Trump Held a Fair And (Almost) No One Came

19:30We have some other ones to get through, but I thought we'd start with E.G. and Carroll and the geofencing.

19:35Jon Favreau:Yeah, the geofencing one is just interesting. It's also interesting that it has an ideologically mixed ruling in part because I do think it's a novel question. And if we are going to have kind of allowing these companies to track us digitally, including in ways that in a previous era would have been only private information, then it's still being like Google has already changed their policy. So your location data is stored on your phone. They did that to avoid this issue. But if my phone knows where I am at all times, I view that information as both like my private information and useful to me.

20:09Jon Favreau:whether or not it is stored directly on my phone or stored at a server, it remains my private information in the same way that if I had written it all down and put it in my safe deposit box, it would remain private information. And I think the more that when they're thinking about how to translate our principles into a digital world, the more they're respecting how we actually use things and what privacy really means, not sort of the technical definition that's sort of blown up by how interconnected and cloud-based so much of our lives are, the better. Yeah, definitely. It's a limited, but it's a good, it's a win and a good day for privacy.

20:40Jon Favreau:I mean, like the government was trying to argue that like just demanding just a little tiny taste of your location history for a discrete period of time was not a search, which is just nonsense. And I think the court saw through that because you can learn a ton from everyone's location history. Sotomayor laid that out. I think she talked about how you can see that someone went to the psychiatrist, the plastic surgeon, the abortion clinic, the AIDS treatment center, the strip club. She goes on and on and on. And then Kagan argued. And then to a concert to jack up. And Kagan. Were you at the Great American Fair?

21:07Jon Favreau:Geofence that place. And then Kagan argued that tracking location data isn't really optional. It's like the price we all pay to use a cell phone. So it was nice to see them have a little techno fluency and understand how this stuff actually works. Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Roberts sided with the liberals. Interesting. Very interesting group. Gorsuch, Gorsuch. And we'll get to the other ones. But Gorsuch is always interesting. He's an interesting one. Unlike tribal rights in particular. Trump said that he would fight back on the E.G. and Carroll thing powerfully and strongly. It's like, no, you won't.

21:42He already transferred$5.5 million to a court controlled account back in 2023. So she's getting paid. That's the end of the road for Trump on that one.

21:51Jon Favreau:I can't believe that's the like I know. I'm glad she's getting her cash money. But man, there are so many avenues for Trump to face some kind of accountability. and him losing 5 million, while I'm glad goes to E. Jean Carroll, is not high on the list of ways in which he could have faced consequences. But there's still an$83 million verdict that he's appealing as well. That's one deal in Kazakhstan. Right.

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24:42There were also two big decisions on the president's ability to fire people at independent federal agencies. The results were split. In a 6-3 decision, the conservative majority reversed the court's longstanding precedent and said that Trump can fire people like FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, who brought the case, without any specific reason. But in a 5-4 decision, the court decided that Fed Governor Lisa Cook, whom Trump and Bill Pulte have accused of mortgage fraud, can stay on the job while litigation continues. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the slaughter ruling, quote, greatly increases presidential power at a time when it is most needed.

25:19He is right about the first part. How do you guys square what the court said about the Cook firing versus what it's saying about all the others?

25:25Jon Favreau:Well, so what the court says is the FTC is an entity that exercises executive power. The Fed is different because it's supposed to be a nonpolitical entity that is insulated from presidential pressure. And they argue that the Fed has to be independent because even the appearance of political pressure could destroy the faith in the US economy. me. Now, I think the FTC case is very bad. They threw out 91 years of precedent. And basically, the FTC, the implications go well beyond the FTC. The president can now fire leaders at will from the SEC, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the list goes on and on and on.

26:03Basically, everywhere but the Fed.

26:04Jon Favreau:Everywhere but the Fed. And he can sort of paralyze those entities by making them not have enough members. They don't have a quorum, so they can't even meet. So it's quite bad. But the Fed is different because monetary policy has to be free from political manipulation and perceived meddling. But even in this case, like ominously for Cook, the court said that Trump could try to fire her again. They just didn't. They said he didn't go through the process right. He didn't tell her why she was being fired and given her a chance to rebut the charges. And yes, they said that. I think Roberts sort of cordoning off the Fed as like a special case means that the ruling was narrow.

26:40that said, okay, they got the process wrong. And so while it's still litigating, she can be on the job. But they still have to prove that she did something wrong.

26:50Jon Favreau:She can be fired for cause. Exactly. Under the Federal Reserve Act, the president can only remove a Fed governor if they are fired for cause and he didn't meet that standard by presenting any evidence. So if she doesn't get, if her case goes away, then there's no cause. Right, but it won't go away. Ironically, it just puts more pressure on the administration to politically prosecute Lisa Cook until they can claim that she can be fired for cause, what will happen? They leave the door open to kind of evaluating whether or not they've met some threshold for cause, whatever that would mean. It's interesting kind of reading that, going back and forth between the ruling and the dissent because they're all so like mad at each other, which I think is very funny.

27:33Jon Favreau:But then you read Gorsuch wrote this like really interesting concurring opinion about it. And I see a lot of people today saying when Democrats went, we'll just put our people in charge and now we'll have that power. But as Sotomayor notes in the dissent, Congress creates the FTC. The court says that these people can be insulated from being fired by the president. And then they give all these independent agencies, not just executive authority, right, but legislative authority and judicial authority. So Congress creates these independent agencies, and they're kind of quasi-legislative, right? They can write rules and regulate and do things that Congress could do.

28:12Jon Favreau:They also do things an executive could do. And the majority decided that given that kind of mix between the authorities, they're going to give all the power to the president, right? So the president is now taking all the legislative authorities that were granted, all the judicial authorities that were granted. And oh, when a Democrat wins, we'll have the same authority. But then Gorsuch comes back and says, no, because we're going to look at this again in the future. So in deciding whether or not to allow there to be an independent agency or not. The court said, no, we'd rather make the president a supreme authority over all these legislative functions.

28:43Jon Favreau:But if a Democrat becomes president, we'll just come back and say, no one has this authority. We'll strike a bunch of this down. That's not what the majority opinions are. No, no, no. But that's what Gorsuch is saying happens next. And there is going to, but that is what happens. It is because Robert's opinion, Robert's argument is, it's all unitary executive theory. And they have been, so Robert says, the president may remove his subordinates at will because subordinates who exercise the president's power must be accountable to him and he to the people. And that's where it ends. But this is the problem because it's not just the president's power.

29:11Jon Favreau:It's congressional power. The reason there was a balance and the reason it makes sense, and I think this is why Sotomayor and Kagan are so pissed about it, is you're not just giving the president his executive authority. You are stealing power from Congress because Congress delegated some of its authority to. I agree with that for sure. I'm just saying I think Roberts and Kavanaugh, the unitary executive people, would be very comfortable being consistent in with the Democratic president on this kind of stuff, which they have shown before. Except this wouldn't be about where the authority should rest.

29:40Jon Favreau:This would be about saying that now I think it's bad no matter what. I don't think Democratic presidents or Republican presidents should have. But you come back in and then you say, actually, you can't do this because this whole agency shouldn't have been allowed to do this in the first place. So now we're not we're no longer going to say you still are in charge of this whole agency, but we are now going to restrict what this agency is allowed to. That's the Chevron. I think Leah Littman in her conversation with Dan said she was concerned about a kind of hypothetical you're talking about there.

30:05Jon Favreau:I love it. I mean, just like one thing that worries me. So you read this comment from Bill Pulte, who tweeted, as I've repeatedly said, I believe Lisa Cook will be indicted for mortgage fraud. No shit. This is a case he cooked up as the US director of federal housing. He is now tweeting this attack on her from his new job as the temporary director of national intelligence. That is chilling. I mean, yeah, the whole thing, I mean, it's nice for Lisa Cook and I actually, you know, what we're talking about is who knows what will happen, right, if this comes up again. I think that the upshot of this whole thing is there are no more independent agencies except for the Fed, potentially.

30:45And so that means that Justice Department, intelligence, all the rest of them, everything that Trump has done over the last four years now gets to happen again. like this is this this is just this is what the supreme as long as this supreme court majority is in place they believe that that no one has to be independent except for the fact well and the

31:03Jon Favreau:distinction they're breaking down right like it was always the case there were a bunch of executive agencies that the president was totally in charge of what they're saying is that these independent agencies are no longer independent even though those agencies were made incredibly powerful by congress in ways that assume that the president would be so wouldn't be solely in charge of them. And so like the that that to me is where the kind of like, yes, now FTC looks a lot like the Department of Justice, except the FTC can do more than what the Department of Justice could. Meanwhile, in a very close 5-4 decision where John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett sided with the liberals, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Mississippi law allowing the state to count mail-in ballots that are postmarked by Election Day, but arrive after.

31:43The decision could preempt similar legal challenges by Republicans and at least 14 other states that continue counting ballots that arrive after election day. Trump whined about the decision and said it proves the need for Senate Republicans to pass his SAVE Act, name dropping the five holdouts on Truth Social. How meaningful or not do you guys think this is in the context of the larger Trump assault on voting rights?

32:07Jon Favreau:I mean, I think it allows like 30 states to keep their policies in place in terms of how they count mail-in ballots. So that's pretty important. I'm sure the ongoing assault on voting rights will continue. I mean, it was a 5-4 decision. It was Trump's DOJ and the RNC trying to strike down a Mississippi law allowing ballots to be counted. I'm glad to see they made this decision. It feels just like part of a broader process of just constantly chipping away. And maybe this chip didn't come undone, but there will be many more attempts. Yeah. So Dan and I talked last episode about how Trump's trying to get the SAVE Act passed by refusing to sign the bipartisan housing bill until it is.

32:44On Monday, Mike Johnson sent Trump the housing bill anyway, which means that it will become law in 10 days unless Trump signs it sooner or vetoes it. The bill passed so overwhelmingly that Congress could override a Trump veto, though House Republicans are now unclear if they'll have the votes. Just listen to what Florida Representative Randy Fine said on Monday morning.

33:04Jon Favreau:My issue was if Elizabeth Warren thinks a bill is great, then it probably isn't. And that's sort of how I look. The enthusiasm with which Democrats had for this bill got me spooked. And I didn't come to Washington to work with Democrats. I came to Washington to beat them. Here's a message for you. Did you read the bill before you voted for it? Probably not. And here's what Trump said on Monday when asked whether he'll sign the bill. What are your plans for the housing bill, Mr. President? I don't know. I think it's so unimportant by compared to by compared to the Save America. When I look at that bill, it's a bill.

33:40But when I look at the Save America Act, it's about saving America. To me, compared to the Save America Act, just about everything is a big yawn.

33:51Jon Favreau:Wow, such an idiot. He's bored of the Iran war. Bored of housing. Just wants to rig elections. How badly do you guys think Trump and Republicans have fucked up the politics of this bill? And what do you guys think of the final product? I mean, the goal is to boost housing supply and affordability. They're going to streamline environmental reviews and encourage development. I'm not an expert on this stuff. It passed with 85 votes in the Senate and 358 votes in the House. So it's like overwhelming bipartisan support. I will leave it to smarter people to see if it will really solve the job. But like politically speaking, this is a very important issue to the American people.

34:25Jon Favreau:Like voters overwhelmingly think housing costs are really important. Huge majorities want Congress to do something about it. The underlying components of the bill when you peel them out and pull them are very popular. For young people in particular, they feel like they're never going to be able to afford a home. 60, 70 % of majorities. And so to say that that's a big yawn when it could have been your like crowning legislative accomplishment on housing, as opposed to the SAVE Act, which is a thing that people are like 52 % think it's maybe a good idea because there's, by the way, there's just not a huge issue in this country of undocumented non-citizens registering to vote or whatever the hell he's talking about.

35:04It's also not going to pass.

35:06Jon Favreau:It's not going to pass. Republicans don't want it. That's the whole saying. It's so stupid. There's no leverage here. It's funny too, because part of it, right, is like this is a housing bill that's about addressing the long-term causes of a lack of housing stock and the rising price of housing. There's no like Trumpian clean fix. He does know that no one's going to feel the effects of the housing bill for years. Yeah. You know, if it's a good bill. You can sell it. Right. Of course. Yeah, you can try to buy an administration. The Recovery Act is divided into three parts. Right, yeah. You can try to say it's a good thing.

35:39Yeah.

35:40Jon Favreau:There was a little mini fight as part of this bill for a, the details are complicated, but basically to try to prevent institutional investors from sitting on houses that a lot of experts thought would have kind of a countervailing effect to what the bill was going to do. It might actually cause housing prices to go up. Senator Brian Schatz, friend of the show, was accused of being a corporate stooge for pointing this out, including by a lot of progressives. And they did manage to kind of change that rule in such a way that it's no longer going to have that effect. And that won the day too, which was, I think, a good victory for the kind of EMB abundance people that were arguing that he wasn't being a corporate stooge.

36:20Jon Favreau:He was just talking about basic economics and what the impact would be. But this was a bipartisan bill. Elizabeth Warren fought hard for this bill. A ton of Republicans voted for this bill. It's a rare kind of policymaking victory from another era. And of course, right on the one yard line, they were literally putting up the podium and people were speaking. Well, then they were speaking at the podium. The event was basically already beginning. The staff was tweeting out how excited they were. Yeah. Caroline Levitt posted about how one of the most important bills ever, something to that effect.

36:51Jon Favreau:And he just rips the rug out right from under all of them. And now they are afraid to support it, even though it has a veto-proof majority because the dear leader says he would rather rig elections. I haven't seen these stories yet, but I'm looking forward to the anonymous frontline Republicans in races who were like getting ads ready to tee up the housing bill as part of how they were going to tackle the issue of affordability and work with the other party to show that they're bipartisan because they're in a district that, you know, Kamala Harris won or that, you know, Trump only won by a couple.

37:23Just hear what they think about this. And now the response ad is like, big yawn, says the president. Okay. Okay.

37:29Jon Favreau:So that'll be fun. So if he refuses to sign it and Congress doesn't adjourn, it'll become law. But if they don't want to deal with it, they could adjourn Congress and let the thing die. Is that basically the gist of it? What's going to happen? In 10 days, it becomes law unless he vetoes it. Okay. How would he? Yeah. I don't know that Congress... How does the pocket veto? That's just the... I don't know. All I've seen is that 10 days, it becomes law in 10 days or he vetoes it. But, you know, listening to the whole thing there, he's going to let it become law. Yeah. He's just being a baby about it.

38:01Unless, now, someone could, who knows, right? He changes his mind on a dime. So something could piss him off between now and when he decides to sign it. But there he sounded like, fuck, I'm annoyed that I have to do this. But I threw a tantrum and now I'm just going to let this bill become law. But I'm not going to be happy about it. That's sort of what I got.

38:17Jon Favreau:He's just cutting off his nose to spite his face. Someone gave him really dumb last minute advice about how to use this bill for leverage to get the same back. It was probably Bill Paltz. Bill Pulsey is exactly what I was going to say. Yeah, the mortgage. Yeah, because it combines its two passions. Mortgage. Mortgage. Housing and being a dick. Yeah. He's also, by the way, he did promise not to sign any new legislation until the Save Act was passed. He just instantly broke that promise. So in a way, he's actually returning to what he had always said he was going to do. He's consistent. Promise kept.

38:48Jon Favreau:He's a promise kept. No legislation for me.

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41:3815 term Congresswoman Diana DeGette is in danger of losing to 29 year old DSA member Milat Kuros. Senator Michael Bennett, who's running for governor, is also getting a serious challenge from the left. Republicans are having fun with all of this. Trump spent much of the weekend posting about communism, while Democrats offered their takes on the DSA wins in last week's New York primaries. Here's Zoran Mamdani himself, Josh Shapiro, and Chris Murphy.

42:02Jon Favreau:Josh Gottheimer, a Democratic member of Congress, says many of us believe, as do I, if you're a socialist, you are not a Democrat. And in fact, they put out a manifesto today. Have you seen this thing? Sounds pretty socialist to me. I think democratic socialism at the heart is pragmatic because if we cannot deliver for working people, then what is this for? I'm not interested in writing a manifesto or frankly in reading one. I'm interested in delivering. And that's exactly what we've been showing. Democratic voters in New York chose three candidates backed by Zoram Mamdani, far left and democratic socialist candidates.

42:37What message do you take from that about where your party is? Well, you know, those were races in individual districts in a whole other state. I think what is important are the people who are making a lot of noise, who are engaging in these performative politics, have to now figure out how to deliver results. I'm not a Democratic socialist, but I do believe that the Democratic Party has been historically way too timid in taking on corporate power. Democrats are not going to win by defending this version of capitalism, but I think we'll be able to offer ideas on how to dramatically reform it rather than throwing out the entire system.

43:17All right. We had Chris Murphy doing a little Goldilocks at the end there. I've already said plenty, so maybe you guys can kick us off with your reaction to this debate and what it all means. You weighed in on this? I did, yeah. I didn't notice that. There's a clip from Thursday's pod.

43:34Jon Favreau:Look, for what it's worth, slot me into the Murphy camp. I mean, like I think my big takeaway from the New York elections is how much voters hate the establishment and the status quo. And I think that is not new information. Every poll we've seen is like people really hate Trump. They also hate the Democratic Party. Things are not great. These people are pissed. The results, I think, hammer home just how angry voters are and that they are happy to trade a powerful incumbent for something new to demonstrate that anger. Does that mean that every district is going to want the furthest left candidate?

44:03Jon Favreau:No. Look who's on the ballot from the Democratic Party in Iowa, for example. They're very different than New York races. That's not surprising at all. I think what's exhausting about this and that you experience is just how much everyone's talking past each other because I think a lot of people want the same thing and they're labeling it differently. I'm sure there are some DSA members who are like classical socialists, like the Marxist Leninist state, but I think most people do not want that. It's certainly not what Bernie Sanders wants. He is talking about redistributing economic power through the democratic process, not a violent Bolshevik revolution.

44:37Jon Favreau:He believes in civil liberties and elections and change through democratic means. And it's a worldview that is a lot closer to the Labor Party in the UK or like Nordic countries than something radical like Medicare for all, the NHS. Right. These are not crazy ideas. But Trump and Republicans say, oh, this is communism. This is all about drumming up Cold War era fears. And that is more politically potent than saying you want a Scandinavian welfare state. But I think - And no one goes after the Scandinavian welfare states. Well, they got all that gas money. Social democracy is the term. Yes. In a country with a two-party system, this is inevitable.

45:15Jon Favreau:You're going to have a huge range of opinions within the party from DSA to DLC. see. And I think if we want to effectively fight back against Trump, we're going to have to find a way to work together and kind of bridge some of these gaps and find common cause on things. And, you know, which is where the kind of Josh Gottheimer kind of you're with us or against us, you're a Democrat or you're a socialist thing, I think is just reductive and stupid and not helpful. It's counterproductive. Why are we doing this? Yeah. I mean, look, I know that you had sort of said your piece about this, and I found very few responses to what you said about trying to persuade you or kind of think about what you're saying and try to respond to it in a way that was sort of treating you as you were acting in good faith.

46:00Jon Favreau:Didn't see a lot of that. Yeah, look. It is the Internet. So some of the most liberal districts in the country are feeling like they can have someone who is further to left and they know they're going to win in November and they want that kind of person fighting for them or they want to support the person that Bernie and Mamdani got behind because they really like them. They don't have a lot of love for establishment figures. They don't feel like establishment politics has done well for them, even when those establishment figures are to the left. That doesn't mean that Josh Shapiro is not one of the most popular governors in the country, or that if there was just a poll out that said, who are the most popular political figures?

46:36Jon Favreau:Well, they're Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders, right? It's a complicated, heterodox country, and we it's a big one big pro-democracy coalition. I think that puts responsibility on both sides of this divide. On the Josh Gottheimer, Jamie Harrison, James Carville side, you can disagree with people. I think you should be really critical of them. You should say why you disagree. I think Josh Shapiro actually did this well. It's like, I have strong disagreements. This district in another state, that's one district, and I'll defend my views. People should defend their own without saying that these people have no place in our coalition.

47:09Jon Favreau:If you're a democratic socialist, you're not a Democrat. You don't get to decide that. The Democratic voters in those districts went to the polls and decided. The party reflects what the voters want. The voters aren't meant to follow what the party tells them defines a Democrat. And Mamdani had said that somewhere in that interview that I thought was right. Right. And if parts of your coalition are further than the left than you like, have an argument with him, figure out the places where you agree and figure out an agenda together. Joe Biden wins the primary in 2020 and actually I thought did a pretty extraordinary job of talking to Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and kind of finding a way to bring those people into his coalition to the point where they were some of the people advocating for him the most after he blew the debate.

47:53Jon Favreau:So there are there is a way to bring these sides of the party together. On the other side, it is not just because someone is on your team and you want to and you don't like the mainstream Democrats and you think they're too centrist doesn't mean that people on the left don't have to answer for some of the dumbest or most heinous things that they've said in the past. Careful. Well, but in that and by the way, that people do we we talked about Graham Platt. People deserve a chance to explain the difference between who they were before they were in public life and who they are now, now that they have a bigger platform and more responsibility.

48:21Jon Favreau:They deserve that chance. But also that is a responsibility. You are part of a coalition. Speak your mind, say your piece, but also know that like, yes, sometimes Republicans are going to take words either in context or out of context and try to paint people that you should also want to win with what you have said in the past. It's just we're it's it's it's collectively doing what is, I think, the work of being part of one big fractious team. Yeah. AOC was asked about this in an interview with Jen Psaki. And, you know, she said this without referring directly to Daria Lisa Chevalier. But she was like, look, I think what happens is from my experience, when you actually take these jobs and you go into office, the weight of the office and the weight of the job, it does change you.

49:08And it, you know, it makes you realize the responsibility you have, which is, you know, what I said on Friday is, look, she has these views that she just articulated a week before the election, not in her old tweets a week before the election, but maybe she'll go to Congress and vote in a way that doesn't align with some of the more extreme positions, in which case, great. Everyone deserves the grace to change and prove themselves. It's just like what I thought that was pretty normal to say. I'm not concerned. And again, I'm not concerned about like DSA candidates or progressive candidates knocking off incumbent Democrats in deep blue districts.

49:45That's what primaries are for. Primaries are good. I think primaries are good no matter what. If the progressive wins, if the moderate wins, they're primaries. They're fine. That's what the voters want. I'm also not concerned about what DSA wins for Dems in more competitive districts. My only advice for those frontline Dems, which I had said on Friday, is don't be afraid to distance yourself from DSA positions that you disagree with. If someone asks you whether you agree with abolishing prisons and police and borders and you don't, just say that. Say that you don't like the ideas. Say that they're terrible.

50:18Say that they're not that great. Say whatever you want to say. But, like, don't be afraid to say that because then folks on the left will be mad at you that you said you didn't like that idea. You don't have to attack the people and try to purge them from the party. You don't have to attack their character or their person. I don't want to do that with anyone who won. But you can disagree with the ideas.

50:36Jon Favreau:And by the way, like I also then and and if you and I think there's nothing wrong with saying that I'm not a socialist and I actually think, you know, socialism. I want to figure out whatever a person like a Josh Godhammer would say it has been their actual point of view. Like, I'm not a socialist. I don't agree with socialist ideas, whatever it looks like. But to say like, I can therefore I cast you out as a means to protecting what you think the brand should be, as opposed to saying, and I look forward to having that disagreement. Right. Because I want to make my argument for how for for for why I think that it could be such a bad idea.

51:06and then would say that like, all right, let's discuss this. Let's discuss your ideas and have a debate and we can learn to work together. Maybe we can find some common ground on stuff that we do agree on.

51:13Jon Favreau:Yeah, but that, yeah, it's just posturing. It's political posturing. Like the Gottheimer version of this is frustrating. I think the reaction to you that was sort of like, how dare you criticize an elected official? I find that so patronizing and stupid because once you're in elected office, like everything is up for grabs. You're going to be criticized for everything. It just is what it is. Also the freak out, like I think the establishment should be worried about what it means for them electorally. But the people who are like, the party's off the rails. This is going to change everything. We heard exactly the same shit in 2018 when AOC beat Joe Crowley.

51:42Jon Favreau:And there was all this fear mongering about the squad. And then we nominated Joe Biden to be our Democratic nominee in 2020. And you know what? Establishment moderates. And Joe Biden went out there and said, for all that he did to bring in Bernie and the left, he also said, and I think to fund the police is a horrible idea. And he said it like he articulated it and said it specifically. And the left got really mad at him. but it's probably good that he did that because then people know where joe biden stood on that issue and didn't lump him in with the left the republicans tried to but it didn't work the online reaction to you is just sort of like the most annoying version of an online reaction which is like it must have been in bad faith like you know it means you're dead to them you're like a shill you're a corporatist you should be luigi like whatever like insane like literally people said responses and it's like everyone calm the fuck down it's a political discussion someone did a video put me in my picture next to mike johnson and said these these two are the same but this is like we've been saying that for years i know it's true it's the i do like to monitor other people's porn yeah that's your kink well manny back to our guy yeah and but also about like mom donnie i mean we we interviewed i talked to mom donnie about this directly right like he's so smart he gets it but also by the way like i'm saying that's the thing it's like aoc so smart about this he is defending uh views that i think maybe would be unpalatable to a lot of americans but he's the mayor of New York, so he's free to do that.

53:03Jon Favreau:He's evolving on certain things. He's trying to persuade on other things. He did so much work to try to demonstrate to Jewish New Yorkers that he could be relied on as an opponent of anti-Semitism without giving an inch on some of his views that are anti-Israel. Including condemning the rally that Chevalier went to. Yeah. And so, like, he, I do think online is so, it's so toxic, right? But like actual organizers, even DSA organizers that are actually trying to do this work, I think probably are not as toxic as what you are getting. Though at the same time, there are people in the real world following people like Scott Wiener around, yelling at them on the streets.

53:41Let's talk about that then. Scott Wiener, the state senator from San Francisco who's running to replace Nancy Pelosi, was over the weekend surrounded and berated by a gang of hecklers at the city's annual trans march, who told him that his long record of fighting for trans rights was no longer sufficient because of his record on Israel. Let's take a listen.

54:01Jon Favreau:Scott, I want to support someone who's so positive on trans rights, but you're a piece of shit on Gaza. How could you do that? How could you betray queers? How could you oppress people? You stuck in queer the moment you started supporting Israel, you piece of shit! I just want to read from Wiener's website what his positions are on Israel and Palestine. He has publicly called the Israeli government's action in Gaza genocide, joining Bernie Sanders and Representative Bailant as one of the only three prominent Jewish elected officials in the country to do so. He has never taken any money from AIPAC.

54:41He has voted no on military funding for Israel, and he supports Palestinian statehood. So, that was because he He didn't say the word genocide until January. And Wiener said that he left the march because the hecklers, quote, were so physically and verbally aggressive that it was impossible for me to safely remain in the park. What do you guys think? San Francisco being San Francisco or is this a bigger deal?

55:07Jon Favreau:No, this is assholes being assholes. I mean, like I'm fine with confronting elected officials, heckling them, saying whatever. But he's in a public space. You can't tell this man to leave. And also, they're so threatening there. And they sound stupid. saying your sexual orientation is predicated on your past comments on Gaza is just like, so I don't know, Scott Wiener, I've never talked to the guy like, but he is by any objective measure, an extremely progressive Democrat, who like, he's probably a touch more moderate than the squad say, because of like housing issues. The people filming this stuff, ultimately, make their movement look bad.

55:41Jon Favreau:They make Wiener look sympathetic, which I assume is the opposite of what the intention was. And I think they also hand Fox News and Republicans, a piece of content that they will now use forever to make Democrats, especially progressive Democrats, look crazy and aggressive. And so soup to nuts, it was just a fucking terrible, terrible way to conduct politics and to treat another human being. Yeah. I think if you're following around an elected official who is pro-gay, pro-trans at a trans-supporting event, and you are yelling at them and saying you're oppressing queers because of your position on Israel, even though your position on Israel is that you believe Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza, then what you're doing is being an anti-Semite.

56:29Jon Favreau:If you're following Scott Wiener around, yelling at him in this park, it is because you are being anti-Semitic. Talking about his Zionist handlers, yelling at him about his Zionist handlers. You are an anti-Semite. Oh yeah. And that is why you are yelling at this man. Whatever you tell yourself, whatever story you tell yourself online about what you believe and why it's justified, that is as pure anti-Semitism as you can see. And it is corrosive. And it's worth calling out. There's a lot of people like, you know, when someone says that Brad Lander in New York 10 won because of anti-Semitism against it, or that antisemitism played a role.

57:11Jon Favreau:I find that hard to understand because it is a very Jewish district. Brad Lander is Jewish. Dan Goldman was Jewish. But that doesn't mean that. So I don't like it when antisemitism is used as a cudgel, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth calling out when you see it and like, give me a fucking break. We live in a world where like every single person with a phone has a megaphone now and can do this kind of thing. So I don't think, you know, talking about the people who followed Scott Wiener and like they're not going to listen to us or anyone right you're not going to be able to ever stop people from being assholes and holding up their phone I do think that it would behoove people on the left and especially people who have been marching and organizing and protests for Palestinian rights and have been right on this issue from the beginning to call that out right because this is the like as Tommy said this is going to be the clip they use to show that Democrats are crazy and all that kind of stuff and And also, it's just it's good movement politics to be like, yes, we can hold two ideas in our head at the same time that it is horrendous what the Israeli government has done.

58:17And that the most important issue is the fact that Palestinians are being slaughtered and now people in Lebanon are being killed. And that is the more important issue. But also, it's still awful that this happened. And in our movement, we don't want that kind of thing. And we don't believe that like that. I think it's it's very possible to do that. Yes.

58:36Jon Favreau:And believing I didn't see a lot of it. No. And and that under that that have being morally outraged doesn't justify treating people terribly. And like it's not obviously these are just random people. You can't to a few random people following someone around. The whole movement can't be held accountable for it. And it shouldn't be. However, however, it is more than just that, right? Because you will see people defend following Scott Wiener. You'll see people defend a coffee shop that refuses to serve Dan Goldman. You will see people claim and you will see people describe any figure that criticizes following around Scott Wiener or criticizes what happened to Dan Goldman as civility politics or kind of or or performative respectability.

59:18Jon Favreau:Made up words. Right. And look, we've made fun of, you know, the red hen alert around around civility. But but if but like being if you want a movement to succeed, it has to be something that is appealing and generative and brings people in and tries to persuade people and treats them in good faith. And that's obviously not what happened here. Yeah. All right. When we come back, I'll talk to the DLCC's Heather Williams.

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1:00:55Jon Favreau:You know that song that goes, every rose has its thorn? That basically describes every June. When it comes to the Supreme Court, summer is just starting, but the Supreme Court term is ending, which means we're waiting for some massively consequential and possibly devastating Supreme Court decisions on birthright citizenship, trans athletes, and absentee ballots. I'm Leah Littman, and along with my co-hosts and fellow law professors, Melissa Murray and Kate Shaw, we'll break down every opinion and what it means on Strict Scrutiny. New episodes of Strict Scrutiny drop every Monday and keep an eye on your feed for emergency episodes when the big opinions come out.

1:01:29Jon Favreau:Watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

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1:02:22Heather Williams, welcome to Pod Save America. Thank you. It's great to be here. So you hear state legislatures as a firewall against Trump stealing an election, and it can sound abstract to people, so maybe you can help make it concrete. If we get a contested presidential results in 2028, Which chambers are the ones standing between a close call and a stolen one? Where's the actual fight? Oh, that's such a good question. You know, in 2026, we have real opportunities to create new majorities in our presidential battleground states. So think Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania.

1:02:59These are the places that are going to have huge impacts, obviously, on the 2028 presidential. And these are places where we can win majorities in 2026, which will allow us to move legislation as needed to shore up our democracy laws in those states to ensure that we've got a really strong presidential process. Yeah, I think people don't, maybe not everyone understands, though, probably more people after what happened in 2020, just the power that state legislatures have over the electoral process, over sending delegates of electors to Congress. Maybe you can speak a little bit about that. Yeah, that's exactly right.

1:03:35The presidential certification process originates in our states. And that alongside with our voting laws, with our election administration, all of that are state actions. And so the more democratic majorities we have, the better our elections are, certainly now in this environment. And the opportunities that we have to build that power this year will be sort of immediately put to use, right, to again ensure that people's votes are counted, they're counted in real race, regardless of who wins, that the election is certified and that person becomes president. So potential election theft aside, for someone who's not familiar with their state legislature or what state legislatures even do, what's a concrete example of something that a Democratic-run state legislature has done over the last few years that's actually changed people's lives?

1:04:29Oh, the one that I love to talk about is meals for kids in schools, ensuring that every kid has access to a free meal in school. This was something that passed in Minnesota when they had the trifecta. It passed in a number of states since then. It is such a great way to think about how do we nurture our kids in our community? How do we make sure that our resources are going into our future? And it also puts a little more money in people's pockets. So you mentioned some of the battleground states. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Arizona. What are the states where Democrats have the biggest opportunities this year?

1:05:08Talk about sort of the map and the target list for you guys. Yeah. So we think about the map of opportunities in building power in the states. And what that means for us is that we are looking at everything from how do we put Democrats in the negotiating room by breaking the Republican power of a supermajority to how do we make sure that our Democratic governors in states where their legislature is Republican have the veto pen? And how do we, of course, create new majorities, trifectas for the future? So those places that we can create these new majorities, these new trifectas really are centered in those presidential battlegrounds.

1:05:44Again, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, winning just 19 seats in those states will build six new majorities and four new trifectas. It's amazing, right? And And that's where the core fight is going to be. But I think it's important to also mention, right, that thinking about how do we build power for the long term? How do we start building back Democrats, particularly in the South, where that break of a Republican supermajority puts Democrats in that negotiating room? It gives them a little more power. It gives them more access to voters, to constituents, and allows them to build back for the future.

1:06:21because we know post 2030 that the census comes, reapportionment happens, and we've got congressional districts that are growing in the South. Yeah, so this is something I think about all the time now is you have all the opportunities for 2026. There's so many states now where Republicans have taken power in a state legislature and then gerrymandered the state legislature to such a degree that it's almost impossible for Democrats to make any ground. And I think about Wisconsin as an example. I remember when Ben Wickler was the party chair there and he would talk about how it's just really difficult because you can elect a Democratic governor, but they have gerrymandered the legislature so badly that they can't.

1:07:05And ultimately, what fixed Wisconsin was state Supreme Court elections. So in states where Republicans have gerrymandered the legislature, what is the strategy there? And how do we make headway in some of those legislatures that are really gerrymandered? Your Wisconsin example is great, right? So we are winning statewide or could win statewide in Wisconsin. We could win at the congressional level, although not as much as I think what was possible there, right? but couldn't flip those state legislatures. You know, I think the strategy is sort of multi-pronged, right? You can't divest in the state legislative races because we do still have legislators there.

1:07:46And those legislators, while maybe not in the majority, do still have some power to band together, to bring some folks together on issues that matter a lot, right? Particularly when there's a Democratic governor. Their assurance that he has the veto pen has been really important. So we can't walk away from the state legislatures just because it's hard. But alongside that, in Wisconsin is a great example where the Supreme Court mattered deeply. You know, these Supreme Court races are sometimes partisan, sometimes nonpartisan. But we need to make sure that we let voters know the values of these candidates and that we are thinking about a court strategy alongside our electoral strategy.

1:08:27And then I think the third thing, right, and this varies by state. Wisconsin is not a great example of this, but others are, where there's ballot initiative opportunities. That is another way in Michigan, right? We've got a people not politicians process that put a nonpartisan commission in Michigan that has incredibly competitive legislative seats and chambers. And those are sort of the three anchor ways that I think that you really start to build back. One thing that surprised me is I assumed one reason Democrats have been at a disadvantage is because Republicans outspent us on the state legislative level.

1:09:00But in 2024, the Democratic side outspent the RSLC, the Republican counterpart to you guys, roughly$175 million to$49 million, a little better than three to one. Still lost the Minnesota trifecta in the Michigan House. So beyond money, what are some of the biggest challenges that the party has faced at the state level? The attention battle, right? Right. These races are, you know, folks know these candidates less. They're often first time candidates. Right. They're running for the first time. Their name ID is not great. They don't have a record right to run on. And that attention fight is really important.

1:09:43And I think the thing when you couple the attention with the money and you think about these battleground states, we have competitive races up the whole ballot. So when you think about a low name ID candidate that's running for state legislature but has a great story to tell, competing for people's time and brain space in the election season is really hard. So I think as much as we can run as tickets, as much as we can support in coordinated campaigns and other statewide efforts what is happening at our local races, it's really important. That's also going to be an issue of sort of the hollowing out of local news and the disappearance of local news, because if you are reading about politics now, you're reading about national politics.

1:10:27And if you're reading about national politics, you're reading about presidential level, maybe congressional level, but probably not much about your state. That is exactly right. I imagine that in that situation, the ground game field probably has to be even more critical than even sort of the media strategy. Yes. The direct voter contact by the candidates is the most important thing that these races do. These candidates, you know, these districts are small enough in most cases where the candidate can knock the door of every voter in their district. They still live in their districts. So they're going to the grocery store and drop off and the library and, you know, everywhere else alongside voters and constituents.

1:11:09And they are sort of never off duty. Um, and that means that their muscle of, of communicating and talking about the things they care about, what they believe in, why they're running for office, what's happening nationally and how they put it in their own words. Um, that's happening all the time and they're building that muscle. I think we call it now they're authentic communicators. Um, but truly like they're just normal people who are having conversations with their neighbors. So the recruitment numbers are really impressive. Um, uh, in Minnesota, I think you guys have filled every district.

1:11:40Kansas has the biggest slate in 30 years. Question I had, how does the recruiting pitch go for a candidate who lives in a district where Republicans routinely win by 20 to 30 points? Because that is a getting people to run for office in the first place. Difficult. Getting people to run for office in a place where the climb is very steep. I imagine that's even harder. It is. You know, this is the thing that I was most nervous about this cycle was, you know, coming out of 2024, starting this year off. How are we going to get people to run for office? And then, of course, we had the horrific assassination of Speaker Hortman in Minnesota.

1:12:19Another reminder, right, of how difficult it is to run for office. It didn't come true. Like, people were really excited to run for office. And I think, you know, we work hard to make sure that candidates across the country have some level of tools and sort of toolkits, right, to run for office. But I think what we've seen is our ability at this ballot level to connect with voters in all kinds of communities this year and win elections. We've already flipped 30 seats. Some of these have been in ruby red districts. It's a reminder that if we don't show up, if someone doesn't show up, we can't even compete, let alone win.

1:12:55And this really feels like a year where, you know, people are seeing that one way to change the direction of the country is to change the people in power. And you've got two options in that. you vote or you run for office. And we are seeing that all over. It's just incredible. I'm sure there's an incredible diversity of candidates that you've recruited. But is there any sort of demographic group or type of candidate or profession that keeps showing up more this cycle compared to other cycles? You know, it's interesting that you asked this question, in part because, is our candidates tend to be middle class.

1:13:34They tend to be, like I said, first-time candidates. They tend to be maybe not your sort of made-for-TV sort of politician. And that is what is so great about this ballot level. It's what's great about our state legislatures is we've got real people trying to solve real problems. I feel like there is a stronger spotlight on that and you're noticing it more. it feels just different than what you stereotypically have seen in sort of national politics. Student council president. Exactly. To law school. Yes, lawyer. Right, lawyer, right, yeah. Exactly. And I think that the value of these candidates is their ability to say, you know, I get what you're dealing with.

1:14:22Here's my story and how I'm dealing with it and how it's challenging for me. This is my own personal antidote of what is happening here. But I get it. I hear you. And we may have slightly different views of how this can come together, but we can talk about it. And I think that is really what we're seeing in these candidates. It's great. Obviously, the Democratic Party's national favorability rating is in the basement. And yet state legislative Democrats routinely run ahead of the of the national party brand. What are your candidates doing that the national party can't seem to do? These candidates are community organizing, right?

1:15:03They are still talking about the thing that's happening in your backyard. And, you know, if you talk to someone who has been in office in the state legislature, you will hear them say like they are problem solvers on behalf of their community. They are connecting constituents with federal agencies that are solving their problem. They're trying to get their trash can that had gone missing and they hadn't been able to get it back. They are able to take these big policies. I like to use the infrastructure bill as an example and break it down into community impact. The infrastructure bill, what does it mean for our community?

1:15:37It means that this road is going to be fixed and 20 minutes is going to be cut off your commute time. You're going to have 40 minutes a day back in your life to do whatever it is that you want to do. That ability to really localize the national issues is really the art form of this ballot level. Everything is about your neighbor. And as much as we are a country divided, people still care a lot about their communities and their neighbors. And that is what separates things. For the person listening right now who's surrounded by Trumpy neighbors and is sure Democrats have no shot where they live, what do you say to that person?

1:16:11What should they do? Get involved in your state legislative race. Seriously. Like it is it will it will broaden what you think. It'll broaden your view of your neighbors. Right. But it'll also give you that opportunity to have those conversations. You know, these legislative candidates are surrounded by friends and family who are volunteering and talking to voters on their behalf, persuading them all the way to the end of the election. And it is in conversation that we move the needle together. You know, even those of us that are far apart, maybe not on the super mega end of things, but on the disillusioned Republican that no longer feels like they have a place in Trump's Republican Party.

1:16:56Like, there's a real opportunity to dialogue and have that conversation and find some level of common ground and honestly just listen and hold space for people. And that is what is being craved everywhere. Last question. Yeah. So give us the state legislative chamber people aren't paying enough attention to that you'll be watching on election night and what it'll tell us if it goes our way. Oh, man. OK, so I'm going to take this in two ways. One, the one that I care most about is Minnesota. I just it's my home state. You guys have been through a lot. We've been through a lot there. We just I really want to get that one back.

1:17:36So that's my personal take on it. I think, you know, if we are having just an incredible, like, year, there's real things happening in Arizona. Yeah, I saw Arizona on the list, and I was like, oh, wow. Yeah. How did we go from Arizona being so red to now, two Democratic senators, Katie Hobbs as governor, and I guess the legislature is up for grabs, too, then? It very much is. And, you know, I think this is a, this starts to tell us, right, that, like, big things are happening. But, you know, we're in an environment right now where if the election was held today, I think we've got roughly a plus four environment that we're seeing at our ballot level.

1:18:12That means that we could flip as many as 600 plus seats. There is a lot in play and these races are often run on the margins. So we've got this big spreadsheet as everyone does on election night that we watch and it's going to be exciting. Heather Williams, thanks for joining Pod Save America and good luck out there. Thank you.

1:18:38That's our show for today. Thanks to Heather Williams for coming on. Dan and I will be back with a new show 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 Reed Cherlin, 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.

1:19:04Jon Favreau:You know that song that goes, every rose has its thorn? That basically describes every June. When it comes to the Supreme Court, summer is just starting, but the Supreme Court term is ending. Which means we're waiting for some massively consequential and possibly devastating Supreme Court decisions on birthright citizenship, trans athletes, and absentee ballots. I'm Leah Littman, and along with my co-hosts and fellow law professors, Melissa Murray and Kate Shaw, we'll break down every opinion and what it means on strict scrutiny. New episodes of Strict Scrutiny drop every Monday and keep an eye on your feed for emergency episodes when the big opinions come out.

1:19:37Jon Favreau:Watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

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