a dangerous time. And Biden has to show

23:25

that because that's been lost over the last four years. I

23:28

mean, I think it's machismo versus maturity. Yes,

23:30

that's right. We need to see

23:32

maturity and that lets him lean into

23:34

age because you get maturity

23:36

from someone who's been here long enough to know what's worth

23:38

fighting about and what's not. We've got a whole

23:41

lot of maturity on our side. Yeah. We

23:43

got maturity in spades. Yeah, we got maturity up

23:45

the yang. We got so much

23:47

maturity. I think the

23:50

wear gets a little weird for Jake

23:52

and Dana. It's not like actually, Mr.

23:54

Former President, 27

23:56

NATO countries paid 2% of GDP for defense.

23:58

It's like not cheap. It's like would you

24:00

cheer? You

24:03

know, it's like it's like no actually mr.

24:05

President you you didn't win the 2020

24:07

election and your own attorney general said

24:09

there wasn't sufficient voter fraud to impact

24:11

the outcome in any way like those

24:13

are the kind of threshold like The

24:17

sky is blue the sky is red kind of reality

24:19

based questions where I wonder if they start to feel

24:21

like they need to start Yeah I mean we're talking

24:23

about this like it's a regular presidential debate but one

24:25

of the candidates is a convicted felon

24:28

who tried to Overturn the last election and then

24:30

incited a violent insurrection in the Capitol. So it's

24:32

just like It's like so

24:34

this the elephant in the room, you know Right

24:39

now if you look at swing state polls, right

24:41

Donald Trump is currently leading Joe Biden is

24:43

losing Joe Biden needs to

24:45

change something at this debate if we come out

24:47

of this debate and it's a story about how

24:49

Donald Trump and Jake Tapper were mixing it up.

24:51

Well, that's a problem That's it like and I

24:53

and I don't like I think just as much

24:55

as like Whatever this

24:59

like I don't think Jake Tapper or Dana bash want

25:01

to be the story out of this debate All right,

25:03

but I at the same time I expect one way

25:05

They will avoid any question about being

25:07

biased is they're not gonna go easy on Donald Trump

25:09

They're gonna go really hard on both of them. Right?

25:12

Like everyone's talking a lot about their about what Jake

25:14

and Dana are gonna do with Trump like One

25:17

of the ways Joe Biden is gonna have to he's

25:19

gonna get some pretty hard questions From the moderators too

25:21

and that's gonna be that's gonna be part of his

25:23

test a story that comes out matters a lot Right.

25:25

Yeah, because I know 60%

25:28

of voters said they're gonna watch the debate That

25:30

would be 90 million people zero chance there

25:32

So, you know if you pull people to ask me if you're

25:34

gonna go to gym this week. They also say yes Half

25:39

the country's full of shit but so

25:42

You know the that Biden debate that we

25:44

just saw 70 million people endured that Now

25:46

that's a time in which that was a general election debate in October at

25:49

a time in which You really had no

25:51

other option It's not like you're choosing between the debate and

25:53

going out to dinner with your friends or going to a

25:55

baseball game Right you were either watching that or watching something

25:57

else, right in that same poll

25:59

where 60% of people said they'd watch it, only

26:01

41% of quote-unquote swing voters said they were gonna watch

26:03

it. And so the people we

26:05

need most are probably not gonna watch it. So they're just

26:07

gonna pick up the vibes off the debate. And

26:10

if the vibe is, God, that was

26:12

fucking awful. These guys yelled at each other for

26:14

90 minutes. That doesn't change

26:17

the dynamics of the race, right? If it is Trump's a

26:19

giant asshole, that does help a little bit. But the one

26:21

you really want is Biden was better

26:23

than I thought. Yep. Right? That's

26:26

what you want people talking about, right? And then when people see the

26:28

clips, because the real spin war is gonna be on TikTok after the

26:30

debate's over, you want the clips to jive.

26:32

Like that's what'll go viral. A bunch of people going, Biden

26:34

was pretty good. I don't agree with him on everything, but

26:36

he was pretty good. Yeah. You want a hot guy who

26:38

normally makes pottery to be like, I actually

26:40

watched the debate and I was pretty surprised. No,

26:43

you want one of the clip guys like Aaron

26:45

Rupar being like, I can't believe Maria Bartiromo said

26:47

this. And you click the clip and you're totally

26:49

underwhelmed by the results. But yeah, you gotta frame

26:51

it. You gotta frame it. Question for

26:53

the group before we move on. The

26:55

president of CNN called you and

26:58

said that Jake was having a dental emergency and

27:01

you had to be the fill in moderator. What

27:04

is the number one question you're

27:06

asking Donald Trump? Jake is ripping that

27:08

tooth out with his bare hands. Remember

27:11

the scene he cast away where he put the

27:13

figure skin against his tooth and he banged it

27:15

out of his face with a rock. Cut

27:18

me, cut me, cut

27:20

me, man. Anyone got a question? It's a rocky joke. Anyone

27:24

that don't have curse words in them. I'm...

27:33

Don't challenge her to swear. I'm

27:37

the daughter of not one, but two pastors. If

27:40

I curse, I have to say bless your heart when I'm done. No,

27:44

I mean, I think it's a question about... I

27:48

don't know, because he's gonna lie. Maybe

27:51

just ask him how old he is, see if he can get

27:53

that one right. Don't you want to ask

27:55

like basics sometimes, like how does a bill become a law? That...

27:59

No, no, no. How many states

28:01

are there? What

28:03

are the three branches of government?

28:05

Where where is Florida? Explain

28:08

the difference between Medicare and Medicaid. Oh

28:14

Look I wanted to ask this question because we

28:16

know tomorrow morning when this podcast comes out Jake

28:18

and Dan are gonna be listening Yeah, what about

28:20

there? They are the first thing they do positive

28:22

America, but how are you really you

28:24

know like see if you can get Open up because

28:27

you hope I

28:29

Drake your kendrick Love

28:34

it. Do you have one? You know I was

28:36

thinking about this question and I

28:38

really don't like I I Feel

28:41

like I feel like the questions we

28:43

actually want him to answer are all so obvious

28:45

right because like the truth is obvious That's I

28:47

think the challenge of being in this time Which

28:50

is that like the truth is? Blitheringly obvious to

28:52

all of us and it feels like our job

28:54

is to go out there and say something that

28:56

we believe is completely Obvious to

28:58

a country that is for some reason

29:00

inexplicably unavoidably 50-50 no matter what fucking

29:03

happens And so it's like

29:05

really the question. It's like you end up at the place.

29:07

You're like how fucking how do you fuck your mother? How

29:09

could you? And

29:12

that doesn't do anything for anybody but

29:15

I Like I like questions though.

29:17

I do think that like there have been moments with

29:19

Trump to where you ask a question like You

29:22

know we're so accustomed to it now

29:24

like the Trump worldview is everything he's ever done

29:26

is perfect And when he's president everything's great, and

29:28

he's not everything shit And that flips that that's

29:30

a switch that flips the day he wins or

29:32

loses and like what's your biggest mistake? Right

29:35

like what do you think you got most

29:37

wrong when you were president like what's your

29:39

biggest regret Mike Pence? Yeah? Interesting

29:43

but that's interesting right but

29:45

I remember early on Hugh Hewitt

29:47

love its friend conservative radio host asked

29:49

President Trump then candidate Trump What is

29:52

the nuclear triad which is like the

29:54

three means of distributing nuclear weapons? There's

29:56

subs there's nuclear silos, and there's bombers

29:59

And Trump clearly didn't know the

30:01

answer unlike all of us and just

30:03

fudged his way through it But

30:06

Hugh is a right-wing hack who worked for

30:08

Richard Nixon and now is a radio show

30:10

So we just kind of let it pass

30:12

but like something like that could just catch

30:14

him on the basics of government Yeah, he's

30:16

very good at not answering questions. Yeah. Yeah,

30:18

like he like his greatest political skill is

30:20

that he has no capacity for shame in

30:22

his body and So

30:24

it just like any other normal person would get

30:26

that question and they would feel more and more

30:28

Uncomfortable as they were like trying to bullshit their

30:30

way through it. It would be patly obvious. He

30:33

just like bulls through it Well, that's I

30:35

think that's what you can't it can't be

30:37

a question that he's just gonna like lie

30:39

through like I want him To I would

30:42

ask him. All right, you have said before that

30:44

you this is kind of goes to the Mike

30:46

Pence thing You said before that you

30:48

hire the best people but

30:51

more than a dozen of your

30:53

most senior aides last time you

30:55

were president are Not

30:57

supporting you including multiple

31:00

defense secretaries multiple national security

31:02

advisors your vice president multiple

31:04

White House Chiefs of Staff

31:06

and They have said about you

31:08

that you are a threat to democracy that you

31:10

were a danger to America that you are a

31:12

narcissistic moron How

31:16

can the American people trust you to

31:18

lead this country if the people that

31:20

you hired who worked closest with you?

31:23

Aren't supporting you Betty

31:26

gets that yeah, that's a good question. You

31:28

said you had a great question just in

31:30

your back fucking pocket Fucking

31:34

contest I just wanted to That was

31:37

really good. I think he really

31:39

good. Did it Chris Wallace ask him that question Chris

31:42

Wallace? Yeah, when on Fox News

31:44

Sunday, I think oh, yeah, when did he do an interview

31:46

with? Oh, wait, what is the last time he I was

31:48

wondering this because like this is the first time that Donald

31:50

Trump has Submitted

31:52

himself to questions from someone

31:54

who is not a like right wing

31:56

like a Newsmax person Like when did

31:58

he do Chris Wallace? That was a

32:00

long time ago. That was years ago. Caitlin Collins, I

32:03

think, on CNN was probably the last. It

32:05

is interesting. Or the 90-minute Time Magazine interview that

32:08

he did. Which is wild. Yeah, well, that's not

32:10

live TV. I don't think that

32:12

we talk a lot about, oh, incumbent presidents, they're

32:14

not used to being questioned. This is a rare

32:16

time. We have two incumbent presidents who are going

32:19

to face tough questions in a way neither one

32:21

of them are particularly used to. I also think

32:23

Trump, too, if you ask him a

32:25

question, he knows it's meant to throw him off guard. He's very

32:28

good at avoiding it. But actually, some of the most

32:30

damaging things he's ever said. I think

32:32

there should be some punishment for the woman. Those

32:34

are questions that didn't seem dangerous.

32:37

And he tried to bullshit his way through because he didn't

32:40

know the answer and didn't know how fraught it was. So

32:42

that's sometimes the most interesting space to get

32:44

Trump. Yeah. Give me your thoughts on tax policy,

32:46

sir. I

32:48

think catching him being dumb is

32:50

fine, because that'll happen. But

32:52

I do think some of the questions are

32:55

like, hey, are we all crazy here? He

32:57

tried to overturn the election. Imagine

33:00

if all of Joe Biden's senior officials were

33:02

like, absolutely not. The guy's a threat to

33:04

democracy. What are we doing here? Just

33:07

questions like that, I think, are that. In the New

33:09

York Times poll, once again, released.

33:11

I know. I know. I know. It was podcast.

33:14

6% of likely voters think that Donald Trump should be

33:16

president and in prison. Eight. It was eight. No, that's

33:18

registered. It's registered. It's six and likely.

33:20

I said that, or I saw that. I was like, eight,

33:22

you want to be really sad? 8% of

33:24

the supporters think you should go to jail. It's

33:27

tough. It's tough. OK, enough

33:29

of that. It's going to be a great debate tomorrow night.

33:32

Wonderful. It's going to be a- We'll see you on the

33:34

other side. It's going to be a pageant of democracy. But

33:37

before we let Stacy go, she has generously

33:40

agreed to play a game with

33:42

some spicy pros that

33:44

will seem very familiar to you. And

33:47

I don't know anything about this. Stacy.

33:50

Yes, John. I don't know if you know this,

33:52

but Tommy

33:55

and I and John sort of, he helped a little. I've

33:59

heard tell. It's called Democracy or Else. It dropped

34:01

Tuesday and it's available at fine bookstores everywhere, including

34:04

here at this show. And if it hits the

34:06

best sellers list, maybe airports. You,

34:10

of course, are not just a person who's helping

34:12

to change the politics of Georgia while advocating for

34:14

voting rights and democracy. You are also an author

34:17

of multiple novels, which

34:21

you wrote under your pseudonym J.K.

34:23

Rowling. I

34:32

read them all on the plane. It's Selena Montgomery, which

34:35

is a beautiful name. I really like it. Thank you. Yeah,

34:37

I really like that. Now, I read them all on the

34:39

plane here and boy, are my arms tired. So we

34:42

thought we'd make voting rights sexy in a segment

34:44

we're calling Kiss and Tell, People

34:47

to Register. And

34:50

it's very simple. Okay. I would

34:53

just love if you could help our audience get a

34:55

primer on the stakes around voting and democracy in this

34:57

election. So John, Tommy,

34:59

and Dan are each going to ask you a question

35:01

about it. Okay. And that's all there

35:03

is to it. I do not believe you. No, that

35:06

really is. They're just gonna ask you a question and

35:08

that's all there is to it. Dan, you're gonna kick

35:10

us off. Oh no. Excellent. Here is your question for

35:12

Stacy. Why don't you kick it off and please read

35:14

it as written. Thank you. Okay. Okay.

35:20

Hi, Stacy. It's me, Dan Pfeiffer. Hi,

35:24

Dan. I lend a little, I lend a certain credibility

35:26

to this whole operation. Sort of a spectrum, with love

35:29

on one end and me on the other. Anywho.

35:32

Hey, slow, hey, don't rush through it. Okay. Anywho,

35:36

in exchange in one of your novels, reminded me

35:38

of the importance of male and voting. Hunger

35:42

raged inside her, demanding to be

35:44

seated. But it would mean nothing if he didn't

35:46

understand. You were all I ever

35:49

wanted, she said. Ethan froze, stunned and humbled.

35:51

He kissed her then, slowly, tenderly.

35:54

A benediction and a beginning. Murmuring

35:57

into the night, I've only ever been

35:59

yours. Republicans in Nevada

36:01

are suing to block the count of mail ballots

36:04

that arrive after election day. There

36:07

are efforts to restrict voting across the country

36:09

in the hope the Supreme Court will issue

36:11

benedictions for their policies. I see what you

36:13

did there. But it is not, but is

36:15

the hunger for democracy among voters enough to

36:17

overcome these restrictions? Well, given

36:20

that as a line from hidden sins, what

36:24

we know, thank you, what

36:26

we know is that the

36:29

secret to their success was

36:32

revealing to the world what was

36:34

happening. So number one, the way

36:36

we protect democracy and we ensure

36:38

access is by pushing

36:41

hard for the world to see what Nevada

36:43

has been and what it could be. Because

36:45

Maros was a story of redemption. And

36:48

we can redeem ourselves and

36:51

Nevada in 2022 by making sure that the

36:54

voters of Nevada believe that not only is their

36:57

right to vote sacred, but it has been addiction

36:59

to put a stamp on that ballot and send

37:01

it in so it can't. And

37:05

John has a question for you

37:07

as well. And

37:09

John, I hate you. Okay. Hi,

37:13

Stacy. It's me, podcasting's

37:15

John Favreau. Polls

37:19

show a lot of voters, especially voters

37:21

who are less engaged and less likely

37:23

to vote, are skeptical of democracy itself,

37:26

whether it can deliver that it's worth their time.

37:29

Which reminded me of how much

37:31

we admire your leadership and wisdom. Do

37:33

we take for granted that people understand why a

37:35

democratic system is best? How do you

37:37

address that cynicism? He just got a nice one.

37:39

Yeah. I was reading it

37:42

like, oh, no. I

37:44

don't think we take it for granted. I

37:46

think it depends on the state

37:48

you live in, literally. We have 50 different

37:51

democracies. If you're in Oregon or

37:53

in California, congratulations or Washington State,

37:56

yay. If you're in Georgia, God bless

37:58

you because the governor won't. If

38:02

you're in Florida or Texas, they're trying their

38:04

best to stop you. And so I think

38:06

our opportunity is to remember that not everyone

38:08

has the same democracy that you do, even

38:11

though we live in the United States. And

38:13

so a lot of the work that we do,

38:16

a lot of the work that Vote Save America

38:18

does, that Fair Fight does, the work that gets

38:20

done is about trying to ensure that for as

38:22

many people as possible, we can start to take

38:25

for granted how democracy should work. But until we

38:27

get there, we've got to do the work for

38:30

everyone who doesn't have a chance to stand up. That's

38:32

great. Yeah. And

38:35

while I'm talking about Fair Fight,

38:37

make sure you check out fairfight.com/

38:40

LFGV. F

38:43

stands for freaking. Let's

38:45

freaking go vote. So go to

38:47

fairfight.com LFGV,

38:50

which is being done in partnership with Vote

38:52

Save America because we can get this done.

38:56

And I believe Tommy has

38:58

a question for you. Tommy, I

39:00

am sorry. Okay. Hi,

39:03

Stacey. Tommy Vitor here. And I turn

39:05

red at the slightest provocation. Hold

39:10

for effect. I was thinking

39:13

about the franchise while reading this passage in

39:15

the novel Hidden Sins. Heat,

39:17

like an inferno, blazed in his

39:19

veins. It demanded that he

39:22

slide his arms around her, that he

39:24

trail his hand along her spine to

39:26

sink into the silver curls at her

39:28

nape. He wanted to pull away to

39:31

resist the skeins, thank

39:33

you for the parenthetical there, that would

39:35

bind his heart to her again, but he'd

39:37

forgotten that she tasted of honeyed

39:40

sweetness. Thanks. We

39:44

are trying to resist the skeins of partisan gerrymandering

39:46

and the purging of voter rolls. But

39:48

for Republicans, the prospect of choosing their voters

39:50

rather than the other way around is just

39:52

too sweet. How do we fight

39:55

for democracy when it feels like the democracy itself

39:57

is stacked against us? Thank

40:00

you. We

40:04

fight for democracy by remembering that we're entitled

40:06

to it. The Constitution does

40:08

not give us the right to

40:10

vote, but our citizenship

40:12

gives us the responsibility to

40:15

demand the vote. And

40:20

so part of the effectiveness

40:22

of gerrymandering is that it tries to convince us

40:24

that our votes don't matter because we don't live

40:26

in the right zip code or on the right

40:29

side of the line. My

40:31

response is that we do our best

40:33

to erase those lines. We

40:36

do that by making sure that people

40:38

who don't, who were unfortunately

40:40

drawn out of power understand that there are

40:42

other ways to gain that power. And we

40:45

don't use voting as the only thing. It

40:47

is one of the tools in the toolbox.

40:50

And just as the curls of the

40:52

nape of Mara's head that curled around

40:54

her fingers, as he pulled

40:58

her closer, we can too pull our

41:00

country closer together. Amazing. Amazing.

41:04

Amazing. So just

41:06

so everyone, thank you so much, Stacy. Thank

41:08

you for having me. Before, just

41:12

so everybody here knows, we'll

41:14

have more to say about it soon. But

41:16

there is a very exciting project from

41:19

Stacy Abrams and Crooked Media coming

41:22

your way soon. But

41:25

I won't kiss and tell. Stacy

41:28

Abrams, everybody. The

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one and only.

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list is now Angie, and we've heard a

42:54

lot of theories about why. I thought it

42:56

was an eco-move. For your words, less paper.

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Oh, it was so you could say

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it faster. No, it's to be more

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iconic. Must be a tech thing. But

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It is, and it makes us so

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much more than just a list. Get

43:18

started at angie.com. That's A-N-G-I. Or download

43:20

the app today. I'm

43:23

Indian American. Emphasis on American.

43:25

And for most of my

43:27

life, understanding the country my family came from was low on

43:29

my to-do list. That

43:31

was until I began following a mystery. The

43:34

story centered around a suspicious death. In

43:37

December of 2014, Judge Bridge Kapalaloy had

43:39

died at a wedding in Nagpur, India of a heart

43:41

attack. But when

43:44

his niece approached a journalist two years later,

43:46

she shared a different narrative. That

43:48

the circumstances around Judge Bridge Kapalaloy's death made

43:51

his family doubt the official story. I'm

43:54

Ravi Gupta, host of Killing Justice, the newest

43:57

podcast from Crooked Media and The Branch. And

44:00

throughout this show, I examine the reporting, legal

44:02

fallout, and conflicting evidence that unfurl from

44:05

this tip. Killing

44:07

Justice isn't just about one man's mysterious

44:09

death. It's about the battle for

44:11

truth in the heart of the world's largest democracy.

44:15

New episodes of Killing Justice release every

44:17

Monday on Apple and Spotify. Subscribe

44:19

now so you don't miss an episode.

44:22

For ad-free episodes, join the

44:24

Friends of the Pod community

44:26

at crooked.com/friends. Our

44:32

guest tonight is the co-founder of Run for

44:34

Something. Thank

44:37

you. An amazing organization that has recruited

44:39

and trained thousands of progressive candidates all around this

44:41

country to run for office up and down the

44:43

ballot. She is one of the most

44:45

inspiring and smartest people in democratic

44:47

politics. Please welcome to the stage

44:50

Brooklyn's own Amanda Lipman. Thank

45:03

you for being here. Thank you for having me.

45:05

I promise not to make you read anything from Stacey's books.

45:08

I've read a few of them. They're very good. They're

45:10

very good, yes. Okay.

45:13

While the presidential race is going to come

45:15

down to traditional battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan,

45:17

Wisconsin, the race for control of the House

45:19

of Representatives is going to come down to

45:22

this state right here, New

45:25

York. Now, last night was

45:27

a primary election here. We

45:29

had a very divisive primary. Incoming

45:31

Jamaal Bowman lost. But

45:35

going forward, this is going to be where it happens,

45:37

right? We have two Republicans and say this is a

45:39

Joe Biden one, a bunch of really purple districts. What

45:42

is your view of what's going to happen in

45:44

the state? Can the party unite in time to

45:46

take advantage of a bunch of contested, targeted, winnable

45:48

House races in a very blue state in a

45:50

presidential year? I think we're going to have to. New

45:54

York is going to be a battleground this year,

45:57

which is a little unfamiliar for us New Yorkers.

46:00

most elections, but we have

46:02

seen what New Yorkers can do when it comes

46:04

to going out to Pennsylvania and knocking doors when

46:06

it comes to going down

46:08

to Virginia and knocking doors when it counts. And

46:10

I believe that New Yorkers can understand

46:13

this is our time to shine. We

46:15

can show up when it counts. We

46:17

always do. And

46:21

there are some really competitive local elections that

46:23

are going to be happening this year all

46:25

across the state, including in some of these

46:27

competitive house districts that are going to make

46:29

the difference too. Are

46:31

there any political races anywhere on the

46:33

ballot here in New York that you're

46:36

watching with particular interests that you think

46:38

are inspiring candidates, interesting, important races? Well,

46:41

run for something just had a bunch of candidates up

46:43

on the ballot yesterday that I'm really excited about. We

46:46

helped Claire Valdez win a union

46:48

organizer, take a seat in the state assembly

46:50

up in Albany. Gabriela Romero,

46:53

want to see a very progressive,

46:55

incredible young woman in a very

46:57

competitive race. I think

46:59

there's going to be some really exciting races out on Long Island

47:01

this year. So stay tuned. People

47:05

often think that it is the presidential race that drives

47:07

turnout. Right. And that was sort of in

47:10

the premise of my question that this is a presidential year here in New

47:12

York. But run for something thinks it's the opposite. Right.

47:14

You talk about something that's called reverse

47:16

coattails where local elections can actually drive

47:19

turnout for the top of the ticket. Do you explain

47:21

your theory and how it's impacted recent elections? So

47:25

traditionally people understand that the presidential candidate has

47:27

coattails, that people show up to vote for

47:29

Biden or against Trump and then also fill

47:31

out the rest of the ballot. What run

47:33

for something I see, and I'm actually proved

47:35

this out with some research back in 2020

47:38

is that contesting local elections, especially

47:41

state-ledged, city council, school board, can

47:43

increase turnout for the entire ticket

47:46

to the tune of anywhere between 0.3 and 2.3% within

47:50

that district, which can be the

47:52

margin of victory for say Biden

47:54

in Wisconsin or Arizona or Georgia.

47:57

Now think about this a little bit. local

48:00

candidates, your state-led candidate, your city council

48:02

candidate is out there knocking doors, talking

48:04

to voters, hey, I'm Amanda, I want

48:06

to talk to you about your property

48:08

taxes or the book bans they're pushing

48:11

or how we can fight for abortion

48:13

access here in this state. You

48:15

know them, you can yell at them directly if

48:17

you want, which is kind of fun. You

48:20

can really build a personal relationship. It's like

48:22

a field organizer with a ton of skin

48:24

in the game. More recently

48:26

we actually tested this out with

48:28

young voters in particular. We fielded a question

48:30

in a poll. We asked young voters in

48:33

battleground states if there was a young, diverse

48:35

progressive running for state or local office near

48:37

you or in your area, how would that

48:39

affect your likelihood to vote? 61%

48:43

of young Democrats said it would make them more likely to

48:45

show up. That's

48:47

huge. Especially

48:50

in a year where, like, let's be

48:52

honest, a lot of young people, especially

48:54

young voters of color, not particularly

48:56

psyched to show up for

48:58

Biden. So this is a tool in our

49:00

toolbox. I was going to ask that because this

49:02

is, you know, I think obviously

49:05

reverse coattails works all the time,

49:07

particularly in, you know, redder

49:09

parts of the state where Democrats may not run all

49:11

the time or there's not a competitive congressional race. So

49:13

you're not seeing ads to turn

49:15

out, but maybe you're turning out for your local school

49:17

board or as you say, your city council or alderman

49:19

or local election official. I know something you guys focus

49:21

a lot on. But this

49:23

year in particular, it feels

49:26

like with so many people

49:28

being unhappy with the choice at the top of

49:30

the ticket for whatever reason, that this

49:32

would be most important. Right. You

49:34

know, we just had a small gathering to talk about some of

49:36

the work run for something does around school board races. And

49:39

Louisa Santos, who's a member of the

49:41

Miami Dade School Board, who's a target

49:43

for Ron DeSantis, who's had proud boys

49:45

like show up at her campaign events,

49:47

who's been harassed and also has done

49:49

incredible things for Miami Dade, bringing electric

49:52

school buses down there for working

49:54

for free lunch for kids. She

49:56

was telling us how she goes and knocks doors and she'll talk

49:58

to voters and she'll vote this

50:00

fall and they're like, no, psych,

50:03

not interested. And they'll say, well,

50:05

let me talk to you about what I've done for your kids. We

50:08

don't even have to talk about Biden. We don't have to talk

50:10

about Trump. Let's talk about what I've done for your kids and

50:12

for our community. Have a conversation.

50:14

Will you show up and vote for me? And

50:17

she's able to get them to say yes.

50:20

And that times a

50:22

thousand is what's going to win for

50:24

democracy this fall. Right. Because people,

50:28

they turn out, they're unlikely

50:30

to leave the first question blank. Right.

50:33

It's just not really what

50:36

people do. Sometimes people leave the down ballot

50:38

blank, but what we're doing with the thousands

50:40

of run for something candidates across the country

50:42

this year that we've recruited and the hundreds

50:44

that we're endorsing is, is giving

50:47

people more invitations, more reasons to

50:49

show up. They'll probably do

50:51

the rest of the ballot, most of them,

50:53

because most of them are Democrats, they don't

50:56

want Trump. They're just like not super psyched

50:58

about everything else. In

51:01

2022, you guys spend, everyone spent a lot

51:03

of time talking about electing the candidates at

51:05

the local level who are going to help

51:08

certify the elections. Right. That in some cases,

51:10

it's the recorder of deeds. Right. Could

51:13

you just talk a little bit about that effort, how you're

51:15

doing in 2024? And maybe some of these, because we

51:17

know when you talk local issues, right? You think

51:19

local candidate, school board, potholes,

51:23

local excise taxes, right? But

51:25

how local candidates affect

51:27

like some of the national issues we

51:30

think about, like education, abortion, healthcare,

51:32

that sort of stuff. Okay. So we

51:34

pro this program clerk work because I love a

51:36

good rhyme. And the idea

51:39

is that we should elect pro democracy

51:41

leaders who actually oversee elections revolution.

51:43

That is a crazy idea. Crazy. It's

51:45

something Steve Bannon fundamentally disagrees with and

51:47

has been running massive campaigns to recruit

51:49

against. We have been doing this

51:52

now for about two and a half years. Intentionally, we've gotten more

51:54

than 500 folks to run for

51:56

pro democracy positions that actually oversee elections.

51:58

My favorite example here. So

52:00

in 2023, we sent a bunch of text

52:02

messages out in Pennsylvania saying, hey, have you

52:04

thought about running for county commission? Because county

52:06

commissions, among their many other powers, oversee

52:09

the election, decide where polling places are

52:11

and how the election is certified. One

52:14

of the people we texted was a

52:16

pastor in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania named Justin

52:18

Douglas. Justin had been

52:21

fired from his congregation for being

52:23

too welcoming to LGBTQ congregants. He

52:26

had been working with the unhoused community in the area.

52:28

And he was like, I don't know if I'm the right

52:30

person for this, but I'll have a conversation with you. Our

52:33

Pennsylvania state director and our team there worked

52:36

with him to get him to yes, and

52:38

then to help him run this incredible campaign

52:40

for county commission in Dauphin County, which is

52:43

around Harrisburg. He was outspent 10

52:45

to 1. He was running against

52:47

a Republican who had all the money and all

52:49

the support and all the institutions. And

52:52

Justin was leaving flyers on people's doors. I

52:54

was like, the mayor in Jaws 1 is

52:56

still the mayor in Jaws 2 local elections

52:58

matter. One

53:01

of the things in his campaign... That's

53:04

so funny. Yeah,

53:07

he's great. One of the things

53:09

in his campaign, besides democracy, was that a

53:11

number of prisoners had died in residence at

53:13

the county jail system that the county commission

53:15

oversaw. And he made that a core part

53:17

of his campaign. Justin

53:20

won by just about 150 votes. Justin

53:27

flipped control of the county commission

53:29

for the first time since the

53:31

early 1900s and over 100 years. One

53:35

of the first things Justin did was expand the

53:37

number of ballot drop boxes in Dauphin County. Justin

53:42

is making sure that ballots are available

53:44

in Spanish and Nepalese and Bhutanese. He's

53:47

ensuring that the anti-democracy and Republican

53:49

incumbent he beat has no control

53:51

over whether the election is certified.

53:54

Justin and the county commissioners

53:57

that he is part of are going to make

53:59

sure that... Joe Biden is able to

54:01

fairly win the election in Pennsylvania this year and

54:03

win the White House. When

54:06

Run for Something started in 2017, right after Trump

54:09

won, you

54:12

became a vehicle for this tremendous sense

54:15

of activism among people. Like, what can

54:17

I do? And you facilitated people

54:19

who were looking for something to do to run for

54:21

office at all levels. And there was a

54:24

huge burst of people who wanted to do it. In

54:26

the ensuing years, right, we,

54:29

you know, especially since 2020, there has been

54:31

this sense that a lot

54:33

of people have disengaged from politics. Either they

54:37

thought Trump is gone and

54:39

I'm exhausted and I can take a break, he's

54:42

back, or they're maybe just burned

54:44

out, cynical, whatever else. What's it

54:46

been like trying to get people to run for

54:49

office this year in this environment? Would

54:51

you believe that we have built a list of almost

54:53

160,000 young

54:56

people in all 50 states who want to

54:58

run for office? It

55:04

is, as far as we know, the largest

55:07

candidate pipeline of the Democratic

55:09

Party. Thousands

55:12

of people have signed up just in the last

55:14

few months. They believe we're going to still

55:16

have elections in 2025 and they want to

55:18

be on the ballot when we do. That's

55:21

amazing. You know, a lot of

55:23

the candidates work with their young candidates, right? You really

55:25

focus on young progressive candidates. All

55:27

of the polling, all of the polling we believe suggests that

55:29

one of the challenges for the Democratic Party right now are

55:32

young voters, progressives, but also young

55:34

voters writ large. What advice

55:36

do you have for Democratic candidates running

55:38

anywhere about how they can bring Democratic

55:41

voters back into the fold, young voters

55:43

back into the fold? Talk about

55:45

the things young voters care about. It

55:47

really, in many ways, is that simple. Housing,

55:50

young people disproportionately feel the impact

55:52

of the cost of housing, especially

55:55

because young people are renters. And we do

55:58

not have enough renters in elected office. conversations

56:00

about housing, it's a lot of landlords.

56:03

Abortion access. You

56:10

know, I'm still

56:12

technically a young voter, I'm six months

56:14

pregnant, reproductive health is on my mind.

56:16

Congratulations. Mid

56:20

October due date, I'm just going to be crying in my

56:22

house either way. Think

56:27

about the things that are really affecting young people. Even

56:30

here in New York, public

56:32

transit could

56:37

go on a whole rant about congestion

56:39

pricing, but boy, Kathy Hochul's

56:41

making it real hard. No,

56:44

I think it's in many ways young

56:46

voters really want to hear people talk, hear

56:49

our politicians in our party talk to us

56:51

about the things that directly affect our quality

56:53

of life, which is not to

56:55

say that democracy isn't part of that. It absolutely is.

56:57

And it's not to say that restoring the soul of

56:59

America is part of that too. Sure, kind of. Some

57:01

of us are like hit or miss about what the

57:04

soul of America is. It good, it's a bad, I

57:06

don't know. But for most

57:08

young people, they just want someone to tell them,

57:10

like, I can fix the things that are bothering

57:12

you. I can give you hope.

57:14

I can show you that there is a path to

57:16

a better community and a better place to live. That's

57:19

why local candidates can really drive us. In

57:22

your, is that recognition that granularity is important, specificity

57:24

is important? You know, you made a mention of

57:26

the democracy message, right? Is there a sense that

57:28

for a lot of young voters, I think maybe

57:31

for a lot of voters, the democracy message may

57:33

sometimes ring hollow because it becomes an

57:35

endorsement of a political system that a lot of young people

57:37

felt has not worked for them. Yeah.

57:39

You know, you think about someone who's

57:41

18 in 2024, they've never

57:44

known a political environment without Trump. They've

57:47

never known a democracy that felt

57:49

like it was reflective or representative

57:51

of us. I

57:54

think it's one of the reasons why we've seen

57:56

young voters or young candidates be such powerful drivers

57:58

for young voters. both practical,

58:02

tangible, oh, this is someone who, when I

58:04

say I'm really pissed about XYZ issue, is

58:06

going to personally understand it, because they have

58:08

dealt with it. But also, this

58:10

is someone my age, my cohort, like maybe

58:12

I play basketball at the gym with them,

58:14

maybe our kids play

58:16

soccer together, whatever it might be, who

58:20

cares enough and believes enough in the

58:22

possibility here. And I think it's

58:25

one of the best things about this work

58:27

is it is so optimistic and so hopeful

58:29

to see young people who don't believe the

58:31

system is broken. Okay,

58:34

John, John and Ty, we're not the only ones with book

58:36

news. You have an upcoming book with

58:38

us for Crooked Media Reads. It's still in the

58:40

works. Super not done

58:42

yet. Hope my editor's not here. In

58:45

this book, you're exploring generational leadership shifts. Can you give us

58:47

a little preview of what you'll be covering in the book?

58:50

You know, I'm pretty behind, but

58:52

I am writing a little

58:55

bit about what it looks like to be

58:58

the boss whose employees follow you on Instagram.

59:01

Or, you know, take me for an

59:03

example, to try and

59:05

take maternity leave as the boss.

59:08

Or like run for something does believe that

59:10

work-life balance is really important and want to

59:12

implement as we have a four-day work week

59:15

and actually put that into practice. You

59:19

know, when I say like, you know what, a boomer

59:21

leader, no offense to all the boomers, although my

59:23

girls will live in the water wars, so

59:26

a little offense. But when

59:28

I say like, my boss is such a boomer, you kind

59:30

of know what that means. What

59:32

I'm trying to do is define what it looks like when you say

59:34

my boss is such a millennial and my boss is such a Gen

59:37

Z. So coming to you next May, please

59:39

buy copies. All right,

59:43

finally, before we go, Amanda,

59:45

you've been on our podcast many times. Crooked Media

59:47

and Potsy America are huge fans that run for

59:49

something. I found what you guys started in 2017

59:52

and what you've done to be incredibly

59:54

smart, incredibly impactful. It is exactly what

59:56

the Democratic Party has needed in

59:59

the pre-Trump era. so

1:00:01

many times, Republicans were winning races

1:00:03

because there was not a Democrat to run against them. Because

1:00:06

we had no operation within our

1:00:08

party to recruit and train

1:00:10

people, no point of entry for people who said,

1:00:12

I want to run for office. They didn't know

1:00:14

who to call, what website to go to. And

1:00:16

Amanda and her co-founders built this

1:00:18

organization and have been making a gigantic

1:00:20

difference. And so I want to give

1:00:22

you the opportunity to tell the people in this room and

1:00:25

listening, not in this room, how

1:00:29

they can help support your work. Because no matter

1:00:31

what happens in November, good outcome,

1:00:34

unthinkable outcome, we

1:00:36

need to continue to get young progressive people running for

1:00:38

office up and down that ballot. Because that's the next

1:00:40

generation of the Democratic Party. So how can they help

1:00:42

run for something? Run for

1:00:45

something.net/donate. One

1:00:47

dollar, five dollars, five million dollars, I will

1:00:49

take it all. And

1:00:51

I say that somewhat jokingly, but also anyone

1:00:54

who's been sort of, to

1:00:56

your point earlier, existing in the political space right

1:00:58

now is tired. And we are

1:01:00

feeling that on the fundraising side too. So

1:01:02

if you believe in this work and you

1:01:04

believe that building power, sustainable power in all

1:01:06

50 states at the local level matters, make

1:01:09

a donation. And if

1:01:11

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angie.com. That's A-N-G-I, or

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1:03:00

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1:03:05

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1:03:08

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1:03:13

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1:03:52

Please welcome NYU Law professor

1:03:54

and co-host of Strict Scrutiny, our pal

1:03:56

Melissa Murray. A

1:04:04

standing ovation for the people at home. So

1:04:08

today was a day like so many others in

1:04:10

June where sickos like us

1:04:13

maniacally refreshed our feeds at

1:04:16

10 a.m. Eastern, 7 a.m. Pacific,

1:04:19

in anticipation of Supreme Court decisions

1:04:22

that usually make us angry when they come

1:04:25

and angry when they don't come. Wednesday

1:04:27

morning was slightly different in that the

1:04:29

court rejected a challenge from Republicans in

1:04:32

Missouri that would have prevented the federal

1:04:34

government from simply asking social media companies

1:04:36

to remove misinformation from their platforms. But

1:04:39

despite the court's term usually ending in

1:04:42

June, which is almost over, despite

1:04:44

American democracy hanging in the balance,

1:04:47

we still don't have the immunity ruling or

1:04:50

about 10 other important rulings.

1:04:53

So Melissa, we'll get to all of that. But first, how

1:04:56

big of a deal was the

1:04:58

6-3 ruling in Murthy versus Missouri?

1:05:02

Well, thanks for having me. This

1:05:04

chair is really deep. I feel like Martha

1:05:06

and Alito made this so I could feel

1:05:08

like a child. So

1:05:11

Murthy versus Missouri is a really important case

1:05:13

about social media. It should be understood in

1:05:16

tandem with a couple of other cases that

1:05:18

the court still has not yet decided. These

1:05:20

net choice cases. I think those may come

1:05:22

down in the next couple of days. But

1:05:25

the case was decided on procedural grounds.

1:05:27

The court said that the litigants, which

1:05:29

were two Republican state AGs and then

1:05:32

a handful of social media users who

1:05:34

said that Facebook and Twitter moderated their

1:05:36

content to root out their COVID-19 conspiracy

1:05:39

theories, the court

1:05:42

said they didn't have standing. So it

1:05:44

was a purely jurisdictional question. So we

1:05:46

didn't actually get to the substance of

1:05:48

whether the government can lean on social

1:05:50

media platforms to do better content moderation.

1:05:53

But because it was a standing issue, this

1:05:55

could come back at a later time. It may come

1:05:57

back in the future. I think the biggest thing. that

1:06:00

this case did was that

1:06:02

it allowed the court an opportunity

1:06:04

to once again smack down the

1:06:06

Fifth Circuit, which I always appreciate.

1:06:09

And they did it in really excellent

1:06:12

form. Like on strict scrutiny, we refer

1:06:14

to the Fifth Circuit as a meth

1:06:16

lab of conservative grievance. And

1:06:20

the court seemed to agree with us.

1:06:22

They basically said that this case, there

1:06:25

had been no discussion of any

1:06:27

of the facts that might lead to

1:06:29

questions of standing, whether these were the

1:06:31

right litigants to bring this case to

1:06:33

federal court. And so Amy Coney Barrett

1:06:35

wrote for the majority. And she said,

1:06:37

this is not a fact-free zone. And

1:06:39

I guess that was encouraging. Were

1:06:42

there any hints in the decision

1:06:44

about how they saw the

1:06:46

substance of the case, or was it just purely standing?

1:06:49

Mostly standing. The dissents, though, were

1:06:51

really interesting. There was a big

1:06:54

dissent by Justice Alito. And I

1:06:56

mean, wow. Get

1:06:58

out. Really? I mean, that guy.

1:07:01

That guy. So he wrote this dissent

1:07:04

where he just basically railed on the

1:07:06

Biden administration and specific members of the

1:07:08

Biden administration by name. So he name-checked

1:07:11

Joe Biden. He name-checked Jen Psaki. Name-checked

1:07:13

the surgeon general. And basically talked about

1:07:15

all of these people trying to censor

1:07:17

conservatives. I mean, it was almost like

1:07:20

a Fox grandpa getting a chance to

1:07:22

write a Supreme Court opinion. Think

1:07:25

of them as people who might be upset

1:07:27

about someone putting a flag on their house,

1:07:29

that kind of thing. He is deep in

1:07:31

the comment section, huh? He is, yes. Long-time

1:07:35

lurker, first-time caller. Yes, exactly.

1:07:38

I wanted to ask you about the dissent because

1:07:40

it, first of all, you dip

1:07:42

into Alito. And

1:07:45

he's just mad all the time. All the

1:07:47

time. He's mad all the time. But

1:07:49

why? He's 70-something years old. He has

1:07:52

the skin of a 50-year-old. This man

1:07:54

looks amazing for his age. No, seriously,

1:07:56

check it out. Yeah, it's like maybe

1:07:58

you get everything you want. want and

1:08:01

then you're unhappy but but

1:08:06

uh something that some of her hymn is

1:08:08

therapist he

1:08:11

doesn't these people are not in therapy but

1:08:13

um what was the I

1:08:16

wanted to ask you about the descent because

1:08:18

you know the meth lab right now is

1:08:20

contained to the fifth circuit but in the

1:08:22

descent he doesn't just namecheck people right he

1:08:24

says these bozos writing the majority they didn't

1:08:26

even entertain the actual substantive question but I

1:08:29

will and I actually think on the merit

1:08:31

this is a violation of the First Amendment

1:08:33

does that tell you like I

1:08:36

mean it does seem like everyone's like oh

1:08:38

this this opinion is this fifth circuit opinion

1:08:40

is ridiculous but not ridiculous to three

1:08:42

people already so not ridiculous of

1:08:44

three people who would be very happy to reach

1:08:47

the merits of this case and a descent like

1:08:49

that is essentially a roadmap to

1:08:51

future lit against just find better plaintiffs

1:08:53

who can actually make out plausible claims

1:08:56

of injury and then here's a path

1:08:58

to deciding this on the merits and

1:09:00

turning this into a First Amendment violation

1:09:02

so I think that's a big part

1:09:05

of what this was because he even says

1:09:07

right like they didn't even seek damages if they had

1:09:09

sought damages we could have talked about the damages so

1:09:12

it's like he's like really like no no come back

1:09:14

and we'll we'll get rid of any

1:09:16

bounds on what you can say online they

1:09:19

do this all the time the conservatives

1:09:21

are always doing this in the myth

1:09:23

of pristone case Thomas and Alito were

1:09:25

basically asking the solicitor general to identify

1:09:27

who would be a better set of

1:09:30

plaintiffs and thankfully she was like I

1:09:32

don't work for you I work for

1:09:35

the Attorney General and so she declined

1:09:37

to provide a roadmap for them but

1:09:39

they do this all the time these

1:09:41

descends these concurrences are often invitations to

1:09:43

come back do it better do it

1:09:45

again it does seem like Alito is like Heisenberg

1:09:47

and he does want the meth lab to

1:09:50

go national Who

1:09:53

is Jesse in this? Martha

1:09:55

Ann So

1:09:59

Always Let's say

1:10:02

someone reads Alito's dissent, they see

1:10:04

two damages, whatever, they get standing.

1:10:07

What is an actual decision on the merits

1:10:09

in Alito's fashion mean? The government simply can't

1:10:11

ask Facebook to take post down? Well, so

1:10:14

we already have a little bit of

1:10:16

a kind of inkling of where he's

1:10:18

going because a couple of weeks ago

1:10:20

the court decided another case NRA versus

1:10:22

VULO and it was decided much earlier

1:10:24

in the an earlier stage of litigation

1:10:26

but basically what had happened was Maria

1:10:28

VULO, who is a New York State

1:10:30

official, leaned on some insurance companies, some

1:10:32

banks to basically stop doing business with

1:10:34

the NRA in the wake of the

1:10:36

Parkland shooting and the NRA

1:10:38

sued saying that you can't do that

1:10:40

if you're a government official and the

1:10:42

court in a very narrow unanimous decision

1:10:45

written by Justice Sotomayor said, yeah,

1:10:47

the government can do its job,

1:10:49

it can't use its position to

1:10:51

lean explicitly or to coerce another entity

1:10:54

to do something and I think that's

1:10:56

basically what Justice Alito is looking at

1:10:58

and he said specifically that VULO should

1:11:01

be the template going forward. So

1:11:05

Tommy, does this seem like a defeat

1:11:07

for the forces of disinformation? It seems

1:11:10

like a mixed bag. I mean,

1:11:12

like I think setting

1:11:15

the government aside, I mean I think the challenge

1:11:17

with disinformation at the moment

1:11:19

is the is the platforms. Speaking

1:11:21

of Justice Alito's skincare,

1:11:23

I think a couple weeks ago

1:11:25

I saw that on TikTok a

1:11:28

bunch of influencers were saying that

1:11:30

you don't actually need sunscreen to

1:11:32

prevent skin cancer, that

1:11:34

sunscreen can give you skin cancer. So

1:11:36

there's one famous person behind this, right? Well,

1:11:39

I don't know. Anyway, so like no

1:11:41

dumb idea won't go viral over there so TikTok's

1:11:43

a problem. I think meta is sort of washing

1:11:46

its hands of all things content moderation. Twitter is

1:11:48

obviously a disaster. I mean we have like Elon

1:11:51

Musk is the number one super spreader

1:11:53

of disinformation. I think they

1:11:55

fired their whole trust and safety team. They

1:11:57

have changed the verification process so that Any

1:12:00

bozo can pay eight bucks for a blue check and get

1:12:03

Algorithmic amplification and then if

1:12:05

you go superviral you can actually make money on

1:12:07

your posts So every time I see in the

1:12:09

news like something happened in Gaza there

1:12:12

will be an account that is sharing a video from like

1:12:14

2015 in Syria that is They

1:12:17

purport to be from today because

1:12:19

they'll get paid off of that. So I think the platforms

1:12:22

that are disaster. I think that you're seeing

1:12:25

academics get in the crossfire of the

1:12:27

political discourse here like I think Stanford

1:12:29

just shut down a Research

1:12:31

lab that was focused on disinformation and

1:12:33

you have Republican members of Congress Crowing

1:12:35

that like in the name of free

1:12:37

speech. We just killed all this free

1:12:39

speech and research so I feel like

1:12:42

the trajectory of our broader efforts

1:12:44

of preventing the spread

1:12:46

of this information are getting Pushed

1:12:49

aside because institutions are not prepared

1:12:51

for the political fallout It doesn't

1:12:54

seem like we're going to be

1:12:56

able to address the supply of

1:12:59

disinformation at this point because it's in so many

1:13:01

different platforms. It's so many different places and Whether

1:13:04

people whatever the Supreme Court ultimately decides if

1:13:06

it comes back to them There

1:13:09

is legal pressure the Stanford Internet Observatory

1:13:11

shut down because of this legal pressure

1:13:13

and because of pressure from people who

1:13:15

are funding it So it's just like

1:13:18

it does feel like it's it's becoming very

1:13:20

very difficult to just actually go after

1:13:22

the different sources of misinformation And

1:13:25

deal with the platforms unless we're gonna actually regulate

1:13:27

them, which is difficult And

1:13:29

there's very legitimate questions about what role

1:13:31

the government should play here I mean in

1:13:33

terms of censorship free speech first amendment rights

1:13:36

you can imagine a scenario where a Trump

1:13:38

administration is Shutting

1:13:40

down disinformation that says things like hey

1:13:42

you lost the 2020 election So,

1:13:45

you know, we have to be careful on that part

1:13:47

But I think broadly like there's a

1:13:49

lot of non-government actors here This is also just

1:13:52

like what we're talking about is

1:13:54

so far Like this

1:13:56

is about individual staffers and people in

1:13:58

the government seeing vast amounts of

1:14:01

misinformation already on the internet and

1:14:03

desperately trying to do triage. If

1:14:05

you're at the stage where you're

1:14:07

reaching out to Facebook about individual

1:14:09

posts that are going viral, you've

1:14:11

already lost. We've already lost. That's a, I'm

1:14:13

gonna say it, you're gonna be a

1:14:18

little immature about it, but it's like putting a finger

1:14:20

in the dike. I can't do it. Dan?

1:14:23

Yeah, I mean, that's where the point is. Do you have a better metaphor?

1:14:26

I don't know how I follow that, but. I

1:14:28

was just gonna say it's like Whack-a-mole, Yeah,

1:14:32

that was the one I was gonna use, but anywho. Like

1:14:35

even in a world in which we

1:14:38

get the right decision in whatever the future case is

1:14:41

on this, all it's

1:14:43

saying is platforms will still make

1:14:45

the decision. Right, so ultimately we

1:14:47

are still our solution as a society

1:14:49

for limiting the spread of disinformation is

1:14:52

to bet on the goodwill of

1:14:54

tech billionaires. And

1:14:57

then in the course of world

1:14:59

history, that has never worked, right?

1:15:02

Just betting on rich business barons

1:15:09

to make decisions counter to their financial self

1:15:11

interest is not a good strategy. And

1:15:14

I think ultimately the way we're going to

1:15:16

beat misinformation and disinformation is not to stop

1:15:18

it at the source, it is to invest

1:15:20

our time and energy into countervailing factual positive

1:15:23

information. And making our own. Damn

1:15:27

it, well. We're gonna make our own, make

1:15:29

our own. Okay. Melissa,

1:15:35

so the counts vary somewhat, but it seems like

1:15:37

there are about 10 opinions left to be released.

1:15:39

What are the big ones other than

1:15:41

immunity? We'll get to immunity. So

1:15:45

there are a couple of really big

1:15:47

cases involving the future of vitality of

1:15:49

the administrative state. So one, SEC versus

1:15:51

Jarkusy, which is about the SEC's ability

1:15:54

to do in-house enforcement adjudication. That's

1:15:56

how most SEC cases are. adjudicated,

1:16:00

that will be huge. There's another

1:16:02

set of cases, two consolidated cases,

1:16:04

Relentless versus Department of Commerce and

1:16:07

Loper-Bright Enterprises versus Raimondo, which are

1:16:09

about whether, in circumstances where a

1:16:11

statute is ambiguous, whether it's the

1:16:13

agency who has the opportunity to

1:16:16

determine and resolve that ambiguity, or

1:16:18

whether a judge, a

1:16:20

Trump judge, should be able to do

1:16:22

that. It's the Chevron doctrine, so that

1:16:25

hangs in the balance. There's a major

1:16:27

case on homelessness, Grants Pass versus Johnson.

1:16:30

There are major cases

1:16:32

involving environmental law, Ohio versus EPA,

1:16:34

which is about the good neighbor

1:16:37

rule. If you've watched The Lion

1:16:39

King, this is basically the Pumbaa

1:16:41

rule, whereas states that are upwind

1:16:44

have to take precautions to ensure

1:16:46

that their downwind neighbors don't bear

1:16:48

the brunt of smog or air

1:16:51

pollution. So a lot of

1:16:53

really big cases, some of them I think

1:16:55

too wonky to really get

1:16:57

into on mainstream media, which is why

1:16:59

you hear about immunity, you hear about

1:17:02

mifopristone, but you don't hear about these

1:17:04

other cases. But these are

1:17:06

the cases that are about government

1:17:08

as we know it, whether we have

1:17:10

clean air, clean water, whether

1:17:13

government can regulate, or whether we're

1:17:15

going to allow judges, unelected judges,

1:17:17

to make these decisions. And

1:17:19

it does seem like that the court later

1:17:21

today may have accidentally posted

1:17:23

a decision on a

1:17:26

major abortion case in Idaho.

1:17:29

What happened there? So

1:17:31

you've got to ask at this point,

1:17:33

who's doing IT at the court? Is

1:17:38

it Martha Ann? Possibly. So

1:17:41

yeah, if you were refreshing this

1:17:43

morning, I did not

1:17:45

refresh hard enough to catch

1:17:47

this. But apparently, the court

1:17:50

inadvertently uploaded the opinion in Moyle, which

1:17:52

is the Emtala case. Emtala is the

1:17:55

Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. It's

1:17:57

a federal law that requires a court

1:17:59

to do that. requires when you

1:18:01

present at a federally funded

1:18:03

hospital, which is most hospitals

1:18:05

since they mostly all take

1:18:07

Medicare and Medicaid funds, you

1:18:10

have to be served with emergency

1:18:12

treatment that's appropriate, stabilizing emergency care,

1:18:15

including abortions. And that has to be

1:18:17

done even if you are in a

1:18:19

state with a draconian abortion law like

1:18:21

Idaho, for example. At oral

1:18:23

argument, when this case was argued,

1:18:25

it seemed very clear that the

1:18:27

conservative supermajority on the court was

1:18:30

really skeptical about the prospect of

1:18:32

women needing emergency abortions in cases

1:18:34

of miscarriage or whatnot. And in

1:18:37

their infinite medical judgment, the justices

1:18:39

were sort of like, can't she

1:18:41

just wait, maybe die? I

1:18:43

don't know. All

1:18:46

of that. But it seems

1:18:48

from this uploaded opinion that the

1:18:50

court has made a decision to

1:18:53

punt this case. They've decided

1:18:55

that they are going to

1:18:58

do what is known as a dig. They've

1:19:00

determined that certiorari, or the court's

1:19:02

decision to review this case, that

1:19:05

decision was improvidently granted. And usually

1:19:07

a dig happens when the court

1:19:09

determines after, or an argument after

1:19:12

review has been granted, that the

1:19:14

circumstances are such that further adjudication

1:19:16

would be improvident. So a

1:19:19

dig is very unusual. It

1:19:22

doesn't happen that often. I've

1:19:25

never really seen a dig happen

1:19:27

so many months after oral argument.

1:19:31

Usually if you determine that there are circumstances that

1:19:33

would require a dig, it's pretty

1:19:35

obvious on the face. We

1:19:37

all know that. And we all know what improvident means. Well,

1:19:41

I know about it. We

1:19:43

all know. But just in case somebody listening and they don't want

1:19:45

to feel dumb. I

1:19:48

assumed you knew because I know about your LSAT

1:19:50

score. Yeah, no, I'm saying I know. We know.

1:19:52

But they don't. Somebody out there, they all know.

1:19:54

Somebody might not know. I call it the alleged

1:19:56

LSAT score. Well, I mean, he always

1:19:59

tells me about it. So,

1:20:03

we shouldn't have taken this case. So a

1:20:05

mulligan, essentially. Let's just call it a mulligan.

1:20:07

Do you want to hear my crazy cockamamie

1:20:09

conspiracy theory about this case? Yes, of

1:20:11

course. Okay, right. All right. What

1:20:14

did Lovett say? We're creating our own misinformation.

1:20:16

That's what Dan advocated it. Let's do it.

1:20:18

So here's my theory of this. The

1:20:21

court got rid of the

1:20:23

Mifapristone case not by deciding it on

1:20:25

the merits, whether the FDA properly regulated

1:20:28

Mifapristone. They ditched it on standing grounds,

1:20:30

like not the right plaintiffs, not a

1:20:32

clear claim of injury. And

1:20:35

then this case gets digged, like dismissed

1:20:37

as improvidently granted, a mulligan, if

1:20:40

you will. I

1:20:43

think they know that abortion

1:20:45

drives women to the polls.

1:20:48

I think they know that

1:20:50

abortion gets undecided voters out

1:20:52

and it galvanizes support in

1:20:54

electoral politics. I think they've looked

1:20:56

at the calendar and they realize November is coming. Yeah.

1:21:00

I think this is

1:21:02

true. And I think they're trying to figure out a

1:21:04

way to get the court out

1:21:06

of the cross hairs of electoral politics. And

1:21:08

if they decided this the way I think

1:21:10

it looked like it was going at oral

1:21:12

argument, it would have galvanized

1:21:15

so much support among women.

1:21:17

I mean, like they're basically asking, just go

1:21:19

die. Go to a parking lot and

1:21:21

wait till we tell you, you can have this abortion. And

1:21:24

I think they just didn't want to

1:21:26

do that. Justice Jackson writes a barn burner

1:21:29

of a concurrent slash dissent where she

1:21:31

says, I don't believe this

1:21:33

was improvidently granted. I believe you bitches wanted

1:21:35

to get to this and you took it.

1:21:38

And now let's decide it because you broke

1:21:41

it, you buy it. Like you need to

1:21:43

decide this. And yeah,

1:21:45

I mean, the lesson here that

1:21:48

clearly the court took from Dobbs and all

1:21:50

the political repercussions was not that you shouldn't

1:21:52

take a constitutional right away from half the

1:21:55

country. It's that you shouldn't do it in an election year. I

1:21:58

mean, and John Roberts said this. the oral

1:22:00

argument in Dobbs. He's like, listen, can't we

1:22:02

get to some kind of compromise where we

1:22:04

uphold this cockamamie, mipsis-bee law, but we don't

1:22:06

go all the way and overrule Dobbs? Wouldn't

1:22:08

that be better because there's an election coming,

1:22:10

the midterms? And they wouldn't listen to him.

1:22:13

Millions of women were energized by Dobbs,

1:22:15

and they went to the polls. I

1:22:18

think they see the same thing happening

1:22:20

now. Abortion is a salient issue for

1:22:22

elections. And Justice Jackson said this in

1:22:24

her concurrent slash dissent. She said, there

1:22:27

is comparatively a more convenient time for us

1:22:29

to get to this. And make no mistake,

1:22:32

we will get to this. We're not

1:22:34

getting to it now because they've decided

1:22:36

it's improvident to do so. But

1:22:38

we will get there. And there's

1:22:41

already another case coming out of, wait for

1:22:43

it, the Fifth Circuit. So this

1:22:45

is going to come back to the court.

1:22:47

It'll just come back after November. So don't

1:22:49

be fooled. Don't listen to all of the

1:22:52

folks who are like, this is a moderate

1:22:54

court on abortion. They want to take this

1:22:56

issue out of the

1:22:58

public discourse around this election.

1:23:01

I don't even know if it was a

1:23:03

mistake that it got uploaded the day before

1:23:05

the debate where the one thing Joe Biden

1:23:08

needs to hammer is that Donald Trump is

1:23:10

responsible for whatever is happening on abortion. Sleep

1:23:13

or sell IT person. Well, I

1:23:18

was going to ask, on that note, so

1:23:21

we're recording this Wednesday night. The debate

1:23:23

is Thursday night. Thursday

1:23:26

morning, there's going to be more decisions. There

1:23:28

will also be decisions Friday. And then

1:23:30

there will be decisions, I guess, Monday. And we don't

1:23:32

know what's going to happen beyond that. What

1:23:35

decisions could

1:23:38

be released tomorrow that would

1:23:40

provide fodder for either

1:23:42

candidate at the debate tomorrow night? And

1:23:45

how likely do we think that this

1:23:47

court's going to release any decisions tomorrow

1:23:49

morning that could potentially be fodder for

1:23:52

the debate tomorrow night? Because it doesn't seem like they would drop

1:23:54

the immunity. But now I'm thinking of some of the other ones.

1:23:56

Any case that would help Joe Biden make an

1:23:58

argument against Donald Trump? at the debate,

1:24:01

it seems unlikely they would drop that tomorrow morning.

1:24:03

So maybe they dropped the Emtala decision since we

1:24:05

all seem to know. Right now. So yeah, it's

1:24:07

out there. Cats out of the bag, like let

1:24:10

the chips fall where they may. Housing

1:24:12

prices are so high. Maybe they released

1:24:14

the case on homelessness and

1:24:17

like make that Joe Biden's fault, possibly.

1:24:20

I think it's very

1:24:22

unlikely that the immunity case

1:24:24

comes out for obvious reasons,

1:24:26

although they could literally be like

1:24:28

gremlins where they got wet and ate

1:24:30

after midnight and just decided to do

1:24:32

it. I don't know. Like that would

1:24:34

be the most chaos agent thing ever.

1:24:37

Well, there's also the case. Actually, the

1:24:39

eating after midnight would make them gremlins.

1:24:42

Is that what getting wet would make more

1:24:44

gremlins? Is that what happened? Yeah. The eating

1:24:46

after midnight turns gizmo into gremlin. Right. I

1:24:49

actually never watched this movie. Oh, I

1:24:51

just like know this. You

1:24:54

raised it in providently. I did. I

1:25:05

wish you were back on the island. The

1:25:14

one I was wondering if they would release tomorrow morning

1:25:17

would be Fisher, which

1:25:19

is a case about the January

1:25:21

6th insurrectionists who and they were charged

1:25:23

with obstructing an official proceeding and they

1:25:25

could throw out those charges. It seemed

1:25:27

like they were leaning that way

1:25:30

in oral arguments and that would take away two

1:25:32

of the four charges. Not necessarily.

1:25:34

Okay. So the Fisher case is about the

1:25:36

statute part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that was

1:25:39

passed in the wake of Enron and

1:25:41

it makes it a crime to corrupt an

1:25:44

official proceeding. And the question in Fisher

1:25:46

is whether obstructing the certification of the

1:25:48

electoral college is the sort of official

1:25:50

proceeding that the statute's writers had in

1:25:52

mind or was it something like evidence

1:25:54

tampering or witness tampering, like the kind

1:25:57

of thing that happened around Enron. this

1:26:00

is going to turn this court's

1:26:02

would-be textualists into knots, because on

1:26:05

the face of it, this is straight up

1:26:07

textual healing. Like, obviously, this should apply. But

1:26:11

if you're textualish, you

1:26:13

might not necessarily go this way, especially

1:26:15

if January 6th hangs in the balance.

1:26:18

The reason why I think it doesn't

1:26:20

necessarily have to apply to Donald Trump

1:26:22

is that the charges

1:26:24

in the January 6th indictment are

1:26:26

not simply about interrupting the certification

1:26:28

of the electoral college, but about

1:26:31

advancing these slates of false electors.

1:26:34

And that could be the kind

1:26:36

of corrupt act that would fall within

1:26:38

the scope of the statute. And so.

1:26:41

Because that would be even more textualist, because

1:26:43

in the statute, it says like you can't.

1:26:45

It's certificates, right? Like, that's. I mean, when

1:26:47

you get that feeling, you need textual healing, and

1:26:49

you have to do that. So

1:26:52

again, maybe, because I'm not sure how it

1:26:54

necessarily works for Donald Trump. I don't think

1:26:57

it's a get out of jail free card

1:26:59

for him, even if they side with the

1:27:01

rank and file January 6th. Though at that point, he would

1:27:03

just say, he would say, the prisoners,

1:27:05

the patriots of January 6th,

1:27:07

the court just ruled today.

1:27:09

They're exonerated. That's not going

1:27:11

to help him. We all have eyes. Yeah,

1:27:14

I was going to say, one, it would help the members

1:27:16

of his favorite choir. But

1:27:19

if that IT, that possible resistance

1:27:22

member who handles IT at the Supreme Court is listening,

1:27:25

that is a decision that would be good for us to have

1:27:27

out. Because there's nothing we would like more than

1:27:29

for Donald Trump to be talking about the patriots of January 6th

1:27:32

on a debate stage in front of 50 million people. And

1:27:34

if that IT person is listening, I

1:27:36

don't know if this will help. And you know they

1:27:38

are. And you know they are. I don't know if

1:27:40

this would help, but please try turning the Supreme Court

1:27:42

off and then back on. So,

1:27:51

Skotis continues to do

1:27:54

Trump a solid. On Jack Smith's January 6th

1:27:56

case by continuing to punt

1:27:59

the immunity rule. Judge Eileen

1:28:01

Cannon keeps doing everything she can to

1:28:03

slow walk Jack Smith's other case Which

1:28:06

is Trump's miss stealing classified

1:28:09

information Can you take us through

1:28:11

the latest on what cannon has been doing and

1:28:13

how this might be different than what other

1:28:16

Federal judges would do you see the new picks

1:28:18

today? New new

1:28:20

Mar-a-Lago picks just dropped. Oh, I did

1:28:22

see those all the classified boxes like

1:28:24

spilled over on the side great,

1:28:27

so I Grew

1:28:30

up in Port st. Lucie, Florida, which is right

1:28:32

next door to Fort Pierce where this courthouse is

1:28:34

I'm just like it's a wacky

1:28:36

place So I'm never entirely surprised by

1:28:39

what judge cannon does I mean one

1:28:42

She's not a very experienced judge and like when

1:28:44

I say this on MSNBC people always like get

1:28:46

in my mention like stop making Excuses for her.

1:28:48

I'm like, I'm not making excuses for I'm basically

1:28:50

saying she's not that smart about this But

1:28:52

like she's not an experienced judge on

1:28:54

criminal matters And so I think a

1:28:57

lot of what we're seeing, you know, it's

1:29:00

either a lack of experience She's out

1:29:02

over her skis or she literally is in the

1:29:04

bag for Trump or some combination of both which

1:29:06

you know I don't discount either She's

1:29:09

been doing a lot recently So one thing that

1:29:11

she's doing that I think most federal judges do

1:29:13

not do is that she's making no use

1:29:16

of the federal Magistrate judge to whom she

1:29:18

has been assigned like typically if you're a

1:29:20

district court judge you get assigned a magistrate

1:29:22

judge This is not an article 3 judge

1:29:24

but an article 1 judge that basically does

1:29:26

a lot of article 3 functions So they

1:29:28

do a lot of pretrial hearings They will

1:29:30

handle evidentiary motions and things of that

1:29:33

nature and they basically do a lot

1:29:35

of the managerial Work that

1:29:37

clear space for district court judges to do

1:29:39

their work and keep cases going on track

1:29:42

Bruce Reinhardt is the magistrate judge who's

1:29:44

been assigned to her He's also the

1:29:46

judge that signed the warrant for the

1:29:48

search of Mar-a-Lago So it's probably real

1:29:51

awkward for her to go to judge Reinhardt

1:29:53

and ask him to help her What's take

1:29:55

on some of these issues and so she

1:29:57

seems to not be relying on him Again,

1:30:00

it seems like an unforced error for a

1:30:03

district court judge because it frees up a

1:30:05

lot of time and keeps things moving. Last

1:30:08

week and this week, she had a

1:30:10

couple of really odd hearings where she

1:30:12

invited essentially a Miki to come into

1:30:15

court and to argue an issue

1:30:17

that I think has been asked and answered

1:30:20

by the Supreme Court and other federal courts,

1:30:22

like whether the appointment of a special

1:30:24

counsel is constitutional or not. I

1:30:26

believe this was decided in the United

1:30:29

States versus Nixon many years ago and

1:30:31

has subsequently been reaffirmed by various federal

1:30:33

courts, including the DC Circuit, a decision

1:30:36

that the Supreme Court declined to review

1:30:38

later. So it seems settled. Something

1:30:40

she could have Googled. I mean, could have

1:30:42

been an email, right? And did you

1:30:44

say a Miki, a Friends of

1:30:47

the Court? Is that what that is? Yes. I've

1:30:49

just, I've just, I, I, I, if

1:30:51

people just heard that term and they weren't sure what it was. Tell

1:30:54

me you don't listen to strict scrutiny without telling me

1:30:56

you don't listen to strict scrutiny. I'm helping

1:30:58

them. I knew the term. I knew that

1:31:00

you heard that I knew the term. You're

1:31:03

also at score again. I'm just, there's

1:31:05

a big amicus or amicus debate

1:31:08

that needs to be answered. Did you say amicus or amicus? Um,

1:31:11

you go back and forth. I think I sometimes go

1:31:13

back and forth. I want to be inclusive. Okay.

1:31:16

Um, yeah. So she's doing

1:31:19

that. She had another hearing this week

1:31:21

about whether or not the funding structure

1:31:23

for the special counsel was constitutional also

1:31:25

asked and answered by a case this

1:31:27

term at the Supreme Court. So

1:31:29

just seems to be like having a lot

1:31:31

of hearings. And I guess that's fine. If

1:31:34

the question of this case getting

1:31:37

to trial weren't so urgent, right?

1:31:39

I was wondering why she's doing all this. Cause

1:31:42

like, didn't she are like the case is not

1:31:44

happening before the election at this point. A

1:31:46

hundred percent. I feel like she's just

1:31:48

like spiking the football. Maybe

1:31:51

she's trolling us. I don't know. But

1:31:53

I mean, I do think it's worthwhile

1:31:55

to put a pin under this. Like

1:31:58

this is the most straightforward. I

1:32:00

know right this this is the easy

1:32:02

one for for real and there are

1:32:04

lots of people in Federal

1:32:07

prison right now for having

1:32:09

fewer Classified documents in

1:32:11

their possession. Yeah, right and

1:32:13

so and not and not

1:32:16

obstructing Justice when someone's like hey,

1:32:18

that's if you if you have classified documents, can

1:32:20

you give them back? It's like no No,

1:32:23

thank you erase the videotape. I have a subpoena

1:32:25

at no. Thank you. No, I mean it so

1:32:27

this one's pretty bad again,

1:32:30

I Think you

1:32:32

have to look at sort of Tommy and

1:32:34

I have talked about this But judge cannon's

1:32:36

on this case because the southern district of

1:32:39

Florida has two judicial vacancies that the biden

1:32:41

administration Has been unable to

1:32:43

fill because for district court seats There

1:32:46

is a custom of requiring the home

1:32:48

state senators to provide their blue slips

1:32:50

to any Judicial nomination and

1:32:52

Rick Scott and Marco Rubio have

1:32:55

refused to sign off on anyone

1:32:57

who the Biden administration Shocking

1:32:59

I know and so when this

1:33:02

case went into the wheel for the southern district

1:33:04

of Florida They're basically were like only a handful

1:33:06

of judges who it could go to and one

1:33:08

of them was judge cannon and lo and behold

1:33:11

It was judge cannon. It's a real deer

1:33:13

hunter situation. I That

1:33:16

was for you fine. I Want

1:33:18

you know you got me all pissed off about the

1:33:21

blue slip thing and then I came into the next

1:33:23

pot I did with these guys and I was like

1:33:25

Dick Durbin He's trying to bring back the blue slip

1:33:27

process and that's stupid because

1:33:29

it means these Republicans and red

1:33:32

states can spike these judges and then these guys

1:33:34

they made fun of me They

1:33:36

called they told me I was a dork for bringing up

1:33:38

the blue slips and I made fun of me I don't

1:33:40

remember specifically saying that I absolutely remember. I mean it sounds

1:33:42

like something we do I

1:33:45

mean well look we do know that if

1:33:47

the nightmare scenario where Donald Trump wins the

1:33:49

White House and the room Take the Senate

1:33:51

the Republicans would continue to give that privilege

1:33:53

of Democratic senators, of course So

1:33:58

all right, so it The

1:34:00

immunity decision, we're waiting. It feels like we're

1:34:02

not going to have a real January 6

1:34:04

trial. We might have a mini trial before

1:34:06

the election. Eileen Cannon's. A

1:34:08

hearing. A hearing, right. Eileen Cannon's

1:34:10

doing her thing. We're not going to have

1:34:13

that trial. The former president was convicted of

1:34:16

multiple felonies in New York.

1:34:19

We're clapping. We're clapping, but. Shout out. And

1:34:22

by the way, seven of the jurors are here

1:34:24

tonight. Hi,

1:34:26

Hillary Clinton. No.

1:34:30

Every one of them got a signed poll. That

1:34:32

hasn't really moved the polls. Love it. You've been

1:34:34

talking about how, as much as Donald Trump should

1:34:36

face accountability from the law, that is not going

1:34:38

to save us. Do you want to make

1:34:41

that case again now? Look,

1:34:43

I do think there's like, I

1:34:45

was thinking about this before the show, just that like, I

1:34:48

feel like in the end, like Donald Trump is just

1:34:50

the luckiest person in the history of human society. And

1:34:52

we'll just have to face that at some point. It's

1:34:55

just never a drop of rain will ever fall on this

1:34:57

man. What he did in a past

1:34:59

life must have been pretty fucking amazing. But

1:35:02

no, look, I think there was this, Joe

1:35:06

Biden put out an ad. It was a great ad. It

1:35:08

was a contrast ad about Donald Trump being convicted in all

1:35:10

the ways Joe Biden is fighting for

1:35:12

ordinary people. And we talked about how that was a

1:35:14

change from where Joe Biden had been at the beginning

1:35:16

of the race, where he said, the

1:35:18

courts won't save us, only we can save ourselves. And

1:35:21

I think the hope that somehow

1:35:25

the judicial process, the legal process,

1:35:27

the, I

1:35:30

don't know, the moral character of primary voting

1:35:32

Republicans, like there was going to be some

1:35:35

path to getting rid of Donald Trump that didn't

1:35:37

involve once again, all of us putting on our

1:35:39

boots and our jackets and going and knocking on

1:35:41

doors and getting people to do it. But I

1:35:43

think with each passing day, it is very clear

1:35:45

that no, like there will be no legal accountability

1:35:48

for Donald Trump. And by the way, a media

1:35:51

environment this noisy and or Republican Party

1:35:53

this debased, telling all of us that

1:35:55

it's acceptable for someone convicted of multiple

1:35:57

felonies by a jury of their party.

1:36:00

appears to be the nominee makes it acceptable

1:36:02

to half the country. That is just the reality

1:36:04

we live in. And I think

1:36:06

a lot of times, like how can this be,

1:36:08

how can this be? It is. It

1:36:10

just is. And there'll be plenty of time for

1:36:13

us to figure out how to slowly, but surely

1:36:15

build a politics that doesn't make the stakes feel

1:36:17

like this. And doesn't make us feel so worried

1:36:19

all the time, but that is not our luck

1:36:22

for the next four to five months. Melissa wants

1:36:24

to fly her flag right now. All right.

1:36:26

This is so dystopian. How

1:36:28

can you wear this outfit and be so dark

1:36:30

in your predictions? He

1:36:35

is. It's true. Oh, thank you, sir. Yeah. So

1:36:39

here's here's my take on it, right? Like

1:36:42

you're leaning in. OK. Interesting. OK. Before

1:36:44

you leave for Miami. Just between us, Amiki.

1:36:51

You are my best Amiki. You really are.

1:36:55

That's only true if Donald Trump wins. Right.

1:36:58

Because if Joe Biden wins, these

1:37:00

cases can actually happen. Right.

1:37:03

They won't be killed by a

1:37:05

new Trump DOJ. They can actually

1:37:07

go forward. And if accountability is

1:37:09

what you want, then going

1:37:11

to the polls, getting your friends, galvanizing

1:37:14

people for Joe Biden should be a

1:37:16

high priority. Like that's how you

1:37:19

get accountability. Oh, absolutely.

1:37:21

Yes. These trials continue. I'm

1:37:24

more making the broader point that like we

1:37:26

have to defeat not just Trump, but this

1:37:28

movement enough times and

1:37:31

so emphatically that craven, valueless

1:37:34

people who care only about winning decide

1:37:36

that the way to win is to

1:37:38

moderate. Right. Like a couple of years

1:37:40

ago, it was Marco Rubio saying that

1:37:42

the future of the Republican Party is

1:37:44

a cosmopolitan and moderated party that brings

1:37:47

in people from all walks

1:37:49

of life. Right. It was called the autopsy

1:37:51

because the party was dead down. Yeah. Marco

1:37:53

Rubio let us down. It's like we have

1:37:55

to defend. That's all that's that's what I

1:37:57

think they were just so freaked out by having

1:37:59

a. black president that they were like, we got to

1:38:01

have a king. Definitely. And

1:38:04

once you get to that point, and

1:38:07

if that's not your bad, then this is the

1:38:09

moment to stand up and fight. Let

1:38:12

me give a pitch for that maybe is

1:38:14

a little more of your little baser pitch

1:38:16

for why you should get involved in this

1:38:18

election. So you're sitting there. We've

1:38:20

been doing this for fucking forever at this point. We've

1:38:22

told you every election since 2017 was

1:38:25

the most important election of your lifetime. You've

1:38:27

been knocking doors. You've been texting. You've been phone

1:38:29

calling. But just imagine this scenario when you're sitting

1:38:31

on the votes of America website and you're afraid to

1:38:33

hit submit on your email address. We

1:38:36

work our asses off. Donald Trump

1:38:39

loses. Then

1:38:41

we get to watch Joe Biden and Kamala Harris

1:38:43

get sworn in again. Then a few

1:38:45

months later, Donald Trump will stand trial in

1:38:48

Washington DC for the insurrection. And

1:38:51

then he's convicted.

1:38:55

Maybe he goes to prison. A few months

1:38:57

later, he leaves prison. He goes to Fulton County, Georgia.

1:38:59

He has to stand trial again for having

1:39:02

to overthrow the election. Gets convicted.

1:39:05

Goes back to prison. A few months

1:39:07

after that, comes back. Goes

1:39:10

to trial for stealing classified documents. Gets

1:39:13

convicted. It's going to be a pretty sweet 2025, people. And

1:39:17

then the primary begins. And then also

1:39:20

lock him up. And

1:39:23

then they're old. And

1:39:25

Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas are like, we

1:39:27

got to go. And we've also not only

1:39:29

reelected Joe Biden, but we've kept

1:39:31

the Senate and we flipped the House.

1:39:34

And now we are adding more Supreme

1:39:36

Court justices. And then Apple makes all

1:39:38

the chargers the same. Yes. This

1:39:43

is the dream. This is the dream. There

1:39:46

we go. All right, so that's the hopeful. That's

1:39:49

the hopeful scenario. But it only works if

1:39:52

everyone gets out there and volunteers

1:39:54

and donates and does everything we

1:39:56

can for the next couple months

1:39:58

to actually make this happen. So

1:40:00

that is our show for tonight We're

1:40:04

gonna be doing a special debate reaction

1:40:06

show tomorrow night that'll land Early

1:40:09

Friday morning in your feed check it out.

1:40:11

Thank you Stacey Abrams. Thanks to Amanda Lippmann

1:40:14

and Melissa Murray Thanks to

1:40:16

greenlight bookstore for selling our books tonight. If you

1:40:18

haven't grabbed a copy of democracy or else, please

1:40:20

do it on your way out Thank

1:40:22

you, Brooklyn If

1:40:32

You want to get ad-free episodes exclusive content

1:40:34

and more consider joining our friends of the

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1:40:39

And if you're already doom scrolling Don't forget

1:40:41

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1:40:46

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1:40:48

as opinionated as we are consider dropping us

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a review Pod save America

1:40:52

is a crooked media production. Our show is

1:40:55

produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo Our

1:40:57

associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farrah Safari

1:41:00

Reed Churlin is our executive producer the

1:41:03

show is mixed and edited by Andrew

1:41:05

Chadwick Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer

1:41:07

with audio support from Kyle Seglen and

1:41:09

Charlotte Landis writing support by Hallie

1:41:11

Kiefer Madeline Harringer is our head of news

1:41:13

and programming Matt de Groot is our head

1:41:15

of production Andy Taft is our