How SCOTUS Is Erasing Black Voters, and Abby Phillip on Jesse Jackson’s Legacy

Summary

Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams

Episode Summary

Episode Title: How SCOTUS Is Erasing Black Voters, and Abby Phillip on Jesse Jackson’s Legacy
Date: May 12, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode addresses the recent Supreme Court (Roberts Court) Calais decision and its far-reaching consequences for Black voting power in the United States, particularly in the South. Host Stacey Abrams unpacks how the decision enables gerrymandering and what that means for multiracial democracy. She is joined by Lauren Groh-Wargo (Fair Fight CEO) to discuss the legal, policy, and grassroots responses, and then by journalist Abby Phillip, who reflects on Jesse Jackson’s legacy and the ongoing fight for political and electoral justice.

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Key Sections and Insights

1. The Calais Decision: What Happened and Why It Matters

[00:40 – 17:00]

• Voting Rights Act Section 2: Traditionally prevented electoral practices that diluted Black voting power—even if the intent wasn’t explicitly racist.
• Roberts Court Ruling: The Calais decision ruled that as long as politicians claim partisan (not racial) motives, racial impacts are viewed as “incidental, not illegal.”
• Immediate Effects: Southern states began redrawing political maps, effectively removing Black voters’ influence (ex. Tennessee’s only majority-Black district dismantled).
• Manufactured Arguments:
  • “Partisan Permission Slip”: Politicians claim gerrymandering is about parties, not race.
  • “Race Neutrality”: Deploying colorblind legal language that echoes the logic of Jim Crow.
• Stacey Abrams’ Analogy: “It’s hogwash” (03:52) and as “the stuff of termites. It eats away at our democracy while we continue to admire the architecture until the whole thing falls apart.” (16:01).

"Even the Supreme Court knows it’s cheating, which is why Justice Alito swore they weren't striking down Section 2. They were just gutting it and hollowing it out and making it impossible to challenge the bad law in the now complicit courts." — Stacey Abrams [06:30]

2. Race Neutrality as a Dangerous Distraction

[07:47 – 16:00]

• False ‘Race Neutrality’: Abrams recounts history—literacy tests, poll taxes, grandfather clauses—as example of “neutral” laws designed to strip Black citizens of power.
• Democracy at Risk: Adopting race-neutral tactics leads to the “death knell for democracy.”
• Call to Action: “We still have time to save it if we get this right.” (16:38)

"When we adopt race neutrality, we ignore race reality... It’s a fiction that tries to ignore context in favor of false idealism. And it is dangerous to democracy no matter what race you are." — Stacey Abrams [09:13]

3. Lauren Groh-Wargo: The Numbers, the Maps, and the Fightback

[17:06 – 39:00]

The Hard Data and the Political Strategy

[17:09 – 24:34]

• 19 VRA Congressional Seats at Immediate Risk: Analysis shows 7 on the chopping block for 2026, with more likely lost in 2028.
• State Legislatures at Risk: Estimated 191 Black- or brown-majority districts could vanish.
• Broadening the Attack: Redistricting could affect school boards, county commissions, public service commissions, etc.

"Our estimate is 191 [state legislative] seats could be gutted. These are Black and brown majority districts across state legislatures in the South... completely whitewashing and eviscerating Black political power." — Lauren Groh-Wargo [18:29]

Why Majority-Minority Districts Matter

[19:37 – 23:19]

• Section 2’s Power: Ensured non-white voters could elect candidates of choice.
• Historical Transformation: Section 2’s enforcement led to a surge in Black congressional representation.
• What’s at Stake: Dismantling the remaining majority-Black districts would wipe out about 30% of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Tennessee, Georgia, and Beyond: How Voter Suppression Operates

[24:34 – 34:52]

• Coordinated Efforts: Describes the “project” to shred Black political representation, especially in the South.
• Recent Examples:
  • Tennessee: Congressional map approved dismantling only Black-majority district.
  • Louisiana: Fast-tracked redistricting, discarding 40,000+ cast ballots under the guise of “emergency.”
  • Alabama: Map changed during an ongoing election, creating confusion and undermining voter confidence.

"Modern contemporary voter suppression is largely conducted through rules and administration— not like poll taxes, but more things that have this feeling of legitimacy." — Lauren Groh-Wargo [28:35]

Mechanisms and Consequences

• Changing the Rules Midstream: Candidate lists, polling places, and funding all manipulated to disadvantage Black and Democratic voters.
• Georgia’s Example: Years of targeted voter purges, underfunding, and confusing procedural changes (ex. SB202, runoff laws).
• National Impacts: Practices in Georgia exported nationwide.

How to Fight Back

[34:52 – 39:00]

• Coalition-building: Fair Fight with other organizations (Onyx Impact, Black Voters Matter, 10 Steps Campaign) fights expansively on the ground and in court.
• Key Action Points:
  • Massive voter education and turnout.
  • Build and deepen coalitions.
  • Document abuses for future legal and legislative battles.
  • Engage in nonpartisan election support efforts (Power the Polls, etc.).

"We don’t have to agree on every issue… But we can agree that we want a healthy two-party system and a multiracial democracy. And that is not controversial." — Lauren Groh-Wargo [37:25]

Get Involved

• Stay updated: Follow @FairFightAction on Instagram for real-time calls to action and rapid response opportunities. [38:11]

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4. Abby Phillip: Journalism, Disinformation, and Jesse Jackson’s Enduring Legacy

[42:14 – 72:13]

Navigating Divides and the Media’s Role

[42:14 – 51:16]

• Physical Debate Matters: Emphasizes the importance of in-person political debate and spectrum of viewpoints.
• Fact vs. Opinion: Journalists must be prepared to challenge falsehoods but cannot be arbiters of every fact in real time. The public’s values often determine which facts matter.

“We can’t have a conversation when we’re operating on disparate facts. Frankly, we can’t talk to each other when you’re on Mars and I’m on Venus.” — Abby Phillip [46:41]

• Polarization vs. Fluidity: While extremes are calcifying, most Americans remain open to changing views based on current events (e.g. immigration opinions shifting).
• Warning About Cults of Personality: Attachments to leaders can disconnect voters from facts/events and impede compromise.

Jesse Jackson: The Man, The Moment, The Movement

[55:15 – 68:41]

• Why Jesse Jackson?: His vision for truly inclusive, multiracial democracy remains relevant—he challenged the Democratic party, championed economic and racial justice.
• Historical Impact: Jackson’s campaigns for president brought millions of new voters into the process and showed what coalition politics can achieve.
• Voting Rights Legacy: Jackson’s work built pathways for today’s political movements, and the gutting of the VRA marks a direct threat to that legacy.

“He [Jesse Jackson] had a much more expansive vision for American politics than he is given credit for... The ways in which he envisioned a more inclusive society, a truly representative government—it was way before his time.” — Abby Phillip [56:45]

• Prescriptions for the Current Crisis:
  • Double down on organizing disenfranchised and young voters (“getting all possible people on the playing field”).
  • Remember Jackson’s strategy: Go everywhere, talk to everyone, build unexpected coalitions across race and class.

Homework and Continued Study

[67:43 – 72:13]

• Stacey’s Homework: Read Abby Phillip’s book A Dream Deferred: Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power.
• Abby’s Homework:
  • Read or listen to Jesse Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 Democratic Convention speeches.
  • Study the Civil Rights Movement, including memoirs by Andrew Young and other movement leaders.
  • “Go back to our history”—understand how progress has always included setbacks, dark periods, and the necessity of resilience and coalition-building.

“There are not people that we can't talk to, that we should not talk to. I think [Jackson] was such a master at that.” — Abby Phillip [68:41]

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Memorable Quotes and Timestamps

• On the Calais Decision

  "They are cheating, changing the rules and gaming the system because they know their ideas can’t win otherwise."
  — Stacey Abrams [06:04]

• On Race Neutrality

  “Race neutrality, race neutral colorblindness. These are lies told by those who want to use race to strip power but don’t want to admit it.”
  — Stacey Abrams [09:25]

• On Coalition Building

  “We don’t have to agree on every issue... But we can agree that we want a healthy two-party system and a multiracial democracy. And that is not controversial.”
  — Lauren Groh-Wargo [37:25]

• On Fact, Opinion, and Media

  "We can't have a conversation when we're operating on disparate facts. Frankly. We can't talk to each other when you're on Mars and I'm on Venus."
  — Abby Phillip [46:41]

• On Jesse Jackson’s Vision

  "He had a much more expansive vision for American politics than he is given credit for... It was way before his time.”
  — Abby Phillip [56:45]

• On Action in the Face of Suppression

  “He thought... there’s still such raw, untapped political power in the south that belongs not just to Black voters, but also to young voters, to people who are disinvested and disenfranchised, who, if they are empowered with a message that speaks to them... they can exert a lot of political power.”
  — Abby Phillip [65:30]

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Action Items and Resources

• Read:

  • A Dream Deferred: Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power by Abby Phillip
  • Jesse Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 convention speeches
  • Civil rights leaders’ biographies (ex. Andrew Young)

• Engage:

  • Participate in the National Mass Rally (May 16, Montgomery, AL): [allroadsleadtothesouth.com]
  • Follow @FairFightAction for rapid response and mobilization in TN, SC, LA, MS

• Protect Voting Rights:

  • Educate voters; combat confusion and lines
  • Volunteer as poll workers (Power the Polls, etc.)
  • Document abuses for legal redress

• Support:

  • National Network of Abortion Funds (amid rising restrictions)

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Conclusion

This episode is an urgent call to understand and resist the multifaceted, ongoing assault on Black voting power—both in the courts and at the ballot box. Through historical context, data, and discussion of organizing strategies, Stacey Abrams, Lauren Groh-Wargo, and Abby Phillip challenge listeners to become active participants in defending democracy. The legacy of Jesse Jackson and the lessons of the past show that even when democracy is attacked and seems to falter, persistent, collective action can—and must—rebuild it.

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(End of summary. For skipped sponsor messages and outros, see the podcast transcript.)

Transcript

[Stacey Abrams]

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[Abby Phillip]

as was the rest of the committee.

[Stacey Abrams]

Because as a lawyer, my rationale was that I was supposed to help make the law better. As a legislator, it was my job. But as a Democrat, as someone who believed in good policy, it was a bad, bad idea. But here's the thing. I could know it was a bad idea, but understand it should not be bad law. I worked to fix the legal infirmities in his bill, and then I worked just as hard to tank his bill and. And stop it from becoming law. And I did so without cheating. Now, some of my Democratic colleagues and his Republican colleagues were irritated with me and demanded that I just let bad bills move through the system. But I knew that the courts had been seized by the same party and there was no guarantee that the judges would make it better. And more often than not, I knew that bad law would affect the vulnerable, that they would be hurt in the process. So I use my legal skills and my legislative responsibility to fix it. And I used my liberal beliefs to stop bad from becoming law. But I didn't cheat. And yet that's what Republicans across the south are doing. They are using bad law to defend their bad ideas. They are cheating, changing the rules and gaming the system because they know their ideas can't win otherwise. Even the Supreme Court knows it's cheating, which is why Justice Alito swore they weren't striking down Section two. They were just gutting it and hollowing it out and making it impossible to challenge the bad law in the now complicit courts. And as angry as I am about that, I'm even more worried about the second argument, the race neutral argument, because that's the more insidious one. Because we forget that Jim Crow voting laws were also described as race neutral. In fact, they were. They passed these laws and they applied to everyone. Jim Crow, when it came to voting, applied to everyone. But it only hurt black voters because those laws were strategically designed based on the conditions that only faced black voters. You see, slavery had prohibited black folks from learning to read. So the Jim Crow voting laws mandated literacy tests. And because blacks at the end of Reconstruction had been cast back into poverty if they'd ever emerged, they didn't have money. So poll taxes meant they couldn't afford to pay for ballot access. And because most black families had no history of voting, this race neutral law as it was described, it took advantage of the fact that before the 15th Amendment was black men couldn't vote. And so what did they do? They created race neutral grandfather clauses, grandfather clauses that said that the race neutral poll taxes and race neutral literacy test didn't apply to anyone whose ancestors had voted before the Civil War. Race neutrality, race neutral colorblindness. These are lies told by those who want to use race to. To strip power but don't want to admit is a fiction that tries to ignore context in favor of false idealism. And it is dangerous to democracy no matter what race you are. In my testimony in Tennessee, I asked if we would draw political lines that only allowed cattle ranchers to vote for vegan candidates. I mean, hey, the lines are dietary neutral, right? Yet at a time when race is the strongest predictor of poverty, incarceration, maternal mortality, homelessness, then black people need to be able to elect representation that understands the context of their lived experiences, of the systems that still exist. It's why the identity of the working class is so powerful and why we don't balk at the argument of rural communities and having representation so they can have someone who speaks for their issues. And as worried as I am about the right and this regime stripping black communities of representation, of targeting Latino and Asian American Pacific Islanders, of targeting Native American voters who got the protection of the Voting Rights act and the 1975 reauthorization, I am equally terrified of the democracy defenders who will be silent as this power grab happens. You see, they're going to see this erasure as a tactic, one that can be met by just compromising our values to win votes. Because they will be looking at this as consultants rather than citizens. And it's already starting. People are saying that Democrats have to be race neutral in order to win elections. Even as we lose democracy and the people it should protect, they will argue that as soon as they win, as soon as the race neutral folks win, they'll come back for us. For people of color, for women, for the disabled, for the LGBTQ community, for the marginalized, for the oppressed. They'll come back for us as soon as they win. Because when we adopt race neutrality, we ignore race reality. And when we adopt the tactics that they are offering by pretending context doesn't matter, that race doesn't matter, we are sounding the death knell for democracy. Because this isn't a tactic, it's a strategy. One that's more than 150 years old and still as cruel as ever. Because what begins by being race neutral never stops there. And what is done to hurt black people is always a test, like the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. And it is just as deadly in a competitive, authoritarian nation. The trappings of democracy still exist. The lines still exist, the votes still exist. But the rules that are meant to protect fairness, to ensure accountability, to defend civic participation, those get gutted, those get chucked out, those get hollowed out. And when we strip away voting rights protections, when we fail to decry the false maps and quickly move on, when we decide we're going to focus on the foot race and not the marathon, everyone loses. Because what looks like race neutrality is the stuff of termites. It eats away at our democracy while we continue to admire the architecture until the whole thing falls apart. We have a responsibility in this moment to do more. We have a responsibility to understand more. And after the first flush of anger has passed, most Americans are going to forget about the VRA if we let them. It's the seductive nature of competitive authoritarianism, like Stockholm syndrome. Good people are going to decide that as long as it looks like democracy, we're all okay. But gerrymandering, voter suppression laws and court authorized open season on voters of color is not democracy. It wasn't when the ruling was Plessy versus Ferguson pretending that separate could be equal and it isn't in Calais, pretending race no longer matters. Calais is bad law and a bad idea, and race neutrality is a dangerous distraction from our very lived realities. Democracy is in peril, folks. But here's the thing. We still have time to save it if we get this right. To help us figure that out this week, we have two fantastic guests. We will kick off the episode with Lauren Gro Wargo, CEO of the national voting rights organization Fair Fight, who will join me to talk about what we do in the courts and at the ballot box and in our communities to save democracy. And then we will be joined by CNN anchor and author Abby Phillip to talk about her new book, Unpacking Jesse Jackson's Legacy and what it can teach us about the fight for justice Today Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams is brought to you by bookshop.org would you be surprised to learn that we're living in a resurgence of the independent bookstore? More than 1,000 new stores have opened in the last five years. That's good news that all of us can use. Independent bookstores do more than sell books. They take care of our communities in seen and unseen ways, from fostering a love of reading to being a space of refuge when the outside world gets to be too much. When you purchase from bookshop.org, you're supporting more than 3,000 local independent bookstores so they can continue their essential work of knitting together what can too often feel unraveled. 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[Lauren Groh-Wargo]

Thank you for having me Stacy.

[Stacey Abrams]

Well, as someone who has worked with you on a number of endeavors, I want to start just at the top talking about voting rights. We just watched one of the most consequential Supreme Court decisions in the last 60 years happen last week and you know most of our listeners understand the top lines. Voting rights have been further restricted for black and brown Americans here in the south, but with implications across the country, especially in the Southwest. Fair Fight and Black Voters Matter actually did a deep dive into the potential harm of the Calais decision months ago. So I'd love to start by having you walk us through what are the effects by the numbers?

[Lauren Groh-Wargo]

Yeah, definitely. So last year, as you and your audience probably remembers, in October, the Supreme Court, the Roberts Court had a rehearing and it was right around the rehearing on this case that we released our first report on the potential impact of gutting the VRA in Congress. And it is stark. Stacey. Our analysis shows that it's roughly 19 currently VRA protected seats that could get gutted. And we're seeing that happen now. I was just prepping for this and looking at my cheat sheet. Right now there are seven of those 19 on the potential chopping block for 2026 in this flurry of special sessions. The rest of those 19 likely are not going to come online for their gutting until the 20288 cycle. So there's a congressional impact. And then we did a second analysis that we released later last year on the potential state legislative impact and it's absolutely brutal. Our estimate is 191seats could be gutted. These are black and brown majority districts across state legislatures in the south, drawing Democrats into permanent super minority or minority status and completely really whitewashing and eviscerating black political power and presidents at state capitals. The analysis we haven't yet done is to look at that next layer because the Voting Rights Act Section 2 protects county commission districts, school boards, city councils, public service commission districts, state Supreme Court, et cetera, et cetera. This is a very, very big decision with huge impacts on our multiracial democracy.

[Stacey Abrams]

And Lauren, I want to stay there for a second because one of the conversations has been, and I talked about this at the top of the episode, why are majority black districts necessary? And I give sort of a broad brushstroke of why race neutrality is a false argument. But I also want to talk and would love to have you talk about why majority black districts, why majority Latino districts were necessary to begin with and why this has been such a burr in the saddle for Justice Roberts for so long and why this moment is sort of the pinnacle of his attack on the vra.

[Lauren Groh-Wargo]

Yeah, well, the right wing ecosystem considers this one of their three vectors on how they lock white supremacy and political dominance. The other two vectors, as they call it, besides the Roberts court guiding of section 2, is mid decade partisan gerrymandering, which they got started on and then changing how the census count is done. By their count, they believe those three vectors will get them over 40 seats in Congress and lock their twin goals of white supremacy and political dominance. Why Section 2 was so powerful is because it acknowledged that that when there are racial minorities that cannot elect their candidate of choice, if they are subsumed within a white majority district, then they Deserve their own district. Set the partisanship aside for a moment. But the idea of Section 2 is where there is racially disparate voting, that if there is a racial minority that cannot get their candidates of choice elected, then they should have an opportunity to have representation in our democracy. It wasn't until Section two that we saw black, Latino, Asian Americans and others really start to fill Congress. The numbers on black representation in Congress are stark. Going from a couple folks to many dozens of folks. This section two evisceration strikes right at the heart of it. The 19 seats that we identify in the south that they can likely erase is about 30% of the congressional Black Caucus. That is stunning and really taking us back into a different, very racist time. So this idea that race neutrality is just not. And that, quote, racism is over. If you listen to the arguments and some of these decisions with the Supreme. The Roberts Court. I try not to call it the Supreme Court anymore. The Roberts Court. This idea that racism is over. And in the rest, look, Section two is about. We live in a multiracial democracy. Can racial minorities have representation of their candidates of choice? Period. Not really about whether racism exists so much as the fact that people need representation to have a healthy democracy and an opportunity to elect their candidate of choice. That's why it was so powerful. There was no requirement to show racist intent in Section two. There are other parts of our laws in the Constitution that say you can't have racist intent. But Section two just said very simply, if there is a population of African Americans in South Georgia, let's use our home state, Stacy. And they cannot get their candidate of choice elected if they're in just a majority white district, then that black population in South Georgia should have its own district. And today in southwest Georgia, we. We have a district represented by Congressman Sanford Bishop that represents rural African American and also white folks in South Georgia. Great example.

[Stacey Abrams]

Yeah. And just to put it into context for folks, a third of rural Georgia is African American. And because often there's this notion that this is all about urban areas or it's all about, you know, giving special privilege, we forget that the majority. There are only 67 black members of Congress out of 435 like that. That distinction has a different effect on our policies. And one of the things you and I have worked on together, both during my tenure in the legislature, when Fair Fight and Fair Count and CEAP were founded, it's always about how do we make sure people get access. And what we saw on display in Tennessee this week or this past Past week was the exact opposite. The Tennessee legislature was the first to approve new congressional maps. And Fair Fight was there at the table. Literally, I was in the minority leader's office and you guys were at the table. You have been part of these conversations long before Calais came down. Can you talk about why this is so jarring for democracy to have these districts dismantled at this moment?

[Lauren Groh-Wargo]

So Fair Fight Action and Fair Fight, we're a national voting rights organization that fights voter suppression and then has a large amount of political work in the south, our PAC does. Why I start there is that you can't work in the south on issues of voter suppression and not then therefore engage in the gutting of Section 2, which is about the way we draw districts on everything. Because this is fundamentally a project of the Roberts Court and MAGA leaders to dismantle black political power, specifically, as well as the political power of people of color in the South. 60% of African Americans, roughly in the United States, live in the traditional South. And so the project of voter suppression and breaking our democracy at its core is a project of breaking African American representation in the South. The they have figured out that's their most expedient way to see their political project. I don't know, Stacey, if you've had talked about this on the podcast, but there's a really powerful report that Onyx Impact put out called the Blackout Report that shows what Trump 2.0 has done to black agency and sort of economic autonomy. And obviously, Stacy, you're a really strong leader on fighting the attacks on diversity, equity, inclusion. All of these are part of the same project around these lies that we cannot embrace and support our diversity, recognize our history of oppression, and have a multiracial democracy. All these things are tied together. And so for us in the south, this moment has meant that we are joining together with a massively broad coalition to fight back. And that's why we are in Nashville and in Tennessee. And. And I think what this current crisis is doing to kind of more answer your question, is making it plain and illuminating. The project. You cannot be confused about the John Roberts MAGA Project when you and I are in Nashville with our colleagues last week and they're breaking the city of Memphis into three, both substantively and symbolically, starting in Memphis with the history of that city, its importance in the civil rights movement. Last week in Nashville was certainly an inflection point in the country. And for me personally, to see how a new confederacy is trying to rise and the pushback against it was both powerful and super meaningful.

[Stacey Abrams]

Well, And I want to talk specifically about what we saw. So the Tennessee legislature approved this new congressional map that just dismantles the state's only majority black district. And that means out of nine seats, there is no longer a single district that has the ability to allow black voters to come together and vote for a candidate of their choice. The Roberts Court fast tracked the ruling that allows the Louisiana legislature and the governor to redraw its maps ahead of the midterm. They did this on the fastest timeline imaginable. It usually takes 32 days, and they did it in, you know, 32 hours. Basically, I'm being slightly hyperbolic. Don't fact check me very fast. Meanwhile, the Alabama House voted to approve a plan that will change the congressional district map during an active election, even though some voters have already cast their ballots. And we saw this happen over and over again. And I want to talk for a second about the mechanics of voting in these states. Fair fight was born because we watched the mechanics of voting be broken here in Georgia in 2018, and they've just been added ever since. But, you know, with Tennessee having done qualifying two months ago and candidates campaigning, voters in Louisiana and Alabama have cast ballots. Can you talk about what this means for how voting actually happens in these states?

[Lauren Groh-Wargo]

I think the thing that you and I have worked on and what we're seeing now is that modern contemporary voter suppression is largely conducted through rules and administration, and not like poll taxes, but more things that have this feeling of legitimacy. I'll give the example on one of the things you named, which is Tennessee candidates already signed up and qualified and said. Raised their hand, saying that I want to be on the ballot to run for these congressional elections. They changed the map last week, Thursday at, I don't know, Thursday afternoon. So now what that means, first of all, there's no majority black district anymore. Memphis is all chopped up. They now have to find candidates to run in these offices by Friday. So it's another version of voter suppression to say we're changing the rules midstream because we just have all the power. And we're going to raw, maximalist exercise in abuse of power, number one. And then number two, we're going to say, we knew we were going to do this, so we've been organizing our candidates the whole time. But Democrats and people of color, good luck. You have until Friday to find candidates in these new gerrymandered districts. Go over to Louisiana, where the governor stopped an election after something like 40,000 people had already cast a ballot, first of all. And they're exercising that raw power through an emergency order. Stacy, I know you know this, but for a listener's benefit, an emergency order that's meant for, like, hurricanes. If you read the emergency order part that he pulled from the statute, he tries to make this claim that the Roberts court decision creates a, quote, crisis that, you know, like is a hurricane level emergency order to change the election. Not only is this unprecedented in throwing out active ballots, many of whom are military overseas voters whose ballots are getting thrown out, now all of a sudden, the candidates and voters and poll workers, election administrators, have to scramble. They're creating all these unfunded mandates and unfunded mandates in voting. What does that mean? That is voter suppression. Because what happens, okay, so you now are changing elections. You're not putting any budget behind it. That means less polling locations, less materials, less poll workers, which means lines. And the number one biggest way that voter suppression happens currently in the south is through lines, through lack of funding, confusion and late changes. And you cannot fight for a vote in the post election. Right. We know they're going to come and try to upend the results, but you can't even fight for a vote that was not cast. And that is our number one most important thing as we get through this is voter education to make sure voters know their rights so they can actually get a ballot cast. As all these rules are changing.

[Stacey Abrams]

Now, I can't have you on here to talk without talking about the Georgia governor and his long term extraordinary fealty to voter suppression. Now, he's getting a little bit of credit because he refused to call a special session, but you and I both know that we're in the midst of an election. And more importantly, we know that Georgia has some other voter suppression tactics that are diluting black and brown voting power. We also know that Georgia continues to be top of mind for the Trump administration for this authoritarian regime. But before we get there, I would love for you to talk about the decades long erosion of voting rights in our state and what this has meant on a national level. Because one of my arguments is that what gets cultivated here gets exported everywhere. Would love to have you talk about that.

[Lauren Groh-Wargo]

Yeah. Well, a mutual friend of ours, Dr. Carol Anderson of Emory, has written and spoken extensively on this, and I usually cite her on this, which is voter suppression in contemporary Georgia. If we're talking about Georgia, is like termites in a house slowly eating away at the foundation. You know, in 2021, there were more voter suppression laws passed in American history than any other year except for 2022. That's a Brennan center statistic. What we see in Georgia is over the past 10 years, abuses of power and aggressive purging of voters of the timing on some of those things, of list maintenance issues of the Secretary of state's office never putting out advisories on changes, never giving guidance. Obviously, SB202 is our big omnibus voter suppression bill that in 2021 that directly precisely targets black voters and how they exercise their right of vote in a way that caused Biden's reelection in terms of how they change provisional voting and Election day voting. So it's like stacking up all of this. And right now, I know you're obliquely referencing the fact that right now we have a primary going on that's a primary election, except it's a general election for state Supreme Court. They put our judicial general elections on our primary ballots in the hopes that they can get their people through without all of us noticing. And then they have runoff laws, which is in part why Brian Kemp can't gerrymander this year because we will be in a primary election until practically July 4th because of runoff laws. Why were runoff laws passed? Well, they didn't want a plurality of black voters to be able to get a black voter on the ballot. They wanted to make sure there had to be two rounds. So it's sort of like all of it is stacking, stacking, stacking, and the confusion that election administrators are dealing with. And then you combine that with the Trump regime's attacks on Fulton county, which is our biggest county, most African American voters in any county in the south and the ninth in the country, they are trying to break it with FBI agents with asking for personal information to poll workers. So it is a four alarm fire. Now here's the thing though. Stacey is like groups like ours and this huge coalition in Georgia are in full time triage all the time to shore it up and to continue to make sure voters get information so that we can do our best. But it is an attack at all levels.

[Stacey Abrams]

Well, one of the reasons I wanted to have you on today is that part of the work that you and I have done together in the Fair South Coalition, that's what we call fair Fight, Fair count, ceap, the American Pride Rises Network has been how do we bring together organizations of like intent to defend? And then you broaden that out. The work that Fair Fight's been doing with Onyx Impact and with Black Voters Matter. Well, what we do at the 10 Steps campaign is a similar version of this, which is we've got to all be in this together. We have to use all of the tactics and all of the tools. And so I want to take the next few minutes to talk about how we fight back and why fair fight and all of these orgs are so incredibly important in this moment. So can you walk us through how we can ensure that in addition to these questions of how we get people to vote, we're also preparing for how people's votes get counted and how the results get counted.

[Lauren Groh-Wargo]

Yeah. So I would say the good news is, because this attack on our elections has been a core organizing principle of the Republican Party now for some time, is that there's a huge coalition that has been working to shore up the post election. So think about post2020 and all the litigation filed that Mark Elias and his law firm successfully beat back on the Trump side. On the great number of nonpartisan technical support organizations that support election administration, there's a national nonpartisan effort to make sure we recruit poll workers called Power the Polls. There's a huge constellation of nonpartisan groups that is like the ER support system or the. If you watch the pit, it's the Pit for Democracy. It is also underfunded and a little scrappy. But we all know each other and we work together really well. And so my actually larger concern right now, Stacy, is I think the lawyers, the pushback, the election administration prep, I feel like that is in really good shape. I think what your listeners and our community need to really focus on is doing the voter organizing and outreach ahead of time because it's so confusing for people and they're pumping into our feeds. If it's not there yet, it will be. Which is trying to make it seem like we don't matter. We don't have enough power in agency and, and so that we got to fight back hard now, number one. Number two, we got to have massive turnout in the fault. Number three, we got to broaden and deepen our coalition. Three and four, and we need to document these abuses so we can get to the other side. But working in coalition with all those efforts you just said, all the efforts you just said touch almost every. What I call good guy organization and good gal organization. We don't have to grant every issue. Absolutely not. But we can agree that we want a healthy two party system and a multiracial democracy. And that is not controversial. Most Americans agree with us, but we gotta work and lean into that, the organizations and our own activism because this is a group project.

[Stacey Abrams]

See Lauren, as always, you were ahead of the Curve. I was gonna ask you to give our listeners homework. You did it already. So just remember for everyone listening, can you tell them a little bit more about how they can find Fair Fight and get into work with us?

[Lauren Groh-Wargo]

Yeah. So right now a lot is happening. We've got big marches happening in Montgomery on Saturday, lots of action in the south and national calls to action. The best way since things these special sessions in the south are moving really fast is our Instagram. Actually our Fair Fight Action Instagram. If you search Fair Fight Action you will find it immediately is the fastest way. Just before this call, Stacy, the state Senate in South Carolina is going to do a special session like Louisiana is changing its schedule. This stuff is fluid but Fair Fight we will be in Montgomery on Saturday. Call to Montgomery on Saturday. National Day of Action on Saturday. Verified Action Instagram. We are on all the social media platforms and you can find more information there.

[Stacey Abrams]

Lauren Groagro, CEO of Fair Fight thank you for being here on Assembly Required.

[Lauren Groh-Wargo]

Thank you. Stacey Abrams

[Stacey Abrams]

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[Abby Phillip]

Great to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

[Stacey Abrams]

I appreciate it. You are in a very unique position these days. You have a true roundtable of very different political points of view. And we know that something that is becoming less and less common, particularly as we become more fractured as a society. Society. And because media consumption has become much more siloed. Can you talk a little bit about how you view that responsibility, especially given the arc of your journalistic career? So let us understand a little bit more about, you know, how you feel about it and what helps you decide what to focus on each day.

[Abby Phillip]

Yeah, well, you know, I. I do think as a starting point, you know, I think that debate in and of itself is essential. And I, you know, just personally, I enjoy a good debate. I enjoy having conversations with people with whom I disagree. I think that even when you can sit a bunch of experts in a room, you could have a whole range of views on the same topic. And these are people who are probably at the top of their game, whether it's in science or in law or whatever, and they can sit there and have a really lengthy and energetic debate about a particular topic. And I think that's healthy. I think We've gotten to a place in this country where we start to think that that kind of debate is not healthy for our politics. And I just disagree with that notion. And, you know, I think what we're doing on the show is just making an attempt at that. Making an attempt to try to find the different viewpoints, put them all in the same place in real life, which I think is a key part of this. People are actually physically sitting at the table. They're not in boxes, and. And have people really talk to each other. And that spectrum. Part of the reason that people struggle with the show sometimes is because when you really see the spectrum of viewpoints in this country, sometimes it can be surprising to you. But what I've learned as somebody who's covered politics for a long time, is that it's very real. You have people on the left, on the right, people who are maga, people who are on the right, who are not maga. You have people who are more independent minded. You have people who are somewhere in between. And that conversation can sometimes feel a little bit messy. You can hear things that you don't. Obviously, you don't like, that you don't agree with. But that is our country right now. And I think putting that front and center and letting people really see what that looks like before they get to the ballot box can. Can be a very important thing to do. And, you know, I mean, you alluded to my career, which, you know, I've. I've. I've worked in print and in television, and I've covered politics in a lot of different ways, a lot of campaigns. You know, I'm a reporter at heart. And so this is a little different from what I've been doing for most of my career, but I do think that it brings together all of those experiences. And one of the things that it reminds me of is when you do go out and you're reporting at political events and you talk to people who are out in the world, those people sometimes have the most interesting and surprising viewpoints. And I've always thought that was the most interesting part about political reporting. More so than what is this official person with a title telling me that may or may not even be true? It's sort of. How is that digested by the American public? And I do think we get to see a lot of that on our show every night.

[Stacey Abrams]

And, Abby, you just said something, you know, things that may or may not be true. And I remember growing up being told, you're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts. And one of the challenges I've watched you deftly handle on your show, but I'd love for you to talk about is the fact that sometimes people are spreading falsehoods. They're not telling the truth, but they're presenting it as though it is. And in a time where information is ubiquitous but truth is not, how do you see your role in holding people accountable when they're trying to lie, but offer it as truth and as reality?

[Abby Phillip]

Yeah, I mean, I think it's about being as prepared as you can because the thing about it is that a lot of times I've heard it before, right. I've heard the narrative of either side. And you can kind of anticipate where they're going to go with something. And when you can, I do think it's important to insert into the conversation some pushback on that. That being said, I mean, I think it's important to note that I'm not a arbiter of all truth. Right. And the expectation that journalists should know every fact and be able to fact check everything, I think is unrealistic. And it's just not something that we can do because sometimes we don't have the answers in that moment. But there are many moments when I do and when I do, I try to bring that to the table. And I found that the reason I do that is just to. We can't have a conversation when we're operating on disparate facts. Frankly. We can't talk to each other when you're on Mars and I'm on Venus. Not really. So we have to set the table with at least some modicum of a mutually agreed upon fact pattern so that when we have this conversation, we're following each other. At least, you know, we know that based on these, the basic set of facts. You're going in this direction and I'm going in that direction in terms of what's important to me, not in terms of what's true and what's false. Look, it doesn't always, it's not perfect. There are plenty of times that I'll point out to people what you're saying isn't true. That didn't happen. This is actually the, the, the sequence of events. And what they'll say back sometimes is, yeah, yeah, yeah, but this is more important than that. And so I do think that actually is just, it's a good reflection on just how people take in factual information. It's not always do I know the facts? And do I not a Lot of times people are in taking facts and they're making judgments about what's important to them and what's not. And those judgments that they're making lead them in a completely different direction. They value certain information more than others. And I see that at the table all the time. And I think that's actually good to know because I think there's some frustration out there that, well, this is true and that's false. How could they possibly get to this conclusion? Well, many of the people get to that conclusion because they simply don't think it's important. What you just pointed out as a fact. And. And that's. Look, I mean, it's almost like. It's like a sociological study of the country is just how do people take in the same information about the same events and come to such radically different conclusions? Well, it's because a lot of the times what it really boils down to is judgment calls about values and about what's important to people and about what pieces of information weigh heavily on them and which ones do not.

[Stacey Abrams]

I appreciate that framing. I. At the top of today's show, I talk about the role of ideological diversity. As a minority leader in the Georgia house, I had to embrace ideological diversity if I ever wanted to get anything done. And so I believe that there is a respect owed to someone having contrastive beliefs. My concern, though, is that in this moment, where we are in this competitive authoritarianism, where our beliefs are being weaponized and the language that we use is being leveraged against the underlying experiment of democracy, we are seeing these fractures that are hardening. And there used to be a time where we thought we could sort of knit them back together, but these chasms are getting wider. Before we shift to talking about your book, I'd love for you to just talk about as. Not just as a journalist, but as an American who is sitting at that table every day, what do you think is the long term? Are we moving further away from being able to knit together this sort of shared reality despite our ideological diversity, or are we too far removed now because people can manufacture their own many realities and their many truths?

[Abby Phillip]

Yeah, it's a good question. And I'm not sure I know exactly where it's all going to end up. I do think that there politics has a way of really emphasizing cults of personality on the left and on the right. And the thing about cults of personality is that sometimes they're completely divorced from information, from events, from. From anything. There it. By definition, people are attracted to this person who embodies or represents something to them. And then once they've come to represent that thing, dislodging that connection is, is very difficult, maybe impossible. So I do think that's happening. I, at the same time, when I look at how the American people are responding to this moment in terms of how it's affecting them personally, I see the middle of the country, which has always been the sort of quote, unquote, independent voters. It's always been the most consequential segment of the, of the electorate. I see them responding to things that they don't like. I don't see them locked in, into a position that maybe they were in in 2024 or maybe they were in in 2020. I see movement happening in public opinion on issues like immigration, on issues like, like the economy. And so I, what that tells me is that while there is a lot of polarization, particularly in the political parties on the left and on the right, I do think there is still a good chunk of Americans who are taking in the inputs of what is being done in Washington and how does it affect me? How does it affect my sense of the future? How does it affect my sense of what this country ought to be? And they're making judgments every single day. And those judgments are not fixed in place. They are influenced by events, by, by the things that they're seeing. And I think that makes me feel, feel pretty confident that we're not in a broken place. We're not in a fully broken place. I think that we're still seeing people making up their minds based on their priorities and the things that matter to them. And so, you know, from that perspective, I think that there is some calcification happening on the extremes, but I continue to believe that that's like 30% in either direction. And then there is the rest of the country that is still open minded. They're still looking at what's happening and making judgments about whether it's right or it's wrong. You know, I mean, I think immigration is such a great example of this. Like, I actually was really surprised, to be honest, as somebody who's covered this issue for a long time, by how dramatically public opinion shifted on that issue over the last. And I think it's because there are many Americans who are willing to say this is too far. We thought there was a problem for the four years of the Biden administration, but now what we're seeing has gone too far and they put the brakes on it. And I think that is public opinion isn't everything, but it certainly had an impact on how the Trump administration operated on that issue. It forced them into retreat in a lot of ways. And I think that is a demonstration that the American public is still fundamentally in control of where we're headed as a country. And as long as that's the case, I think that that's a positive. That's a positive development for this country.

[Stacey Abrams]

Well, that is a perfect lead into what I want to talk about next, which is what's happening to the segment of America that's being told their voices don't matter as much anymore. And I'm referring to, of course, the Supreme Court decision in Calais. And I want to tie it to your extraordinary book, A Dream, Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power. When I reached out wanting you to come on the show, it's because I devoured that book. And after his passing, it was such a jarring moment to realize how many people didn't understand his massive contributions to the civil rights movement, but also to the progressive movement and to the infrastructure of the Democratic Party. But that the follow on may have started with black political power, but it had ripple effects across how Americans understand themselves. And I'm going to get to the VRA in a second, but I would love to start with you just talking about why you wanted to write about Jesse Jackson and why you believe that people have missed or don't fully understand his influence on American politics.

[Abby Phillip]

Yeah, I mean, I thought when I first started this book that I was discovering a lot about this person that I thought I knew really well because he has been such this ubiquitous presence in America, American life for 60 years. And what I learned, I think, was that he had a much more expansive vision for American politics than he is given credit for. And the ways in which he envisioned a more inclusive society, a more inclusive politics, a more, a truly representative government. And these, the political parties that, that, that comprise it was way before his time. And I also was really struck by the courage that he had. I, I think that what people forget about him maybe the most is that he was kind of an outsider figure in politics. When he was doing this in 1984 and 1988, he was directly challenging the Democratic Party in a way that very few political figures are willing to do ever. And because of that, doing that as a black man in the 1980s was an act of extraordinary bravery. Doing that as a black man who came from virtually nothing, you know, a one room house in the south, born to a teenage unwed mother, was an act of defiance. And I do think that both his biography as a human being and also his contributions to our politics are not very well known and not very well understood. And then the last thing I'll say is that what really felt, made this book feel like a book of this moment is because when I looked at all the ways that he talked about America and what our challenges are in terms of moving past racial division into a new kind of society that is truly inclusive in terms of understanding that the economic needs of Americans at the middle and lower economic rungs of the ladder are often the last thing that is contemplated by elected officials. All of those things. Right now, we're having those conversations about what our politics should look like, about what should be important. You know, when I see populism in Trump, I see populism in Bernie Sanders. And that's not by accident. It's because inequality in this country has gotten worse and worse. And guess who was talking about that in the 1980s when nobody else was talking about it. Jesse Jackson. And so in order to really understand how you, how you marry economic populism with a society that has always had race and a racial caste system as part of its DNA, and, and really kind of resolving those two things, you have to look at Jesse Jackson, because he was one of the key figures who articulated what that could look like, what a message could look like, that didn't just do populism in its own silo, but also said to this rainbow, this quilt of America, we see you and we value you, and we understand that you need to be a part of this, too. He was the person who did that, I think, best of anybody in the last 50 years. And Democrats are still trying to figure out how to really do that the way that he did.

[Stacey Abrams]

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

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[Stacey Abrams]

I mean I will say I learned so much from his lessons. I mean I launched Fair Fight and Fair Count and Seep and when I did my voter registration work it was always with this backdrop of having grown up listening to Jesse Jackson talk about how you have to register millions of voters, how you have to champion voting rights. Watching him use the politics to drive policy and not use policy to, you know, using policy to drive politics as opposed to this tendency we have to use our politics as the end goal as opposed to the the policy outcomes. And one of the ways I think your book is so prescient is that we are in a moment when the voting rights act, this central pillar of black political participation has now been gutted, hollowed out, decimated. You can pick your term of art at a moment where Jesse Jackson's dream of this pluralistic society is also within reach. How do you reconcile what he imagined and what he helped build with where we are today?

[Abby Phillip]

Well, you know, I think that he would be obviously devastated. He was very concerned about the gutting of the Voting Rights act from going all the way to Shelby v. Holder and seeing where this was headed. So he. He knew that the. The end goal was a scenario in which the Supreme Court would essentially say, Louisiana, Tennessee, you can have effectively no districts in which black voters can decide their chosen representative. That being said, I also think he really saw that the impetus in this country was to have white voters, and he said this himself was to have white voters be the ones to start looking at themselves and saying, can we move past race? Can we look at a candidate of color and elect them? Can we. Can we drop the sort of racial lines of the past, especially in the South? So I think he. He thought both things were important. It feels to me like this is a moment where there's just going to have to be a different strategy. And as you know, he was such a big believer that there was inherent political power already existing, particularly in the south, because of the. Just the sheer population. You know, I think he just. He thought then, and perhaps even more so now, that there is still such raw, untapped political power in the south that belongs not just to black voters, but also to young voters, to people who are disinvested and disenfranchised, who, if they are empowered with a message that speaks to them and a reminder that they have the power to the vote and that they ought to use it, that they can exert a lot of political power. And I don't know. I mean, I am not a lawyer, I'm not a social justice expert, but I have to imagine that he would see part of the solution as doubling down on a strategy of getting all possible people on the playing field. Because part of the disenfranchisement that exists in places like the south is just simply people not feeling like politics works for them and checking out of the system altogether. And you understand that in the work that you do with Fair Fight. But it is still an issue in this country. I think we've made a lot of strides since the 1980s, and he registered millions of voters, but there are still, every. Every successive generation, there are young people turning 18 every single year, and they look at politics, and they say, what's the point? And so pushing back on that, I think he would think that that is an essential part of rebuilding political power and perhaps recreating a new system that is more fair for all Americans.

[Stacey Abrams]

So, Abby, I've got one more thing for you here at Assembly Required. We love to give our audience homework, and I'm giving them the homework of reading your exceptional book. I still go back to it right now as I'm thinking about the 10 Steps campaign and what we're doing to, you know, save our democracy. And I love the way you tell the story of the farmers. When Jesse Jackson became the champion of farmers who thought they had nothing in common with him, and how he used race and class not as points of division, but as moments of entry to build coalition. And so my homework to the audience is to read your book, and I'm going to give them even more about it later on in the show, but I want you to give them homework. What should our audience be watching or reading? To learn more about the history of movement building, to learn more about solving the issue that you just so deftly laid out.

[Abby Phillip]

Yeah. First of all, I just want to say on that point about the farmers, I mean, I think one of the things that Jesse Jackson did so well was that he went everywhere. He didn't think that there was an audience that wasn't going to be receptive to his message. It didn't matter if you were a white farmer in Missouri or you were a former segregationist in the South. He talked to you. And I think that continues to be a lesson, not just for our politicians, but for citizens, for Americans. There are not people that we can't talk to that we should not talk to. And I think he was such a master at that. I think reading Reverend Jackson's speeches can be super powerful. Listening to them as well. I mean, you listen to them, watch them. I mean, you really get the feeling of it. But particularly, I mean, the big ones, his 1984 and 1988 convention speeches are just texts that they. They hold a lot of information and context about message, about. About what it can sound like to build an. A truly inclusive message that addresses people's real economic needs and their hopes and dreams for their lives, while also centering just their desire for their politics to be responsive to who they are as a person, their cultural identity, their racial identity, their socioeconomic identity. So all of that, I think that's just such a great place to start. But I also think I am personally a student of the civil rights movement. To me, I think that era of American history is one of our greatest because it really shows us what it looks like to take a country from what it could be to what it should be, from its promise to its actual realization. And there are fewer. There are not that many times in American history where we've made that journey. And the people who were responsible for that era are great teachers. The, the challenges that they face, the compromises that they made, the sacrifices that they made, the strategy, I think it is still so relevant. And I do think that if you are not already, like, thinking about that and thinking about what it looks like to have these ups and downs, these ebbs and flows in this democracy of ours, you need to go back there. Because I think some people in this moment feel like, are we ever going to come out of this? Like, where are we headed? And my answer is, if you don't think that we've had really dark periods before in this country, you haven't been paying attention to our history. So let's go back and let's look at what was happening in those times when things felt like progress was reversing, when nothing was happening, and what did they do? What was the strategy that was behind those moments? And so I would say just go back. Go back to, you know, there's some great biographies. King I think Andrew Young's memoirs are so good. And just go back and read those things because I think it really teaches us so, so much.

[Stacey Abrams]

Abby Phillip, thank you so much for being here and thank you so much for your extraordinary book and for helping try to bring us together at least around the table.

[Abby Phillip]

Thank you so much for having me. It was great talking to you. You,

[Stacey Abrams]

As always at assembly required we give you actionable tools to help make a difference. First, be curious to learn more about the extraordinary legacy of Jesse Jackson. Pick up Abby Phillips book A Dream Deferred Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Political power. On Saturday, May 16, a national mass rally will take place at the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery. Visit allroadsleadtothesouth.com to learn more about how you can participate. And stay updated on boycotts, events and other rapid response efforts, including virtual solidarity efforts around the country. You can also follow Fair Fight Action on Instagram to stay up to date on the evolving voting rights landscape and mobile mobilization efforts in the south, including upcoming marches in Jackson, Mississippi and at state capitals in South Carolina and Louisiana. And then let's do some Good. Today, the U.S. supreme Court announced it would take up a case determining the legality of access to abortion pills through the mail. Medication abortion now accounts for more than two thirds of all abortions in the United States, and since Dobbs, male access to the pill has been a lifeline for people in states where abortion is virtually banned. As this case continues to unfold and as Republican attacks on abortion escalate, consider donating to the National Network of Abortion Funds and look for local organizations that support reproductive justice for ways to support and get involved. Thank you to those of you who shared your questions and comments about the recent Supreme Court decision on voting rights via my substack Assembly Notes, Cricket Media's Discord and other platforms. Keep the questions and comments coming, tell others about us and add us to your feed. Let me know what episodes resonate and what you want to learn more about. Lastly, the Read Them Home Initiative is a project of the 10 Steps Campaign, the National Domestic Workers alliance and and dozens of incredible partners. We're asking folks like you to film yourself reading your favorite children's book and post it to social media in honor of the children held in immigration detention centers. Listen, more than 6,200 kids have been arrested in the United States under this regime. But we can take action and get Congress attention and inspire, inspire the hearts of our fellow Americans. Children don't deserve this and that's why we are delighted to have child advocates like Ms. Rachel and Michael Threats joining our effort to demand the end to family detention. All that's missing is you. So Please go to readthemhome.org for instructions on how you can join the thousands who've already recorded and posted their videos. Look, fighting authoritarianism takes all of us. We don't all have to do the same thing, but we can all do something. So when it comes to the children being held in these family detention centers, please help us Read Them home. That wraps up this episode of Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams. I'm looking at you. Do good out there and I'll meet you here next week.

[Abby Phillip]

Sam.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Hey Crooked listeners, if you haven't become a friend of the POD yet, you are missing out on exclusive bonus content that drops every single week. If you do join, you're helping us, you know, grow Crooked Media, which is one of the few independent, proudly pro democracy media companies companies left in Trump's America. If you join, you also get ad free episodes of all your favorite pods. Ad free episodes of Pod Save America. Love it or leave it offline. Pod Save the World. You also get bonus content like our new extra episode of Pod Save America called Pod Save America Only Friends Dan Pfeiffer's Polar Coaster. You also get access to all of our excellent substack newsletters like Pod Save America, Open Tabs and tons more great content. So stop what you're doing right now and go ahead and [e-mail] friends check it out.

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[Stacey Abrams]

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[VRBO Representative]

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[Stacey Abrams]

That makes sense. Sorry.

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

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