Trump Admits He's for He/Him, Not You

26:37And I worry that you'll get this like fucking mealy mouth, like, you know, just bit by bit reform agenda that is just recycled from Democratic campaigns past. I think there's sort of two things that are at play here that sometimes get conflated. One – and I would say they are related too. One is reforming campaign finance law, lobbying, just like government ethics, right? Like akin to a version of what Obama ran on in 08 and what Democrats actually passed in 2007. I think there was six or seven when we passed it. And then there is like, what do we do with the fact that our system is so filled with Swiss cheese that a bad person can exploit it with no consequences?

27:19Like how do you rein that in? What can you do to rein in presidential power? Or like, will a Democratic president come in and be willing to rein in their own power in ways that would put them under more scrutiny? And it's hard because the Supreme Court immunity decision makes it hard. Like you say, like, what is the like you could put in place a bunch of different disclosure laws or conflict of interest laws that apply to the president. You make the Hatch Act apply to the president. It doesn't currently do it. There are things like that you could do. And it is. But what do you do? What are the teeth?

27:51Right. If the president just says, fuck you, what actually can you do in a world in which the impeachment system does not work? When I wrote my book, Un-Trumphing America, in 2020, I guess it came out, 2020? Yeah, right before the pandemic. Like one week before the pandemic. And this is a big – I spent a lot of time working on this and why I thought both politically, for the sake of the party and the sake of the country, the next democratic president should do this. The next democratic president did not do this. But one of the things was repealing the OLC memo, the office legal council member that said that the president could not be indicted.

28:28Now, the Supreme Court has because that that's one of them. The Supreme Court just made that memo case law. Now, so you can't do that. But we do need to think like this should be a big part of Project 2020, 2029 or whatever is thinking about how we how we what like what lessons can we learn from all the bad shit Trump did? And how can we stop future presidents? because the system never anticipated someone as craven and corrupt as Trump. Yeah. The easy way to say it, and not the messagey way to say it, but it's like, you got to, all the norms got to become laws. Codify the norms. But how do you enforce the law on the president?

29:01Then there's the, that's the question. Like you can make the people around him, like there are all these things that you would want to do that are very hard constitutionally. What you have to do is, I think right into law, because the loophole that the Supreme court decision gives you is anything that is clearly not an official act he could be prosecuted for. And so you would have to make sure that certain things you have to put into law that certain things that the president does are not are obviously not official acts in the legislation. I think that's I'm I'm not a lawyer, obviously. It's good enough for me.

29:32It feels like by then some smart lawyers and maybe Claude can help us figure this out. Anthropics should really start paying for this. All right, Dan, we're going to we're going to move on. But there's some breaking news on this IRS thing right from a drop the case. Well, so ABC News is reporting that Trump is poised to settle the case. And instead of the$10 billion, it's going to be$1.7 billion that he still gets. But he's saying it's going to turn into a$1.7 billion weaponization fund so that people, I guess, can sue people who've weaponized the government against Trump allies. And I'm sure there'll be strict oversight over such a fund that, of course, does go to Donald Trump.

30:21And that's what'll happen there. So it's a slush fund for Trump, potentially his family and his friends? Yeah, that is about right. That is about right. Seems like a good use of taxpayer dollars. The compensation fund is believed to be the main condition for Trump to drop a series of legal, blah, blah, blah. The settlement terms are expected to prohibit Trump from directly receiving payments related to those claims. However, entities associated with Trump are not explicitly barred from filing additional claims sources. Oh, like his family and his business who also had their tax releases. The proposed fund, which would face significant legal hurdles, would draw money from the Treasury Department's judgment fund.

30:551.7 billion dollars will be coming out of the Treasury in this scenario, going into some slush fund that Donald Trump controls is what you need to know. Cool. about this. So it is some combination of what we thought it might be. And still bad. Yeah. Yeah, I'd say it's still bad. Still a lot of money. It's a lot of money. $1.7 billion. Just taking it out of the treasury.

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33:35Video calls from the L train, group chats that never shut up. Neighbors texting you the score before your TV catches up. Get a load of this guy. Ketchup on a dog. Yeah, we've got thoughts. Because nothing here gets built without conversation. Nothing moves without connection. So if you think you know AT &T, it might be time to rethink that because their network has improved, like, a lot, which means Chicagoans can keep speaking their mind with the top-rated fiber internet in the city. Chicago won't stop talking. Our improved network backs it up. AT &T, connecting changes everything. AT &T Fiber limited availability in select areas.

34:11Top-rated and fastest internet. AT &T Fiber, based on analysis by Oocalypse, Pete's intelligence data to age 2025.

34:21So despite all of this, Republicans are still projecting confidence about the midterms, which, of course, could be bullshit. Of course, they'd project confidence. But the one thing they can legitimately point to is the success they're having gerrymandering the maps, courtesy of, again, the Supreme Court. Some new developments there. South Carolina now looks like it will redistrict, even though a handful of Republicans joined Democrats to vote down the idea earlier this week. The governor is going to call a special session that will apparently require only a simple majority. So that's not good news.

34:51Louisiana advanced its plan, too, but they're getting rid of one Democratic district, not two. So slight good news there. On the Democratic side, Maryland may now move to redistrict the cycle after all. The Senate president there, who would oppose the idea, is now in talks about it with Governor Westmore. So fingers crossed there. Mississippi and Georgia will both redraw their maps, but not till 2028. So that's temporary good news. Would-be Speaker Hakeem Jeffries has announced a no more Mr. Nice Guy approach, pushing every blue state to redistrict by 2028 and promising to shame any Democrat who resists.

35:29And he also is sharpening the rhetoric on Republicans. He promised this week to, quote, crush their souls. OK. Then there's Kamala Harris, who popped up on an organizing call about redistricting with with this advice. I think that we need an expanded playbook. This is a moment where there are no bad ideas. A no bad idea brainstorm is what I'd like to call it. We talk about what we need to do and think about doing around the Electoral College. We talk about the idea of Supreme Court reform, which includes expanding the Supreme Court. We invite a conversation about multi-members districts. Let's talk about statehood for Puerto Rico and D.C.

36:14We've got to neutralize these red states from cheating, including blue states expanding their maps. So that was Kamala Harris zooming in from I don't know where. Let's have a no bad ideas brainstorm, Dan. Okay. I haven't been a part of many of them. It's not possible. There are bad ideas in a brainstorm. I've heard many of them. There are many. Many. Sometimes they leave the brainstorm and then we're saddled with them. In fact, saying that just usually elicits more bad ideas. People should have a little bit of fear of what they suggest in a meeting. What is – anyway. Talk to Kamala Harris's team about the backdrop.

36:57Anyway, she's going to be doing appearances. This was not a media event. She was zooming into – Right. I think it was Emerge, which is an organization that recruits and trains women candidates, I believe. Good she's out there chatting. We like it. What do you make of both the Democratic counterattack plan in the short term and then some of the longer term stuff that Kamala was talking about there? We have to recognize that we are now because of the Supreme Court, we are now in a state of perpetual political warfare. The maps will be redrawn every cycle and at every time when there's a change in power.

37:30So if we have a trifecta in Oregon now and we redraw the maps, Republicans get a trifecta two years, four years, six years later, they'll redraw the maps again. And we're just going to live like this. And it's going to be that way up until the moment Congress passes a ban on partisan gerrymandering. And so we have to approach this fight with the attitude that I think Hitchcock is bringing to it, which is we need a maximal approach. We have to use every single lever of power we have. If there's an opportunity to draw more Democratic districts in one of these blue states, we have to do it. If we have to repeal or find clever legal workarounds for anti-gerrymandering laws and amendments, then we must do that.

38:15Because as we can already see, Republicans are wasting no time. They're leaving no stone unturned to find extra seats. And I hate gerrymandering. You hate gerrymandering. Democrats hate gerrymandering. This sucks. Like the you know, you guys joked about the or you discussed and joked a little bit about the the plan of Virginia to retire all the justices and put new ones in. Yeah. And that does seem extreme. And it was, I think, for a variety of reasons, logistically unworkable this time. Mainly for it. But honestly, it reasons, apparently. Yes. But even yes, it's confusing. But either that sort of idea, I hate to say this, has to be on the table.

38:56That idea is no dumber or worse than just packing the Supreme Court as they've done in Florida and Utah and other places. Or like throwing out votes in an election that had already happened in Louisiana. Yeah. Yeah. It's like we just I don't want to do those things, but we have to be we have to think like that because we are we're now in a total war for democracy. The Republicans are trying to – they're just eliminating black districts across the country. When this is all said and done, 30 % of the black caucus could have their – they didn't lose election. Their districts would be written out of existence because the Supreme Court says that racial gerrymandering was okay.

39:35And we have to have a very aggressive attitude about it. So that's the short term. Over the long term, this gets into the conversation we just had about how you rein in political power and corruption from Trump. We do need to think about how, when we have power, how to use that power to protect democracy and fight fascism. And the way to do that is you have to make the country more democratic. That means getting rid of the filibuster. That means giving D.C. statehood. It means giving Puerto Rico the opportunity for statehood. Shit, if the people of Venezuela want to join America, giving Trump's approval ratings right there, we'll take them too.

40:14Cool. It is, you know, court reform, as Kamala Harris mentioned, including expansion or certainly term limits would be very helpful. And there are creative ways that I think you can get around some of the constitutional language on term limits. But we all these things should be on the table because Republicans are exploiting the loopholes in our system and they're doing it ruthlessly and relentlessly. And we have to find ways to and the system cannot work. The whole thing falls apart if the popular will of the people is denied because of a handful of justices who were put on the court by Donald Trump, a guy who only won the popular vote once over the course of, you know, they're still ruling this way decades later.

40:55Like, we have to think really hard about how we reform our system and fix our democracy, and we should be willing to expend political capital to do that. Now, I don't think we should run on that message right now. That's not what I'm arguing. But I think when we're in power, we have to look at that very seriously. Well, but I also think there's an expectation setting here, too, that I think is a challenge because we just talked about and you just talked about sort of gerrymandering or redrawing maps if we have a trifecta in a blue state and like the same breath as, you know, Supreme Court expansion.

41:26Right. And I think that we have to divide all of these reforms into reforms that we can do because we have power now in certain places and reforms that we can only do if we amass power that is much more power than we have right now. Which we can only do if we do the we can only do the latter if we do the former. Well, right. Well, that's also true. I mean, they go hand in hand. But like, you know, you really can't blame any blue states right now for except for Maryland. Yeah, this this this one guy in Maryland who's the state Senate president, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Who has who has refused to do this.

42:07So as of right now in the calendar, like he's the only one who's not doing what he could do with the power that they have in Maryland. Right. Then you sort of wonder, like, if you're looking back, it's too late now, but could Illinois have done redistricting this time around if they jumped on it? Maybe. Like, did Pritzker make a mistake there? I don't know. I don't know why they didn't do it. But, like, you know, it's too late now. But, like, that was one state. Colorado, too. Like, did they miss the chance on this? I do think there's a series. And then New York, I think there was, like, more of a legal thing.

42:36But look, between now and 2028, you think I get New York. You got Illinois. I think you got Wisconsin, maybe, which is going to be tougher because there's a Republican legislature there. But I don't know what Evers can do or the next. Pennsylvania is an option. Pennsylvania is an option. Colorado will be an option. It's Maryland, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Colorado, New York, New Jersey, maybe. I think I may be missing one. There's a list of states that can get you well over a dozen new seats. Yeah. And so all those states got to move, for sure. And if they don't move, then they deserve all the pressure and all the criticism that they have coming to them, for sure.

43:15This is hard because what happens sometimes when you redraw the districts is you take these compacted districts that are largely – they're urban districts usually made up of a large segment of the black population. And then you basically do the reverse of what Republicans do, which is then you divide that district up in several ways and put some of those black voters into these swing districts and make them more democratic. And you do – and this is one of the things that has – even New York has already said, there's already been reporting that New York may not take a maximalist approach to this in 2028 because there's fear that it will reduce New York's black representation in Congress.

43:53So we really have to wrestle with that and figure that out. But ultimately, it's not good for anyone if Republicans just control Congress ad infinitum because we don't draw the districts in the right way. Yeah. Because, you know, you like you guys were doing the math on Tuesday's podcast. And, you know, and I like the political environment still suggests Democrats will take the majority. But this is a historically good political environment. We're not going to have that every time. And if we can only have the House when the Republican president is at 38 % and saying insane shit all the time while involved in a protracted war in the Middle East, we're not going to have the House that often, which means we're not going to govern that often.

44:34It reduces the chance that a Democratic president has a governing trifecta to actually get shit done. Yeah, I mean, I was doing the math on this before we started, and I looked at the Cook Political. and you tell me if my calculation is wrong on this, but if we, if Democrats win all the toss-ups and all the lean R's, which is pretty, we're pretty good, but like in a big blue, you know, that means we get 13 seats. We flip 13 seats. And that, and for that, I was saying that if that's if Republicans then win all the likely R's and all the solid R's. And of course there are now some blue seats in solid R and likely R because of the redistricting.

45:09But so like winning all the toss ups and all the lean R's and only netting 13 seats is like not it's not great. We didn't win all the the lean R's and all the toss ups in 2018. Right. Exactly. So it would have to be a better environment than 2018, which it might be. But like still now to your to your to the broader national reforms, which, again, like we are not going to win this on a long term on a state by state basis. Like you have to have national reforms. National reform is the only way. Now, you know, federal legislation is the only way to stop gerrymandering everywhere. It's the only way to change the Electoral College.

45:42It's the only way to change the Supreme Court. And in order to do that, it really comes down to like, can we field candidates that win Senate seats in this cycle, at least Alaska, Texas, Iowa, Ohio? And people might say, oh, those are some hard states. It doesn't get easier than those. It doesn't get easier. And so if we're fielding candidates who can't figure out a way to win in those states and we're not focused on how to win in those states, then no one should be talking about all the other reforms because they're never going to get done. And one thing I do worry about is that for people who don't pay close attention to politics, they're like, well, why won't the Democrats pack the court?

46:18Why won't the Democrats do this? Why won't the Democrats do this? Well, they can't because we didn't win the Senate and we didn't win the Senate because we couldn't have a we didn't get a candidate who could win Texas or could win Iowa. So I only say that to tell people that we really have to focus on winning very difficult states, which we have a good chance of doing this in this environment with these candidates. Mary Peltola in Alaska and James Tallarico in Texas. You can go on and on. But those are the states that aren't just nice to win. We have to win if we ever hope to have these national reforms.

46:51There's a longer conversation, and it's a quite depressing conversation about the state of the Senate map. because if you sort of look at it. But it's like, that's everything. That's all the stuff we're talking about, all the anger over the VS, the Voting Rights Act and the Supreme Court, all this shit, it all comes down to the Senate. Yeah. And I mean, exactly right. And so if you look at the Senate map, I'm doing this off the top of my head, but there are only two Republicans in states, like remaining in truly swing states. And it's Ron Johnson in Wisconsin and Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania.

47:23Yep. Because we have both senators in Michigan. We have both senators in Arizona. We have both senators in Georgia. And it's like, and this is the map in 2026 where we are expanding into Alaska. This is why I think Mary Paltola's race is so important. Like if we can now put Alaska in the column, then perhaps then if Murkowski retires at some point, maybe we can get the other seat there. So now we have that. But like it's everyone's looking at Texas like Democrats always they always dream about Texas, but it never happens. And it's a lot. It's really expensive. So it was like, well, there's not a lot of other options.

47:55Yeah. You know, like we're going to have to win Texas if we hope to survive as a democracy, unfortunately. And in Florida, too. Like, I mean, this is just unless we want a bunch of liberals moving to Wyoming and fucking Montana, which. Honestly, it's the highest leverage play that Democrats could do. Move to move to Wyoming. Move 50 ,000 to 100 ,000. Move 100 ,000 Californians to. Look, Jackson's beautiful. Or to Wyoming. do it after the 2030 census is completed so that we don't lose even more electoral votes and then go yeah that's a you know what no hey you know what this was a no bad ideas brainstorm there you know there could have been bad ideas but there weren't at least well that's what we're going to call it that they could be bad ideas in there right

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50:30We yell across rooms, across blocks, across generations. Yes, nice earrings, Grammy. And now, we're doing it on our phones, too. Video calls from the L train, group chats that never shut up. Neighbors texting you the score before your TV catches up. Get a load of this guy. Ketchup on a dog. Yeah, we've got thoughts. Because nothing here gets built without conversation. Nothing moves without connection. So if you think you know AT &T, it might be time to rethink that. Because their network has improved, like, a lot. Which means Chicagoans can keep speaking their mind with the top-rated fiber internet in the city.

51:05Chicago won't stop talking. Our improved network backs it up. AT &T. Connecting changes everything. AT &T Fiber, limited availability in select areas. Top rated and fastest internet. AT &T Fiber, based on analysis by Ookla, of speech test intelligence data 2H 2025.

51:23All right, so one of the architects of the redistricting strategy, Trump political director James Blair, is about to take a leave from the White House to run the midterm operation full time. Like any good Beltway strategist, he marked the occasion by conducting a lengthy interview with Dasha Burns at Playbook about his plans, which were then transcribed. and he summed them up as attack, attack, attack. And his key quote, swing voters already think the Democratic Party's too far left, and we're going to make sure voters know just how far left they are. They are woke, weak, and way too liberal. You get three W's, you always need alliteration.

51:57He knew that liberal one at the end needed a way because you need the three W's. Otherwise, it's not a good slogan. And the whole country will be reminded of that. He also told Dasha Burns that Democratic primaries and infighting are doing real damage to the party. and that he plans to capitalize on that. Seems like that's a play for social media to get everyone fighting even more, but we can leave that aside. If I'm not mistaken, MessageBox Pro subscribers have already seen your take on this, Dan. But for those who have not visited, MessageBoxPro.com to lock in the special early sign-up price before it's too late.

52:35How's that for an organic plug? That's organic, and I'm going to make it even more organic in a second. Yes. How do you think Democrats should be prepared to respond to the weak, woke and way too liberal attack? Well, John, great question and great opportunity to talk about MessageBox Pro. So thank you for that. Some of you may remember a few weeks ago, I launched MessageBox Pro, which is a subscription service for people who are working politics and communications at any level. and subscribers get weekly strategy memos from me, data-driven insights on what to say, advice on how to get your message heard, polling analysis, and access to a community of candidates, operatives, activists, and organizers.

53:14Nerds. Nerds. Some are nerds. Some are quite cool. The real nerds are not subscribers. And we are up and running. We've already have strategy memos out on where swing voters get their information, on how to construct a narrative for a coherent, cohesive narrative for this election, what the latest polling on the economy says and what to do with it. And the MessageBox Pro community is up and running. And it's truly amazing. You have all these people in there every day connecting, sharing best practices. They're posting their questions for me. I'm answering them every day. It's really awesome. I'm really excited about it.

53:52And as you mentioned, there is a special founding members discounted price of $49.99 a month forever. It locks in forever. No matter how much Trump's raised his prices and everything else, you get to lock this price in. There are only a handful of those left. So there is no better time to sign up than now. So go to messageboxpro.com. End of quasi-organic plug. Thank you. I'm going to give a quasi-organic plug on a plug here. I was doing a fundraising event where I was moderating for a couple house candidates in this cycle. And they're in the, you know, the red to blue program and they could flip their seats.

54:32And they said to the crowd that because the, like, you know, the D-Trip offers them financial support and all the support that the D-Trip can, but like they're not getting detailed campaign advice. They're not getting detailed strategy advice. it is hard to hire pollsters, strategists, right? You've got your like very small team if you're running a house campaign. And so they were like, we listened to Pod Save America a lot to try to get advice. And I'm like, oh gosh, now I'm sorry. We gotta make sure we get some, we can't have too many no bad ideas brainstorms here. But our friend Dan here doesn't just spout off ideas on the pod.

55:12He's gonna write them down in memos precisely for candidates like this who can't afford to hire fancy consultants, but Dan can provide his wisdom in written form to all of you who are running for office, especially, and that's our house candidates. What about people who are running for like local office and races that are even smaller than that? And they definitely can't afford to have these consultants. So I think it's a fantastic service that you're doing this. I think it's very much needed. And if you are someone who's running for office out there or working for someone who's running for office, I think this would be a very, very valuable use of your money.

55:44Well, thank you for that. double on quasi-organic plug. But now I'll answer your original question. Yeah, I forgot. I forgot I asked the question. We're just plugging everything. The question relates to James Blair, woke, weak, and way too liberal. That's it. And so basically what James Blair is doing here, other than just puffing his chest in a Politico interview, is trying to rerun the 2024 strategy in 2026. And I have bad news for Mr. Blair. It's not 2024 anymore. The world has changed. Views of Trump have changed. In 2024, Trump was seen as strong, seen as much stronger than Biden, much stronger than Kamala Harris.

56:24Democrats were seen as the extreme party. That has flipped. Pluralities of voters now describe Trump's leadership as weak. There is a tip poll from last week, which shows that a large number of independents describe his leadership as weak. He is not seen as a strong man anymore, in part because he is dawdling around out there. He's not getting anything done. He's sleeping at events. He just seems distracted enough. He doesn't seem like a strong figure because he promised to take on the system and he really didn't do any of that. And even, well, I'm not saying the Democrats have, we have, are associated with American flags, baseball and apple pie right now.

56:58But voters now, because of the way Trump has governed, voters now see the Republican Party as more extreme. In the Cook Political Report poll of the 32 battleground districts, more voters are worried about Republican extremism than Democrat extremism. So, like, I'm not saying that this strategy can't have some effect. It can. It's more likely to have an effect in ginning up GOP turnout than persuading swing voters. But it is not – maybe it's the only strategy available to them with a president with these approval ratings saying all the dumb shit he's saying. But it's not necessarily a winning strategy.

57:29You get one of these attacks if you're running in a Senate race or a House race, run a bunch of ads that you, you know, some crazy position you've taken in the past. And you're weak and you're too woke and all that kind of shit. Do you, how do you respond? You respond to the attack, you ignore the attack, or you do the, they're just doing this because they have nothing to say about the fact that you can't afford gas and rent and your mortgage. You don't do that last one. But let me explain. I think the way to think about this is they just it's we're six months from the election. There aren't really ads on the air in any of these races.

58:09They've told us what the plan is so you can prepare for it. So you spend that between now and then inoculating yourself against that attack. And there are a couple of ways to do that. One is this is an attack on generic Democrats. Don't be a generic Democrat. Find ways to separate yourself from the party. You can do that going to the middle. You can do that going to the left, depending on your district. You can do that by criticizing the former president. You can do that by criticizing the leadership. Be willing to run against the Democratic establishment. That will help inoculate you against an attack on generic Democrats.

58:43So that's one. Two is the way you demonstrate strength is not trying to talk tougher on immigration or crime than Trump, although you should. If those are issues in your race, you should have positions on them that show that you take people's concerns about them seriously. The way you show strength is to show that you are a fighter, right? How you fight is more important than whether you fight left or you fight right or you fight middle. It is that you are fighting for something. So look for ways to highlight that about yourself and go on offense and attack the other side as extreme and demonstrate their extremism.

59:17Okay. All right. Good advice. You can get some more of that advice at messageboxpro.com. All right. While we're talking about democratic strategy, there's been some developments around the DNC autopsy report in which we have taken great interest. The chair of the DNC, less so. The AP reported on Wednesday that, quote, democratic operatives have begun informal discussions about recruiting a new chair and that senior strategists have even approached our pal Amanda Littman, founder of Run for Something, about the job, though she has declined. They also interviewed, the AP also interviewed current and former party officials who defended Ken Martin, said his job is safe, and are apparently mad at us for asking him why he hasn't kept his promise to release the autopsy.

59:58Then on Thursday, our friends at The Bulwark published a piece from former Biden-Harris deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty titled, Here's What I Told the DNC Autopsy. We've talked to Rob before. He's been on offline. I feel like he's been on the pod at some point. He's been on the pod. Yeah. I've been on the pod. It's a long piece. Long, long piece. But especially if you're working on campaigns, if you're an operative, if you're in the field, if you're volunteers, plenty of interesting insights that we can get into. But one notable thing I want to highlight. Rob writes that his understanding of the autopsy mystery is that, quote, no autopsy was released because there is no actual autopsy.

1:00:37The members of the autopsy team were in over their heads and struggled to put the thing together. What they produced was a loose summary of a bunch of interviews that were largely done without talking to the campaign or the big spenders, end quote. Now, Tommy and Lovett and I sort of talked about this a little after the Ken Martin interview. Tommy had heard similar reports. I had heard similar reports from people, from different people. So this is just more corroboration of that story from Rob, who was interviewed by the autopsy team. And then his autopsy, we know what he told them was never win anywhere.

1:01:12And so he published this piece. Your reactions to Rob's piece and also the continued frustrations with Ken Martin and the missing autopsy. It's just the great title for a Hardy Boys book. The autopsy DNC Ken Martin conversation is so frustrating because it's very clear what happened here, right? Like there is Ken Martin promised to do an autopsy. The people he picked through the autopsy did a piss poor job. There is no autopsy. He looked at that, what that was, said we cannot release this. It would be embarrassing. And now he's under he's out there saying we can't release the autopsy, but there's no autopsy.

1:01:56So we can't solve the problem. because what he can't do, because he has not been, like the easiest thing to do would be to say, to do it right the first time, which would have been cool. That's number one. Yeah, we could have done that. Number one. Failing that to just be honest and say it needs more time. And you would have taken some shit for that, but that is better. But then to say it's finished, it's in a drawer, it's incredibly useful. Look at the playbook we use based on it. Well, will you release it? Well, we can't release it because it doesn't exist. And so we're just like, it's a never anything.

1:02:25He's basically lied himself into a corner here. Yeah. Yeah, he has. And this is what this is what's so enraging about it, because like you said, would he have taken some shit if when they said the autopsy was going to be released, he said, you know what? It's not ready. We need more time. You know, there's a whole. Yeah. But like if I had interviewed him then and he said that to me, even if he said it to me when I interviewed him a couple of weeks ago, he was like, you know what? I know I said we were going to release it. I know people want it. We're going to the midterms are coming. and we're going to be working on it.

1:02:58And then, you know, the day after the midterms, we will release full one because it'll be, you know, we're going to head into primary season then and then for campaigns running for president, they can learn lessons then and we're going to do that. I would have been like, oh, okay, cool. Instead of what he's dealing with right now. And it is, the thing that, everyone's like, oh, the autopsy, the autopsy, who's obsessed with? The autopsy is not the fucking, I mean, it is the point because I think it is very useful, but it is the - More theoretically useful. Theoretically useful, but it's the dishonesty that is really crazy right now.

1:03:28And on Rob's thing, like, so what we have here, and this is Rob's thing in relation to Ken's answers. We have a single senior Biden-Harris official wrote his own autopsy that includes more info and more lessons than anything Ken Martin's DNC has released. And, you know, contrary to what Ken tried to tell me, like, the world hasn't ended. Democrats aren't tearing themselves apart over it. Rob writes that some of his own colleagues, like disagree with some of the things that he concluded in there fine they can write their own people can debate it figure out the best way to move forward so we can win we're all big boys and girls like we can all be trusted with the information and what it seems like for every time ken martin talks about this and now some other dnc officials former and current that are defending him is that like they don't believe that we should be trusted with the information um they don't think that we should have it they they in ken martin either thinks that we're stupid or that we don't deserve the full truth.

1:04:23And either option is completely unacceptable for the person who's running the Democratic National Committee. You know? Yeah, it's so, the whole thing is just so stupid and pointless because we didn't have to be here. Like what matters, a lot of people say, like, what are you going to learn from this autopsy? Like even if it was perfectly done. That's to me beside the point. Yes. What bothers me about this is that the way the autopsy has been handled is indicative of the larger problems at the DNC. And you hear this from a lot of people in the party, donors, operatives, elected officials. Very few people are happy with the way things are going in the DNC.

1:05:01They're not happy with how the money is being spent. They're not happy with how little is being raised. And we, like Ken Martin with you, can debate all the factors of it. But there is dissatisfaction there. And there are challenges in the leadership. And it is born by his autopsy. So what do you do about that? Can you get a new DNC chair? I don't know. It's not a particularly easy thing to do. Apparently, the big problem is not the rules and getting rid of the DNC chair. It's finding someone who will take the job because the job sucks. And it's very, very hard. And Ken Martin was dealt a very, very, very tough hand with.

1:05:34And, you know, it's just the whole thing is dumb. Well, I think the problems at the DNC and the lack of transparency and the dishonesty from Ken are also, I think, emblematic of a larger issue with the Democratic establishment. And this goes back to Rob's piece. Rob, who was one of Biden's most senior staffers, writes in the piece, quote, President Biden never should have run for reelection in the first place, end quote. Now, like credit to Rob for admitting that and also for acknowledging that when he publicly made the case after the Biden Trump debate, that Biden was still the only person who could beat Trump.

1:06:12And the rest of us who thought otherwise were, you know, self-important bedwetters. Self-important podcasters. Well, we're also a word. We're all specific words. And I was combining two was also and then everyone else is the bedwetting brigade. Yes. So beyond podcasters, anyone who thought that anyone who thought that maybe that debate was bad and maybe Joe Biden should step aside was part of the bedwetting brigade, which I guess included most Americans. And basically and Rob, to his credit, and the thing says he was basically just trying to be a team player because he was on the campaign. It's like, that's fine.

1:06:43But the reason I bring that up is I promise not to relitigate old beefs. Um, but I don't think. Let's do, let's do this entire section on Ken Martin and the guy who wrote the email that called us self-important podcasters. But the goal is not to relitigate old beast. No. And this is what everyone should read Rob's thing. And I, and I want to talk about some of Rob's insights because I think they're great. Um, and, and Rob and I have talked about it privately. So it's not like this is the first time, uh, this is happening, but I do not think that the Democratic establishment has fully reckoned with the magnitude of the credibility problem that it has with voters.

1:07:21And a big reason why is that a whole bunch of them tried to tell us with a straight face that Joe Biden was fine and the debate wasn't that bad and he was still the only person who could beat Donald Trump. And now Ken Martin is trying to tell us with a straight face that actually he has been releasing the lessons from 2024 and we're all assholes for wanting the the full autopsy and the DNC's finances are totally fine. And if people in the democratic establishment who work on campaigns, candidates, officials, if they want to keep doing that shit, fine. But don't be surprised when people don't believe what you say about politics.

1:07:55It's just like, and like, I don't, it's like, there is a, there is a credibility problem here. And I get, we've been on the inside and I get it. And you're on a team and you just, you've got to like anyone who criticizes you, they're bedwaters and all that bullshit. But like, you have to forget about the people criticizing. You have to think about beyond that, what the voters think. And don't treat voters like they're stupid. Like people know when you're lying to them. Like everyone knew that Ken Martin wasn't telling the truth in that interview. It was pretty obvious. Yeah, I mean, there are two different things.

1:08:28Yeah, that was the big problem. There's a different way in which the interview goes where Ken Martin comes on, he gives his answer and is not defensive about it. and doesn't keep – he basically kept trying to tell you that he actually, for all intents and purposes, released the autopsy so you should stop asking about it. And that's how he ended up down this rabbit hole, which he could not get himself out of. I guess the only thing I would add to this – and if you want to talk about the recommendations in Rob's report, which I think is quite good. But I just think the one – just to put a button on it and I say this with good nature is that Rob, who called the self-important podcasters in that email, discussed the autopsy today on his podcast.

1:09:08Which Rob is self-aware enough to make jokes about, which is great. Yes. Which is totally fine. Again, call us whatever the fuck you want. Yeah, I don't care about that. It's actually great for us in the long run. Right. Joe Biden, not stepping aside, cost us all a lot. Right? All of us. And forget about us, but lots of people in the country. Not us. It didn't cost even us. I'm fine. but like the whole country collectively collectively that's what i meant yes collectively and i think you know part of the autopsy is not like oh well biden's gone whatever but it is the the ken martin thing and i think the reason i was so excited about it is it like it was like ptsd from 2024 where the democratic party is like all is fine don't believe your eyes everything is good here leave it to us we got it and you're all you're all bedwetters um so what do you think some of the recommendations and insights from Rob's memo, like what stood out at you?

1:10:03So what I worried a little bit about just sort of 2024 lessons in general, the autopsy is 2024 is somewhat of a black swan event, right? You have Biden, you have this older candidate who does not leave, then face plants on a debate stage. And then they just throw the vice president with 107 days to go against someone like Donald Trump, who then gets shot in the ear. Like, you know, it's just like every like tough series of events, tough series events that are not going to, you know, knock on wood will happen again. And so like there is this world in which you could take the wrong lessons from something like that.

1:10:37Or you could just throw up your arms and say it was 107 days. We were fucked. Inflation was high. What I thought was useful about Rob's was I think some of the lessons in there are useful for campaigns going forward in terms of how you think about communicating in this media age. Yeah. Like even in, you know, even he makes a point that the campaign spent half as much on digital as on TV, which was a dramatic shift from 2020 when it was 70-30 digital, 70-30 TV digital, I believe. But TV was sort of the sort of still the dominant medium, right? It was really how it drove them is where the campaigns, the messaging they truly believed in went.

1:11:18It sort of was how they thought about the campaign strategy. and I thought just thinking about like, you know, almost not getting rid of all TV ads, but shifting the focus more digital. The one thing I thought he said at the end that was very smart was, and this is something that I think it's smart because I agree with it and I've been arguing for it for years is that you have to, digital should no longer be an apartment in a campaign. And I thought about you when I read that. It's all digital. And I think that we really have to just think that way. And there's a lot of very specific things about how you deal with creators and how to think about branding and all of that.

1:11:50And some of the other unanswerable questions about how, and we're getting really nerdy here, how you think about digital persuasion in an algorithmically powered world that only shows people content they already agree with? Yes. We had the debate a million times throughout the 2024 campaign about what is polling well and testing well and the people who test these ads and they test it with like not just 300 voters in some shitty public poll, but like thousands and thousands of voters. And like with, you know, and they're like, these are these are really great testing messages. And yet, you know, Kamala Harris talking about fascism or this or that or Bratzum or all the bullshit.

1:12:29And Rob talks about this in terms of brand. And I hate the word brand. It's icky, but I think it is useful in this. You have to use it. Yeah, I get it. But he says at one point, you know, we could have focused more on prescription drugs or whatever the top polling issue was. But that would have been driving a message when we should have been building a brand. A brand is a story about who you are and what you believe that everything else, the ads, the organic content, the surrogates, the creator appearances, the events levels up to. I think this is I think that is so important. And I worry sometimes that when we and this is like a I think a legacy of when we grew up in politics, which was like you get the polling back, you get the messaging.

1:13:08These are the top polling messages. We must get these messages out because they work with voters. but voters are never going to fucking hear these messages anymore if they are boring, if they don't tell a story about the candidate. Maybe they'll hear the messages, but they won't be persuasive as to voting for the actual candidate because they may like the message, but they may not like the candidate delivering the message or may not trust the candidate delivering the message. And so everything has to level up to who is this person? What do they stand for? Why are they running for president? So much of what Rob's memo made me think is just the importance of the candidates themselves.

1:13:45I know, I know, but you think that's fucking obvious, Dan, but it's clearly not. It's clearly not in our party because we do all this stuff around the candidates, give them good ads, good messaging, this, that, the campaign staff, we blame for this, that. But it's like if you don't, I mean, at one point he talks about, he says, digital presence is a direct reflection of a candidate's brand. It's how voters come to understand who a candidate is. For this to work, the candidate needs to be actively engaged in the planning and execution of their social media presence. and Rob tells a story about when AOC endorsed Biden, he like talked to AOC for like 45 minutes about, and she had like detailed ideas about digital, about how she wanted her, the videos they did with her, what she wanted to say, all this kind of stuff.

1:14:32And then he said when he worked for Beto, back when Beto ran, Beto was like the same way when Beto was like going viral and all that kind of stuff. And this is the same thing that I say a million times with speech writing, right? Which is like because Barack Obama was so involved in his speeches and because I spent enough time with him, that's the only reason I was able to like help him deliver good speeches. And I think on a lot of campaigns, the candidate looks to the staff and the consultants and is like, all right, make me a winner. And I just don't think you can do that now. I think if you were going, especially if you're going to run for president, you need to know exactly what you believe, exactly why you want to be president.

1:15:11And you need to be able to communicate that, if not first to the American people, to at least your staff on a regular basis. And I just don't think that has happened in a while. This is going to be an unpopular suggestion that I often offer to candidates when I talk to them. And this drives the staff fucking bananas. But if you were thinking of running for president right now and you do not have TikTok, Instagram on your phone, and you're not going to YouTube and just watching it, then you should not run. and maybe you want to put on a burner because you don't necessarily want the Chinese government slash Larry Ellison to have all your shit.

1:15:41But point being is you have to be, you have to be fluent in the language of today's media ecosystem to understand it. And it can't just be that you're, you know, Rob makes this in the point. You can't, it can't just be that your staff walks in and gives you a quick five minute briefing and a memo on what you're supposed to do because you don't understand it. When they relaunched the HQ account as headquarters or whatever it is now that was the Kamala HQ, and Kamala Harris did this briefing, she did a video for it. She clearly had no idea what it was or what it was going to do. But that is, unfortunately, that is a lot of Kamala Harris's appearances.

1:16:18Yeah. You have to swim in the sometimes very rough and dirty seas of today's internet to be able to truly communicate. I was going to say, when you said sit down and make sure you have all those on your phone, yes. I think the other thing you need to do is before you even meet with your advisors like and this sounds maybe cheesy and a little antiquated but i don't know write down type out why you want to be president what you want to do do you have a few big ideas like actual big ideas not like i want to grow the middle class i want to i want i want to bring down costs no no like like people didn't like it it was controversial everyone knew what it was by the end freeze the rent free public buses um like like uh if you want someone more moderate Gretchen Whitmer when she was running in Michigan fix the damn roads right like just pick fucking something that you actually want to do that you will be able to talk about and communicate about in an authentic way on all of those platforms that you are also watching because they're on your phone yeah if you do not know why you're running you can't answer that what the what is known once known as the Ted Kennedy question right because he failed to answer it yeah um in the 80 race uh then you shouldn't run but then then all the time with TikTok's not going to help you.

1:17:28Then you're just, then you're just consuming content. You're just doom scrolling. Anyway, go read it. It's at the Bulwark. I'm glad Rob did it. Good for him. And other people should do the same because I guess we're not going to get it out of the DNC. All right. One last story before we go. The new gold statue of Donald Trump that was gifted to the president by crypto grifters and blessed by his spiritual advisor and pastor who has repeatedly claimed that, quote, this is not a golden calf, but rather a symbol of resilience and gratitude to God for sparing Trump's life from a sniper's bullet in Butler.

1:18:02All of that is real. That is a real thing that happened earlier in the week. Trump himself couldn't make it to the statue dedication, which was, I believe, at his Doral Golf Club. But he did call into the ceremony with this observation. Everybody is taking pictures of it. Everybody is. My people told me that it's unbelievable. All day long they're taking pictures. They stand up next to it and have their picture taken. It is unbelievable. He is correct about that. I would definitely take a picture next to it. The Palm Beach Post interviewed a bunch of PGA pros who were at Doral for a tournament.

1:18:37Best response, it's big and gold about all I got. It's his place. He can do whatever he wants. I guess that's true. It's big and gold. He can do whatever he wants. what did you think of this one just so fucking weird it's so weird like i want every person in america to see this like it is a just the idea that the president just i want you to think about this for a second we're at war prices are high shit's not going great generally presidents even in the best of times are pretty busy so there's a scheduling meeting they talk about the things the president could do and remember when you're scheduling trump you have to schedule it around six to eight hours of Fox News viewing.

1:19:17And truth socialing. Well, truth socialing really happens after working hours when he should be asleep. And you decide this request comes. And you're like, you know what? We'll get used to the president's time. You know what wouldn't be fucking weird at all? You know what would not? What would definitely be good politics and not at all contribute to the idea that he's a narcissist who cares only about himself? Let's have him call into the ceremony about the gold statue delivered from God of the president at his golf club. it's so many parts of the story are funny they like the people who did the statue created the statue used it to sell a meme coin called patriot coin so this is the crypto time and then there's the pastor who's a i guess became his spiritual advisor that just did a great doing a bang up job of that sign me up um just did an isaac chotner interview which oh man he asked him uh like well how did you get into this how'd you get to become a trump supporter and he said so early on i was there and the lord told me then the first thing the lord told me was to show the world that this man's not racist

1:20:35and then and then at the end isaac acts him about asks him about the um the ai image of jesus and what he thought about that. And he said, well, again, I was one of the first people to reach out to the president and say that was bad. Please take that down as fast as possible. And Isaac said, what did he say? He said he thought it was a doctor, but again, he's no theologian. And then Isaac says, I'm not a theologian and I knew it wasn't a doctor. And the pastor just goes, great, great. So good. So I'm so glad we can last to laugh. Yeah, you know, just throw the statue up there with the ballroom and the arch and the$400 million Qatari jet and the$10 billion that he's putting in his pocket from the IRS.

1:21:16Oh, free idea for Democratic digital consultants. It's a little AI, so follow your local laws. Unclutch your pearls. Well, also, it is illegal in some states, but we need images. Maybe it's a new idea. Maybe it's a fucking Photoshop. You just need images of vulnerable Republicans worshiping at the Trump statue. That's a good idea. I think we can do it with J.D. Vance and or Marco Rubio. And you know what? Not even MessageBoxPro. That shit's free. I mean, it is now. You just said it. Yeah. We're not putting this behind the paywall. Lucky you guys. All right. That's our show for today. And in case you want more Dan and more great advice, he's back in your feet on Sunday with our pal David Axelrod.

1:21:57I can't wait for that episode. Excited. Have a good weekend, everyone. Bye, everyone. Pods of America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Farrah Safari with Reed Juerlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, 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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