Bonus: Abdul El-Sayed Wins in Michigan feat. Bernie Sanders

25:39I think that a lot of voters, to the extent that they know who Mike Rogers is, probably remember him as a more moderate Republican. There's plenty of clips of him speaking out against Donald Trump. And I think Abdul has to make people realize before he just says that Mike Rogers is going to be a vote for Donald Trump, that Mike Rogers has changed. Because otherwise, I don't think you can go right to a Mike Rogers. Like I know everyone wants to do, and we talked about this in the main Senate race too, everyone wants to just do like, nationalize the race, make it about the Senate, make it about control of the Senate.

26:17Yeah, I agree with that to an extent, except when you have candidates like a Susan Collins, like a Mike Rogers, who the voters in that state know and think of as more moderate and more willing to buck Trump than your typical Republican. And I think in those instances, you've got to do some work on their character to like persuade people that something has changed about them, that they have either like they've been there too long. They've become corrupt. They only care about themselves and their money. They're now willing to do whatever Trump says just so they can keep their jobs and keep their money and all that kind of shit.

26:46Like you still have to have Trump be part of it, but you have to do some work on the person's character. This Mike Rogers thing is interesting because I have, as I have been arguing for a long time that this is a very hard race because Mike Rogers is not a MAGA buffoon in the eyes of the voters. Right. A MAGA buffoon like a Dr. Oz or a Herschel Walker or some of these other candidates the Democrats benefit from in 2022. There's also no evidence that he is Susan Collins. He underperformed Trump in 2022. I'm sorry, he underperformed Trump in 2024. And I think that is just, he did not, if he were a candidate who was seen as, you know, more, I think, let me put it this way.

27:30We all know, the people in Mike Rogers' district know Mike Rogers. He was there for 18 years, I think. We know Mike Rogers because we watched CNN in the 2010s and he was always on. And he was a very prominent Trump skeptical voice in the 2016 world. world. I don't know. It's unclear to me how many Michigan voters know that. You absolutely have to do work on his character, for sure, to make people understand why the attacks work. But Susan Collins is a very unique proposition in a way in which Mike Rogers is more like running against a generic Republican. I guess also it's tying Mike Rogers to Donald Trump in the same story, which is if we were to talk about Donald Trump right now, we'd say, you know, in his second term, he's fucking out to lunch, corrupt, only cares about himself.

28:20It's a smashing grab. He's made everything more expensive while he got rich. And, you know, they've in the primary, the Michigan Democratic Party has a website like pricehikemike.com, and they have some great Mike Rogers quotes in there. He talks about coffee prices. He goes, oh, my gosh, coffee went up, you know, horror, like being sarcastic. And on tariffs, he said, well, the shoe's going to pinch every once in a while on gas. He said, we're going to be fine. We got plenty of oil on a$50 annual physical. He said, that's probably okay. Right. And then he said, he said, anyone, if voters who blame Trump for high prices are nuts.

28:52Like those are the kind of, I think those are the kind of quotes that both link what you're talking about, which is like, he's just like Trump, but also the guy's way out of touch and he like moved to Florida and has no idea what people in Michigan are going through. I agree.

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31:56So, anything else that Abdul needs to think about ahead of the general? So much. Go for it. I know you wrote a message box on this. I did. 1 ,700 words on no sleep. Look, Abdul's win is incredibly impressive when you put it in the context of everything he was up against. But when you look at the coalition that he won with, it is a coalition that does not bode great for the general election. He overperformed with youth. He overperformed with college-educated voters. He underperformed in rural areas. He underperformed in most rural areas, not all of them. But he underperformed with working-class voters.

32:27And he really got his clock clean with black voters. and the electorate, you can survive in a primary like that because in Michigan, because it's almost 50-50 college-educated, non-college-educated voters in a typical primary. Like we don't have a lot of data on it, but I went back and looked at the 2020 primary between Biden and Bernie because they had exit polls from that. And it was 53 non-college, 47 college-educated in that primary. And probably in a midterm, it's closer to 50-50 or a majority college-educated. In a general election, if you look at 2024 exit poll data, it's more than 60 % non-college-educated.

33:14It is significantly older. The number of percentage of voters over 65, I think, goes up nine points. And so all the voters that Abdul struggled most with are disproportionately a larger portion of the electorate in 2020, in the general election. And I think we, you know, he, once again, this is another progressive candidate running on a working class agenda who did not win working class voters. And you can't, there's no other way to win Michigan, right? So I think, like, I wrote a bunch of things for Abdul to do. I'll first one was unify and sort of, you know, win with grace. And he has done that thus far.

33:56I think that's going in the right direction. The second thing was he has to really think about how to not just do better with black voters, but to make increased turnout with black voters for him. You know, and you can argue that millions and millions of dollars of ads that mislegantly suggested that Barack Obama had endorsed Haley Stevens, contributed to this, and I'm sure it did. But also, historically, candidates with Abdul's profile of sort of this progressive candidate do poorly with black voters. And so he's got work to do there. I hope he calls Barack Obama today and starts to think about how he could be helpful and other Michigan Democrats and others who can help him in that community.

34:39He can be validators in that community. he's gotta be i think the lesson here is he needs to think really hard about how to make himself more broadly appealing i think his campaign was i found so much of it inspiring and exciting and like from a communications and messaging perspective it was really masterful in a lot of ways but i really there the vibes you got was a really like my way or the highway you're with us or you're against us. And he now has to go out and persuade a lot of people. Some of them who voted for Haley Stevens, some of them who are just middle of the road, independent voters who have not thought about politics once since 2024 to support him.

35:21Many of those people are going to disagree with him on Medicare for all on some of the things he said in the past. They're going to disagree with him on Israel. There's real work to do with Jewish Democrats in Michigan. And you have to. you have to be willing to seem like you are open to listening, opening to understanding, opening to agree to disagree, and open to compromise. And if you look at the way that his primary campaign was entirely centered around, and this was an effective strategy because he won, maximizing his base, rallies with Bernie. Many of the final ads had AOC in them. She's a very, very popular Democrat.

36:00And they worked. But he did very little to try to show himself to be different than the caricature of himself as this sort of prototypical leftist candidate. You didn't see he was either unable to get or did not seek out endorsements that would be counterintuitive. A moderate Democrat who endorsed him. A business leader who would endorse him. A former Republican or something like that. or putting the, like, he talks all the time, and I know this happens, of these triple Trump voters who supported Abdul in this primary because Michigan has an open primary. Why aren't those people in ads? Yeah. Right?

36:35You're going to have to do some things that have a much more broadly appealing, that you have to actively reach out to people to not agree with you. And the last thing is, like, you really have to think hard about, you know, he had a very economically centered message, money in your pockets. what is it that did not work with that with working class and democrats let alone working class independents or working class dissolution trump voters is it that it wasn't specific enough is it that people because of the way the race played out people thought that wasn't his top priority and maybe it was they thought his top priority was money in the politics or aid to israel i think this this whole conversation about working class voters um in the democratic primary has sort of like gotten out of hand because like we did this with the Plattner thing in Maine as well.

37:26Like just a few, like Democrats have been doing poorly with working class voters for a long time, as you know. And that is true of moderate Democratic candidates. It's true of liberal Democratic candidates. It's true of progressive Democratic candidates. Like we have been losing working class voters to the Republicans under Donald Trump, especially that he has accelerated it. and it used to be just white voters. And now under Trump, it was Latino voters and some black men as well, right? So it is a party-wide problem. The left says, if you just like, you know, press the economically populist button hard enough that suddenly you're going to win over the working class voters, that has not, there's not a lot of evidence that that is true.

38:09The establishment and center left Democrats are like, well, the left can't do this. And they're not, they say that they're economically populist, but they can't get the working class voters. But it's like, you know what? the establishment candidates aren't really doing that much. There's not a lot of evidence that establishment candidates are doing that much better with the working class voters that you would actually need to win in a close state. Yes, in a primary, Haley Stevens coalition is going to look more working class than Abdul's. But like in the in a general election, it's not like there is any Democrat you can point to in the last 15 fucking years who's really made inroads to the to the working class in a way that that would that would solve this problem, which leads me to believe, which is one thing you could take from this is it is not just about talking up affordability or the right affordability message or the right economic message.

38:56Like there are cultural social concerns that the working class has have, which is why they have moved away from the Democratic Party that I think we all have to contend with here, because it's like, why is Jared Golden winning them in Maine, too? And is like as moderate as they come on a host of issues, but is not some like economically populist hero. I mean, we don't have to get into the golden egg because I agree with your point here. I think if you were trying to win this race and you just lost working class voters in a Democratic primary and the core of your message was pro-working class, it's worth taking a step back and trying to figure out what you need to do to at least perform better than Kamala Harris did with those voters in Michigan so you can win.

39:46Yeah. I guess one way to think about it is we went through this in 08, right? Like we were in a primary with Hillary that lasted 45 years. And every single state, she won working class voters and we did not. And the reason - She won working class white voters. That's one giant difference here is the reason why Obama wins and Bernie and Bill Bradley and all these other progressive candidates lose It's because Obama could win college educated voters and black voters at high numbers. Right. The rest of these voters are not doing that. But what we heard incessantly is Barack Obama has been talking about the working class.

40:23His policies are geared for the working class, but it's just not working. It's just not working. Why isn't it working? And then, you know, he was he still maintained that message through the general and one. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton was like the hero of working class voters in 2008. And then she runs for president again in 2016 and gets her clock cleaned with working class voters. Well, like these things are always suffer from small sample sizes. But the example for Abdul is Obama, which is we worked really hard to get those voters. And we did it in a lot of ways that were counter to what a typically a typical progressive Democrat would do based on the playbook.

41:04we spent a lot of time talking about the deficit and making sure people's taxpayer money was spent and we're going to have the guy from dave he was going to go through the budget line by line with their you know obama was very spent a lot of time reaching out to voters who disagreed with him on abortion this is what i'm getting at that's what i was getting at yes and i think there's a way in which israel plays into this which i'll get to in a sec and there look you cannot be just I do not want to overlook the fact that both in Obama's case and Abdul's case, race plays a role here. Of course. Right?

41:39The fact that he is, that Obama was a black man and Abdul is a Muslim American certainly plays a role. And that then puts a higher burden on you in the general election because life is not fucking fair to do some things that show, because of the ad we just saw, that show that you can relate to these voters culturally, that you're different than the caricature And you're going to have to find some ways that are, to use the favorite term of some of our moderate friends, that is heterodox or counterintuitive. And the reason I want to bring Israel up here, because some people will argue that he needs to moderate on Israel and aids Israel in particular to win.

42:21And he has done this. And if you actually really listen to what Abdul says, and when he gets asked questions, he is very good at talking about, about reaching out to Jewish Americans who disagree with him, right? But he has work to do there, obviously, and all the money spent against him does not, is why he has a little bit of this deficit. And some of his supporters, his most prominent supporters, are why he has a bit of this deficit. But independent voters in Michigan and nationally agree with Abdul on aid to Israel. Independents are basically very similar to Democrats on this issue. The issue, though, is once you move to the general election and once you move downscale economically, the salience of the issue goes down.

42:59And so I can imagine that if you're a working class voter and you have just paid attention to this race and you hear what Abdul's talking about, you hear what's great, not just what he says, because you're not listening to his full speech, but what's breaking through in media coverage or social media conversation, even in some mail pieces, is AIPAC and Israel. and that these voters who agree with Abdul but affordability is a much higher topic for them can believe that in his mind, priority-wise, that aid to Israel on that basket of issues is higher on his list in affordability. And that hurts you with voters.

43:34And it's one of the reasons Democrats have suffered with these voters. We saw this in the deciding to win report that Simon Bazelon did last year or whenever that was, because time has no meaning. and what voters think Democrats top priorities are is often not the economy, even when it actually is. I think there's a pretty easy way to square this circle and I could see him moving towards this, a dual moving towards this day, which is just people are tired of their money going overseas to be spent on stupid wars. Like Israel's part of this, but like we're at war with Iran right now that is a fucking disaster that Donald Trump is responsible for and Mike Rogers is supporting And Mike Rogers just told Semiford the other day, oh, when I go around, no one talks about Iran and the war, blah, blah, blah.

44:17But by linking affordability concerns to meanwhile, you've got Republicans. And if you put Mike Rogers in the Senate, they're just going to keep sending all your money overseas to fight stupid wars until like, you know, when it should be here in Michigan helping you afford things like I think that's a good message. Yeah, first, that was one I meant to bring that brother is that that pivot was notable in his remarks. and it's going to be interesting when you get asked how he feels about aid to Ukraine in this situation. Yeah. Yeah, that is true. Well, we're not providing much anymore. So there's...

44:51That's right. Fortunately there. But yeah, no, that is... Well, and he's also been, because I saw him on MS now and someone was like, well, you talk about Israel all the time. Well, do you not like Egypt or other ethno-nationalist governments? He's like, no, no, I don't. I would not give aid to them either. Yeah, he basically said he would give aid... Yeah, he doesn't believe in unconditional aid to any country. Right. Which is a very good and wise, and I imagine quite popular position. Yes, right. Okay, we should just talk about Michigan Senate was not the only notable primary last night. Before we go, in Michigan's 7th House District, which is a top target for Dems to flip, the lefty candidate, Will Lawrence, who's the Sunrise Movement co-founder, beat two more moderate Democrats who split the vote.

45:34In Michigan's 13th House District, DSA candidate Donovan McKinney has defeated incumbent Democrat Sheree Thanedar by three points. In Kansas, the more progressive state Senator Cindy Holscher beat Democratic Governor Laura Kelly's pick to succeed her, State Senator Ethan Corson. But over in Missouri, incumbent House Democrat Wesley Bell crushed Cori Bush, who was trying to win her old seat back by 59 to 37. We got a moderate Senate Democratic candidate in Kansas, Adam Hamilton, whose primary victory there moves the race from solid R to likely R. And elsewhere in Washington, and yeah, I know it's something, and elsewhere in Washington and Virginia, incumbent, moderate, established Democrats all won their races, despite some of them facing challenges from the left.

46:15Anything else I missed and any takes on the rest of the primaries from last night? No, I mean, this continues a trend we've seen with a handful of exceptions here and there of progressive anti-establishment candidates winning in races. It's, you can overstate these things. Lawrence won a three-way race. So it would be interesting to see what would happen if he had had a one-on-one with either of the two moderates. Maybe he still would have won then, too. But the anti-Lawrence vote was much larger than Lawrence vote. And the Sri Thonadar race, he is a particularly unpopular Democrat, but still impressive because incumbents don't get knocked off that much.

46:54Then you have the Wesley Bell-Cory Bush one, which is a huge example of this. He was supported heavily by AIPAC. Wesley Bell was. APEC supported his victory against Cori Bush last time. There's a lot of baggage from why Cori Bush lost the first time, scandal stuff there that affected it. And I think Bell, apparently, I guess, in the eyes of his constituents, has been an effective legislator in this time. But if you want to, like, what happened last night is, I think, consistent with the theme we've seen all primary season, which is in races with the right candidates in the right situations, progressive anti-establishment candidates have the advantage in the primary against the more traditional candidates you would expect to win.

47:41I do think your point about Michigan 7th, where if there had only been one candidate facing William Lawrence instead of two, he very well could have lost. And I think for, you know, moderate Democrats who are worried about this or worried about, you know, this sort of this progressive wave, like, if you don't want a DSA candidate to win, like, figure out one candidate to take on that person. I mean, this is this is really hard because I look at that and I'm like, well, most people could be wrong. But the general this is Michigan State is the district that Trump won by one point. It's Alyssa Slotkin's old district.

48:20Democrats should win at this time around. Most of the people whose job it is to try to win the House believe pretty strongly that either Bridget Brink or Matt Mazden would be favorites in that race. It is a toss-up at best with Lawrence. Whether that's correct or fair, I don't know. But so in one sense, you're like, well, why can't these people in Washington figure this shit out and get one person on the race? For the second hand, we're like, hey, DSCC, stop endorsing in these primaries. Why are you endorsing Haley Stevens and Janet Mills and all these other people and just let the voters decide?

48:51But I think there are some lessons here. Not the people in Washington, but if the folks who really are focused on electing more moderates or more electable or more heterodox Democrats or whatever else you want do have to get their shit together. And I think what happened in Michigan 7 and what happened in Michigan Senate, where there was a strong argument that Abdul was less electable than Haley Stevens, that's sort of a moot point right now, but is that there aren't a lot of people in the Democratic Party with the authority and the experience and the trust to tell Democratic primary voters how to think or even to tell candidates which one of them should get out.

49:33and you end up in situations like these where the candidate who in a normal election year might not have won will win this year because the establishment doesn't have the credibility to tell voters. If they can say who's more electable, the voters aren't going to believe them. Look, this is a conversation we'll be having for like the next year, two years. So we don't have to do it all now. But yeah, I think it's less, like I think the ability of some democratic establishment to like move pieces on a chessboard to get the right people that they want in races is like not the best strategy. But I do think it argues for compelling candidates who break out from the crowd, who are also not like, like they don't have to be DSA candidates, but they can at least have, like there's plenty of, I think mainstream Democrats in tough races who I would say the left is probably fine with.

50:23John Ossoff is an example, right? Like John Ossoff has taken some votes that are, you know, pretty moderate votes or things that left lefties might be upset about. But like people are generally fine with him because he is a compelling candidate. And now we're looking, you know, you look in Wisconsin right now, what's going on, right? Like in the governor's race. And they had a lieutenant governor who had to drop out because of scandal. Mandela Barnes also drops out partially because of scandal, partly because he didn't break through. We got David Crowley, who you're going to be talking to on Thursday's show, who last minute got Evers endorsement.

50:56Now they're trying. It's just like you got to have, you've got to run candidates who can really break through and at least say, have a message and have an agenda that people who would normally vote for some of these DSA progressive candidates would still find appealing. The model here in the example is Josh Turek, who was a more moderate candidate, believed to be more electable, was supported by Schumer World and did benefit from $10 million in super PAC spending for that, but was able to, in all the other, you know, Schumer's endorsed in three races. His candidate has lost or dropped out in two of the three.

51:35Turek's the exception. Turek is a very compelling candidate who, even though he had establishment support, does not read like an establishment candidate. And now obviously he has a very unique bio, very unique profile, but the way for moderates to win is to find candidates who do not appear to be just like establishment toadies, right? Ruben Gallego in Arizona in 2024. This is another example of that, right? Alyssa Flocken, honestly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Different profile, but we're also in a different world now where almost everyone is going to face a primary. And if you think there are a lot of primaries in 2026, wait until 2028.

52:16Fun stuff. Okay, when we come back, I talk to Senator Bernie Sanders.

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54:01Senator Sanders, welcome back to Pod Save America. Great to be with you. I saw that you described Abdul's primary win as the most extraordinary victory you can think of in modern American politics. What makes you think that? I'll tell you why. And you tell me what you think. Here is a guy who took on the entire Democratic establishment in Michigan, okay? Took on the entire National Democratic establishment, okay? And then took on$70 million of Super PAC and outside funding, about$30 million of it coming from AIPAC. Now, help me out here. You know something about these things. Yeah. Have you ever heard of a candidate in a major race getting outspent nine to one, taken on the entire establishment and winning?

54:55No, not in a primary like that. Now he's got to win the general, though. Then it would really be extraordinary. All right. But all that I'm saying, you ask me, I cannot recall somebody having done that. So it was an extraordinary victory. And in addition, in Michigan last night, we won two congressional races. As you know, Donovan McKinney beat an incumbent in Detroit, will be the next congressman. Will Lawrence won in Lansing, a strong victory. I think he stands a good chance to win in November as well. Yeah, it ended up being a really close race. Abdul won by about a point. What does the close finish tell you about where Democratic voters are right now, especially, you know, the 720 ,000 or so who voted for Haley Stevens?

55:40Well, John, it certainly was a close race. I was up to three o 'clock or four o 'clock in the morning. So if I fall asleep, don't take it personally.

55:50But you have to understand that$70 million was spent against this guy. So I want to rephrase the question and say if it was a fair fight financially and there was no spending difference, How many points would he have won? By 10, 20 points? Maybe. I don't know. But all in all, I think it was an extraordinary victory. I think the message right now, and I think Haley Stevens was very gracious in a concession speech, and she was exactly right. We understand that we have the most dangerous president in the modern history, not modern, in the history of the United States. And we have got to elect Democrats, Democratic control of the Senate and the House.

56:30And we've all got to work together to make that happen. And I think I would suspect that the overwhelming majority of the people who voted for Heli Stevens understand that. So looking at the map, Abdul dominated in college towns, highly educated areas. He didn't do as well in sort of the working class city and blue collar suburbs. And this has been a pattern with more progressive candidates and Democratic primaries with, I think, your presidential races being the notable exception that I can think of. Why do you think more economically populous candidates aren't doing as well with working class voters than more moderate establishment candidates?

57:10Well, I think, and again, let's remember that what last night was a pattern is consistent with what we have seen all over this country, by the way, in the last year from Mamdani's victory in New York City to Melotz Kiros' victory in Colorado and a lot in between. I mean, progressives are winning, John, and winning for a lot of reasons. We're often winning, as was the case last night, with a huge turnout. I think, correct me if I'm wrong, that was a record-breaking turnout in Michigan Democratic running? Yes, yeah, it was. That didn't happen by accident. It happened because, among other things, Abdul was able to bring out a lot of young people who previously did not get involved in the political process.

57:58And a lot of people have kind of given up on politics. But I have absolute confidence that Abdul's message of economic justice, of demanding the billionaires pay their fair share of taxes. And I'll tell you something else. This guy's a doctor. And I desperately need him in the U.S. Senate to help me and others move toward a Medicare for all single payer program. I think it's going to resonate all over Michigan, whether you're Democrat, Republican or independent. it. Do you think it's harder to reach working class voters with that message? Do you think that they just they, you know, people are busy and they're not paying as close attention to politics?

58:38Like, what do you what do you how do you think about that? And you got, you know, you got the internet phenomenon and algorithms where people see what they want to see and what they have seen yesterday. So it's hard to break through that. But what has excited me about Abdul's campaign, and again, Manani did it in New York, others have done it, is he put thousands and thousands of people out on the street. And one of the differences, John, between our campaigns and establishment Democratic campaigns, they always have more money than we do. They hire great consultants. They do good 30-second ads.

59:14We put people out on the street knocking on doors. And I think in Abdul's case in Michigan, we're going to have to have thousands and thousands of people knocking on doors, explaining to Republicans, do you really think it's a good idea? Do you have tax breaks to billionaires and cut back on health care and education, etc., etc. So it's an enormous amount of work to be done. It's going to be done in a grassroots way. I think we win. So as you look to the fall, what is, you know, Abdul's probably going to face even more money than he did in the primary. It's obviously a tougher electorate. What's one thing he has to do and his campaign has to do that they haven't done yet?

59:54I think we still have more work to be done within the African-American community, maybe the women's community. But there are great leaders in the state of Michigan and all over this country who I think and help us make that happen. So you've endorsed a lot of progressive candidates like Abdul the Cycle. You mentioned a few others who won last night. There are also a lot of progressive candidates, DSA candidates running who you haven't endorsed. How do you decide which progressive candidates get your endorsement and which don't? Well, you know, we're not, you know, some kind of huge machine here.

1:00:35So we have to be kind of have to pick and choose. one of the things that people don't know is that we have also endorsed dozens and dozens and dozens of what we call down-ballot candidates, people who are running for school boards, city councils, state legislature, mayor, and small towns. And that, in a sense, becomes, if you like, the farm club, the future leaders of America, some great people in legislature right now that we've helped get elected. And we have trained, by the way. We have programs that say, hey, you want to run for office? This is how you send out a press release. This is how you do social media, et cetera, et cetera.

1:01:12But we have, you know, limited resources. So what we do is, hey, what do you stand for? What do you stand for? If you are a moderate liberal type Democrat, that's great. There are other people who will support you. That's not us. Do you support Medicare for all? Which is more or less for us, I think, if you would ask me if there's one litmus test, probably Medicare for all would be it. Do you support attacks on billionaires? Are you prepared to take on the oligarchs? What is your view about the extremist government in Israel? So you need that information, but that's not enough. Then you have to say, look, you can, and I have seen this, I've experienced this, people are really, they're really smart, they have great answers to everything, they can't run a campaign.

1:01:55You know, it's not easy putting together a campaign. And Abdul did it, by the way. Not everybody can do it. So you've got to say, all right, what's the nature of your campaign? How many volunteers do you have? Well, we don't have any. You're raising any money? No, we're not. Okay, well, that's nice. Have a nice day. You're a great guy, but we're not going to support you. So those are some of the things that we look at. I noticed you haven't yet endorsed in the Wisconsin governor's race. What's your thinking there, and might you endorse? I don't think so. I met Francesca a couple of years ago. I was in Wisconsin, and she seems very, very nice.

1:02:30But again, this is a race I just am not that familiar with. We have not gotten involved in many governor's races. Then we did one in Maine with Troy Jackson. You know, obviously, my major concern right now is seeing that we have a Senate and a House that is going to stand up to Trump. That's really where my focus is. So as of now, we have not been involved in that race. So your brand of progressive politics has always been focused on the material needs of working class people. And I would say that to the extent that you've broken from Democratic Party policy, it's usually around economic issues, health care, etc.

1:03:08There are some DSA candidates today, you know, including some who've won their primaries this cycle, who've also talked about abolishing prisons, defunding or even abolishing the police, abolishing borders. You've never been for any of that. Are you worried that taking those positions, which are unpopular with most voters and even most Democrats, sort of hurt the movement that you've worked really hard to build? Well, you know, look, people have different views. And what you know, as well as I do, that the right wing, that's their job, right? They will take what one person said and put, you know,$80 billion of TV ads on it and make it claim every Democrat supports that.

1:03:48No serious person that I know who is running for office believes in, quote-unquote, defunding the police. I was a mayor for eight years. I worked very closely with cops. They have a very difficult job. Do we need police reform? Do we need to get rid of racism within police departments? Absolutely. Are there jobs that other people can be doing in terms of mental health, drug addiction that now falls on a cop's shoulders? Yeah, I think we should look at that. But nobody I know believes in defunding the police in terms of doing away with prisons. I hope the day comes. I hope the day comes when we don't lead the world and the number of people who are incarcerated.

1:04:25That speaks very poorly of our society. But does that mean that there should not be dangerous people who should be behind bars? Of course, everybody agrees with that. Open borders, no. Most of us believe in comprehensive immigration reform, not opening up all the borders. But a lot of this stuff, as you well know, is what the right wing plays on and multiplies on Fox, you know, 10 times a day and through their ads. But most of the serious candidates that I know and support do not support those things. You have you made a really compelling case that the party, Democratic Party, can't just be anti-Trump.

1:05:05We have to be for something. On the other hand, you never want to promise voters things that you can't actually get done. And I think about this just in terms of the next two years in this cycle. Right. So a bunch of Democrats would say everything goes well and we take Congress. Trump's still president for two years. What do you think Democratic candidates running today can realistically promise voters in terms of a Democratic Congress the next two years? John, I would look at that's a good question that you've raised. I would look at it a little bit differently. OK. I would not start off by saying Donald Trump is president.

1:05:42You know, he probably veto any serious and good piece of legislation. Therefore, we can't bring it up. That's not the way I look at it. I look at it from the position of, and let me be very clear, you may agree with me, you may not. I think the system is horrifically broken. In many ways, we're on a Titanic right now. Every place you look, whether it's healthcare, whether it's transportation, whether it's education, whether it's a corrupt campaign finance system, whether it is oligarchy and massive income and wealth inequality, whether it is climate change. I mean, I can go on and on. It's scary stuff.

1:06:20I mean, we're living in really crazy times. And then on top of that, you've got Donald Trump as president who does everything, you know, does the wrong things every single day. So I think the first thing you do, John, and what my politics is about is to be honest with people. You say, I don't stop. What can you do? What are the problems facing? Are you worried that your kid can't afford to go to college? We're the richest country on earth. What should we do? Did God determine that public education ends in the 12th grade? Can we make public colleges and universities tuition-free? Do you think that zero or four is important for a kid's development?

1:06:56Of course you do. Should we have universal and free child care so that all families can enjoy? Yeah, you can. Oh, Bernie, that's a great idea. How are you going to pay for it? Well, okay, that's another issue. Maybe we demand that large corporations and the wealthiest people stop paying their fair share of taxes. Maybe we don't spend$1.1 trillion on the military. But this is what I believe, John, and it really is at the heart of my politics. You've got to deal with where people are at. They are hurting. They are giving up on democracy in many cases because they don't see government do anything for them.

1:07:33So what my strategy would be to answer your question is, if I had the power and I have some power, I will say to the Democrats, you gain control of the House, you gain control of the Senate, tell you what you're going to do. In the first two, three, four months, you're going to pass Medicare for all. And if Mr. Trump wants to veto it, let him. And we are going to explain to the American people why he vetoed it. And we're going to lower prescription drug costs to the price that other countries around the world are paying. He's going to veto that, fine. We're going to raise the minimum wage. We're going to raise taxes on billionaires.

1:08:10Let Mr. Trump say no. And when he says no, we have transformed politics because the next time around we'll win a landslide victory. That's my view of politics. Looking ahead to 2028, I mean, you've been so outspoken on AI and it's clearly going to be a huge issue, not just in this election, but again, in 2028, when we actually have a presidential race. What do you hope to hear from Democratic candidates and the Democratic Party in terms of how we handle artificial intelligence? John, there are easy answers and there are hard ones. And I got to tell you, of all of the issues out there, this one, you know, how, you know, why you can't sleep at night.

1:08:54This is one of them. Now, maybe I'm crazy and it may well be. Look, I, yeah, first of all, we start off with the assumption is nobody knows what's going to happen. right? You don't, I don't, nobody does. You know, Elon Musk doesn't know, nobody knows. Here is my nightmare. This is what I worry about. You're looking, what I think we can agree on, as the most transformational technology in the history of humanity. Okay, it's going to make the industrial revolution seem like a piece of cake. This stuff is moving quickly in every aspect of our society. How many millions of jobs will be lost? I don't know.

1:09:27What happens to the work because you're a 50-year-old truck driver and now you've got a driverless vehicle taking your job. What happens to you? You're a kid graduating college. There's no entry-level job. What happens to you? You're a lawyer. The firm no longer needs you. What happens to you? So economically, I worry about it. I worry about it also. And I say all these things. And the reason I am fighting these fights is I don't have all the answers. But somebody got to start this discussion and talk about it. All right. Democracy. All right. Tomorrow, there will probably be some kind of deep fake of me on your program saying how much I love Donald Trump and what a great job he is.

1:10:06Right. Yeah. Right. All right. So has that happened to you? Not yet. I'm waiting for it. Yeah, it'll happen. All right. So you're at a moment where people look at the Internet. we don't know truth from fiction. Right? You really don't. You've seen those deep fakes, right? Oh yeah. So if a day before the elections, and you saw what happened to this guy Thomas Massey, where it was alleged, they had a video of him walking into a hotel room with two young congresswomen, right? Total lie. Did older people in Kentucky believe it? Some did. How do you deal with that and protect democracy? literacy. How and what worries me very much, reading scores for our kids is in decline.

1:10:56You know that? Writing capabilities, cognitive capabilities. Kids are addicted to screens. How do you deal with that? Recently, we've seen instances of AI escaping human control. I talked to a Nobel Prize winner who thinks that as AI becomes smarter than human beings, we could face an existential threat.

1:11:16Jon Favreau:All right. These are huge issues. We need to have a, we need to slow it down. That's the first thing we need to do. Mr. Musk cannot run the world and his friends. So that's what I worry about. Same. It's one of the things that keeps me up at night for sure. And especially having two young boys who are going through the education system. You want to make sure they are trained for actual jobs that are going to exist out there and not just looking at their screens. Senator Sanders, thank you as always for joining Pod Save America. I really appreciate the time. Well, thank you, John. Keep up the great work.

1:11:49Thanks. You too. Take care.

1:11:56That's our show for today. Thanks to Bernie for coming on. And Dan and I will be back with a new show on your feet on Friday. Bye, everyone.

1:12:08Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Farrah Safari, with Reed Juerlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Carol Pellaviv, David Toles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Sengel. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

1:12:50Jon Favreau:Hey, it's Tommy from Pod Save America and Pod Save the World. Last year, 2 ,500 people joined us at CrookedCon for conversations with some of the smartest organizers, least annoying politicians, and most interesting voices in politics to talk about how to fix this mess. Even President Obama made a surprise appearance. We're doing it all again November 5th to 7th in Washington, D.C., with even more podcasts, panels, and workshops. plus there'll be drinks which we'll need after the midterms no matter which way they go get tickets at crookedcon.com if you're a friend of the pod you get a discount too see you there