Phones and Blame Fly at the DNC

21:50Jon Favreau:This is, I think, 2020 exit polls. They're more likely to be working class, more likely to go to church once a week. older. Biden won South Carolina in 2020 because he won with black voters, but he did especially well with black voters over 60. He and Bernie actually tied with black voters under 30. So I do think it's likely to be demographically set up to be more moderate. As we were saying before, if you're saying that you think South Carolina is a way to put a roadblock in front of progressives, you are saying that a black electorate is a roadblock in front of progressive. Now, I think the point that would be made in responses is, as Tommy said, a generational thing, not a demographic thing.

22:31Jon Favreau:But of course, it's both. And we have seen, like, you know, you see this in Michigan playing out that one of Abdul's challenges is trying to kind of build support in the black community. And I feel like this is an opportunity for the left if they want to start building a bigger coalition that can win in contests like this, right? Because South Carolina, that is where Bernie goes down in 2020. That is the test. And it may not happen in this election. You're right. It may be harder because of this. But also at the same time, even if South Carolina was third, fourth, or fifth, this test was always there.

23:11Jon Favreau:The candidate that wins black voters is going to be the nominee. Well, this is where I think that the order matters maybe less, or at least can cut both ways, because let's say South Carolina is does advantage more moderate candidates. Well, then, you know, so a fifth of South Carolina primary voters describe themselves as very liberal, which is relatively low. And then you go to Nevada and a third of voters there describe themselves as very liberal. So, like, if you're a progressive lefty candidate and you don't do well in South Carolina, you hang on and you go to Nevada, you go to New Hampshire or Delaware.

23:47where you go to you try, you know, like, so there's there's basically there's a state on the map in that early window for any kind of ideal ideological flavor or, you know, different kind of voter that you can get. So I don't worry as much about that. I wouldn't worry if I was a progressive candidate or if I was an establishment candidate on like the order in that way.

24:09Jon Favreau:One under discussed change, though, is Nevada going from a caucus state to a primary state, which I think is likely to disadvantage progressives potentially because there's, you know, some progressives tend to organize well in these caucus states and unions tend to do better than unions tend to do really well in caucus states. We'll just interesting to see how that kind of cuts. I don't know yet. Oh, yeah. The fact that there's no caucuses means it's disadvantaging. I mean, that's progressives do better in caucuses for sure. But even without the caucus, Nevada will have like a more liberal primary election than South Carolina.

24:41Dan made an argument in his Saturday message box that South Carolina going first massively advantages Kamala Harris. What did you guys think about that? So I saw that and I thought, huh, that's interesting from Dan.

24:53Jon Favreau:And then I went back and looked at the South Carolina polling from before Kamala ended her campaign. and she drops out in the end of 2019 before any votes are cast. But in the closing weeks of the year, there were polls that had her somewhere between, say, 5 to 12 percent. I think she's ticking down a bit as we got closer. And so I don't know. I was like, maybe that's true. Right. But part of the reason she ended her campaign when she did is she just wasn't gaining traction even in a state like South Carolina. Yeah. What do you think, Tommy? I think, you know, basically the argument is that black voters are half the electorate in South Carolina, that Kamala Harris has the most support from black voters by far in polls.

25:40Jon Favreau:She has 69 % favorability with black voters plus 42. You're right that like her presidential run in 2020 did not end well in South Carolina or any state, but that was just a bad campaign that didn't end well for her. And I think four years of being VP probably changed a lot of things. I think certainly, look, does it make her the front runner? Yes. But being the front runner is a double-edged sword because the early states are not necessarily about winning all the early states, but expectations management and exceeding expectations in the early states. And when you're the early on front runner and everyone assumes you're going to romp in South Carolina for the following reasons, it puts a big old bullseye on your back and the media looks for better, more interesting stories to tell for them.

26:24That's what I thought. And it's like, as soon as South Carolina is over, now you've got four other states for that month, including two very big ones at the end. And does anyone think that the media, like, no matter how good of a campaign she's running, is going to be like, yeah, it's the Kamala Harris frontrunner story all through February. Like, that's just not going to happen.

26:43Jon Favreau:So it goes from like, oh, wow, South Carolina advantages Kamala Harris to Kamala Harris is the only candidate that has a state if she loses, it's over. Right. That's definitely true. Well, and the other thing we haven't talked about is if Wes Moore runs or Raphael Warnock, like she's not the only black candidate that might run for president. And then you could have black candidates splitting votes. You could have. And then, you know, it's interesting, like the two things that you need to know before we're starting to think about how the race is going to go and plan your strategies, the campaign.

27:14One is the early state calendar, which is now locked. Two is the composition of the field. You need to know who's running, who's going to split what vote, how they're going to like that. That part we don't know yet. But like there is a situation, too, where if it's just Kamala Harris, if she's the only black candidate running and she's doing really well with black voters in South Carolina, then because the state is more moderate overall and you have a bunch of white moderates running aside from Kamala Harris, then they're all splitting a vote. and then maybe the progressive candidate or two does even better.

27:44So just and that's just an example. Like, yeah, we have no idea. Yeah.

27:47Jon Favreau:Yeah. Yeah. I do think like, you know, someone kind of like Pete Buttigieg, who has historically had a really hard time with black voters, like is probably now at a disadvantage. Bernie Sanders, were he to run again, was probably a bit of a disadvantage for the reasons we just discussed. A lot of the conventional wisdom is also that AOC came out of this new primary process helped because she does well with Latinos and with labor. We'll see if she runs. We'll see if that's true. But I'm mostly with you guys that like a lot of the early attempts to kind of, you know, handicap this race are just silly.

28:18Jon Favreau:We don't know what it's going to look like. Yeah, exactly. Ron Brownstein, who digs into these demographics and has them better than most, he said that the one through line for all of the states is the candidate who's going to be able to do best with black voters and white college educated voters as well is probably going to do the best. Because aside from Nevada and New Mexico, you don't have a lot of states with non-college, big non-college populations. And he was like, you know, last candidate to have done that, to bring that coalition together is Barack Obama. It's the white libs and the black Democrats.

28:52So we'll see.

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31:29Speaking of the DNC, Seems like Ken Martin had a bad Sunday. The New York Times, Notice, and the Bulwark all ran stories about what the Times calls the troubled, broke Democratic Party. The Times story was certainly the newsiest and most damning for Martin. It includes a story about him throwing his phone at the desk of a junior staffer, which resulted in a formal HR complaint, and another where Martin freaked out on a call about the party's finances because he thought his staff was planning a coup. And they were like, no, we're just talking about the money. Wow.

31:58Jon Favreau:No coup. Sounds like just the usual well or leave it prep meeting to me. But the real meat of the story is the party's financial struggles under Martin, which are quite real. We already knew that the DNC is$2 million in debt after taking out a$15 million loan and more than$100 million behind the RNC in fundraising. But apparently the situation is so bad that the DNC is asking vendors not to invoice them until after the midterms. And for the first time, the DNC will not be transferring any money to the House and Senate committees to help them win the midterms. According to The Times, quote, party officials are now reckoning with the fact that they must begin to repay$1.66 million of the loan's principal per month starting in January.

32:42Jon Favreau:Otherwise, pretty nice building, but a shame if something were to happen to it. What'd you guys make of these stories? Did anything in them make you more worried than you already were. Can I just read a great entry in one of my favorite parts of an insider story like this, which is a leak about leaks? Quote, it pisses me off when I see leaks out of this building, Mr. Martin said, according to four people who had heard the remarks adding no more. I know that's the exact kind of leak that a reporter is like, oh, this is gotta go in. It's so funny. The no more. It's just a brutal thing. Leaks about leaks.

33:16Jon Favreau:I love it. I love it. So I reached out some of the DNC staff, Ken Martin's defenders. I can offer that perspective. I don't know if you guys want to start with reflections on the story. No, no, you can. We'll reflect after. OK, so what they would say is we're embarrassing a veto over here. Let's hear it. OK, thank you for doing the work. I'm grateful to it. Yeah, I'll make one phone call. You have Woodward in this building. So they would point out that through June of 2026, the DNC raised more money than the DNC did in the entire 2017-2018 cycle. They love that talking. A comparable period, yeah, when Democrats did not hold the White House.

33:54Jon Favreau:They also argued they had more cash on hand than the DNC did in 2019. So their argument is basically the media narrative is that this is like some historic disaster when, in fact, like there's recent precedent that they actually have improved upon. They would also say, like, let's look at the investments we're making. The DNC gave$100 ,000 to the Mississippi Democratic Party right before a special election that broke a Republican supermajority. Obviously, a good thing. The DNC gave money to South Carolina. Now, for the first time in 50 years, South Carolina recruited a candidate to run in every statehouse race, statewide race and congressional race.

34:29Jon Favreau:so that there's sort of a talking point where in Ken's substack about this where he's like we've 90 % of the races we've overperformed or won I think that's taking credit for the political environments and people being mad at Donald Trump but you know it's evidence right it's results matter now I also talked to some people who worked in the DNC in that period that 27 2018 period for Tom Perez and they'll say the thing you have to remember is that everyone hated the DNC in 2017 because they blame them for Hillary losing and they blame them for Bernie getting screwed. So money wasn't really coming in the door.

35:00Yes. Yes.

35:02Jon Favreau:They walked into the building with $17 million in debt. The major fundraising team had been laid off. So they were at a standing start. And at least$30 million of Ken's fundraising total was Kamala Harris raising money to retire her own debt. So I think those people would also concede like, yeah, that 2017, 2018 period. Fundraising wasn't good, but comparing to the not good period is still bad. Also, they still in that election did transfer money to the House and Senate committees, which they're not going to do this year. Well, it's also, hey, in this game that we're losing, we actually have more goals than the previous team.

35:37Jon Favreau:So, well, you're not playing against the DNC from 2018. You're playing against the Republicans in 2026. So the last point I think I'm making in response to the Ken too is like, OK, you're telling us you've raised all this money, but you're still 2 million in debt, like that suggests mismanagement and misspending. You know what I mean? It's like a double the talking point is a double edged sword. Yeah, that's my my feeling about it, which is like before sort of diving into all these stories like, oh, there's a massive fundraising problem at the DNC. We're being outraised by a huge amount. And then you read the defense.

36:05Jon Favreau:It's like, wow, actually, you know, it's we're out of power. But the raise the fundraising is actually comparable, if not better. okay, then where'd all the money go out? And then the test is if you really are going to say that we've been, it's not a fundraising issue, we've been using the money to kind of build infrastructure, well, then it's incumbent upon you to show how that's going to benefit Democrats in the midterms and beyond. And then you think, well, hold on. That was the strategy where, so right now, Democratic candidates have been out raising Republican candidates. The Republican House Committee and the Republican Senate Committee are out raising, not not to the same degree as the DNC RNC, but are out raising the candidate committees.

36:47Jon Favreau:And the RNC has over 100 million dollars more on hand than the DNC does. Now, before the Supreme Court ruled that the party parties could spend at the same lower rate as candidates, there's an argument to say, you know what, the DNC should raise money, get it out the door for building infrastructure, focus fundraising for the candidates. Those candidates can then buy ads at a cheaper rate than the parties. But that advantage is now gone. That doesn't exist anymore. And so they have more money in their super PACs. Their candidate committees have more money and the RNC has more money. And all of that just puts the Republicans at a huge advantage for buying ads over the Democrats.

37:28Jon Favreau:And so then you say, well, that is the stat, like, regardless of what money went out the door, like that is the situation right now. So what do you do to get out of the hole? The answer isn't to point to how much worse it could have been or how much different it is. Like we are behind. How do you close that gap? Yeah. And doesn't seem like there's any answers on that from the from the DNC. And it's not like they are sort of denying any of the stories. You didn't throw the phone. It slid next to someone else who didn't own the phone. Rufus Gifford, who we all know Rufus. He was on the Obama campaign.

38:05He was he was the finance director of the DNC. Dude, phone near you. He worked there for eight years. He wrote the Substack today. He loves the place. He worked. He was the finance director on Obama's reelect on Biden's reelect. So he's been around for a long time. He didn't have a dog in the fight on Ken versus Ben or anything else. But he said in his sub stack post, the DNC is spiraling towards irrelevance and that Ken Martin is a good man with good intentions, but simply not meeting this critical moment. And his chairmanship is beyond saving.

38:37Jon Favreau:Wait till that email goes out where he says to everybody coming to that big DNC meeting, one slice of pizza per person. That's all we can do right now. No second slices at this meeting. I was just can't we cannot afford it. I once worked on a campaign where our paychecks were delayed until the next year to make like the FEC report look better. So we had more cash on hand. And by the way, it didn't didn't suggest a healthy campaign or the things were going well. But then a reporter called and asked one of our spokespeople if staff had been asked to delay their paychecks to make our FEC report look better.

39:09Jon Favreau:And this black said no, because we had just been told that we would not be getting paid over Christmas. We were not asked. So, yeah, that was memory lane. I mean, I think the question I was like, what can be done about this? Because we're all in this situation together. We're all, you know, like we all need the DNC to be successful in the Democratic Party to be successful. You know, there is a scenario where we're talking to someone where once we have a nominee, the nominee of the party installs their person to the DNC and, you know, tries to go around Ken and raises all the money. But, you know, between now and getting a nominee, we need to figure like the party needs to figure something out on like how to raise the money that we're going to need, especially with the Supreme Court decision, as you said, Lovett, where now the Democratic National Committee, it's going to be really, really important for them to have a ton of money before there's even a nominee.

39:59Jon Favreau:This is a crisis. You know, like this is the terrible fundraising and the autopsy report and the interview with you. This is all compounded into a crisis of confidence with DNC leadership. And it is just not going to improve. And it's time to make a change, I think. And I think Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries need to go to Ken Martin and say, we got to do something different here. And they need to get someone else in there that just has confidence of big donors, of parties, etc. And yeah, like we just can't overstate how important this Supreme Court ruling is in terms of erasing the Democratic Party advantage that we used to have because small dollars would flow to our candidates who would get preferential rates on ad buys.

40:39Jon Favreau:And then you'd have Republican super PACs having to spend 10 times the same amount for the same ad. Now that advantage is gone. And we are that just makes a hole even deeper. And so like if I'm Chuck Schumer, like you're trying to win a Senate majority. If you're Hakeem Jeffries, you're trying to become speaker. This is existential for you. I mean, beyond those two, because for them, it's like, you know, the midterms are in a couple of months. That ship has sailed. Every Democrat running for president, every one of these campaigns It is in their interest to like act together on this to like all go to these.

41:14Jon Favreau:I don't think it should be sailed for the midterms. I think you could get a new person in tomorrow who could bring like a bunch of big donors to send a message and raise a hundred million dollars in like a couple of weeks. I really like think. Although I think on that, though, the only reason I say that is because if yes, but then why not just send the money right to the DSEC and the DCCC? There's no need to give the DNC money before the midterms. Sure. Is again like I'm sure I'm taking Ken's work. Like I read your long stop stack. But if you look at like the like what his claim is, then there's actually is a fair amount of money coming in.

41:42Jon Favreau:And so what I don't understand is like there's a sort of like hand wringing. Oh, there's nothing we can do before November. If you're if there's this little amount of money on hand, but like what something like 8.6 million is coming in every month at the lead. Like, why can't there be a change in priorities where you kind of do say from this point forward, we are going to be devoting these resources towards winning in November. and this is the amount that's going to be directed towards this as opposed to whatever kind of the longer term kind of money that's going out the door per month is like that's what i don't that's what i came away i was confused by there's just there's a vicious cycle and you know wickler was uh as as usual very generous and kind didn't want to shit over ken martin but you know when there are stories like these it just deepens the problem because now who's going to want to give money to the DNC after reading stories like this, right?

42:32Like, and so it's a vicious cycle. I did think one more funny moment from the New York Times story is he's like, he's got this staff meeting and he's trying to like buck everyone up. And he says, my success is your success. So the weaker I am, the weaker all of you are.

42:50Jon Favreau:Which is true. It's just a weird thing to say to your staff. Yeah. It doesn't seem so inspiring. I don't know if that's the best pep talk I've ever heard. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a get through. The other thing, too, is if you're a presidential candidate starting next year and they're like, well, what do you think of Ken Martin? The president will choose a new DNC chair, right? We will have a better—they're all going to say they're going to choose a new DNC chair. So it's just like, let's move that up a little. Let's get through the interim, swap this guy out. Yeah, it's just like when we swapped Kamala for Biden, I think the DNC raised like a billion dollars in 100 days.

43:24Jon Favreau:You know, there's a lot they could do if we were to make a change. I think, you know, in Ken's sub stack, he says we must communicate and organize year round. Well, one of the things that we learned in this New York Times story is that after the Pot Save America interview, Ken has only done like one local TV hit. So I'm not saying he's our people in Erie. Now, it is primarily a fundraising job, right? We don't expect him out doing to be out doing message events. But Rufus Skifford in his sub stack made the point that when the DNC chair does a lot of TV that gets shared, that gets seen by donors.

43:56Jon Favreau:It makes them want to donate and be involved and kind of like keeps you in the mix. And then also you have like the DNC has got a lot of great staff and they must feel beyond demoralized and they're supposed to be doing things like year round research and comms and digital on Republicans. They're doing mobilization. They have this big like creator program. You know, the RBC, the rules committee just did a really good job on the calendar. And you need more hype reels for Ken. And it's like creators. I just feel bad for this team of people, not just because the phones are flying, but because like you feel like your your work is getting denigrated in the news all the time and you don't have the leadership you need and you know it's important.

44:37Jon Favreau:And like it must be frustrating not to be able to fix it just because the phones are flying.

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48:19So Michigan's in the early state lineup because it remains one of the most critical swing states. And this fall Senate race there is going to be one of the most hotly contested. The primary already is hotly contested. Trump went there on Monday to tour a GM facility and appear alongside Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee for Senate, who will face off against either Abdul El-Sayed or Haley Stevens, though neither were mentioned during Trump's speech. He did, however, go hard at the DSA wing of the party. They're siding with the radical left communists taking over the party. They want, in other words, the normal socialists who can destroy a country too.

48:55They're not going faster. Communism is the greatest threat to our country in history, including even World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, or 9-11. I mean, this is a serious threat. In that order, World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, 9-11. What does that mean? I was like the normal socialist. Then he caught him, so he's like, the normal socialists who could also destroy the country normally. Yeah, you've got to not forget that. That's important to hit, too.

49:19Jon Favreau:What was that Cold War fever dream nonsense? Very weird. I was kind of surprised that Trump held back for mentioning the Senate race. What do you guys think that's about? I think he's suddenly a stickler for the Hatch Act. It was an official event. I don't I don't know. I neither did Mike Rogers. Like, are they? I thought they would be I thought he would hit Abdul. I thought it was. Well, yeah, I mean, Abdul wants to fight with Trump right now. Right. Presumably Democrats would love to watch Abdul be in a fight with Trump right now. So maybe the idea would be if you if you pick this fight, you're going to take attention into the race.

49:50Jon Favreau:And but they kind of want Abdul to come out of the thing. So I don't know. Well, that's the thing, right? Like what you'll hear from Haley Stevens supporters are that Republicans want to face Abdul because they think he's weaker. If that were so, you would think that they would elevate him in this moment right before the primary. It's weird that they didn't. I don't know why. I mean, it could just be because Trump is dumb and forgot his name and like, you know, was supposed to do it in a communist room. And there is some evidence too that they do want that because Mike Rogers was like, there was a recording of Mike Rogers on a call with donors saying like, I think if it's Abdul, we're in good shape.

50:22And so, you know, there is evidence for that, but they remarkably disciplined from from Donald Trump there. Or maybe it wasn't discipline. Maybe you just forgot. Maybe he doesn't care.

50:30Jon Favreau:Right. Or is there any is there any argument that Trump and Rogers think if they publicly pick a fight with Abdul, it helps Haley Stevens? Is there any can you make that argument? Like that's why I mean, Rogers is behind the scenes in the kind of kind of to try to be like, I'm excited about Abdul, which is a perfect thing to help Haley Stevens. It's not a public fight. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. They also might be thinking that if Haley Stevens wins, you know, they want to label them both as communists. Right. They don't want to do the Brian Kemp treatment. Yeah, right. If Haley Stevens wins, they're not going to be like, oh, we really wanted to, you know, like they're going to act like she's as left wing as possible.

51:04Right. That's what they do. Meanwhile, Abdul, who, as you know, we're all supporting in the race, was quoted in playbook on Monday morning telling donors on a private call. A lot of these private calls, these zooms, you got to get these zooms.

51:16Jon Favreau:They're not that private. No kidding. So he was telling donors at a private call that all the money and political power being used against him makes him look like David against Goliath, presumably meaning both Haley Stevens and APAC, and how if he wins, he'll have a massive platform and will start primarying Senate moderates, including John Fetterman. What do you guys think of his assessment of things? I mean, like I say this with love for Abdul, but I thought it was not good. You know, like my first argument would be you got to win the general election first and then talk about this stuff like you're spiking the football in the 30 yard line.

51:45Jon Favreau:Let's win the primary. Let's win the general. then you can maybe talk about 2028 if you want. Also, I'm sure what happened was he was trying to pump up donors and supporters. But you have to know this stuff is going to leak. It always leaks. And the ogre comment is getting taken out of context. Like people are suggesting. He said, oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mention that. He said this will help me put an ogre on a pike. Right. Which is about John Fetterman. People are suggesting he was comparing Haley Stevens to an ogre. It does not sound like he was doing that in any way. But also don't call John Fetterman an ogre.

52:14Jon Favreau:You know, it's not helpful. I think it kind of plays into this belief among a lot of Democrats that the left wing of the party is far more focused on going after moderate Democrats than Republicans. I, too, find John Fetterman very frustrating on a lot of issues, but he's an elected Democrat senator in a swing state. Let's beat the Republicans first and talk about that. And I think my other just like big picture comment for Abdul is take every sentence where you say I and replace it with we. This campaign is not about you and what you're going to do in 28 or whatever. It's about the movement. It's about what we are going to do to make people's lives better.

52:50Jon Favreau:The issues we're going to elevate, like the way you're going to fight for Michigan. I just think it was, um, it was not good. Yeah. This is the second interview or this is the second sort of, uh, first was an interview. This was leaked recording, but the second time we've gotten sort of, uh, this sort of tone from me that semaphore interview, I think was that at a similar level of like, I don't know, I'd say like hostility and kind of grandiosity to it. But also it's punditry. And as a rule, if you're a candidate and you're doing punditry, that is a mistake. That is if you think of all the great gaffes, always with the donors, with the donors, every country with the donors is the worst.

53:27It's just that's where it happens all the time.

53:29Jon Favreau:That's where Mitt Romney says 52 percent. Barack Obama says bitter guns and religion like that, like Hillary. I think deplorables was the classic. Was that was a Yeah, yeah. So so it's a common trap that you're sort of like analyzing the electorate. And if you're doing that as a candidate, by the way, which is something he understands in his interviews where he's actually very like he did an interview with Dasha Burns. And even she was like, my God, you're on message throughout this entire thing. But kind of lets loose when I think he thinks he's in private. private. The other part of it, too, though, is like it's got to be frustrating because you're campaigning against Haley Stevens, who's getting all this attention for having this.

54:07Jon Favreau:Oh, shucks, pure Michigan thing. And then Apex dropping like 30 million dollars on their head. They're like, put a sort of salad in his fucking hands.

54:17We'll see. We'll see what the ads are. Yeah, I think for progressive candidates that tend to do well, have a sunnier disposition. There is they do express anger, of course, but there's a sunnier disposition. And what Abdul has nailed is the liberal patriotism. And we saw that with the when the protester, Jake Lang, like, you know, interrupted one of his events. And he talked in the basically they shouted him out with the USA chant and Abdul gave the speech. So he's got he's got that part down. But you can't be also you have to look, you have to be happy all the time and not be and and not be hostile to your opponents.

54:57Jon Favreau:I was like, there's something deeper than this is not about Abdul. There is a like a bad faith critique from the left that takes, I think, what is largely a true argument about the influence of money in politics. And by the way, it's just for saying like what's happening in Michigan is fucking crazy. This is the biggest outside spend by AIPAC ever. It's 30, maybe on any Senate race ever as in a primary, uh, all being dumped on his head. Like that is what is on television And the ad like that there's two ads that are going around that are like that are just like the really manipulative to like say that like a duel is bad for women.

55:31Jon Favreau:Right. Taking some quotes out of context. But at the same time, like when Whitmer endorses Haley Stevens, it's because she's bought and sold. Right. And like I don't believe Gretchen Whitmer is bought and sold. And I don't think most Democrats in Michigan believe Gretchen Whitmer is bought and sold. She backs Haley Stevens because she probably thinks Haley Stevens has a better chance of winning. that's it. And it doesn't help you probably to attack in pretty personal terms, a very popular Democrat in the state you are trying to represent. And my guess, you know, there's probably some old bad blood there from 2018 when they ran against each other.

56:02Jon Favreau:But so when, and when Abdul is going to eat shit, that's the whole, that's, that's running for politics. And so like when Abdul is asked in that interview about like, whether he identifies as a socialist, he says, I don't like what, and he actually won't answer where he disagrees with Bernie and AOC. And he says, like, I just don't identify as a socialist. I like appreciate some version of, I appreciate capitalism. I'm sorry, I'm just going to be a nuanced guy. I'm a nuanced guy. Right. But that nuance doesn't like, especially I get why in the heat of a primary, but like, you know, when like you say the root of our housing problem is, is corporate money.

56:32Jon Favreau:When the root of this problem is corporate money. It just like, I get why it works on the stump. I get why it's a valuable way of simplifying what's happening, but I think it starts to feel, um, I don't know, like, uh, uh, like, like turning this race into like a black and white mannequin struggle, which is what comes off in these private conversations. Yeah. So Trump also used the Michigan appearance to provide an update on his on again, off again war in Iran, which suddenly appears to be off again after Trump threatened a massive attack last week. U.S. officials told reporters that the shrinking supply of air defense systems was at least partly responsible for the pause, which Trump, of course, blamed on Biden.

57:09We also found out this weekend that the four service members who recently died in the Iran war are no longer listed in the Pentagon's casualty count for the Iran war. Instead, the Pentagon moved the tally of their deaths to a new section generically called Overseas Operations Casualties. They also updated the number of injuries to over 600. Here's what Trump had to say about the war on the flight to Michigan and at his event there. Well, Iran took a beating over the last 14 days.

57:36Jon Favreau:And they asked us very nicely, please stop. Let's beat. And that's where we are right now. See what happens. When the fuel comes down, which it did for a little while, then they didn't behave and I had to go back and now they're behaving again. You know, it's like playing a banjo. Is it like playing a banjo? It's like in what way is the Iran war like playing a banjo? I think I know what that is. Tell me. I think that what he is thinking of is the song that goes back and forth from the film Deliverance. But I'm bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum in the film Deliverance.

58:13I know. I know that. that is what I'm still struggling with.

58:16Jon Favreau:It's a back and forth. Who's going to squeal like a pig in this one? I think, I think, I think, I think it's us. Um, I don't know, Tommy, what's, what do you think? What's, what's going on right now? I mean, we're losing the war. The, the Strait of Hormuz was once uncontested and now it's contested. And I think in the long run, Iran geographic, you guys might've noticed on the map. It's that's where it is. It's in the Strait of So I feel like they have the upper hand there. The New York Times reported that American intelligence agencies believe that Iran's new supreme leader, Mushta Bahamaneh, is far more interested than his father in acquiring a nuclear weapon.

58:55Gee, I wonder why.

58:56Jon Favreau:So that's good. That's not what J.D. Vance said. I thought that they were becoming friends. Yeah, the father had sworn off nukes. There was a fatwa against them. Obviously, people questioned that, but many analysts thought it was a genuine sentiment. And now there's quite an argument for getting a nuclear weapon. I think the long term impact of the war as is, it's like just it's going to be sporadic economic disruption for a very long time, potentially. And that increases the likelihood of U.S. service members getting killed or wounded. The same goes for civilians in Iran, by the way, and anyone living in the Gulf, you know, in a base where the Iranians are firing at.

59:30Jon Favreau:I mean, people are getting killed all the time. It is led. There's just growing instability. I mean, you're now noticing like the Houthis rebels are getting involved in the war before they had not. There's these reports that the Saudis or the Emiratis are directly engaging with Iran and firing missiles or, you know, bombs into their territory. So it's just the war is metastasizing and growing. It's wildly expensive. You know, we have Hegseth and others going to Congress and they want a$1.5 trillion Pentagon budget next year. I mean, that's insane. And the munitions issue is a really big long-term problem that you can't fix.

1:00:06Jon Favreau:Like, there's all these interceptor missiles. There's the THAAD system. There's the Patriot stockpile that's down by half. There's all these air to air missiles that are running low. There's the T-Lam or Tomahawks. It would be like it's all these war games of a U.S. war with China where you run out of Tomahawk missiles in like a week with the full stockpile. And now we're way down on those. And in many cases, these cost millions and millions of dollars each. And they can take as long as 2030 to replenish them. So it just feels like everything he's done has sort of made our posture weaker, both in the Gulf and vis-a-vis China, which Trump ran on telling us was the big geostrategic problem going forward.

1:00:41And now one of the political problems of any war, which is U.S. service members dying and being injured. Now they're handling that by just deciding to do some creative accounting where they hide the deaths from us for as long as they can or the injuries or the now they're listing them, listing them as overseas operations casualties is despicable.

1:01:01Jon Favreau:Yeah, Yeah, it really is. The options of, well, he can escalate, right? It's actually, it sort of mirrors what happens in our domestic politics, where Trump has to threaten greater and greater chaos for the markets to take him seriously. And so the markets have to respond more forcefully in order to get him to back off whatever the latest threat is, be it tariffs or some other economic policy that would be destructive going after the Fed. And so now he has to threaten this new, every single, you know, this is going to be an escalation unlike anything we've ever seen. It's going to make the early stage of the war look like a firework show because he has to because the only he has to ratchet up the threat because that's, I guess, all he has in terms of trying to get some control over over Iran and get them to sort of relent on the Strait of Hormuz.

1:01:54Jon Favreau:So that's one dangerous path. The other is some kind of increasing sanctions, economic crackdown. right? Like to sort of try to squeeze around that way. And then finally, it's like just saying we did it. But even that option, which is, I think, something we're like, oh, well, he should just declare victory and walk away. That's not really available anymore because that Iran will continue to control the straight of her moves. The fake outcome where he says we got a better deal than Obama had, even if it's worse, is not available anymore because we've been so thoroughly sort of bodied by their ability to control the strait.

1:02:32Jon Favreau:I think this, this, the way they changed the reporting of casualties, um, is all about trying to get around the war powers act by saying, oh, the old war ended and this is a new war, I think. But, um, but it also sounds like they weren't really updating casualties in a timely manner. And then for the standard way, like there were reporters kind of watching the website where this is reported out and seeing a kind of bump around last week, go up and down. And they're like, what is happening? Even now the numbers aren't all in agreement. Like we don't have like a straightforward answer. The total of the two conflicts, Operation Epic Fury, and then whatever they're calling overseas operations, now 18 dead, 624 wounded.

1:03:09Jon Favreau:And so they've also, they've really not been very transparent about what those, the wounded number means. They're like, oh, it's mostly minor concussions that they went back to work. But you know, traumatic brain injuries from a, you know, a ballistic missile exploding near you. That's a big deal. And it also, it's part and parcel to the Pentagon covering up the cost of the war, just not being transparent. Like I, you know, I have friends who are still in the military or people who are overseas will be like, you know, they're shutting down. You can no longer take photos on some of these bases because they're just so destroyed that they're basically rendered unusable.

1:03:41Jon Favreau:People had to be evacuated from some of these places. Like the cost of bases just being like, you know, inoperable for many years to come now has not really been like fully calculated. You have Hegseth going in front of the Senate and saying this war costs$35 billion dollars, but we need 80 billion right now in an emergency. And then you're like, well, why don't you already have 80 billion in cash? And he's like, no, no, no. I've already decided what that's going for. And we have to do this because Biden spent all of our money on woke. And it's like that may work on a Fox News. What the fuck are you talking about?

1:04:14How much does woke cost? All right. Speaking of bombs on Friday, the White House Correspondents Association held its rescheduled dinner after a gunman interrupted the event back in April. It was a smaller venue with a smaller crowd and more security. But Trump basically gave the speech he'd originally planned on giving. And boy, did he crush it.

1:04:30Jon Favreau:The other day, a senator I knew got a text, a great guy from his wife. And she said, when you get home, I want to have you immediately come up the stairs and make love to me. And he said, I can't do both. You know what? You know, in other words, can't go up the stairs and does anybody get that? Well, I thought that was actually pretty good. That was actually the only thing I thought was good in this whole freaking stupid speech that they wrote. That was the only good one. And that went down with not exactly great laughter. I think, you know, in other words, you can't go up the stairs. One more time.

1:05:11So we're looking for term limits. Does anybody understand this stuff? We will have sloppy Chris Christie, one of the sloppiest human beings you'll ever meet, fighting, I would say, I could mention the governor of Chicago, but I'm going to mention instead Jerry Nadler. And they're fighting for a big piece of cheesecake. Big fat piece of cheesecake. Who the hell wrote that line? Barack Hussein Obama hosted it. do you know who that is? And he hit me hard. And I have watched this clip thousands of times. They keep playing it because they think that was evening I decided to run for president. It was not.

1:05:48He actually showed a picture of the White House with a big Trump on top, like I put a sign. And you know, I'm sort of doing that when you think about it, right? Now, we have all said previously that Trump can be genuinely funny. That was so bad that I almost started feeling sorry for Donald Trump, which has never happened. But like, that was incredibly painful, especially the sex up the stairs joke when he goes. And then he's like, oh, that was one of the better jokes. And then one more time he's like, because it's like the third explanation of the joke.

1:06:22Jon Favreau:Did you see that he stole that joke too? Yeah, from Brad Paisley. Brad Paisley lyric. Well, it's a classic Borscht Belt joke and it could have worked. The reason it didn't work is he we've done many of these speeches. You're trying to get it. It's it's it's a you're doing stand up 10, 15 minutes. He was up there for an hour, an hour, an hour. And by the time he gets to that lighthearted joke about senators being old, he described how much he hates half the people in the room called Don Lemon Dunn. He said, Adam Schiff has an ugly fat head. He hates Colbert. Compared Caitlin Collins to Dylan Mulvaney, calls Josh Dossie unhirable.

1:06:55Jon Favreau:Right after he won a Pulitzer. Right. He won an award. And then he's like, anyway, anyway, boy, your senators are old these days. Right. So, of course, by the time you get to that part, like they've been sitting there for 45 minutes. It's brutal. He's never read the speech. This is the other thing. It's like you've got to I know he thinks that he's a genius and can just go off script or whatever. You got to practice the speech like that. Can you imagine Trump like practicing jokes? No, I can't. But he had like one good Barry Weiss joke. He had a couple of like well-structured jokes that he even the Barry Weiss joke, which was good.

1:07:25He didn't like he didn't deliver it well, like he could have delivered it in a funnier way.

1:07:30Jon Favreau:But also, I think it was in the prepared remarks. There's like a like a portion of his stump about Gavin Newsom in California that he seemed to be reading off the teleprompter. And it and so he says horrible things about you on Omar. Like he just goes into his sort of vicious and cruel, mean spirited rip thing. And so the whole like he doesn't he pokes a little bit of fun at himself here and there. But like, of course, there's not going to be people laughing. It's deeply uncomfortable to be in an event that's supposed to be lighthearted. And you just like go for the juggler like you would at a rally.

1:08:01Jon Favreau:It's just like you're not built for this because you're such a fucking asshole. You're not the comedy seller at 11 p.m. You're in front of the most oversensitive group of people you can find. And you're being so mean. By the way, didn't Jerry Nadler like hit the GLP ones a couple of years ago and he's lost a ton of weight to. Yeah, yeah. The riffing made no sense and he did he when he talked about pritzker the governor of chicago he mentioned that as well too he's like he's actually looking better he's looking better he's just a dick is really the problem but it was started kind of magnanimous because like he did this whole bit at the top about how like the last dinner was bad and celebrated the you know the cops who kept everybody safe and said how that they had you know they wouldn't let the the show get canceled because that lets the shooter win and then we just went into this tirade and when you looked at the all the cuts to the audience when you watch the whole thing, it was like, it's just silent.

1:08:50And also, I know they say, oh, it's a room full of journalists. They don't like Trump. But like all of his administration, all his people were there. No one was laughing.

1:08:58Jon Favreau:Yeah, just like the funniest thing was when he got the laugh there and said, I thought that was the best joke of the bunch. Yeah, the whole thing was very ugly, right? Because he's going up to Caitlin Collins and all these journalists in this really personal and sort of obviously misogynist way. And then you have like the the the like reporters on the day as kind of like trying to like laugh and they're the whole thing was ugly. And so then you have like New York Times reporters like Peter Baker being like, we should rethink this dinner, which is they're on their high horse about the fucking dinner because they haven't gone forever and are glad for that decision to their credit.

1:09:29Jon Favreau:Yeah, to their credit. Yeah. It's like, what did anyone expect from him? Was he going to learn this time? Obviously, this is who he is and what he was going to say. And by the way, like he says He had two jokes about Caitlin Collins. One was suggesting she looked like Dylan Mulvaney, which you just said, but then also being like, Caitlin Collins never smiles. He says that to her all the time at press conferences. Every time she asks him a tough question, he's like, what's your problem? You're a pretty girl. Smile. He's a sexist old man. And he doesn't do that as part of a comedy bit. It's part of his stump deflection routine for hard questions.

1:10:02Jon Favreau:He's just a shithead. Yeah, he's a shithead. Might be time to retire. The dinner sucks. Of course. It's terrible. Now that we've moved it to the former Trump Hotel, now the Waldorf Astoria smaller setting. He made a hard pitch for the ballroom. We knock down the arch and we sort of get the gold leaf off the White House and we restore independence to the Department of Justice. At the bottom of that list, we can decide what we want to do with what happened to the White House correspondent. High class problem. For sure. High class problem. The remaining rump state of media. Didn't stick around for the mentalist, I have to say.

1:10:33Jon Favreau:I didn't catch the O's. He did. He did do the joke, which was, if you're such a mentalist, how come you didn't know the shooting was coming? Yeah, the joke everyone made the night of the shooting. He ripped off all his worst jokes. Is it still funny a couple months later? No? It worked for me. It worked for me. All right. When we come back, Ben Wickler.

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1:12:36Ben Whittler, welcome back to the show. It's great to be with you. Congrats on the new studio. Thank you. It's pretty nice. Pretty sweet. Pretty fancy. All right. So I want to get to the book. But first, I have to take advantage of the entirely coincidental but highly opportune timing of you being here and ask about the messy gubernatorial primary in your beloved state and the messy leadership situation at the DNC, which you ran to be chair of. I know you well. You are far too wise and generous to shit on Ken Martin. I've got that covered. But I really want your honest thoughts on the DNC's financial situation.

1:13:13Ken's argument is that a party is not a savings account, that he chose to spend early on organizers and technology and state party infrastructure. And that's also more or less your argument, the argument you make in the book. But of course, the party is now$2 million in debt while the RNC is sitting on$128.5 million in cash. So do you buy his defense that that's just the cost of investing early? So I agree that you should invest early. And the goal, what you want, is to be able to do both. You want to be able to both have the money to invest in places that it'll take years to be able to build the power to win statewide.

1:13:55but there's state legislative races everywhere where we can win. And you also want to have the ability to invest in the places where elections are closest and highest stakes, and then tip those over the top. And I think the challenge right now is there's not quite enough money to do either. The other thing that's new in this moment is the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows parties to invest in unlimited support for federal candidates. Wisconsin had a version of that that was started under Scott Walker. We call it the Scott Walker loophole. And it is the way that we beat Elon Musk and, you know, who outspent us dramatically is that the Democratic Party of Wisconsin was able to raise money and then transfer it to our candidate who got a lower rate for TV ads than the super PAC ads that that Elon Musk was funding in our state.

1:14:38We also had a better message, better candidate and didn't have Elon Musk hanging around our neck. But the and huge grassroots organizing talk about that in the book. But right now, that means that national committees could do a ton more if they have the money to be able to do it, to support candidates in the places, especially for candidates who don't have huge fundraising abilities on their own, but who have totally winnable seats and who, if they have the funds to get their message out, can win in places that are maybe off the national radar. So this is a time when having more funds at the DNC, having more funds at the other national committees makes an enormous difference.

1:15:13And what I want is for Ken and for the DNC to be as successful as possible. I think there's a huge opportunity in this election, including a lot of places right now where Republicans aren't investing and don't realize how mad voters are. So if I wave a magic wand, there's a flood of money that comes in and we're able to invest in winning, sometimes in squeakers, in a whole bunch of places that expand the map and safeguard the future of American democracy. him. Well, yeah. So to what you just said, I mean, you raised and spent$63 million in 2024 for the Wisconsin Democratic Party. That sounds right.

1:15:49Which is a little more than the entire Democratic National Committee has raised so far in 2026. Is the honest answer here that spending early only works if you can also raise and the raising is the failure here? I mean, there's I think there's a lot of puzzle pieces here. I think that right now there's a kind of like vicious circle where there's negative news cycles that then make it hard to go out and say, this is a good time to invest. And I think that starts changing when people see, oh yeah, if I donate here, it's going to have a big impact on making, making things better and winning elections.

1:16:19And I think that's, you know, maybe that, that change starts right here on the pod, John, maybe, but whatever, whatever it is, like we can't, as long as we're in circular firing squad mode and not, uh, you know, pointing to, to where we need to like throw our shoulders against the wheel to save the country, it's very hard to get out of that cycle. And also, like the election is 99 days away. There is a huge opportunity to like flood the zone and the places where elections are likely to be tightest and where a push can make the difference. And I will add that that is not just House and Senate races, like at all levels, there's going to be state legislative contests that have enormous significance.

1:16:59One thing in, I think the New York Times story was about the DNC helping Mississippi break the Republican supermajority at the state level. That I love. That was a$100 ,000 investment, played a role. I'm sure there are a ton of other people involved as well. But breaking Republican supermajorities in deep red states can have an enormous impact on the future of things like redistricting. So part of the argument in my book and my kind of life work at this moment in the Democratic Party is look at the whole map of how power is built and wielded in this country. The right keeps using its power to rig everything so that only a handful of people can write the rules for all of us.

1:17:34But if you can unrig the system, often at the state and local level, those races are often much less expensive and have huge up ballot consequences. And I think it is good to think as a party about how to fight at all those levels at once. In the interest of fixing things, what would you do about the money situation if you were in Ken's position right now? I would, which I'm sure Ken is also working on, I try to raise more money so that you have more money to invest in the various things. And that, to me, the biggest thing is being able to lay out, if you invest, here is how we're going to be able to win more fights that folks care about.

1:18:08There's often, when people think about the corrupting influence of money in politics, which you only have to look at the news to see the corrupting influence of money in politics. But very often it's about policies that particular candidates or elected officials hold. Parties are not where people who want to change policy, it's not where they give, especially when there's not a Democratic president. What parties do is they help create infrastructure for victories or losses. And so the way to raise money for the Democratic Party is fundamentally to instill trust, to demonstrate the results that come from those investments.

1:18:43And for all the kind of debate about the 50-state strategy, I think one of the things that is really helpful is when you see what's being done in particular states with those investments that actually generates electoral victory. And then it makes you enthusiastic about investing. And I think there's a lot of stories like that that I would love to see more of and hear more about. I think about some of the state parties that are doing amazing work, like North Carolina. There's this huge focus on local organizing that's going to affect things like the state Supreme Court race. And the country's not thinking about the North Carolina a state Supreme Court.

1:19:15But the only reason Republicans have a majority in the U.S. House right now is because Republicans won a state Supreme Court race there in 2020 by 401 votes, one one hundredth of one percent of all the votes cast in the state. And that put in place a chief justice who drove the gerrymandering that gave the national Republicans their House majority at this moment. And there's a Supreme Court race there this November. Anita Earles is up for re-election. If she wins, they could win a majority. Democrats could win a majority by 2028. And that could lead to the de-gerrymandering of that state and affect the future of American democracy.

1:19:49And those are the kinds of things that state parties specialize in. And supporting state parties to do that kind of work has a huge effect. I'm partial to my own state of Wisconsin, which we can all agree is the best state. But it's also a place where our state party has been deeply involved in state legislative races, mayoral races, state Supreme Court elections this fall. We have a chance to win both chambers of the state legislature. And across the country, most people, I regret to admit, are not thinking about the Wisconsin state legislative battle of 2026. But that fight could dictator-proof Wisconsin before 2028.

1:20:21We were the closest state in the country to having the election overturned after 2020. We know Trump is going to try to pull something next time he is in danger of losing power. You lock down democracy at the state level, or rather unrigged democracy at the state level, that is the best way to defend national elections going forward. And those are the kinds of races that have supporting state parties right now, and the DNC is doing a lot of supporting state parties, can have a huge effect on. So I look at the – it is very painful to read the stories that are unfolding. Everyone experiences that.

1:20:51I'm sure everyone within the DNC is not thrilled about the stories unfolding. But there are giant opportunities that are right there where a small investment can make a huge outside impact because Donald Trump's eye of Sauron is not on those races. but we can put our eye on the ball and we can win and we can fight. Yeah, I think what I'm most worried about is like the DNC doesn't play the biggest role in the midterms regardless, right? The other party committees do and the state parties do. Certainly play a big role in the 2028 race. And especially with that Supreme Court decision now, will play a big role because people can donate now much more to the DNC and that can help the campaign directly.

1:21:32and the stories are awful to read. No one wants that. We all want the Democratic Party to be successful and the DNC to be successful. I think what strikes me is that because they're coming from inside the DNC and the DNC members, it makes me think that those are people who also don't want bad press, but are at this point like, I'd rather talk and have the bad stories and try to fix the situation than continue to see this unfold. And I just thought today, Rufus Gifford, I'm sure you know Rufus, who finance director of the DNC, he's been finance director, worked there for eight years, loves the place.

1:22:08He said today that the DNC is, quote, spiraling towards irrelevance and said that Ken is a good man with good intentions, but simply not meeting this critical moment. Do you agree? I am the guy who lost the election for DNC chair. And I'm the last person you want to be armchair quarterback. I like Ken beat me by organizing me in the DNC race and building trust with voters over years with the same kind of strategy that he and I both think is really critical to winning elections at every level. So I don't want to be in the middle of this. I'm not running for DNC myself. My goal is to spread a message to a much wider number of people about what everyone can do.

1:22:47I have a chapter in my book about the Democratic Party with the title, It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To. Something many people feel at various moments at all levels. And the argument that I make is that the Democratic Party, however you feel about it, it actually has a door that is wide open, shockingly open. It is easier to join the Democratic Party in whatever state people live in than to join the benevolent order of the Elks or any of the old 19th, 20th century social civic organizations. There's not some set of boxes that you have to check. You can get involved and then you can revitalize the party where you are.

1:23:24You can turn it into a vessel for organizing and fighting. And I talk to people who are like running for county party chair all across the country who are mad about the way things are going right now. And then they realize, hey, if I get a bunch of people together and we get involved, we can just like take over around here. And then we can start working to flip the city councils and we can win judicial races. We can flip state legislative seats. There are so many blue states where there are people in offices that are not using them to have the biggest impact that they could. And there are so many places in red states where there's very little Democratic Party organization.

1:23:56But if you build enough power, you can push through and you can make huge change. And then in purple states, it is shocking how few votes wind up tipping the entire thing. So if anyone who's frustrated about the Democratic Party right now become the Democratic Party and build the kind of party that you want to be part of, like it is right there. And it's a vessel for organizing that unlike everything else, it exists everywhere in every county, in every community. And if we can, if we can make it stronger and we can make it a body that fights for things that benefit everyone, then I think it has a huge change on the whole future of the country.

1:24:32Your book is excellent. It is tailor-made for our audience. So I hope everyone buys it. It's called, this is the plan. Give us the cliff's note version of what the plan is. Sure. So the plan starts with you, not just you, John, but you, the reader, viewer, listener. And the thing that each of us can do, I have a chapter called Unleash Your Superpower, which is about both the kind of art and science and practice of organizing, of getting people together to do something they wouldn't otherwise do. So I dig into how to have the biggest effect with your volunteer hours, if you can chip in money, the kinds of stuff that makes the biggest difference.

1:25:05And then I map out, drawing on the story of how we unrigged our state legislative maps in Wisconsin, which is this huge multi-year fight that took a bunch of different offices. I trace out what we can do nationwide to unrig our system, which right now pretty clearly is a system where a handful of far-right billionaires write the rules for everyone else to enrich themselves at all of our expense. So how do we do that? Step one, in 2026, let's absolutely fight for House and Senate majorities. but the states are the most critical battlefield because especially if we win trifecta, democratic trifectas in the battleground states, a, you can, you can pass laws in those states that prevent Trump from being able to steal the 2028 election.

1:25:46Elections are run by the states. So this is, you know, if you have people who refuse to play along with coup attempts, it makes all the difference in the world. You can also defame the electoral college. There's this law called the national popular vote interstate compact, which is a long nerdy name for an amazing bill that has been passed already in 18 states. The NIPVIC. That's what I call it. I came up with a way to pronounce the unpronounceable acronym. That's great because every time I say it, I've never said the acronym and I'm always like, it's the National Compact something voter. Yeah.

1:26:15NIPVIC. It rhymes with lipstick. NIPVIC. We got to spread NIPVIC across the country. If no other thing happens, if we all be able to find a way to stay NIPVIC, then I will not be satisfied with the impact of the book, but I'll be happy. So that is a bill that if we pass it through the states where Democrats can win trifectas in 2026, you can make it so that whoever wins the national popular vote wins the presidential election because states decide where they put their electoral college votes. It is very, very close to actually happening. And basically, so it's like a backdoor way of eliminating the electoral college because the Constitution gives states the power, the ultimate power to decide how they assign their electors.

1:26:53So the state legislatures can decide we're going to assign our electors to the winner of the national popular vote. And then that way you can kind of go around the electoral college. That's exactly it. So I was actually talking to Heather Cox Richardson, a great historian about this. And she was pointing out to me that originally, overwhelmingly, states gave their electoral college votes on a proportional basis, the way that like Nebraska and Maine still do. And then a few states realized, starting with Thomas Jefferson in Virginia, that if he made his state go for whoever won the majority, winner take all, that that would give him an advantage.

1:27:27So then every state kind of went to that system. The only way to get back to a proportional system is if enough states decide to jump together. So this is what's special about this law is that it only takes effect when enough states have passed the law to choose the next president, which means that it's not like you're going to throw away your vote or dilute your power until the moment when everyone holds hands, jumps together. And then all 270 plus electoral college votes of states that have passed this law go to whoever wins the national popular vote. And then it transforms this country. Like we end the era of swing states and safe states.

1:27:59Every person's ballot counts the same. The fight for voting rights laws in every state suddenly affect the whole national picture. It's, you know, it would be complicated and messy, but also glorious. And I want it so bad. I love it. I've thought about it for a while now, and I've been like keeping track of how close we're getting to like the. So close. Yeah. We're pretty close now. Are you worried about the legal challenges or that like whether it survives legal challenges? Because there's a few there's a few arguments, legal arguments about like why it might be tricky to pull off. And one of the more practical ones is that like it wouldn't get challenged until in the midst of an election.

1:28:34So it has provisions in it about like how to be able to withdraw from it and so forth. You know, it's been like scrutinized in a whole bunch of different ways. And I think it's it looks legally sound to me. I'm not a lawyer myself. I will say, even if it is completely legally legit, I'd say that this Supreme Court might find some basis in which to strike it down. So that goes to another thing I argue for in the book. So step one, we win the states, we start moving NIPFIC through more state legislatures. We need 48 more electoral college votes to be able to put it into effect. So when trifectas in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, New Hampshire, boom, more than enough electoral college votes.

1:29:10great. Let's add Alaska while we're at it. But then 2028 comes along and we existentially have to win presidency, House and U.S. Senate. And I think ideally we win a majority of the House delegations in a majority of states so that if Trump once again tries to mess with the Electoral College, if it's still in place in the way that it is right now, and the election goes to a vote in the House of House delegations, that the election is not overturned through another coup attempts, which... How close are we to a majority of House delegations? Far. We are far right now. Right now, Republicans have 30 House delegation majorities.

1:29:46And we have two election cycles to be able to change that. And so that is totally doable. It's far. It's not crazy far, though. It's not crazy. Yeah. And there are enough states where we could absolutely be able to win. It means organizing in places like Alaska, where Trump won by 14 percentage points, but is now hideously unpopular and Mary Paltola could win the Senate race. We can win the house race. We could win the governorship there. We could have a multi-party coalitions in the legislature. Like Iowa, we could win a majority of the house seats as well as the governorship, the attorney general's race, the U S Senate race.

1:30:18Like there are, there are ways that we can flip a house delegation majorities that also, by the way, make life better for people in those States and when U S Senate majorities. So big map, big battlefield, lots to do. And my argument to people is work where you are to improve policies, build, organize locally, and then choose some places, maybe one place where elections are really close. It could be adopting a house district. It could be deciding to adopt a state legislative chamber and pour yourself, get a group of friends together, pour yourself into making a difference in that place too. This is Vote Save America's Adopt a State Project.

1:30:52There you go. Pioneering in this regard. If you do that for a couple hours a month, then add up enough months and you can have a gigantic impact, especially if you find a way to make it fun with your friends, maybe involving alcohol or some kind of beverage. There's lots of ways to do this. They can feel really good when you win. This is one of the reasons I think we have so many volunteers in Wisconsin is we've found, we lean into so many different fights. People have the experience of being part of winning something, often something very close over and over. And it feels incredible to stay up late, watch the returns come in and realize that you helped make the difference in a nail-biter election that changes everything.

1:31:27So - Best feeling in the world. Best feeling. If you're a political nerd. Yeah, I mean - Even if you're not, it'll be a pretty good fit. It'll turn you into political nerds. Landslides are great. Like, love those too. But the, like, if we're winning landslides, then our map's not big enough. You know what I mean? Like, there's so many places where one more push can get us over the edge, and let's do those places too. So 28, we win the federal trifecta. We get through whatever coup attempt it is that Donald Trump tries to pull. And we thank goodness that we elected pro-democracy mayors and governors and attorneys general who fought back against whatever Trump's shenanigans turned out to be.

1:32:00We have a new president. They do an inaugural address. It's a great speech. They have an even bigger crowd than Trump's 2016 inaugural. We're thrilled. And then, and this is a big, and then we have to actually abolish the filibuster and pass fundamental democracy reform to unrig the American system of government. And that is, I go sort of level by level of the American political system in the book and who's working on it, where we need to win to be able to change it. But my argument that all kind of rolls up to the plan and this is the plan is that we have to add states to unbalance the U.S. Senate.

1:32:37We have to reform the U.S. Supreme Court. I think term limits is the most interesting option. If the U.S. Supreme Court decides that Congress doesn't have the power to do that, then it certainly has the power to expand the number of justices. So there's another option there too. We have to have some combination of a national gerrymandering ban and doubling the size of the House. I'm really interested in proportional representation for U.S. House members with multi-member districts. These are ideas that a lot of people don't know about right now. I've read about them in the book. There's lots of countries that do this.

1:33:05I mean, in American history, these things have happened before. But this system right now where we've gutted the Voting Rights Act, where we can have the country completely rigged after each census and even in between the census. this. So most House districts, voters have no real say, where Republicans have a structural advantage in the U.S. Senate, plus a filibuster that only blocks things that Democrats might want to do. Essentially, it allows tax cuts for rich people and confirmation of Supreme Court justices. And then this imperial presidency chosen through the Electoral College that Congress can't act to do anything about because of the filibuster and the courts won't do anything because they have a a hammerlock on the US Supreme Court.

1:33:43It just doesn't work. It doesn't work to have a country that has a huge diversity of views in which our structures are built to ratchet things just to the right. And so what we've experienced this century is more than any other time in American history, a series of change elections where people are fed up and they vote for change. And when Republicans come, they're like, not that like that. The Republicans screw everything up. And when Democrats come in, a whole bunch of the stuff that they campaign on, they can't do because the system is set up to block it. The U.S. Supreme Court strikes it down.

1:34:13The Senate filibuster blocks it. And so a lot of people feel, and I think rightly, that the economic system is not working for them, that basic things like being able to get healthcare or childcare, they vote for people who say that they're going to deliver it and then it doesn't come through. And if you ask yourself why that is, it is generally not that Democrats have a failure of nerve to vote for the thing they want. The House passes these things over and over again. It's because we have a system that is rigged against delivering for regular people. And so this is the plan, maps out the plan to change that in a way that we've changed how the government functions over and over throughout history.

1:34:49And then about a half century ago, we stopped. We stopped the amendment in the constitution. We stopped adding states. We stopped changing how senators are elected. We stopped changing the size of the house. We stopped changing the size of the Supreme Court. All those things used to change regularly. And we've been stuck in this kind of failure mode where the change that people vote for, organize for, cry out for, never comes. And I think it is time to change the delivery vehicle for change itself and restore the vision of the best traditions of our country and the best moments in the founding of this country, which is a system of government that actually adapts to be able to respond to the crises and needs of the time where the right of the people, as it says in the Declaration of Independence, to make their government actually work is made real.

1:35:33So I don't know if people realize or remember, because now it was all of five years ago, how close we were in 21 to getting rid of the filibuster to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. Yeah. It was just Manchin and Sinema were the only Democrats not willing to remove the filibuster. They're both gone. Yeah. Sinema was replaced with Gallego, who certainly totally in favor of that. So we basically need a 51 vote majority. And hopefully if we elect some of these new senators in some of these tough states, they'll be there as well. You bring up the 2030 then becomes a pretty important year, not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but it's part of the plan because we do all these things in 28.

1:36:17one part of your plan is to for Democrats to survive the 2030 backlash. We know there's always a backlash after there's a trifecta. There was in 2010 that, you know, there could be in 2030 if this all comes to pass. And I wonder what you think about, because you're right, there've been, and you have this stat in the book that there've been more sort of change elections, like parties switching power in the last however many years than there have been like all throughout history. It was like the last couple of decades. Since 2000, we've had more changeovers in the White House, the U.S. House and the U.S.

1:36:47Senate than any other time in history. And I wonder, like, is there sometimes I wonder this, too, is there evidence that delivering actual change, tangible change that improves people's lives makes them satisfied enough to not vote for change again, considering that, you know, Biden passed quite a bit in his first couple of years. He passed the stimulus checks, aside from those, the climate investments, everything that was in the Build Back Better bill, that was more long-term investments. Do you think that in addition to those democracy reforms in 28, Democrats need to pass legislation that improves people's lives within those first two years?

1:37:25Yes, that's the whole thing. So I want to respond kind of at three levels. All right. Level one, at the micro level, something that I think people forget and very little discussion of, is that when Biden came in, the emergency measures to deal with the COVID pandemic, the expanded unemployment insurance, the child care tax credit, there was a set of things that dramatically increased the kind of disposable income for especially like the bottom third economically of the country. And it was incredibly popular at that time. And then it all went away. And so even though it is true that like wages grew from the bottom up in the Biden economy, for a ton of Americans, especially the people who were having the toughest luck in the economy, they got a bunch of help.

1:38:10And then suddenly the carpet was yanked out from under them. And at the same time as prices were rising. So their experience was that their wages, their income went down at the same time as prices were going up. And those are the exact voters who went for Trump for the first time in either of our lives. People earning less than$50 ,000 a year voted Republican in the 2024 presidential election. So I actually think we sort of have a counter example. We have an example for ourselves of if people are experiencing material pain, then they will vote for change. That part, yeah, that part we know. We kind of saw that, right?

1:38:43And around the world, in every country, the governing party wound up losing ground in developed democracies in 2024, as I write. And prices, inflation, cost of living was the biggest issue everywhere. But we actually were doing something serious about it, and then we stopped. And there were some policy design choices in there that I I think we should rethink how we think about that stuff in the future. So that's kind of micro level. The second level is, I was once talking to an administration official who said, when you propose a policy, it's popular. When it's being passed, it's unpopular. When it's being implemented, it's unpopular.

1:39:18But when the other side tries to take it away, it becomes popular again. And the ACA, perfect example, right? And the battle, like a bunch of different policies that have been good for people have this quality. And to me, the goal of politics, you win in order to be able to pass policies that make people's lives better. So it might not be that there's an immediate policy reward, and especially policies that take a while to actually implement and get them going. It might be that you're kind of creating something that the other side can't take away that creates an enduring benefit for people. And I think that the ACA has proven to be an enormous help for Democrats, 2018, Republicans tried to take it away and it was the number one issue.

1:39:59And once again, Republicans cutting Medicaid spending that was expanded through the ACA, it is an explosive issue that helps Democrats right now. So I do think that there's, even if it takes a couple cycles, I do think there's like a pretty clear path that you can draw towards if you do stuff to help people, then the party that tries to scrap it takes a price. And if we are the party that keeps doing the good things, then the Republicans trying to scrap it have a price. But the last thing, there's this very macro level, this concept in political science of political orders, which is essentially what's not controversial in a period of time, is the thing that tells you the most about that period.

1:40:35So after the New Deal, Eisenhower came in and he did not try to rip up the New Deal. The political order for decades was that the New Deal programs and the set of economic guarantees, those were beyond politics. Through Reagan. Through Reagan, exactly. And then came the neoliberal order and Reagan and Reagan, you know, did union busting and deregulation and a bunch of stuff that is, you know, still raging through American politics. And a lot of that stuff wasn't contested. Both parties were kind of fighting on that terrain. The really big goal is to build a new political order. And I think what we want is a political order for the future where which party, you know, wins might change hands, but that certain things are actually built in.

1:41:16To me, things that start with ensuring that nobody is going broke because they get sick or nobody is unable to afford a place to live. There's an economic guarantees. And then the second, well, there's three things I want. One is make the economy actually work for working people. And I think union rights and the way our social insurance programs work are two critical elements of that. There's a bunch of others. The second thing is some rights and freedoms that need to be guaranteed and protected by the federal government that are absolutely under assault right now in a way that has been shocking.

1:41:49They're trying to repeal the civil rights movement and so much else. And it's like any group that has achieved freedom and equality in this country is being targeted by this administration. And a lot of this stuff was nonpartisan, low-stake stuff that both parties agreed in at different moments. There were bipartisan majorities. Well, the public is still a bipartisan majority for reproductive freedom. There was a period, do you remember when Republicans attacked trans people in North Carolina and it was like a giant uproar? This idea that attacking trans people is this great popular reg issue for Republicans doesn't need to be that way.

1:42:25The public is not always naturally inflamed about whether gender identity should be a political battlefield. I'd like to get to a world where everyone's humanity is something that we can, like a starting point. And the third one is democracy itself, which is for most of, there are periods when the fight over this basic question of whether we'll have majority rule in this country isn't really up for grabs every election. And one reason why we keep telling ourselves that the next election is the most important election of our lifetimes is because we keep having this question of whether it will be the last free election that America ever has.

1:43:01Right. I'd like to get a little bit away from the precipice. And that leaves tons of stuff that we can contest. And I think the natural access that makes sense is the kind of like, what is this kind of size of government, role of government in public life? There's lots of different issues that divide most Republicans from most Democrats that we can argue over. And I think having competitive pressure pushes both parties to try to figure out how to govern more effectively. I think excellence in public service and government is produced more when there are electoral stakes, and you might lose power if you don't do a good job.

1:43:31Yeah. All those things are good. But building a political order where these kind of like, you don't feel as though the ground might crack open beneath you and swallow. Not every election is like a mannequin struggle. Yeah, I would like to turn down the stakes a little bit. And then we can, you can, I don't know if it'd be helpful for the political podcasting business if fine. Yeah, but we'll take the trade. I'll take the trade, right? We'll take it. Speaking of high stakes, I know that you're staying neutral in the primary in Wisconsin in the governor's race until the bitter end. I know you're not neutral in wanting a Democratic governor in that state who will be responsible for, among other things, certifying the presidential result in 2028.

1:44:10Is that a reason for primary voters in Wisconsin to think about electability differently this year than they normally would? I think that Wisconsin voters think about electability a lot. We have over and over experienced, you know, what happens when we lose? That has not been good. We've had Wisconsin, I argue in the book, Wisconsin is like a mini version of what the country is going through right now. Because we had our authoritarian breakthrough came when Scott Walker won in 2010, and then tried to rig our political system and defund schools and public services and smash unions, all this stuff, the same way Donald Trump has done on a national level now.

1:44:48So we have experienced our own state level, you know, authoritarian moment, the same way lots the states in the South have continued to experience it. And I think there's a big debate about what is electable right now, who's going to vote, how do you energize people? And then this trade-off of what do you get when you win? What is the issue that animates you? All that is legitimate grounds for having a debate and for people making the different arguments. Wisconsin has this great tradition I write about in the book is the birthplace of the progressive movement, capital P progressive movement. And one of the reforms of the progressive movement that started in Wisconsin, swept the nation, is direct primaries to choose your nominee, where the people decide who the nominee will be.

1:45:30And the party, when the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, which I used to chair, I'm an advisor to the new chair, Devin Remerker, who's I think doing a killer job, very hard job. One of the party's core commitments in our constitution is that the party itself doesn't put its thumb on the scale. Even if elected officials and public, you know, citizens and groups and unions and everybody does their different endorsements, the party is neutral in the primary so that voters can decide who they want their nominee to be. And then the party can play a role of saying to everybody, hey, even though that was tough and messy and complicated, we're going to put that behind us.

1:46:03We're going to unite and we're going to do everything we can to chew through concrete and win the general election. And that is my own role in this fight. And that's what I invite everyone to do. You feel confident that no matter who wins the primary that, I mean, you know, all these candidates personally, do you think that all of them like could, could definitely beat Tom Tiffany? I think that there's a path with each of these candidates. And I think that what that path looks like is actually a little different with the different candidates. And they are building the coalitions around them based on their approach to campaigning and their, their arguments they're making and the positions that they have and their own stories.

1:46:37And the, the thing that would cause us to lose is if we lose the nerve to say that we can win. If Democrats decide the day after the primary that, oh, well, I guess we're not going to win, then they will not win. But if they say, you know what? This is a state where over and over 13 times since 2000, we've had elections that come down to one percentage point or less. And donating that extra buck, knocking on that extra door, calling that extra friend could be the thing that tips the entire state. If we bring that kind of will to the race, I think that any of the candidates can beat Tom Tiffany and Wisconsin can be a thriving democracy for the future.

1:47:12Last question. What is your thought process like, um, as you consider potentially running in a state that you love in Wisconsin? Uh, well, I love the living shit out of my state. I just think Wisconsin is the greatest state. Uh, and I, um, I will think about, you know, what I do in the future in the future. I think my, my just obsession right now is to make sure that Wisconsin not only wins the governorship, but as I've mentioned, the state legislative chambers in November. And those will come probably down to a couple hundred votes in a few different communities around the state. It has been the work of years to unrig our state legislative maps to get to this point where we have a shot at winning majorities in both legislative chambers.

1:47:56And next year could be a blooming of democracy and workers' rights and ability of folks to get healthcare, all this stuff if we can win the trifecta in Wisconsin in the next 99 days. So I have this book. I want to spread the gospel of rolling up your sleeves, getting involved. I want to make sure that people see the kind of hope that we've experienced in my state by building this kind of permanent campaign on a year-round basis. I want more places to do that. And then I'm going to just throw myself with everything I've got into the fight in my state, and then I'll figure out what's next. Well, I've said this on the pod when you're not here, that as a Democrat and a citizen, I wanted you to be DNC chair because I think it would have been good for the party and good for the country.

1:48:41As your friend, I'm sort of glad you're not because it's such a terrible job, no matter who has it. But when it comes to running for office in Wisconsin, as a citizen, a Democrat, and your friend, I would love to see you to run one of these days. So think about it. honored by the sentiment. We need more Ben Wickler in America. Let's zero in on what all of us can do right now. That is my message. This is the plan. He's on message. That's why we love it. Ben Wickler, thanks so much. Thanks so much, John.

1:49:17That's our show for today. Thanks to Ben Wickler for coming on. Dan and I will be back with a new episode 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. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hefcoat, 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.

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