Trump’s Wartime Messaging Disaster (feat. Jen Psaki)

25:04A sheet of talking points is not a magic document. It's based on the justification for why you're doing something right and what you want to achieve through it. And if that doesn't exist, it's really hard to write good talking points. Now, there are still things that aside like the continued use of excursion that you're like. He means incursion. He means he means incursion, but he keeps saying excursion. And so it sounds like he's talking about like a sail, you know, like a little boat sail or something. You know, I think what's clear, what it's made me think a little bit about is during the Iran negotiations, Ben Rhodes used to lead these kind of twice weekly civics calls.

25:48So calls that you're in the sit room for that where you would talk about what was happening with the negotiations and what the messaging was going to be. Right. What were the parameters of what you could say publicly? how were we all explaining from the Defense Department, the State Department, the White House, CIA, not that they say a lot, what we were saying, because you want to be singing off the same song sheet, not just for because it's better, but also for members of Congress as you're trying to get them to do things for our allies and partners, even for our adversaries. I mean, this looks like a friggin disaster, right?

26:22If you're China or Russia, you're like, well, I'm just going to sit back here and watch this craziness unfold. Um, so there's certainly that it also, I mean, you know, we both worked in a White House where there was a lot of memo writing, right. And a lot of red teaming as we called it, um, which is a good process in government though, where you're sitting in a meeting and, and we did that, but there were people who were national security leaders who were doing that at a much more highly consequential level than us, right? Mapping out what would the impact be of military action in Iran? Well, it's entirely predictable.

27:03Any national security expert will say that it would have impacted the Strait of Hormuz, that it could have led to the conversation about troops on the ground, that it's really difficult to actually get any of this nuclear material out. Point being, that process happens before you even are developing, right, the public talking points and in the process of making a decision. And because that didn't happen and it seems like Trump, I don't know the facts here, woke up on like a Friday and was like, let's do this. It looks disjointed and confusing. And meanwhile, people are like, I don't know what the hell is happening, but my gas is a more a gallon, right?

27:46Or it's$20 more to fill it up. So yeah, I would give them a F minus on there. It doesn't go low enough to do it. It's probably their worst messaging, I think, of things they've done in this term, but that's just my - Oh, for sure. I think without a question, it's their worst messaging because they don't actually have a message. It's just a rotating series of rationales that are often in conflict with each other, right? It's Rubio saying the imminent threat was not, first it's Trump saying Iran was going to attack us, there's an imminent threat. Then Rubio says the imminent threat is actually Israel attacking Iran and then Iran retaliating against us.

28:27Then there's Trump saying, no, no, we made Israel do it. In the first several hours after the attack, Trump said the purpose was for the freedom of the Iranian people. Then he said it wasn't regime change. Then it could last two weeks. It could last 30 days. It could last longer. It's just there's no story. And I think there is a lot to criticize in their communications here and their messaging here. This is ultimately... A policy problem. Well, yeah. I guess that's sort of the question, right? This is the thing you and I would say all the time is, you know, an unemployment would be at 10 % or the healthcare.gov website would not be working.

29:02People will come and say, well, why don't we get, you know, what's the press strategy? What's the messaging? And you'd be like, it's not a messaging problem. It's not a comms problem. It's a policy problem. This one, I think, is actually both. Yeah, that's true. And I used to have a mug that said NACP, not a comms problem because this is - You had a lot of mugs. You really express yourselves through ceramicware. That is true. and not to like take any blame off of Stephen Chung here, who is yes, but but what are you working with here? Right. If you're him, it's like, OK, why are we in this war?

29:45You know, what are the basic questions? Right. Because as you all know and I know you sit in a meeting about policy, a policy decision is being made and you're sitting there saying, OK, how are we going to explain this? And you're pressure testing the things. Right. Why are we in this war? Well, because there's an imminent threat based on what? Also, the intel community is about to contradict us. So like, you know, there's like that doesn't even work as a comms thing. Right. OK, we're going to go get the nuclear material. Well, how? Well, it's really difficult to get the nuclear material. So that's not great.

30:15So point is, it's like their messaging is terrible. And obviously they should throw themselves in front of him every time he says the word excursion. But it's if I and I cannot I doubt their pressure testing things in the same way we would have or other people who are running competent communications operations would have. But they have very little to work with here because of all the reasons. Yeah, I mean, there is like there's no messaging strategy that helps that sells a war, a protracted war in the Middle East that leads to huge spikes in gas prices like there is not. The place where I think that it is fair to be critical, and I will also say, it's not the communications department's job to come up with the reasons why you go to war.

31:01It's the people – we're supposed to have that reason before we go to war. Yes. That's not our thing. Exactly. Exactly. But where I think they did make a fundamental mistake that is making their problems much worse than they otherwise would be, and they would be pretty bad under even the best of circumstances, is that they spent no time before the war trying to explain why we would go to war. Yes. Like Trump gave the longest state of the union in history and spent like two minutes on Iran. Also, that's true. And it was like, what, a week before? I mean, not even. It was four days before. Four days before.

31:33I think it was the Tuesday. and then we went to war that Friday night, Saturday morning. It's an unmemorable state of the union. I don't even remember hardly anything in it. Also, he did a speech, which the networks gave him time for, I would just note, that I don't even remember what it was about, a primetime address, and he didn't choose to do that for this. That is all true. Now, what's also true, now I feel like I'm defending Stephen Chung, which is a weird place. No, no, no. Let's stipulate you're not defending Stephen Chung. is it felt so, and we don't know, and there's reporting on this, I guess, there'll be more reporting.

32:12But as much as Trump has clearly kind of wanted to do something like this, we also don't know if he literally made the decision two days in advance, right? You know what I mean? And his communications team was like, okay, here we are. So that is possible too, I don't know. Yeah, it's very, because when you see in the polling, the polling is all very bad for this war, But how bad it is really depends on how the question is asked. There was a poll out this morning which asked the question in terms of whether you approve of the war to take out the Ayatollah and stop their nuclear ambitions. That poll is much better than do support the war with Iran.

32:52And so it's all bullshit because they were – Trump told us a few months ago that he obliterated – not even a few months ago. He told us like two weeks before the war that he had so obliterated their nuclear capacity that we would have to bomb the dust, the leftover dust. But if you – there was a way – like if you want to take the country to war, you have to do – you have to have a reason to do it. You have to do an immense planning process for what happens after the first bomb drop, which they did not do. here. They absolutely did not do. They seem flummoxed by everything that's happening. But you also have to go to the country and go to the world and build a case for it.

33:31And they did not even try. That may have failed and probably would have failed under all scenarios, but they didn't try. One of the reasons why I think they didn't try is the people around Trump who wanted to do this knew that if you talked about it, everyone would say, don't do this. And so they really tried to make the biggest, most dangerous, most consequential decision a president makes on the cheap. Yeah. Without putting any of the work in to tell the story. Now, I mean, it also is why this is, I think, the most unpopular first couple of weeks of a war ever. Is it ever? Yes, ever. Yeah. There was no polling at the outset of the Vietnam War, but I suspect this would be even more popular than that.

34:13Right. And the interesting thing, as you will know very well about since you do the polar coaster as a listener, about the freezing of that poll. Right. It's like, are people going to care in two months that the Ayatollah is dead and his son, who's more hard blind than he is in younger? Actually, if they pay attention, they'd be like, I don't know that that's better. Right. And they're they're not really paying attention. They're paying whatever more for gas. and they've lost servicemen and women from their community, they care that the Ayatollah is dead? Yeah. And then it's like, we're not ending their nuclear program because they still have know-how to do it.

34:52And we can't actually, I mean, David Sanger wrote a very nerdy but well-done story about the difficulty. Don't worry, I'm not going to spend a lot of time here. And I'm not an expert on this, but I found it interesting of like, the Iranians know. They've probably divided it up into many, many canisters, right? all of those canisters. Like you could, even if our military had to go in on the ground or the Israelis or whatever it is and get those canisters, they could drop, they could implode. Anyway, point is, it's really difficult and we don't even know where all of them. And you'll never know if you got it all.

35:21You'll never know if you got it all. Exactly, exactly. The whole thing's a disaster.

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38:10One interesting thing I'm curious your take on as a communications staffer and a member of the media now is one of the ways in which Trump has been communicating about the war is not through your typical, you know, national televised press conference, although he has done one of those, or an address to the nation. is that he is basically just doing a lot of communicating. But he's not calling anyone. He's just picking up random calls from reporters. Tommy tried to call him on the show last week because his number is so available that Tommy was able to get it. Your colleague, Stephanie Rule, I think, spoke to him either last night or this morning and had a 15-minute interview with him.

38:44First, let's start it from your perspective as a comment. What sort of agita would it give you if reporters were just calling Barack Obama or Joe Biden on their cell phones? like at all times he's just picking up the call and you're discovering he took the call by the tweet i mean a whole host of agita like not being asleep at night i mean it is there's also this larger like is accessed what should be applauded when access is like well yeah i want to ask you about that too whatever we'll get there i have no but it it is um tons of agita for a range of reasons. First of all, I mean, every president knows they should know.

39:29Trump is a little unique. Everything there is to know. Right. It doesn't mean about like how they're thinking about policies and the status of things and many things that are secret. It's not their job to know entirely, although they should always be reading and stuff. What's been reported. Right. What's out there. Like the difference between what is known about what happened in a private meeting and what isn't known. So, you know, it's like they should know that, but they don't always because they're running the country. Right. So there are things like that. But yeah, it would give me a great deal of agita, I think.

40:05They don't seem to, though, they're kind of I mean, just watching Caroline Levitt communicate about this sometimes feels like I mean, she it's like now whatever it was a week and a half ago, she left on the table that there might be a draft. Can you imagine when you were the comms director or the senior advisor, if somebody out there on a Sunday show had done that, you would have lost your freaking mind. You know, I would have marched. I would have taken, I would have met them at their house, take it, put them in a car and driven them directly back to the Sunday show to refute it. Right. Exactly.

40:34I don't even know what you would have done, but like it is those type of things happen because they're just, it's just like, they just want to please daddy, you know, and it's a crazy way to run a white house. On the question of access, right there, I was one of the people who was pretty critical of Biden, particularly in the last couple of years, for not doing enough communicating, not talking to enough people. I've been of the view that Democrats, that in this media age, politicians need to be communicating all the time. That approach has benefited Trump in a lot of ways. It helped get him here.

41:05So there's two questions around the stuff I think. One is, as a member of the media, what do you make of just the fact that we, is it like, is that a, put the specifics of Trump aside, but like, is it a good thing that people can just call the president at all times? And then like, what do you see as the limits of this as a communication strategy? On its face? I don't think it's a bad thing necessarily. I mean, it's like, I'm like, I mean, I think that anybody running for president in 2028, all 117 of them, right. They're going to have to do a ton of interviews, right. And they should, and they should talk to everybody.

41:41All of them on your show and our show. Right, exactly. Most of them should be there. Whatever else they want to do. But I agree. But primarily your show and our show. Correct, correct, correct. Sorry, no bulwark. I'm just kidding. They can do the bulwark just after us. Right, fair, fair. Make them fifth. So I agree with that. And like they have people have to be out there. And whenever somebody is even coming on our show, I'm sure for you guys, and they're like litigating, like we can't do 10 minutes. We can only do six. You're like, okay. You know, just wait till you have to do like a round robin of 12 interviews when you're like on the road or whatever it may be.

42:16So I think that's a good thing. I think the thing that is challenging or concerning, and it's hard to even monitor this really, is sometimes people, reporters, journalists talk to a president and then they feel like giddy about it. Right. They feel like, oh, well, I can call Donald Trump and like I can talk to him and like he has gives me all this access. And, you know, he calls me and teases me about my interviews or whatever it may be. And there's no way that doesn't shade how they report things or talk about them, even if it's not conscious. Now, there are many people who don't do that. Right.

42:52So it's but it's like it's a very hard thing to to monitor. I feel like I was reading this interview with or saw it. I don't remember. It's all running together with Jeffrey Goldberg. right, that I think he did with Ben Smith, where he talked about how after he reported on Signal Gate, Trump was like, you won this one. Why don't you come see me more? Right. And like Jeff Goldberg doesn't give a shit about that. Right. He's not going to like change his reporting because Trump is like, come see me. I don't know that that's true for everybody. And even if it's not conscious. And I think that is the thing that's a little tricky.

43:23Yeah. Look, I mean, every president does the access thing like when we were i mean we did tons of off the records and like yeah all we would we would bring in columnists off the record all the time to meet with obama you'd bring in people you know you do on the record stuff too but one of the ways you just like you hope it shapes coverage and it's not just like grifting in terms of shaping coverage you're like the idea of the off the record conversation is to have or the background conversation like and you can we can dispute the like journalistic ethics of participating in these things but the argument for from our side was you want people to understand why the president is doing certain things in ways in which he can't, if he were to just, you're never going to ask him those questions in every, but if he explains the strategy or his general approach to politics, policy, et cetera, you're at least interpreting the things you see him saying and doing through the framework of what we're doing.

44:18Like David Plouffe and I, when we were in the White House, we used to do a, I think it was a weekly meeting, deep background meeting with the White House press, that we would try to try to explain it's people like like this i want you to understand how we see the world yeah so when you see what we're saying you understand from our perspective you can yeah you can think it's stupid or wrong or bad or whatever else but at least you understand what our thought process is i think the hard part with the trump cell phone thing and this is unique to trump is there and you sort of you hinted at this but there is this confusing access with information, which if the president talks to you, but he doesn't tell you anything true.

44:55Any lies, right? Yes. Yeah. It's like, what is the value? Yeah, that's exactly right. It is certainly true, and I believe this, that people should take what the president says seriously, even Trump. And Trump gets away with saying a lot of things because a lot of people in the press don't take him seriously. I was yelling about this with John yesterday, but Trump said that he believed that Iran was about to strike the United States and that they were going to have a nuclear weapon within a short period of time. That is a lie. Yeah. That is not borne out by any of the intelligence. His own DNI and CIA director would not say that under oath yesterday.

45:35And we just sort of like, ah, Trump says things, you know? And so there is like, I won't even take it seriously, but it's like, there is something that's like uncomfortable with the breathless, like, uh, selfie videos reporters are taking, which is like, I just got off the phone with Trump and here's what he told me. And it's like, well, what's the context for that? Like, what does that contradict? Like, it contradicts what he said before, what he's going to say after. Like, what? Like, I don't know the right answer. I'm not a reporter. It's not for me to decide. But there is just something uncomfortable with, like, I both want people, the reporters, to take what he says seriously and hold him to account for those things, but also not treat his every utterance as, like, this huge exclusive get when he's just vomiting words into your phone.

46:18You know, it's like, it's very hard. It is very hard. And I think, and you know, there have been moments of headlines where you're like, what the fuck? You know, I mean, it's like, we're about, I mean, things Trump has said, but things as the administration has said that just are not true, that like there isn't enough testing of, right? And pushing of, right? And maybe that is easy for me to say, but it's like, I don't, I mean, this wasn't, I guess, Trump driven, but I remember when Tom Homan went in, right? And was like the new czar or whatever in in Minnesota. And you're like, people are like, this is a leaf, new leaf turned, you know, and you're like, is it like this is the guy?

46:55I mean, it's kind of anyway, that's kind of a random example. But yes, to your point, it's a little there's something that's uncomfortable about it, even though I think Democrats who are running and the next Democratic president should do a lot more engaging with the press. Right. And I don't mean coming into the press briefing room and doing that like they can. But like I mean, doing a range of other things and it should be constant. It should be like daily or almost daily. And that's true. But yeah, there's something that's uncomfortable about the selfie videos after a call where it's like, and Trump says there was an imminent threat.

47:34And you're like, but there wasn't, you know, so it's like, I don't know. It's hard. Yeah. The other thing about this is I remember in – I actually think I was coming to see you in the White House after the election in 2016. Oh, God. And I was in town. I think I came in to see you in my old office. And then I went in to see Obama. And as I was walking in, like Susan Rice, who was National Security Advisor at the time, and a bunch of the national security people had just walked out. Obama had just done a call with a world leader and they're all, you know, all the goons are in there briefing them.

48:09They got these, all these experts. And he said to me, as I walked in, he's like, well, we're about to find out if all of the prep, you know, and the policy really matters as much as these guys say it is. And Trump navigated, he got very lucky in his first term and was able to like half-ass a bunch of things and nothing bad happened until the pandemic, Then something horrendous happened. But from a foreign policy perspective, it was kind of a quiet time. But here is the example. This is the chickens coming home the roost of a president who doesn't pay any attention to policy, isn't interested in it, doesn't think seriously about these things, and is surrounded by people who don't think seriously about these things.

48:52You end up here. And that applies communications-wise, too, which is when you're just talking about the economy or immigration. Maybe you can just like fly by the seat of your pants, say what you want here and there. But when you're talking about a war, what you say matters. And if you're just talking out of your ass every time someone calls you on the phone, you're going to have like a domestic political and international public diplomacy disaster. That's kind of what we see here. Yeah. I mean, because it's not just him kind of saying weird stuff about the Texas Senate primary, right? It's like, you know, it's it's him throwing things out there about like it may be over tomorrow.

49:35It may be months. Right. It may you know, it's like and people kind of pay attention out there to what he says. Now, some of it I'm not a markets expert. Maybe some of it's baked into the markets. I don't even know. But like it's still for people who are trying to understand like where this is going and why and what the impact is going to be, whether it's an an ally or an adversary or a senator or a person with a child in the military. It's like you have no idea. And it's real. And it's not like fun and games, obviously. I just remember how much time we spent thinking about the things that we said, not just Barack Obama, but the White House press secretary, anyone on TV, anyone who spoke on behalf of the president, anyone in the government.

50:22how those words would be interpreted by not just the American people, and that matters a lot, obviously, but the markets. There were times during the financial crisis where things that people said could send the market reeling, how it would be viewed by other governments around the world, both friend and foe. And then Tommy and I were talking about this the other day, but just as we were engaged in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, one of the things we were thinking about a lot was how the rest of the Muslim world was seeing what the United States was doing in terms of what that would mean for people being radicalized against the U.S., how we were combating the recruiting efforts from al-Qaeda and ISIS and the rest and thinking about those things.

51:01And they're thinking about none of those things, as far as I can tell. It's just sort of wild to take it so unseriously. I mean, exactly. And you think about, and I remember when I was at the State Department as the spokesperson there, you think about how people in foreign capitals, right? And every single day, yes, they read those transcripts because they see it as indications of where the United States is. And sometimes it's I mean, currently it's like a lot of people are looking for other partners, looking for other kind of global leaders or global superpowers to be partners with economically or otherwise.

51:39I know I the Pete Hegseth management of all of this. I mean, it's like, is he playing Colin Jost? Is Colin Jost playing him? I don't even know. It is. But it is. There are moments, certainly, where anyone who's worked in a White House wants to just scream and yell about the press. Right. But his strategy of berating reporters for asking very valid questions about war also is, I think people are watching that around the world, right? This is the Secretary of Defense, right? It is, you know, so it's not just, it's certainly Trump, but it's also the some of the people around him who are contributing to the lack of seriousness through which, you know, the war is being portrayed or how the U.S.

52:30government is handling it is being portrayed, of course.

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55:29And none of that freaky stuff. like sucralose or aspartame. When it comes to extreme energy justice, Deathstein and partners will fight to the death. Also, if you're not near our office, you can still try Liquid Death's sparkling energy at fine retailers like... 7-Eleven. Or learn more at liquiddeath.com. Where? liquiddeath.com. Let's pivot to domestic politics for a second. Another reason why you're an excellent guest for the show is even before you went to work for Barack Obama, you were at the DCCC when the Democrats took the House in 2006. You've worked on a lot of campaigns in your life. Sort of in the initial...

56:14Democrats were probably favored to take the House before the war. Depending on how this goes or how long it stands, that's obviously going to probably not be great for Trump and the Republicans. But right now, as we look at the... The main conversation about the midterms has been about the primaries, Democratic primaries, right? With the amount of attention that was spent on both in Texas and nationally, I'm sure on your network and our network as well, on the Texas primary between James Tallarico and Jasmine Crockett. Honestly, we have spent so much time talking about the main primary. There's a fascinating Michigan primary coming up in a couple months.

56:54There's another primary in Massachusetts, another one in Minnesota. But as you sort of look at – Democrats currently are a party a little bit adrift in terms of what we stand for. These primaries are supposed to be, I think, a way of trying to figure that out. What do you see sort of as the major dividing lines in the party that's sort of manifesting itself in the primaries here? And it could be that the primaries are each individually different, but curious your take on it. Yeah, they do feel a little bit individually different, to me at least. I mean Maine I know we've spent a lot of time talking about Maine I know you guys have too and it is what is fascinating to me about that race is that in many ways Scram Plattner has like defied political gravity right from what you and I maybe have lived through or known through doing many campaigns over the course of years which is like if you have a big scandal that comes out that's old that people didn't know about it's going to change the perception of voters of you Right.

57:53Right. What does that tell you? Well, maybe scandal matters a lot less than it did back in the age the day. Maybe Trump has muted that a bit for people. Right. Also, people are looking for and it's so hard to describe this. I guess somebody they feel they identify with as being like them. now is it like oh he's like me because I also had a Nazi tattoo I covered up no I'm not saying that but just made mistakes imperfect doesn't feel like a politician I think that doesn't feel like a politician is a big factor to state the obvious doesn't feel like Washington this is a big I live in Washington or Virginia but like it feels like a very anti-establishment anti-Washington trend that may be universal across a lot of these races.

58:44I mean, even if you look in the polling in Michigan and we haven't seen the primary outcome yet. Right. Graham Plattner, I don't know, without knowing what his political affiliation is, if you don't listen to like every position he has. Right. You might not know if he's a Democrat or Republican. Probably same with Tallarico. And they're both very progressive on a range of issues. Right. So that may be a unifying thing. somebody who can kind of break through and is an effective communicator. All of this stuff sounds very obvious, as I say it out loud. But like traditional old school politicians who have risen up through elected office feel less like this is their year to state perhaps the obvious.

59:25What do you think? Yeah. So I think it's that the focus on Texas was interesting because I think it's the least relevant of all of the divides, because I sort of see that – I see there are sort of three divides that are sort of dominating the party. One is center and left, right? Like every primary has in some way an opportunity to litigate an ideology. You're going to have a more liberal candidate, a more moderate candidate. And Tallarico and Crockett were basically – had the exact same positions. Yeah. For all intents and purposes. Yes. They were both sort of down the line in terms of like what they actually support.

1:00:01They're kind of like down the line normie Democrats in that case. There are a couple of things here and there. They talk differently about how they wanted to win the electorate. Their divide was one. Yes. Was a political strategy fight. Right. Is it, is it fire up the base or is the middle? The second divide is generational. Right. That is, that's not a good year to build. That is Seth Moulton and Ed Markey. He's just, it's like there, you see that in a bunch of these house races, You're seeing a ton of younger candidates taking on older candidates. Like that is obviously a central race. And then the third one is inside-outside.

1:00:39And the inside-outside one is one of the reasons why the main thing is interesting, which is – and it's hard. You never know what's causation and what's correlation with these things. But as far as we can tell, Plattner is winning the primary. And by how much is an open question. You see polls with him with a huge lead. You see polls with a narrow lead. But the gist of the polling is that Plattner has an advantage. Now, we haven't seen polling since Janet Mills went on the air with an ad highlighting the Reddit posts and those sorts of things. So we'll see if that changes. But it's just very interesting that this oysterman who has went through a brutal media cycle, who is leading the incumbent governor of the state who is endorsed by the DSCC and Chuck Schumer and everyone else.

1:01:36And so is Plattner winning because he is a unique political talent? Maybe. Maybe is Plattner winning because he's younger and Janet Mills would be the oldest person elected to the Senate, I believe. Certainly in our party, after everything we went through with Biden, maybe. Is he winning because she's endorsed by the establishment and including Chuck Schumer? And Chuck Schumer has a minus 31 approval rating among Democrats right now, maybe. So it's hard to know what that is. But those are sort of the things happening. I mean, every race is different, right? Yeah. Michigan has an establishment-ish candidate in Haley Stevens who's endorsed.

1:02:13Also picked by Schumer. So there's that. Also picked by Schumer and the DSCC. And then you have a Bernie candidate in Abdullah Saeed. And then you have Belly Moore, who's not an anti-establishment candidate per se, but is endorsed by Elizabeth Warren. So that one's a little hard to tell. And then the other thing you raise that's interesting in these is communication styles, right? Like what are Democratic voters looking for? because a lot of these are about, we're asking ourselves these questions about who's the best person. That was what was interesting about Texas. Who's the best person to flip a red state?

1:02:44Who's the best person to beat Susan Collins? Who's the best person to make sure that we keep Michigan? And they're making, you know, people who are Democratic primary voters are projecting what they think general election voters will think. And the communication stuff comes into play with that as well. Yeah, yeah. And speaking of communication stuff, I want to talk a little bit about the messaging. On Friday's podcast, I talked to Juliana Stratton, who's the lieutenant governor of Illinois, who just became the nominee to replace Dick Durbin in the Senate. Who is going to be in the Senate. There you go.

1:03:14Yes. She is going to be. She would not. When I talked to her, she was being very cautious. We'll see her as a senator. Yes. Yes. I kept saying when I see you in the Senate, she kept wanting to point out to me that she saw an election, which is what she's supposed to say that. Of course. But we can say that. As I said to her, if she's not in the Senate, things have gone horribly, horribly wrong for the Democrats. It's bad. Very bad. Restart from scratch. And that was a primary that didn't get a ton of attention. It also, like Texas, didn't fit exactly into some of the categories I'm talking about because you had two younger candidates, both relatively establishment figures, although there were some ideological differences.

1:03:47But one interesting thing from that race is that Juliana Stratton ran what I think might end up being the most interesting ad of the cycle. I'm going to play that ad for you right now. Oh, yeah. Fuck Trump. Vote Juliana. Fuck Trump. Vote Juliana. Fuck Trump. Vote Juliana. They said it, not me. I'm Juliana Stratton, and I'm proud to have lived my whole life on the south side of Chicago. I'm not scared of a wannabe dictator. I'm running for Senate to stand up to Donald Trump. I'll abolish ICE and hold Trump accountable for the crimes he's committed. Just like they said, fuck Trump. Fuck Trump. Fuck Trump.

1:04:22Vote Juliana. That's why I approve this message. For those who are not watching on YouTube, the last fuck Trump comes from Senator Tammy Duckworth. Yeah. And the last vote, Juliana, comes from Governor J.B. Pritzker, who endorsed his lieutenant governor. What do you think of the ad? i mean i'm like get it girl and i can't wait for her to be in the senate which she will be but the thing is that that message in a primary it wasn't exactly um jasmine crockett's who's also an incredibly talented politician but there was stylistically jasmine crockett is like one of the most fierce call out trump politicians that's kind of her her aura is fuck trump yeah yeah her aura is fuck Trump.

1:05:06Right. And so that now there's so many factors in every race, of course. But so that won't work everywhere. The fact that it worked in an Illinois primary, maybe not surprising. I mean, they have dealt with ICE overtaking their city. They've dealt with, you know, Donald Trump targeting Illinois because of J.B. Pritzker. So it works there. But I don't think that works in Michigan, Texas, and a bunch of other states. Yeah. A good friend of ours who lives in Illinois and is a big Juliana Stratton fan texted me the ad when it first came out to get a personal political experts react take on it. Yeah.

1:05:46And I think this person was uncomfortable with the ad. Like, was this too far? Was it? You know, and I think if you were of a certain era of politics where the idea that you would say fuck someone in an ad seems crazy. But like my take on the ad was, and it was bleeped on broadcast television. Yes, yes. But that's not where most people get their information anymore. So a lot of people saw it as just heard the fuck Trump. And my take on that ad is that's the that is the true belief of most Democratic primary voters is fuck Trump. And they want to and they're mad that not enough Democrats will say it, either in their words or their actions.

1:06:25And it was like This is what Lieutenant Governor Stratton said to me. It was the moment where she broke through. She was being massively outspent. People were not paying a ton of attention to the primary. So all of a sudden, people saw her. And she did sort of very cleverly used it to get her own message out. Because it's like, fuck Trump, fuck Trump. Oh, also, I'm Juliana Stratton. I'm from the south side of Chicago. I want to abolish ICE. I'm going to do these things. And then it shows popular governor, J.B. Pritzker. I like the fuck Trump lady. I'm the fuck Trump lady. Yeah, being the fuck Trump lady helps.

1:06:54And in Illinois, there's no consequences for doing that because she's going to win the general election. Yeah. If Jasmine Crockett or Mallory McMorrow or Janet Mills won a primary on a fuck Trump, maybe that would work in Maine, but on a fuck Trump message in a purple or red state, maybe there's consequence for that. I don't know, but the lesson to me from it is you have to get your message heard and you have to be willing to break with old ways of doing politics, get your message heard and take some risks. Because she was she was trailing by a lot at the time. So it's like, what do you have to lose?

1:07:32No. Yeah. I mean, and this is going to be well and it'll be very interesting to see. And we still have some time to go, but not that long before there's a presidential primary. and it's like for people who just want to hang in there, right, and raise enough money in the first or second quarter, what do they have to do? Is it a fuck Trump message to hang in there? That is the, I mean, can you imagine what the Democratic presidential primary is going to be like in that situation? Like I was even thinking back to the 04 primary, which you worked on for John Kerry. Yeah, I did. I just remember there was like this bidding war of like people saying Bush was the worst president ever and people kept saying it like in stronger language.

1:08:12I think at some point Dick Gapart may have swore. But like this time it's going to be like someone will say fuck Trump. Somebody like motherfuck Trump. Just like motherfuck Trump and everyone he's ever been with. It's just going to get like up and up and up. It's going to be crazy. I know. Exactly. Because there's going to be a tier of people who could be great presidents but aren't as well known, can't raise as much money and are going to have to find a way to break through. Do you worry as we look at the primary that we that there's this incentive, which is fuck Trump. And I don't mean just like Trump is bad, but like a literal message of the equivalent of this is like fuck Trump is a great way to get attention and raise money and maybe even get some support in a Democratic primary.

1:08:52And so you have the short term incentive to do those things, but it has potentially long term consequences, both for party branding and the general election for whoever wins the nomination. Yeah. I mean, it's like fuck Trump end, right? So it's a little Well, and the challenge, and we're all guilty of this, is like you're going to cover the fuck Trump ad, right? So there's a responsibility that lays everywhere to kind of cover things and have conversations about things that go beyond that. I think I'm interested to see, and it's like not in front of me right now. You probably are more familiar with the timeline of when we'll know this, like what the order of states is, the primary states, and how people will have to campaign.

1:09:35because the other thing that I think is going to be a challenge that that is kind of comes in partnership with the fuck Trump type of ads is if there are a lot of states where it's really like a money and media driven campaign and you're not really required. I mean, you know, a lot of caucuses have been they've done away with them for good reason. But like, where are people going to really have to campaign and have those conversations? I don't know that we know the answer to that yet. So that to me is an important question, too, because I think that's part of what makes people stronger. We don't know the calendar yet.

1:10:07And I think they have to figure it out basically by the end of this year, but it's almost certainly going to be a more expensive endeavor than it's ever been before. Because you're going to have some larger states at the front. Iowa will not be at the front. I think New Hampshire still will be in some role, but we don't know that for sure. But I think it's Michigan, Georgia. I'm not doing it. A western state. Nevada will probably be in there. And some of these – they've added not that expensive, smaller, at least two media markets. But you're going to have some bigger states. Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina was a pretty cheap, relatively speaking, in terms of media spend.

1:10:43But then also now you'll spend less money on linear TV. But yeah, your point is it's going to be harder for – under this new map, it's going to be harder for someone with little money to break out and be able to – like Pete Buttigieg did in 2020. Yes. So I think that will push people down that path. The other thing that I think it's also we just don't know how big – like I guess Trump will never go away. He's always going to be a dominant part of the conversation. I mean I think he will go away from the White House just before people panic and start throwing their phones into the ocean. But I think he will be out of the White House.

1:11:21He'll be reelected to a third terminal in the slide. But I do think by the time we get to the general election in 2028, Trump's going to feel a little bit like George W. Bush. Yes. Which is – Yeah. What's the future? Like the past, right? Are you turning the page on the past? Yes. And there'll be lots of ads of J.D. Vanson or whoever else hugging Donald Trump like we ran of John McCain and George W. Bush in 2008. But it's going to feel old. You can kind of feel it happening right now before us. Yeah. Like people are like, ugh. They're over it. But, you know, I mean, and maybe this is because I got to know you best when we were working for the Hopi Changey guy.

1:11:59But like, I also think politics often happens in cycles. Right. And there's a question of is it is fuck Trump enough. Right. Or are people going to want to feel and I think I'm a believer in this, maybe as an optimist, that they are part of a more positive movement, like something that not that you can't do both. you can, but you have to consciously do both, right? Where there's a vision for the future and also something that you're excited to do with your neighbor and not like that's uplifting, right? And not just like, you know, negative downtrodden doom scrolling. I believe this, like, once again, we have shared the same bias here of being people who truly learned about politics from Barack Obama.

1:12:44But I do believe to the core of my soul that the best Democratic candidate in 2028 is going to be someone who seems both tough enough to fight for people and fight against a broken system and to hold the people who exploited that system under Trump to account for their crimes, but also is appealing to something bigger and better. The idea that we as a country are better than what we have had for the last 15 years of Donald Trump at that point. And that that's possible. I mean, the last thing. It is possible. It's not. It's a more hardened version of Obama in 08 for sure. We've been through a lot in that time.

1:13:27but there is that we are better than this counterproductive, never-ending division in this country that we're seeing in our politics, in our media, in social media, that there is something better than this and that we are better than this as a country and that people will want that. I do truly believe that if we survive long enough to get there as a nation. And who that candidate is, great question. Does that candidate exist? I don't know. they'll have to prove themselves. But I think that's where we have to get to. And you may have to say, you should say fuck Trump along the way, and you shouldn't hesitate to say that.

1:14:05But it's got to be something bigger than that. Don't edit yourself. Just have more to say, I think is sort of the answer to that. You know, I think the other thing I've thought about a little bit with this, who knows this 2028 field and who will be in it, and it'll be interesting to watch because everyone is the answer. Everyone, everyone, your mother, all of it is, you know, So actually, Tallarico said something about this that reminded me of this. One of the things about Obama that I think was undervalued, and again, I know we're biased here, but that's that he wasn't afraid to piss some people off, including from within his own party.

1:14:40And not in a way that's like, let's piss somebody off tomorrow, but in a way that was sometimes essential because you weren't beholden to like keeping everybody happy at all times. Right. And I think Tallarico said something about immigration in this regard, and people can agree or disagree, but I think that's an interesting thing. You have to have a very tough skin to run for president and to be president. And that is one of the things I think will be interesting to watch and see as this starts happening next year. It's going to be fascinating. Jen Psaki. Come on our show first, and then their show or race.

1:15:18Yes, that's the summer. When we say the early states you have to win, we mean Jen's show and Pod Save America. Correct. That's it. Really. You know, it was great talking to you as always. Great talking to you as always. Thank you for doing this. Thank you. And we'll talk to you again soon. Good to see you. That's our show. Thank you to Jen Psaki for joining us. Love it. Tommy and John will be back in your feet on Tuesday. Bye, everyone. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to cricut.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts.

1:15:49Also, please consider leaving us a review that helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Crooked. Pod Save America is a Krugged Media production. Our producer is Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reid Churlin is our executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, We'll see you next time.