Donald J. Plump

24:06I don't really understand that one. There's also kind of a personnel argument that you hear. The big one was also they wanted exclusive access. We wanted exclusive access to their critical minerals. Yeah. And Carney was like, Canada would never give that to anyone. It's crazy. Yeah, we're keeping it open. We're keeping an open relationship with our tungsten. There was also reports that the U.S. trade rep, Jameson Greer, was like professional and, you know, he speaks French. Like he's a pro to work on. And then Lutnik came in at the end, the Commerce Secretary. Best in you speak, Gay. What's he saying?

24:35And Lutnik got involved in negotiations. They went to shit. And then there's the politics of it all, which the political reality at this point for Mark Carney is the politics of fighting Trump are so much better than cutting a deal that requires you to make concessions and then going to and having to explain that. Because voters in Canada, remember the whole 51st state thing? They don't think it's funny. They haven't forgotten J.D. Vance. And they don't trust Trump. They think that he's going to tear up any trade deal that they sign in a year. and the Canadian nationalism has been kicked up in a way that's been really durable.

25:08Like a friend of mine was in Canada the other day watching TV and the commercials would be like, Lay's potato chips with potatoes grown proudly in Canada. It was like, you know, it's like an ongoing thing. And so the other thing for Carney is like all the reasons Canadians might oppose this deal vary by region. So like in Ontario, it's the auto industry. In Quebec, it's the cultural stuff about the French language. In other parts of the country, it's like lumber provisions and like stitching that all together is a pain in the ass. So for him, he's like, you made it easy for me. Now I get to punch you in the face with my 60 percent approval rating.

25:44You being weak, Donald Trump, and going into your midterms where you're likely to lose. Like, I think Carney thinks it's worth the risk. Well, I mean, he's not asking to reopen the talks, Carney, probably for those political reasons. Well, also because he gave a speech where he said, I am outlining a new approach for countries that are kind of in between these sort of great powers that are battling. And it is that we can find a way to stitch together these other kinds of arrangements without conceding, without giving up. And if he means that, and I do think he means it sincerely. I don't think it's just politics.

26:17He has to prove it in his own negotiations. He can't signal to Europe that they need to stand up to Donald Trump. And then when he's faced with that himself, he capitulates. And the Canadian reciprocal tariffs, I think, go into place September 8th. Trump was like, ours will go into place in January, which is already him kind of, you know, caving. Well, that or at least blinking. Yeah. Well, we just talked about Iran. Right. And so that is the Axios story. Right. Like they might restart the war after the midterms or, you know, the the sanctions for the trading partners with Iran or anyone doing business with Iran is we're threatening that, you know, past the midterms.

26:52Right. And now we're doing the Canadian tariffs past the midterms, at least on the auto parts. So it is going to set up an interesting dynamic, which is it seems right now like the White House is like, OK, well, we don't want to at least some people in the White House. We don't want to fuck ourselves for the midterms too hard. So maybe we can delay this stuff till after the midterms. But if they it sounds like whether they lose or do better than expected in the midterms, they still want to do all this damage after the midterms, which will set up an interesting dynamic for the 2028 primary in which J.D.

27:23Vance, who we just heard from, presumably is going to want to run for president or maybe Marco Rubio or whoever else and now have to deal with the fucking bigger mess that the administration seems like they're planning to cause. Yeah, I also, before you get to 2028, take Trump at his word. Like, there are a lot of people running. We're going to get to Susan Collins. Donald Trump is saying, I am going to put in place a giant tax increase on January 1st on Americans because Congress will not pull back the authority it has vested in Trump to do tariffs without congressional approval. Congress has the power to prevent those tax increases from going into effect.

28:01like that seems to me a pretty big issue that people could be talking about about what happens. I mean, obviously, Trump has the ability to veto, but it would be nice to get people on record about where they stand on him doing this. I think they're all going to run on it. I mean, in Michigan, obviously, the auto industry is like the biggest fight they're going to have. So I'm sure Abdul is all I know Abdul is all over this. In Iowa, it'll impact John Deere, which is an important industry there, but also farmers who sell ag products into Canada. In Maine, it's all about lumber. And I think there's a bigger question of like, we know Trump loves tariffs, but we don't really know why.

28:33You know, like Jameson Greer seems to want to kind of reorder the manufacturing business and bring it all back to the US from China. And I think a lot of people support that. Scott Besson seems to think that tariffs are a way to collect revenue and just make money for the government. Then there's another group that just seems to think they're a way to bully other countries and get them to do whatever you want about whatever issue. And And that's kind of it seems like where Trump kind of lands on this. Like, I think I assume he is more interested in looking tough and looking like he beat up Mark Carney than he is in getting some extra milk into, you know, a Canadian.

29:08There's one more. The other, I think, and Vance has sometimes flirted with this, is that you accept lower growth and the cost of tariffs because you reorder the economy around old school manufacturing, which were the jobs for men. And even though you give up service jobs, growth, you give up all the benefits of a modern globalized economy, it creates – it's more about the kind of old school values of a kind of work we used to – we used to as a society view as important. But even all that aside, it is hard to overestimate what a dumb fucking political move this is. The number one issue for voters across the political spectrum is the cost of living.

29:50Everything is too expensive. And they don't just think it's a bad economy. they know they blame Trump for it. And specifically, they blame Trump's tariffs for it. Like, it is maybe his one of his most unpopular policies, certainly his most unpopular economic policy over the last several years. And now he is doubling down on it, if not, in fact, in a threat, at least before the midterms. So there are going to be headlines about tariffs before the midterms. And of course, he's already levied tariffs on$20 billion worth of Canadian goods. So that's going to, you know, that'll have an effect on things.

30:24So people are still pissed at the tariffs that he's slapped on everything before this. Now there's headlines about more tariffs and we are 60 something days out from the midterms. It's fucking nuts. Yeah, it's not smart. Okay, so let's talk midterms. One person noticeably absent from Vance's event in Maine was Susan Collins. This is the second time she skipped out on a Vance event in Maine this year, though I'm sure she was thrilled that the vice president told the crowd in that speech that But Susan Collins is a, quote, dear friend who has been to his house, quote, probably a half dozen times.

30:58That's not a dear friend. Sorry. Collins has been trying to convince voters that she hasn't become a rubber stamp for Trump despite voting with him 95 percent of the time. The latest move was a statement asking the president to, quote, consider the negative impacts his trade war with Canada would have on Mainers. On the Democratic side, things have been relatively quiet since Troy Jackson locked up the nomination to replace Graham Plattner on the November ballot. But Jackson's campaign is beginning to heat up, finally getting on TV this weekend with this great 30-second spot featuring Jackson's mother.

31:31Seth Moulton:Troy was born to two teenage parents, and we struggled a lot. He didn't use that as an excuse. He used that as fuel to make things better for other people. Troy never talks about what he's done. But somebody will come up to me in the grocery store or someplace in town and they'll say, Troy helped me get a sewer. Troy helped me get my mother into a nursing home. If you need help, he's going to be there for you. That's who he is. I'm Troy Jackson. This is my mom. And I approve this message. What do you guys make of the Jackson campaign so far? and do you think he's doing enough to nationalize the race so that it is about a vote for Trump versus a check on Trump?

32:13So there was this ad. There was another ad or video he filmed just sort of sitting on a stoop talking about Elon Musk dumping money in the state. There's another. The crotch mog shot. Yeah, yeah. It was very shot from below for sure. I didn't notice that. Tommy noticed that. I thought it was innovative. It was good. It was good. I mean, we've used that technique here at Paz America, but the sometimes against without our consent, we look at a video like that. Hey, guys, that's three crotches. But and then I'll turn the name for the podcast. Yeah. And then there's others where he'd sort of say, like, according to our our enemies.

32:50But I say let our haters be our motivators. But the and that's what Troy Jackson said as well in that ad. But but he also is doing a lot of like like kind of the the accent is the accent. And he's like, look, I don't care. I don't give a damn if you're I'm not gonna do the accent, but Democrat or Republican. Like, I just we just want to get these good things done for people. So there is a war right now because he is coming into the campaign late, kind of introducing himself. And as he's doing that, right, like as much as they'd want to nationalize the race, Republican groups are dumping millions of dollars into me, calling him like a dirty politician and kind of trying to define him negatively.

33:21So I don't know what the mix should be. I think he's trying to fight a war to define himself because he came in so late. Part of it is all the attention, like the national media should probably help nationalize this race a bit because people, boy, a lot of people stopped caring about Maine once it stopped being about Democrat on Democrat and started being about a Democrat versus Susan Collins. Yeah, I mean, that ad was good. It was a good bio spot, but it's definitely an older version of politics, a more parochial version of politics. It's like he helped me get a sewer in my community. That's not nationalizing it.

33:50That's not making it about rubber stamping the Donald Trump agenda. I'm nervous about this race. I mean, like, shout out to the Maine Democratic Party and Troy Jackson for, like, turning this thing from Plattner to his race so quickly. That is genuinely impressive. I think it was, like, literally a month ago, right, where he accepted the nomination. Feels longer. I do think that does. I do think, you know, they need to go on offense every day. I mean, J.D. Vance's visiting name is a gift to the Jackson campaign. I saw that he was highlighting Vance calling Collins his dear friend on his Twitter feed.

34:19I hope they're doing more with that. The Canada trade war is a huge opportunity for Troy Jackson. Like Troy Jackson's political career started because he led a group of loggers to the border of Canada and blockaded the road to protect Maine loggers from getting their jobs stolen from them. Where he's from. He's from Aroostook County, which is like the border county between Maine and Canada. Like he could go there today. And speaking of nationalizing the race and explain what a 50 % tariff does to a logging town. Right. Some Canadian premieres were talking about blocking electricity to America from Canada.

34:57If that happened to Maine, it would hurt them a lot. They get a lot of electricity from Maine. People love electricity in Maine. I don't know. I've seen a lot of polling on it. But my sense of it in Maine is that they're just fans of electricity. Data center's bad. Electricity, good. You know what? You'd think it'd be 100 to 0, but I think it's probably 95.5 because everything is. But yeah, they're pretty pro-electricity up there. Iran, ongoing disaster. Colin does not do anything to stop the war. ICE is hugely controversial. Susan Collins gave a terrible interview the other day where she was asked.

35:23She was asked by someone. She got like door stopped at the elevator in the Senate and was like, why did you vote to send 70 billion to ICE? And she was like, it was for body cameras. It's like that they never turn on when they're killing Americans. So there's there's a lot of opportunity there for Troy Jackson to make the campaign about Collins as a rubber stamp for Trump. There's also this concerning report that Elon Musk is preparing to spend 100 million dollars on the midterms. And a lot of that will be focused on Maine. So we don't know where that's going to go. But maybe you could jujitsu that back on Collins.

35:53We'll see. We started to do. I'd like to see a little more. You know, we've got to be aggressive. We've got to make it about her. Especially in this race. Because, like, you look at all the polling, and this has been true since Plattner was in the race. Still true today. Maine does not like Donald Trump. Maine is not happy with Donald Trump. Majorities of voters, if they were going to go to the polls, they would vote against Donald Trump. And they did. In 2024, they voted for Kamala Harris. And so the way Susan Collins gets elected here is – and it's a little different from the other races. They're going to try to disqualify Troy Jackson.

36:23But the real emphasis in why the White House is going to like let her criticize them is showing that Susan Collins is some kind of an independent voice, right? And so she wins if enough voters are like, I really don't like what Trump's doing, but I don't really know him. And she's actually delivered for Maine. And she's kind of like an independent voice. And she came out against these tariffs. I just heard her say that, you know. And so, like, the only way to win this race is to tie her to Donald Trump as closely as possible and nationalize this race in every way possible. And I think Troy Jackson, like, has to do that.

37:00And that was – look, that was the criticism of Plattner, one of many, like, after he wrapped up the nomination is people were like, oh, he's going after Susan Collins too hard on being corrupt and everything else and being part of an establishment in Washington. and he's not tying her to Donald Trump enough. And that was fair criticism, but now that's what Troy Jackson has to do as well. He has to tie her to Donald Trump. Yeah, I just, I'm just, I am, you have to do that while part of their strategy is to try to define Troy Jackson as unacceptable or corrupt or worse in some way. And he's unknown and part, and I'm sure people have in the back of their minds that Democrats went through this bruising primary with sort of these like unsavory figure in the end and like that he's tarred with that.

37:44So I'm sure it's like a difficult balance of trying to figure out how to just get people over the line of knowing who you are, that you're okay to vote instead of, you know, stable, reliable Susan Collins. So like, I'm sure that's part of what we're seeing in the ads. And the question is, how do you make moments when there's a national, when J.D. Vance is there, when there's a tariff thing? Well, also understanding he probably has to do some work to counteract what would be a deluge about him. I do think that 95 % number, she voted with Trump 95 % of the time, it sort of reminds me of what we did to McCain in 08, right?

38:11There's a senator who was seen as more independent, a maverick. And all we did for the three, four months of the general election was be like, this guy voted with George Bush 90-something percent of the time. I can't remember now. Yeah, J.D. Mays tried to get ahead of that by being like, and sometimes she annoys me by being so independent. It's like, oh, what a subtle line, J.D. I know, I know. Very obvious. What's he doing in Maine? You know, he's campaigning for her again. She can't show up. And she can't show up. It's all a little bit like it's the Vance show. Only LePage showed up, the Republican nominee for the Maine 2nd District.

38:47Not even the gubernatorial nominee showed up on the Republican side for J.D. Vance. So he's popular.

38:58Posse of America is brought to you by Helix. I don't know about you, but sleep is the most important thing in my life besides my family. They're connected. There's a really good chance. They are very connected. Thank you, John, for seeing me. If I get a good night's sleep, having a great day. If I get a bad night's sleep, I am almost guaranteed to have a rough day. And good sleep starts with the right mattress. Upgrade your sleep quality with a Helix mattress. How do you know which mattress is right for you? You take the Helix Sleep Quiz, and it'll match you with the perfect mattress based on your personal preferences and sleep needs.

39:29They have over 20 mattress models, so you can find the perfect model for you. Helix delivers your mattress right to your door with free shipping in the U.S. The Happy with Helix guarantee offers a risk-free, customer-first experience designed to ensure you are completely satisfied with your new mattress, so you can rest easy with seamless returns and exchanges. Plus, Helix offers a 120-night sleep trial and limited lifetime warranty. We got a Helix mattress at our house. It is unbelievably comfortable. It's in our guest bedroom. Anyone who sleeps there says they love it. I've had multiple people say to me, where'd you get that thing?

40:02And I say, Helix, take the quiz. Ship it to your house. Couldn't be easier. Go to helixsleep.com slash crooked for 27 % off site wide. This offer is exclusive to Pod Save America listeners. That's helixsleep.com slash crooked for 27 % off site wide. Helixsleep.com slash crooked. Pod Save America is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. With everyday interactions becoming increasingly impersonal, someone going just one extra step can be huge. Like when my doctor takes the time to call me with test results instead of sending them electronically, I feel like a human being again. Yeah, it's nice. you're hiring, great candidates can also go the extra step and tell you why they're interested in your job on ZipRecruiter.

40:41It's a way to stand out from the others in the pool. And right now, you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash Crooked. ZipRecruiter's new feature shows you the most interested qualified candidates first, so you meet the right people faster. Their powerful matching technology finds qualified candidates quickly. Candidates can tell you in their own words why they're interested in your job. We've used ZipRecruiter here at Crooked Media. We've hired a bunch of people. It shortened the process. It helped us find great people really quickly and just cut through a lot of the slower processes and other sites out there that are just not as effective.

41:15Try ZipRecruiter and meet great candidates who will go the extra step for your job. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free at ziprecruiter.com slash crooked. That's ziprecruiter.com slash crooked. ZipRecruiter, meet your match on ZipRecruiter.

41:34Speaking of him, he also recently weighed in on the Michigan Senate race during a visit to his hometown in Ohio. Here's what he had to say about Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed. Now, El-Sayed, this guy running for Senate in Michigan, he once argued not too long ago that criticisms of Sharia law were rooted in white supremacy. I'd love to go back in time and tell my papaw that there's a man who claims to stand for working people who says not only should we have Sharia law, but if you criticize it, you're a white supremacist. That's not my papaw's Democrat Party, my friends. That's not my papaw's Democrat Party, my friends.

42:14Just a just a just a collection of real, authentic people in there. Also, notice how he just just kind of got in there. Not only is he think we should have Sharia law. Like, what are you talking about? I know. It's also like he makes Abdul's name sound weird. He's like, Elsa, yeah. And then he's like, my peepaw, meepaw, papaw. I was like, fuck off, man. Yeah, sorry. I think I said pawpaw earlier. People are a lot of different names. Yeah. So Abdul responded on MSNOW by pointing out that Vance was cherry picking who gets to be defined as American and distracting from the issues. What do you think of that response?

42:46And in general, like, what is the best way for Abdul to handle all of these Islamophobic attacks from people like Vance, from people like Mike Rogers? I've seen a lot of them are just like not even like thinly veiled lies, like very obvious lies, like he just loves Sharia law. He loves that. It's like this is where Vance, too. He kind of performs as like the sophisticated version of Trump. And there's like a way in which you take his rhetoric and you can find some shred. they can call it the truth somehow but then he'll go back to they're eating the cats and they're eating the dogs or he'll go there's like he wants to real law which is just just a just a lie just just lying to people uh i think he's doing a like i don't know what a more defiant or direct version of what he's already been saying sounds like but like you can just say what this is uh if this election is a referendum on trump's policies and whether people want in the senate a rubber stamp for what Trump will do, then Mike Rogers will lose.

43:44And everything about what the Republicans are doing is going to be to try to hide that or muddy that or make noise around that. And if this is an election about healthcare, about jobs, about someone looking out for the middle class in Michigan, about someone who will actually kind of go to the Senate to advocate on behalf of people in Michigan as opposed to for Donald Trump or whatever, or kind of siding with the corporations that are trying to kind of cut their taxes even more, deregulate. That's what the race is about. Then Abdul will win. They know that. Pawpaw versus Sharia. Yeah. His response to JD was like, called him boring, which I like.

44:24Just unequivocally true. He made a line about Peter Thiel, which I don't know that most people get. Like MSNOW viewers probably get it because we're all political junkies, but most folks don't. And then he went into this thing about how, well, you know, do you think J.D. Vance looks his wife's parents in the eye and tells them they're not real Americans, referencing Usha Vance. And again, it's like it's a good point that I'm not totally sure everyone would understand. It's also a point you could make about Donald Trump and Melania, by the way, because her parents were not born in the United States.

44:51I did like there's the this is a distraction thing. I think that is true and it's valuable. I did wonder if it's missing a beat that just kind of like undercuts the suggestion that he's an extremist. It's like, J.D., I played fucking college lacrosse. That's not the most like Sharia compliant activity or like something that just gets that like I love America. I'm an American. I grew up playing high school football. I'm from Michigan. My name's Abdul. I'm a doctor. I'm a union member. Like enough of this fear mongering crap. And he does that. He says like I'm Abdul from I've always been Abdul from Michigan.

45:21It's also, yeah, distraction is sort of the right ballpark. But you got to kind of put a finer point on it by being like – like every answer has to go back to Mike Rogers at this point. And like Mike Rogers and J.D. Vance and all these people, they're saying all this shit because they have nothing to say about why everything is so expensive in Michigan. They have nothing to say about what a disaster Donald Trump has been for Michigan over the last four years. And like – so they're just going to make this entire race about Sharia law and Hassan Piker and all this other bullshit because they have nothing else to say about anything that you care about.

45:55You know, and I think that like he's and Mike and they may know that it's a pretty weak argument that Mike Rogers is just going to go to the fucking Senate and have another another two years of doing whatever Donald Trump tells him to do. Yeah. The thing about the point is like, so he's a hypocrite. Right. And like, it's like it's just this is sometimes it's just like, hey, like, stop. You're not going to win on points. It's like that's a logical argument about how you should – like what? He's racist towards you but not towards his wife? Like I don't – like it is beside the point. It's sort of done with sort of hypocrisy arguments or kind of, well, what about this?

46:33Well, it's luring. And their goal is to sort of lure you into an argument about identity and culture and race, right? This is like – Bernie tweeted today too like, well, you talk about Hassan Piker, but Jake Lang is in Michigan, the January 6th rioter. and he's got a connection to Mike Rogers, which is true, you know? And then Mike Rogers is like, well, I'll disavow him. I'll disavow Jake Lane. But also, will Abdul disavow Piker? And now we're like in a back and forth about, you know. Disavow off? I know. Man. The classic disavow off. I think Lamer is like a mayor's bet on a sports game. Yeah, there is something about the, like.

47:12Those are pretty lame. The other side of it, right, is. I'll wear this. I'll wear a cheese head. These cheese steaks from Chicago. Philly, whatever. I wasn't listening. I was waiting for my turn to talk. That was new. So rare. What I was trying to, what I was going to say is, yes, there's like the tit for tat for how you respond to these things, right? And then there's sort of the proactive rhetoric, whether it's in responding to the Hassan Piker thing, which he did, right? He's not just ignoring it. He was responding to it. And then what you're doing proactively to address those kinds of things.

47:41And I will say, like, I read the statement he put out in response to the backlash to a comment from Hassan Piker from his fucking stream, because we've all decided that Hassan Piker is the main character in American politics. You have Fox News on. He's there. It's every third figure. It's just it's Hassan, Trump, and then just a socialist that choice in at random, basically. Maybe a trans swimmer will get in there. But that's it. That's what's on Fox News. And so like his response. It's also in the third way and some other Democrats and and and DSA people, right? Like a lot of people are invested in making Hassan the main character of the midterms.

48:13But if you look at that statement, it like I think all the sentiment inside of the statement is good, but it's very like it's very careful. Right. It's very careful statement and not like that there needs to be if he's going like if he's trying to prove to the Jewish voters in Michigan that he would like to come home despite having had 30 or 60 million, 60 million dollars worth of ads dumped on his head. then like the same language that he would use, the defiant language about saying this is why we need Medicare for all or like this is why we need to take on the corporations. Like that level of defiance is certainly welcome in describing anti-Semitism, right?

48:49Like it's a very kind of careful language as opposed to something that's just like – it's more in the style that he's using on every other issue. That's all. There's also some interesting news about Rogers over the weekend. Axios reported that allies of Rogers asked APAC to rethink their involvement in the Michigan general election. urging the group to, quote, get involved without putting the group's name front and center. The New York Times followed up with reporting of their own, noting that, quote, APAC leaders have privately voiced unease with a plan that makes APAC appear as if it is hiding.

49:19None of this has stopped Rogers from fundraising with APAC. He attended three APAC fundraisers in L.A. over the weekend and a fourth on Monday. What do you guys make of the request from the Rogers camp? I mean, I think it tells you a lot about how toxic the APAC brand has become politically. I think ultimately what they're doing there is saying just don't spend on your own behalf. Funnel your money to some other super PAC and have them spend it for you, which is what AIPAC will probably do. Although it does make AIPAC look incredibly weak if they can't even run ads. Although they normally don't run ads in a general election.

49:50They usually just screw around in Democratic primaries taking out progressives. So this is new for them, but it's a punch in the gut. But also AIPAC has run tons of ads under the names of other organizations. and their ads during this primary had nothing to do with Israel at all. They were about sort of accusing him of being anti-woman and other things like that. So like they already are running a campaign, which at least for most people, they're trying to kind of make it about other issues and not about AIPAC. It seems like they wanted the headline, the Rogers campaign. They wanted a headline out there to say that they are resisting AIPAC because they know that it's toxic, right?

50:27I think that I'm sure they're the ones that leaked it. That is, I guess, like the politics are a little simpler for a Republican than a Democrat, right? Like I don't totally understand why he wouldn't want. I think that it has become so toxic that it is not just toxic in a Democratic primary now, but AIPAC is toxic in a general election. Right, right. I guess what I want to understand is who are the voters? I guess there are some Republican voters who might just stay home, right? Independents, swing voters. AIPAC is extremely unpopular with independent voters. um so but i think it's i think you know the important thing is he's still doing fundraisers with them like he's talking it's it's a double hit because he is uh he's still allied with apac and doing fundraisers but he's all and he's also talking out both sides of his mouth he just wants them to hide the spending i mean i he wants the he wants the ads he wants udp to cut a 30 million dollar check to name your fake you know like the crypt like fair shake some crypto fund or whatever it is yeah and have them run the ads um the times had another piece this weekend uh With the headline, Angry Ohio Voters Could Turn Their State Purple Again, which details how Ohioans' frustrations over data centers, rising prices, the war in Iran, could put not just the Senate seat but the governor's race and a series of House races in play for Democrats.

51:42Nan Whaley, a former Dayton mayor who ran for governor in 22, told the Times, I've just not seen people this pissed. What do you guys think? Too good to be true? We turn Ohio blue? I mean, I was surprised at how bullish Nate Silver was on Ohio. We talked about this the last episode. I mean, look, Jim Mernacci, the former congressman, posted something on social media where he said, you can get mad at me for posting this, but I'm just delivering the message. The biggest issues for independents are Iran war, gas prices, food prices, utility bills, rent. OK, so today Trump is further dragging out the Iran war, maybe indefinitely.

52:16That keeps gas prices up. That impacts food prices because of fertilizer costs. He started a trade war with Canada, which is going to jack up food and maybe utility costs. And then Trump threatened to veto his only accomplishment on housing. So that wasn't his finest moment. Also, Dan Whaley had another quote in that piece. She said, you know, it comes down to you hate everything. You can't be mad at the Democrats because they don't control anything. Yeah. It's like, honestly, that is that's what might get us over the line. It's like at some point, you know, there's there's there's no one left to blame.

52:47But the Republicans that have had complete control over most of Ohio and and now the country. So last but not least on the House side, the Times had another story that raised eyebrows. The private meeting between House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Jared Kushner where the two discussed, quote, potential areas of common ground. This comes as Democrats reportedly prepare to launch numerous investigations into the Trump administration should they win back the House in November. What do you guys think about Jared and Hakeem meeting? What kind of common ground? I think maybe in the West Bank.

53:21I mean, yeah, this triggered me deeply because I obviously am not a big Jared Kushner fan. Look, my fear, big picture, is that, and this is not really about Hakeem Jeffries, but he's a part of this, the Democrats will, once they get the gavel and have oversight, authorities waste time with sternly worded letters and requests for things instead of just subpoenas right out of the gate. And those demands for documents and oversight have to include the Trump family and the Kushner family in Jared's firm. And Kushner is going to have very powerful allies calling around to Democrats. Maybe there are people that he's friends with who are rich people in New York or Miami who are also donors to Democrats and saying, go easy on Jared.

54:04He's a moderating force. He's one of the good guys. Look at what he did with the Abraham Accords, which we all have seen have brought peace to the Middle East ever since they were put into place. And remember, Cory Booker voted to confirm Charles Kushner, Jared's dad, as ambassador to France because of their preexisting relationship. So I think that's why those reports were triggering on a substantive level and on just a political level. It's like, why would you take this meeting now? It just doesn't make any sense. There's nothing you're going to work on. Absolutely nothing. Yeah. My reaction was like, what is the common ground with Jared Kushner?

54:40He's not a housing policy expert. He has no government job. He has no government job. He's just a private citizen with a lot of interests. If you want to talk with the White House about finding common ground on cost of living, go talk to someone in the Domestic Policy Council. Talk to the president. You're going to be speaker of the House. Go talk to the president, right? And maybe Jeffries is, you know, and the White House, I guess through Jared, is pricing in that, you know, Democrats are going to take the House. And Jeffries wants a channel to the White House that isn't Trump, which is like, that's fine.

55:09But again, that's not Jared Kushner. He doesn't have a government job. And you can't take a meeting like that quietly and then be surprised when the reaction is, you know, a signal about how confrontational that you're going to be over the next two years. It's just like, what do you think? You're going to do that in quiet meet with Jared and then everyone's going to just assume the best intentions? Well, this is, I think, the deeper problem, which is – and Dan wrote a good message box about why there's so much consternation around this. and it is to Tommy's point that people are afraid that as speaker he won't be uh uh standing up to Trump enough that he'll be too conciliatory but like I don't under what is your theory of power in a second in a in in the if you're the speaker of the house you have the senate you don't have the senate is it about uh launching investigations is it about a publicly defiant posture but you're You're back channeling with the administration.

56:08Are you going to be drawing lines? Like if you do what I think certainly Democratic voters want to see from a Democratic House majority, there will be no successful working relationship with the Trump administration. You will be doing subpoenas. You will be doing investigations. You will be trying every day to get to the bottom of deeply embarrassing stories about corruption, ties to the Epstein files, failures, chaos, abuses of power. Like that is what every day will be about. Trump will hate you. Trump will want to destroy you. Trump will be saying you should be in jail. He will be putting the DOJ on you.

56:38So what exactly is Jared, who we already did a version of this in the first term, ineffective, feckless, careless Jared going to do for you? What is your back channel with this guy who didn't preserve the Paris Accords, really didn't do much of anything, going to get you certainly before the election, let alone after? And now he spends his time spending billions of Saudi dollars on God knows what he's trying to colonize an island off of the coast of albania that's not going very well he's constantly meeting with a russian oligarch who is this economic sort of channel to putin like everything jared's doing in trump 2.0 is really really sketchy and not something you want to be affiliated with in any way shape or form it's something that demands a lot of scrutiny a lot of scrutiny chuck schumer's probably pretty happy about the meeting because it's not it's not Yeah, I didn't do this one.

57:29He's like tiptoeing around the thing. All right. The other Kushner is buying the Lakers probably. Oh, that's right. Yeah, with Bob. Bob Eicher. All right. One last thing before my interview with Seth Moulton. After months of delays, the Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, finally released his YouTube series, The Great American Road Trip. All six episodes are out now. Each opens with a disclaimer that no tax dollars were used to fund the show. Instead, there are several corporate sponsors, many of which share a theme. if you can pick up on it. Boeing, Toyota, Shell, United Airlines, Royal Caribbean, Enterprise, Rent-A-Car, Lyft, and the U.S.

58:05Travel Association. The team put together some lowlights for you to enjoy so you don't have to watch the rest. Here they are. And as I say, I've been carrying our luggage ever since. I carry your babies and you carry my luggage. If I do get it, I feel like you can't say no. To Harvard? Yeah. Well, me and Mom can say no. They have professionalized. figuring out how they can take good young girls like you and, I think, corrupt their minds. I went to an extremely conservative school in high school and I'm part of an extremely conservative family. And then if I go to a liberal setting, that's a way more rounded education than if I go to a conservative high school and then go to a conservative college.

58:47That's just being kind of one-sided anyway. Like they're so good at it. You'll see young people go to a conservative school with a conservative family, and they get perverted and contorted. And now I want to control the trains, Montana. Who would have thought? Not me. The house was set up for the two of us to room together. We had a long world, though. It was fun. It was good. You called her a bitch. I did not. All right, we got it. Dancing, even poorly, is really enjoyable. Maybe we all have a little dance in our human heart. You're a rock star for doing this road trip. Thank you. It'll be fun.

59:26Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Dude, I had not watched that yet. That was troubling. I really am. It's so funny, this idea that, like, there's a kind of this idea in the kind of whatever, the conservative Gen X boomer mind that the reason their kids turned against them is because they went to colleges where they were as if like young girls had their minds perverted. Meanwhile, meanwhile, you look at the discourse around college. You're like, hey, we got this problem. Our professors don't seem to be reading anything that's submitted to them anymore. Also, the kids are using ChatGPT in the classrooms. No one seems to be doing any of the work anymore.

1:00:00It just seems like I don't know that they're very good at indoctrinating us to believe in anything, let alone specific liberal ideas. It's like Alex Jones. They turned the frogs gay with the water kind of stuff. First of all, this poor kid doesn't want to be having this conversation on camera for it to be released to a total of 16 ,000 viewers so far on YouTube. Going great for Sean Duffy. What? What a weird. Well, also, it's like it's not even like she's saying I want to rebel against my conservative upbringing. She's basically just like I'd love sort of a well-rounded point of view. You know, I've got the conservative point of view and I had high school and now I'd like to, you know, a well-rounded liberal point of view.

1:00:36He's like, no, absolutely not. Me and mom will say no. It's the answer. Like there's a slap mom on the ass. And then it's infantilization. Like there's like, oh, would you like, you will be like, why do you think your kids don't have the ability to hear an opposing idea? Like what do you, what do you, like should be an adult, you know, young adult person going to college? A time where people, by the way, a time you are able to serve in the military, you're allowed to do all kinds of things as an adult vote. And you don't believe they can handle a college professor telling you something liberal.

1:01:09Like what, how little respect do you have for people? Dude, you did road rules. What are you lecturing your child about? They're like, they're learning environment. You want real world road rules, the challenge. It's how you and mom met. It's okay to go out and live your life and be around people who are different than you. Maybe you'll learn something. What a potential next White House press secretary, Rachel Campos Duffy. Yeah. I don't know about that. Is Scott Jennings coming on a little too strong? I don't know. Trump said something nice about him last week when he was asked about it. Yeah, but it was very like cursor.

1:01:40He's good. it's funny because there was the um there was the scott jennings is in the running he had a dinner with suzy wiles uh sort of news cycle which was immediately followed by the scott jennings is overdoing it he's terrible the white house hates him news cycle so you can see a lot of posturing in the media it's not at all clear to me where trump is heading we'll see up next my interview with congressman seth moulton um and also we are currently out to ed markey's team as well hoping to get him on ahead of the primary. That's up next.

1:02:16Today's show is sponsored by strawberry.me. You're probably no stranger to seeing self-professed career coaches advertise their services on social media. It can all feel a little ad hoc, a little vague, and might leave you wondering, is anyone being helped by this? With strawberry.me, you don't have to wonder because hundreds of their satisfied clients have left glowing reviews about what professional coaching has done for them. Here's a little sampling of those reviews. My coach was amazing. The experience was transformative. I landed a new job within weeks. And how about this one? It helped transform me back into a high-powered leader following my extended maternity leave.

1:02:50That was mine. That was you. When so many people go out of their way to write a positive review about something, you know that something is special. So if you're feeling stuck at work, do what tens of thousands of people have already done. Go to strawberry.me slash crooked and claim 50 % off your first coaching session. That's strawberry.me slash crooked.

1:03:36Seth Moulton:Life moves fast, so you need a bank that moves with you, with seamless digital banking for the everyday, and trusted support when it matters most. But too often, you're told to pick one. Speed or support. Convenience or trust. Digital or human. We say, why not have the best of both? We've built on our 50-year legacy, so now you can. RappBank, digital with a human touch.

1:04:10Seth Moulton, welcome back to Pod Save America.

1:04:13Seth Moulton:It's always an honor to be on the pod, so thank you very much for having me back, Jon. Of course. So your primary against Senator Ed Markey is in a week. The only three polls taken in August have you down 28, 15, 33 in the most recent poll. Do you think the public polling is all wrong, or do you think you can make up a lot of ground by next Tuesday? What is your internal polling show? Internal polls have this very, very close. I think the polling has been wildly off in just about every primary across the country. And the energy that we're hearing on the ground, the numbers that we're seeing on the doors is incredibly positive.

1:04:49Seth Moulton:People want change. But at the end of the day, this will be about who turns out for this election. And we have a great turnout operation that will help us win. Your central argument is about the need for generational change, which has already worked in several Democratic primaries this cycle, though usually it's been a young progressive defeating an old or older moderate. I know you called yourself progressive in the last debate, but do you think it's fair to say would you call yourself more moderate than Ed Markey? No, I wouldn't. I think there are two progressives in this race. And if you look at our policies, I mean, first of all, Senator Markey and I pretty much agree on policies.

1:05:30Seth Moulton:There's really very little where we disagree fundamentally. Some of my policies are actually more aggressive and progressive than his, like my affordability agenda, for example. But, you know, there's no policy change that I've made in this race. This is always who I've been. It, you know, takes some time for people to get to know you. And as I've been doing town halls all across the state, I mean, I think people have seen how committed I am to change because it's not progressive without progress. And at the end of the day, Senator Markey has been advocating for a lot of things that he's advocated for a very long time.

1:06:06Seth Moulton:And yet, fundamentally, there are a lot of problems that are just getting worse. Housing costs keep going up. Energy bills are twice the national average here in Massachusetts. And it's just people admit that the status quo approach is not working. And so I've proposed some transformative ideas to address these things. And I think that's what voters want right now. Just to look at one policy difference, like Markey's for a Medicare for All single payer version of Medicare for All. You're for a public option that lets people keep employer coverage. there's a good amount of evidence out there that even a robust public option is the more popular, more achievable option, even though it's more moderate.

1:06:53Why isn't your argument that your positions, some of your positions may be more moderate, but they're also more likely to win and pass and easily achieved?

1:07:02Seth Moulton:Look, I think that achievable is absolutely part of the argument. In fact, there was an op-ed in the Boston Globe today that said that Moulton's policies are achievable and marquees are not. I mean, he was reelected in 2020 on a promise to pass Medicare for all in six years. He also promised to pass the Green New Deal and yet voted present on it himself when it came before the Senate. It's got fewer co-sponsors today than it did when he first introduced it. So again, it's not progressive without actual progress. And on this, you know, the question of health care for all, we both support universal health care.

1:07:37Seth Moulton:In fact, I've gone so far as to say it should be a human right. Not even debatable whether you're a citizen, an immigrant, you know, homeless on the street. It absolutely is a human right. I think that's good for everybody in America. But I actually want to get it done. And that's why I stand with President Obama, which just says, yes, you can have Medicare if you want it. Literally everybody can have Medicare if they want it. But if you're a union that's fought for years to get a great health care plan that you really enjoy, you can keep it. And I made a commitment to keep going to the VA from at healthcare when I was elected because we know the VA has got problems and I wanted to see them firsthand.

1:08:11Seth Moulton:There are a lot of vets who want to continue being able to go to the VA as well. What's your specific argument as to why Markey's age matters? Is it that he specifically isn't up to the job because of his age or that 50 years is just too long for anyone regardless of age? I think it's three things. I mean, first of all, it's not personal. I mean, it's kind of against the idea, this establishment idea that one person ought to be able to hang on to a seat in Congress for 50 years, even if the world is, you know, passing him by. So it's kind of this, like, establishment idea that personal power is more important than public service that, as a vet, I really resent.

1:08:55Seth Moulton:The second point, though, is that if we win the Senate, John, it will almost certainly be by just one vote. And we cannot afford to have someone miss a vote due to a medical issue or anything else and potentially have that turn into another conservative Trump-appointed Supreme Court justice. The stakes are just too high. And we should learn the lessons of Dianne Feinstein and Joe Biden and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And of course, on the other side of the aisle, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and recognize that there's just simply a risk when you reelect someone at 80, he'd be closer to 90 at the end of his next term than 80.

1:09:33Seth Moulton:But the third reason, which I think is really resonating right now, is that you've got to have a new generation of leaders to take on a new generation of challenges and opportunities. And in the last debate, we were asked about AI. And Senator Markey explained to Massachusetts that he can't tell the apps on his phone or iPad apart. He doesn't know which ones use AI and which ones don't. And that's tough. After the debate, he tried to clean it up by comparing AI to an automobile and saying we ought to regulate it the way we regulate seatbelts. I mean, how are we going to make this technology safe if the senators don't even understand what it does?

1:10:15What specific regulations do you favor for AI?

1:10:19Seth Moulton:Well, first of all, we ought to learn from all the lessons of messing up the regulations for social media. And actually, Senator Markey talked about how he's been the architect of some of those regulations. His 1996 telecom deregulation bill opened the door for big tech to come in, make billions and billions of dollars, but have absolutely no accountability for things on the internet. Now, he's tried to walk back some of that, but we all know the internet is unsafe. I mean, I've got a five-year-old and seven-year-old at home. I dread the time when they get on social media, and we know that their suicide risk goes up, that the harm that can happen just from being on social media is very real, and Congress has totally failed to regulate it.

1:11:02Seth Moulton:So number one, we've got to make AI safe, and that means holding the AI companies actually accountable. Number two, we do have to win the AI race against China because we don't want to have zero accountability here in the United States because everyone starts using models from overseas. And then the third thing I'd say is that there will be job displacement. Now, we don't know exactly when it will happen or what it will be. So rather than try to anticipate where that's going, like remember a few years ago and Democrats said, oh, we'll just retrain the coal miners to be computer programmers and then they'll be fine.

1:11:36Seth Moulton:I mean, even if that was realistic back then, these are like the first jobs that are getting automated out of existence by AI. So I think we have to have almost a FEMA-like disaster fund approach to dealing with job loss, a federal fund to say, look, if every paralegal in their country loses their job within a month, we're going to help. We're going to bail them out until they can find new jobs. I think that's going to be critical as well. You mentioned China. I feel like this constant tension with the development of AI is someone proposes regulation, someone proposes slowing it down. The counter argument is, well, yes, we want safeguards and we want regulations, but we can't let China beat us.

1:12:17So it's used as an argument to just keep pushing ahead. Like, what is the balance between, you know, making sure that we're not all using, you know, Chinese AI models, or even if we do nothing about AI, even if we stopped AI tomorrow here, for some reason in the US, obviously, it's still going to be with us, The rest of the world is going to move ahead. So, like, how do you regulate AI without, you know, letting China win this race?

1:12:48Seth Moulton:I think it's a great question, John. And this really is the administration's argument, right? They basically say we shouldn't have any rules. In fact, we should just do exactly what all the AI executives tell us to do because they're the experts and they're going to win this race against China. I do not think these two things are mutually exclusive at all. I mean, no one wants to fundamentally use a model at the end of the day that is unsafe. In fact, there's a good chance that governments will just shut things down that are unsafe. So there's no reason why the winning model shouldn't also be the safe model.

1:13:18Seth Moulton:I also think that the wrong way to do it is for the federal government to say, okay, we're going to just make all the rules because we all know we're not going to keep up. Like we're not going to keep up with the technology. That's why I talk about accountability. I think the big problem with social media and big tech companies is that there's just no accountability whatsoever. If I were just starting to see big tech care because there have been successful lawsuits for the first time against them for the things that show up on their platforms, we've got to make it clear from the very beginning that these AI companies are actually liable.

1:13:51Seth Moulton:And that will force the kind of self-regulation that we've never seen appropriately with social media. but also importantly, we'll be able to keep up and therefore stay competitive with China and other countries around the world. Bernie Sanders recently wrote a letter to AI leaders like Sam Altman, Dario Amadei, and Mark Zuckerberg following the news that their companies lost control of their AI models. First, it was OpenAI, and then Claude, and then Anthropik and Meta said the same thing. So the letter said, quote, in the interest of humanity, stand by your words. Pause AI development. It is not too late to avoid disaster.

1:14:31Stop building machines that humans cannot control. Do you agree with Bernie that these companies should pause AI development? I mean, no, John.

1:14:40Seth Moulton:As you said, like the world is going to continue developing AI. I mean, China may only be a few months behind us depending on who you talk to. So just pausing it is not smart for the United States. for, I mean, look, do you trust at the end of the day, the United States of America or communist China to make AI safe? I certainly trust the United States of America as many problems as we have back here. But again, we have to make big tech accountable. And so fundamentally, I agree with Bernie that they are not doing enough to make models safe and to show accountability for their behavior right now.

1:15:13Seth Moulton:But the answer is not pretending that this is not going to happen. Bernie's also got a bill for a moratorium on data centers. What do you think about that? Would you support a moratorium on building data centers for a year or longer until we can figure this out and people in more local communities and states can have more of a say in where these data centers are going? I think it should be up to local control. Like, I think that, you know, people in communities that are going to be impacted by data centers, both negatively and positively, you know, should make these decisions. And there are some communities that want data centers because of the tax revenue.

1:15:53Seth Moulton:There are a lot of communities right here in Massachusetts that are really nervous about them jacking up electricity prices when electric bills are already way too high here in Massachusetts. There are a lot of people who are worried about pollution, you know, for good reason. So my view is that this should be local control. These should be local communities making decisions. The federal government should not be forcing data centers down everybody, that anybody's throat. But at the end of the day, when there are local communities that say, no, we want this business, we want this here, we want the construction jobs, a lot of unions are very in favor of these data centers because all the jobs that they bring, then it's a good thing for our data to sit in data centers in the United States and not in data centers overseas in China, where we know that they do not respect privacy.

1:16:44Seth Moulton:They don't have proper controls over intellectual property. I think it's already a problem that big tech companies and AI companies use our data without our permission or any benefit coming back to us. But it could get even worse if there's absolutely no control over our data because it sits overseas. There was another odd moment in an earlier August debate that I wanted to ask you about. At one point, you asked Markey why he'd take a meeting with a lobbyist on behalf of Jeffrey Epstein. This was based on a 2015 email in the Epstein files where a colleague of a lobbyist named Bob Crow said he'd had an initial briefing with Markey about getting the son of a former Senegalese president out of prison.

1:17:25Epstein paid for that lobbying, but both Markey and Crow say the meeting never happened. three independent fact checks found the claim mostly false or unsupported. There's no evidence that the briefing with Markey took place or that Markey had any idea Epstein was involved. You also took$2 ,000 from Bob Crow, which you later returned. But considering all that, do you still think it was fair to suggest that Markey took the meeting and did a favor for one of Epstein's pals?

1:17:51Seth Moulton:Well, look, I mean, if you look at the email, the meeting happened. And it's not a surprise that Senator Markey would sadly not tell the truth about this because he's been lying a lot in this campaign. I mean, he said that he does not take corporate PAC money, and he does. He said that he does not take fossil fuel lobbyist money, and he does. The Boston Globe and the Boston Herald have documented these things. So unfortunately, he's been lying to his supporters throughout this campaign, and it's not a surprise that he would be dishonest about, you know, a meeting that emails clearly documented occurred.

1:18:26Seth Moulton:But my question was actually very simple. It was simply just why would you take a meeting? Because this actually does go to the heart of an issue that I'm hearing all across Massachusetts, which is that they don't, people don't see the senator. I've done over 50 town halls across the state where anyone can come, and it was like hundreds of individual events, but anyone can come to over 50 public town halls and ask me any question that they want. And I often hear, we never see the senator. I've never been able to get a meeting with him. I've never been able to ask a question. So this simple question I ask is, why would you take this meeting on behalf of a lobbyist working for Epstein and not take meetings with constituents?

1:19:11Seth Moulton:And that is representative of things that I'm hearing on the trail. But it's possible that it was just a call between this lobbyist or a colleague of the lobbyists and Markey's staff and Markey had nothing to do with it or had no knowledge of the meeting. I mean, the email didn't say it briefed his staff. I mean, I've worked in the congressional office for 10 years. A big difference between, oh, we briefed Moulton's staff or we briefed Moulton, right? I mean, it's pretty clear. But, you know, look, he could at least return the money. I mean, look, the point is a lot of voters ask, like, why can't we get access to our senator?

1:19:47Seth Moulton:And this just goes to the heart of that question. The wealthy and the well-connected, even if they're connected to a convicted felon, seem to be able to get meetings or briefings or whatever you want to call it with senators. And yet ordinary people in Massachusetts can't. And that's a change that I would like to bring if I'm elected senator. We've actually won as many democracy awards from the Congressional Management Foundation as I think any other office on Capitol Hill, including ones for transparency and constituent services. I mean, literally the best office in the country for constituent services.

1:20:22Seth Moulton:And that means people can come to us at all times for anything. In fact, we do get a lot of constituent services requests from other congressional districts because they say, I can't get an answer from that congressman or that senator. So we're coming to you. And I think that's the kind of service and the kind of access that people in Massachusetts want and deserve. Yeah, I was going to ask because obviously like corruption is a huge issue thanks to the administration and Donald Trump. But also it's just you can tell people are sort of fed up with some of the things that you're talking about just broadly with Congress and Washington in general.

1:20:57Sort of reminds me of 2006 and when Democrats took the House and it was an anti-corruption message. You know, back then there was sort of a series of proposed reforms. if Democrats took back Congress, what they could do on ethics and lobbying. I remember when I first started working for then-Senator Obama, you know, he spearheaded some of those as well. Have you thought about legislation, ethics reforms, lobbying reforms, anti-corruption legislation that you'd like to pass if you're a senator? And additionally, even if there are things that you can't pass, legislation you can't pass, just sort of rules for your own office that you want to put into place as a senator?

1:21:38Seth Moulton:Yes, absolutely. So first of all, I was the first office on Capitol Hill, House or Senate, to ban prediction market trading for me or my staff. And that's set an example that other offices have followed. But that's a great example of something that we've already done internally. And those bans should, of course, be passed into law. I also think that we need campaign finance reform. And we've tried for years to get it. As you've said, people have proposed this for a long time. It's been difficult with the Supreme Court. A novel approach that I've been pursuing is to tie campaign finance reform to term limits.

1:22:14Seth Moulton:And the reason why this is an interesting combination is that campaign finance reform tends to be more popular with Democrats. Term limits tend to be more popular with Republicans in Congress. And yet both are wildly popular with the American public. So we could make a compromise. Each side could eat a little crow. And we could do something that would, I think, be fundamentally good for Congress and raise our esteem in the minds of the general public. But it's been proven difficult to pass without some sort of grand bargain like that. I've also co-sponsored three congressional stock trading bans.

1:22:49Seth Moulton:And, you know, I think that I've also disclosed my whole family's taxes in this race, which Senator Markey has not. I think that kind of transparency is just helpful. And of course, some of these were unwritten rules. Like we had disclosure of taxes amongst all presidential candidates until Trump came along and just refused to do it. I think one of the biggest lessons that Democrats have to learn after the second Trump administration that we clearly didn't learn well enough after the first is that just pretending we can go back to normal isn't enough. We need these kinds of fundamental reforms so that the next person like Donald Trump doesn't come and just completely abuse the system once again.

1:23:25You had a line in one of the last debates that said, if you're happy with your electricity bill tonight, vote for the senator. Expand on that argument a little bit for me. Like, what is the thing Massachusetts doesn't have because Ed Markey has held this seat?

1:23:40Seth Moulton:It's just innovation and change and an urgency to get these problems fixed because electric bills are not a new problem. And we've had high electricity rates, high gas prices for a long time in Massachusetts. and they haven't been addressed. And in the last debate, Senator Markey, he felt rather indignant and he trotted out a list of things that he's done on this issue. And I said, look, Senator, I respect your work on this. I really do. In fact, I've supported many of those measures myself. But we've just got to admit that it's not enough. When our electric bills are twice the national average, it clearly hasn't gotten that done.

1:24:19Seth Moulton:On housing, for example, there are a lot of tweaks in the system that have been proposed and worked on for a while. But housing prices are skyrocketing in Massachusetts. And one out of three people here in this state thought about leaving just last year because it's unaffordable to live here. So I've proposed a totally transformative initiative to make it faster than driving to get around Massachusetts by turning our commuter rail system into a fast regional rail system like they have throughout Europe. It would finally connect North and South Station, so every train from the North would flow through the South and West.

1:24:53Seth Moulton:I mean, I'm down on the Cape right now. It took like two and a half hours to get down here. That trip would be from Salem in like 45 minutes, right? Now, this has been shown by a recent Harvard study to take 155 million cars off the road and spur hundreds of thousands of units of new housing. In fact, this is one of the things that the Globe recently cited as a really achievable project that we just need next generation leadership to get done. And Senator Markey has proposed improving rail service to Western Massachusetts. His proposal would have rail service in two and a half hours, which is actually slower than the same trains applied the route in 1950.

1:25:29Seth Moulton:That's just not the change that we need to address these problems. Yeah. So like, I mean, you know, you've said that a lot of your policy views and ideology are similar to Markey. There's obviously a generational argument there. But like, specifically, what do you think a Senator Moulton actually delivers in the next six years that a Senator Markey does not or would not? Like, where would you guys differ in terms of, okay, a vote comes in the Senate, and you'd vote one way and Markey would vote another way? Yeah, great question, because we really do agree on most policies. Like, for example, we were just talking about housing.

1:26:09Seth Moulton:I mean, we obviously both agree that we need to bring housing costs down. I just admit that what we've been trying hasn't worked and we need to do something much more transformative like this regional rail initiative. I don't think that really translates into a different vote in the United States Senate. But I'll tell you something that does. And that is voting for Chuck Schumer. When I started this campaign, I said from day one, I'm not going to vote for Chuck Schumer. I'm not going to run on a platform of next generation leadership here in Massachusetts and then go to Washington and support Senator Schumer.

1:26:40Seth Moulton:Senator Markey not only supports Senator Schumer, but just took$62 ,000 from the senator out of the Senate victory fund, the fund that's supposed to flip seats from red to blue in Michigan and Ohio and Alaska and Maine and other states across the country where we need to flip seats to win back the majority. Senator Markey took that money out of the victory fund. The Democrats across the country have contributed to it to bail out his own campaign. And so that's a huge difference in approach. I think you know, John, I've been working for years to do the opposite, to actually use my platform in Massachusetts to raise millions of dollars for candidates across the country through my Serve America initiative that's recruited, mentored and supported amazing leaders like Mikey Sherrill, who the governor of New Jersey, who just endorsed my campaign.

1:27:29Seth Moulton:Andy Kim, Alyssa Slocken in the Senate, Governor Spanberger, and real leaders in the House like Lauren Underwood, Johanna Hayes, Chrissy Houlihan, Pat Ryan. You know, these are people who all flipped seats. And I think that a senator in a safe blue seat like Massachusetts should really be invested in winning majorities across the country, not taking money out of the fund to win majorities across the country to cling to power for another six years. Last question for you. Set Marky aside, you spent a couple of years arguing that this party is broken. Democrats are heading into a midterm environment that's very good for the party, but the brand is still underwater.

1:28:13If you had to name the single thing the Democrats are getting wrong right now that has nothing to do with anyone's age, what is it?

1:28:21Seth Moulton:It's that people know one thing about the Democratic Party, and it's that we're opposed to Trump. And that's it. They don't know what we actually stand for. And that's opposition, but it's not leadership. And I think when people are scared and hurting, as so many are across the country today, with costs skyrocketing, MAGA controlling everything in Washington and Trump just completely reckless and disgusting, frankly, as this racist president. People don't want just opposition. They want leadership. And it's an interesting way that I've sort of illustrated this in my town halls where I'll say, OK, ask everyone here, several hundred people, whatever it is, how many of you are opposed to Trump's immigration enforcement?

1:29:10Seth Moulton:And of course, every hand in the room goes up, right? But then I say, how many of you can tell me what Democrats' immigration policy is? I've asked this question of thousands of people and you don't get a single hand. And this isn't some idle or esoteric issue. I mean, this is the number one issue today with ICE terrorizing blue communities all across the country. It was one of the top two issues in the 24 election that we lost across the board. And yet for Democrats not be able to say what our immigration policy is. Now, people are going to ask, okay, Seth, what's your immigration policy? Three quick points.

1:29:44Seth Moulton:Prosecute ICE. Yes, it should be abolished. The institution is completely broken. Immigration enforcement should go back into the Department of Justice. But it's not enough just to say, poof, you go away. We need to hold these people accountable. Again, that's a big mistake we made, not doing enough of that accountability after the first Trump administration. Number two, create an immigration system that actually incentivizes people to come here legally, not illegally, because for many people, they find it just easier to walk across the border than actually go through the bureaucracy to become a citizen.

1:30:15Seth Moulton:And then number three, we need a pathway to citizenship for families and kids who are already here and part of our communities. Now, those are three broad points. We could spend, you know, 45 minutes debating the details. But the point is, there you go. Like, that's my immigration policy. And, you know, my experience is you get a lot of nodding heads. But when most Democrats can't even articulate how we're going to fix this problem, it leaves a lot of people feeling that the party is out of touch. And I think we just got to get back in touch. You know, last thing I'll say is I ran for Congress because I saw the consequences of failed leadership in Washington serving in the war on the ground in Iraq, a war that Senator Markey voted for.

1:30:55Seth Moulton:There were a lot of people making decisions in Washington that were totally out of touch with those of us who were fighting in the sand and the mud in that war of choice. And I think there are a lot of people across America who feel the same way today, that Washington and these establishment people who've been there forever are really out of touch with the everyday struggles of America. And the party that can better demonstrate that we're listening, we are hearing, we are responding with real leadership to fix those problems on the ground, that's the party that's gonna win. I'm confident that Democrats can get there, but I'm not sure we're there completely.

1:31:31Seth Moulton:and that's why I've been willing to challenge the party establishment as I'm doing in this race. Seth Moulton, thank you as always for joining Pod Save America. Enjoy the Cape. If you pass through North Reading, tell people I said hi. John, thanks again. It's been an honor to work for your family and friends in North Reading. That's right. That's my district. Yes. All right, take care. Take care. Thanks again. Thanks to Congressman Moulton for joining. Dan and I will be back on Friday. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Farrah Safari with Ree Cherlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill.

1:32:09Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kirill Pellaviv, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

1:32:21If you missed some of your favorite Crooked Pods this week, don't worry, you can now catch up on the week's best moments on MSNOW on Saturday nights. MS Now is streaming an episode of highlights from your favorite Crooked pods, packing as much analysis, funny moments, and 100 % correct opinions into 40 minutes as humanly possible. Crooked on MS Now airs every Saturday at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.

1:32:59Seth Moulton:But too often, you're told to pick one. Speed or support. Convenience or trust. Digital or human. We say, why not have the best of both? We've built on our 50-year legacy, so now you can. RatBank. Digital with a human touch.