11/19/24: Libs Flee Twitter, Biden Escalates In Ukraine, Kamala Donors Blocked Winning Ad, Dem Civil War On Working Class

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Episode Title: Libs Flee Twitter, Biden Escalates In Ukraine, Kamala Donors Blocked Winning Ad, Dem Civil War On Working Class
Release Date: November 19, 2024

---

Introduction

In this episode of Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar, hosts Krystal Ball and Sagar Enjeti delve into a multifaceted discussion covering the migration of liberals from Twitter to alternative platforms, the Biden administration’s controversial policy shifts in Ukraine, the Democratic Party’s internal struggles following Kamala Harris’s election loss, and the broader civil war within the Democratic ranks concerning the working-class base.

---

1. Liberals Fleeing Twitter to Blue Sky

Key Points:

• Migration Trend: Following the 2020 U.S. elections and changes under Elon Musk’s ownership, liberal users are increasingly abandoning Twitter for its alternative, Blue Sky.
• User Growth: Blue Sky has experienced significant user surges, adding over a million new members recently, reaching a total of 15 million users. Previous spikes occurred during Twitter’s rebranding to X and following disruptions like the suspension in Brazil.
• Platform Viability: Despite growth, Blue Sky remains minuscule compared to giants like Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok. The platform's inability to match Twitter's functionalities, especially for news gathering, limits its impact.

Notable Quotes:

• Sagar Enjeti [03:00]: "Liberals are taking a page out of what conservatives were doing previously with Parler and Gab, saying, 'Hey, we need our own space now too.'"
• Krystal Ball [06:24]: "The retreat of conservatives to their own social media platforms didn’t help them gain massive cultural influence."

Discussion Highlights:

• Echo Chambers vs. Engagement: Sagar criticizes the creation of echo chambers, arguing that they hinder genuine understanding and discourse.
• Institutional Failures: The shift signifies a broader disillusionment with institutions traditionally seen as liberal strongholds, like MSNBC and established social media platforms.
• Cultural Realignment: Both hosts agree that online culture has become inseparable from real-life politics, making the creation of niche platforms insufficient for meaningful political change.

---

2. Biden Administration Escalates in Ukraine

Key Points:

• Policy Shift: The Biden administration has authorized Ukraine to use long-range U.S. missiles (ATACMS) within Russian territory, a significant escalation in the ongoing conflict.
• Implications of the Move: This decision breaches previously established red lines, potentially provoking a stronger Russian response and involving NATO more directly.
• Strategic Consequences: Analysts suggest that while the first missile strike has been executed, it is unlikely to change the war’s trajectory significantly. Instead, it might only result in limited tactical gains.

Notable Quotes:

• Sagar Enjeti [21:10]: "This entire policy is nuts. The entire policy is crazy."
• Krystal Ball [23:49]: "Ukraine feels like if Trump is coming into office, there is a decent chance they’re gonna force some kind of a peace settlement."

Discussion Highlights:

• Ukrainian Struggles: Ukraine faces significant territorial losses and a dwindling population, with recent polls indicating a majority desire for a negotiated settlement.
• European Stance: European leaders, particularly in Germany, are resistant to further militarization, recognizing the unsustainable nature of the conflict.
• Biden’s Legacy: The escalation is seen as a continuation of Biden’s foreign policy failures, with Sagar arguing that the administration’s approach has only prolonged the conflict without achieving meaningful outcomes.

---

3. Kamala Harris: Donor Influence and Campaign Issues

Key Points:

• Campaign Dynamics: Kamala Harris’s 2024 campaign faced significant interference from Democratic donors and establishment figures, blocking effective ads that resonated with voters.
• Economic Populism vs. Donor Interests: The establishment prioritized maintaining the status quo over embracing true economic populism, leading to the suppression of impactful campaign messages.
• Ad Controversies: Notably, an ad titled "Future Forward" that performed excellently was blocked due to donor disapproval, reflecting a disconnect between the party’s powerful donors and the electorate’s needs.

Notable Quotes:

• Krystal Ball [42:57]: "The donors, the billionaires, the consultants, the corrupt establishment itself, those are the interests that need to be told no."
• Maurice Mitchell [55:34]: "When people are experiencing this crisis of affordability that is real in people's lives... If you don't put your focus on them, you've lost the plot."

Discussion Highlights:

• Accountability of Donors: The Democratic establishment’s prioritization of donor preferences over voter needs is highlighted as a key factor in Kamala’s electoral loss.
• Suppression of Effective Messaging: The blocking of high-performing ads underscores the party’s reluctance to fully embrace messages that could have swayed the working-class electorate.

---

4. Democratic Party Civil War: Status Quo vs. Class Populism

Key Points:

• Internal Struggle: The Democratic Party is divided between maintaining the status quo and embracing a more populist approach that focuses on the working class.
• Criticism from the Left: Figures like Adam Jentelson argue that left-leaning interest groups have pushed the party too far left, sabotaging its appeal to broader voters.
• Working Families Party’s Perspective: Maurice Mitchell emphasizes the need for the party to reconnect with working people, advocating for grassroots movements and authentic economic populism.

Notable Quotes:

• Sagar Enjeti [60:54]: "Maurice, thank you so much for coming in this. Maurice, good to see you."
• Maurice Mitchell [66:28]: "We need organizers. We need people who are listening to lead us through what will be a very challenging four years."

Discussion Highlights:

• Blame Shifting: The debate over who is responsible for the Democratic losses reveals tensions between establishment figures and grassroots activists.
• Role of Interest Groups: The narrative criticizes how certain left-aligned groups have influenced the party’s direction, potentially alienating the working-class base.
• Rebuilding Strategy: Maurice outlines strategies for the Working Families Party to rebuild Democratic support by focusing on local, community-driven initiatives and addressing real economic concerns.

---

Conclusion

In this episode, Krystal Ball and Sagar Enjeti offer a critical examination of the current state of the Democratic Party, highlighting significant challenges arising from internal divisions, ineffective campaign strategies influenced by elite donors, and the broader cultural shifts within the liberal base. The discussion underscores the urgent need for the party to realign with the working-class electorate and adopt more authentic, populist policies to regain lost ground in upcoming elections.

---

Notable Timestamped Quotes:

• Sagar Enjeti [03:00]: "Liberals are taking a page out of what conservatives were doing previously with Parler and Gab, saying, 'Hey, we need our own space now too.'"
• Krystal Ball [06:24]: "The retreat of conservatives to their own social media platforms didn’t help them gain massive cultural influence."
• Sagar Enjeti [21:10]: "This entire policy is nuts. The entire policy is crazy."
• Krystal Ball [23:49]: "Ukraine feels like if Trump is coming into office, there is a decent chance they’re gonna force some kind of a peace settlement."
• Krystal Ball [42:57]: "The donors, the billionaires, the consultants, the corrupt establishment itself, those are the interests that need to be told no."
• Maurice Mitchell [55:34]: "When people are experiencing this crisis of affordability that is real in people's lives... If you don't put your focus on them, you've lost the plot."
• Maurice Mitchell [66:28]: "We need organizers. We need people who are listening to lead us through what will be a very challenging four years."

---

This comprehensive summary captures the essence of the episode, providing insightful analysis and essential quotes to inform listeners who may not have tuned in.

Transcript

[Sagar Enjeti]

After investing billions to light up our.

[Krystal Ball]

Network, T Mobile is America's largest 5G network.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Plus right now you can switch keep.

[Krystal Ball]

Your phone and we'll pay it off up to $800. See how you can save on every plan versus Verizon and AT&T. @t mobile.com Keep and switch up to.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Four lines via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualifying unlocked device, credit service ported 90 plus days with device and eligible carrier and timely redemption required. Card has no cash access and expires in six months.

[Maurice Mitchell]

Looking for excitement? Chumba Casino is here. Play anytime, play anywhere, Play on the train, play at the store, play at home, Play when you're bored. Play today for your chance to win and get daily bonuses when you log in. So what are you waiting for? Don't delay. Chumba Casino is free to play. Experience social gameplay like never before. Go to Chumba Casino right now to play hundreds of games including online slots, bingo, Slingo and more. Live the chumba [e-mail] VGW Group no purchase necessary Void work prohibited by law.

[Unknown]

See Terms and Conditions this holiday season, surprise everyone on your list with the best gifts tickets to see their favorite artists live. Choose from thousands of concerts and comedy shows including Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, Matt Matthews, Metallica, Thomas Rhett, Trans Siberian Orchestra, Sarah Silverman and so many more. Share a memory together or give a gift they'll never forget. Find the most exciting gift for every [e-mail] gifts that's livenation.com gift hey guys, ready or not.

2024 is here and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.

[Sagar Enjeti]

We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, let's get to the show.

[Unknown]

So one of the responses from liberals post Trump reelection that has been kind of interesting is some number of them have been leaving Twitter and fleeing to Blue sky, the Twitter alternative. We can put this up on the screen in terms of the numbers, Blue sky apparently as of several days ago had added a million new members as users flee x after the US election. Now they are up to 15 million. So adding a million more is significant given the comparatively small scale of Blue sky at this point. And in this article they point out this isn't the first surge that Blue sky has seen. Based on like various indicators so after rebranding to X, apparently there was a big shift to Blue sky. And then they also picked up 3 million new users after X was suspended in Brazil back in September. And then a further. This one was interesting to me. 1.2 million in the two days after X announced that they would allow users to view posts from people who had blocked them. So those were some of the big triggers. I checked on the App Store yesterday, and Blue sky is still the number one, like, downloaded app right now. So there is something very real here. But it's also worth keeping in perspective. Like, 15 million users does not even come close to comparing to Twitter, let alone Facebook or TikTok or any of the other large social media giants. I do think it's kind of an important indicator of how liberals are processing and dealing with the fact that, you know, a lot of these social media brands previously coded as more liberal. You know, Mark Zuckerberg running Facebook, certainly Twitter under Jack Dorsey, there was a sense that it was more on the Democratic side. And now that has totally reversed. Not just on Twitter, with Elon Musk's ownership, which there was research showing that he did in fact use the algorithm to juice Republican or pro Trump accounts, and obviously including his own account, but also kind of across the board with a bunch of these social media apps. So liberals are taking a page out of what conservatives were doing previously with Parler and Gab and Truth Social and whatever, and saying, hey, we need our own space now too, post Trump election.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, I think the major reason we're doing this story, not only is it interesting, but it's part of the liberal response, which is to shut off MSNBC and to kind of retreat. And I think it was a big mistake that a lot of Trump people made and right wingers made in the Twitter era, 2018, and honestly made people way crazier. Right. The Truth Social, Parler, Gab and all of these other peoples. We talk a lot about echo chamber. It's easy enough on a large enough platform to get yourself in an echo chamber, but I think it's a mistake because psychologically, what they're trying to do is try to recreate their own world. And I think I sympathize with that on a certain level. But I also don't think it can promote, quote, unquote understanding. Because if you're the type of person to have watched MSNBC or be on Blue and on Twitter or whatever, the truth is, you don't understand the world. And this isn't even in a denigrating way in 2016, when Donald Trump won the presidency, I'm telling you, I was shocked, shocked to my core. It's the reason why I really am today. I sat down and I just said, all these people I read are wrong. I was at everything I've consumed, polling, ideology, how the world works, what Americans think. I was bullshit, totally wrong. And I had to completely reevaluate all of my new input. So 2020, I wasn't shocked by what happened. 2024, I wasn't shocked by what happened. I can be a little bit surprised. But to have literally never consumed enough information that you're not truly surprised by an outcome, that was the biggest change that I made from 2016 onwards. I encourage respond to elections that shock you in a similar way and be like, okay, let's seek some stuff out. Cause clearly I don't know what the hell is happening here. I don't know if this Blue sky thing is going to help. That is the way. And I don't think it helped Republicans either. I mean, they overcame the stop the steal insanity of 2020. They got lucky, frankly, that people just have moved on from it. But they paid a real price for it in 2022 as well. And I will not yet say that the fight is over. Like post Trump, what does it look like to have Trump endorsed style candidates without Donald Trump on the ballot? He overperformed every Republican in the country except for Larry Hogan. So are the incentives that it's like Obama, are the incentives that worked for him, are they the same for whoever comes next? I'm not so sure. I don't think so.

[Unknown]

Yeah. I think the retreat of conservatives to their own social media platforms, I don't think that that helped. Gab parlor to social whatever didn't help them, didn't really work. I mean, none. Those platforms really gained massive influence in terms of the culture. I think Elon buying Twitter, definitely that did help them.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Exactly.

[Unknown]

And I don't think that. So, you know, these social media networks, in some ways they're sort of like natural monopolies you would call them, because the whole value of the network is its size. You know, the value is the number of connections that are there, the number of news outlets that are there. I mean, for us in terms of the job that we do, like Blue sky would not be that valuable because I just can't do the news gathering on there that I can do on Twitter, even under Elon's ownership. And so that's why these spinoffs have never really worked. And even Threads, which was The Facebook attempt to kind of like recreate a Twitter like thing. First of all, they completely suppress, they don't really want political content there, so they suppress political content. So it's not a real alternative. But also it just doesn't have the juice that Twitter does in terms of the culture. So I don't think liberals are wrong to look at what happened and say, oh my God, Twitter ended up being very important in this election and we're in this sort of post truth environment and it is no longer the case that what happens online is not real life. Actually what happens online kind of is real life. And that's the era that we live in. There needs to be some sort of response to it. But I am skeptical that retreating into this more sort of niche ideological space is really going to be the answer. What is the answer? I don't really know because Elon owns Twitter now. Like that genie is out of the bottle. That Pandora box has been open. There's no going back from that. And I think the other social media outlets, like Facebook is an important one. I mean, Facebook used to be more, you know, feel like it had at least somewhat of a Democratic inclination. Although right wing content has always done extraordinarily well on Facebook. But Zuckerberg himself obviously used to be more liberal, more pro Democrat. He's one of the people who before Trump was elected was making phone calls and trying to make nice and really trying to overcome this sense from conservatives that he and other tech oligarchs were in the bag for Democrats. I mean, Zuckerberg came under a lot of. It was part of the whole theory, the sort of like high minded, stop the steal theory. And so I think by working the refs, Republicans really were successful in getting the type of content moderation that favored their content that they were looking for. And under a Trump administration like Zuckerberg's gonna wanna stay in good with the big guy who's in charge, who's capable of using the federal government, weaponizing it against him and his interest, et cetera. And once again being facing the ire of an agitated conservative base. So like I said, I'm sympathetic to why people are moving to blue sky. I understand it, but I don't really think it's a response to the social media landscape being kind of overwhelmingly right wing at this point.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, they just don't get it. And I mean it's complicated because when people are like, oh, right wing content is popular on Facebook, it's like, yeah, but that's because it's independent and user generated. And the mainstream media is already liberal. So when the vast majority of the culture is liberal and institutional stuff is quote unquote liberal, then yeah, user generated content is going to be predominantly right wing. That's another reason why YouTube and others, because it's literally a dissonant space. It's one that doesn't exist for institutional, like elite capture, if you want that. It already exists. There's an entire machine for it. So I wouldn't say that they worked the refs or whatever. I mean, there was an overwhelming. Yeah, but there was an overwhelming amount of right wing censorship that also happened under Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg, the Hunter Biden laptop is the most famous example. But there was a lot of, you know, algorithmic preference and stuff that they put their own thumb on the scales. Twitter, obviously, you know, probably the most insurious platform prior to Elon Musk. And I think what happened ultimately is that when you say online is right wing, I think that's because America is a lot more right wing than people want to believe. I think that America, especially with the Trump victory and the popular vote and the massive shift for a lot of these places, it's not the platform's fault. I think people themselves are responding to social, political and economic incentives and have fundamentally changed. They're not right wing in the way that most people think. Like they're not right in the way that you may think in the 1990s about gay marriage or abortion even. But are they right wing on the trans question? Yeah. On immigration?

[Maurice Mitchell]

Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Are they right wing in a sense that they hate institutions? Absolutely. In terms of backlash against MeToo, that's something we talked a little bit about yesterday. Like that is a sense in which being online is right wing, but there's also a tremendous amount of quote unquote, left wing content and a lot of left wing social movements which then in and of themselves have their roots in online. So all online has done is it's niched most of American society. That's how really what I would say the overall net effect of it is. And I think that's actually bad because outside of the whole echo chamber thing, again, exposure to different stuff that you must do actually in algorithmic world, I find it, you must do it more so and more intentionally than ever before. You must intentionally seek out things that you not only disagree with, things that will rock your worldview so that you're never surprised by anything. And I have to read so much and talk to you and do a lot of other stuff just to be able to like, still check my biases. And I don't think most people do that intentionally at all. That's the real danger. That's why you shouldn't do this blue sky retreat. That's what the mistake is.

[Unknown]

Yeah, but I mean, I guess from the liberal perspective, they're like, yeah, but Republicans, like shut themselves into a bubble and it worked out okay for them.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Okay.

[Unknown]

I think that's, I think that's the sense.

[Sagar Enjeti]

You win sometimes and you also lose.

[Unknown]

Like, the other thing I would say is in some senses, yes, like, I think the country on certain issues, certainly on immigration, has moved. Right. But Trump still didn't even win 50% of the vote. Okay, so you don't want to also don't want to like, oh, the country, like 75%, they didn't vote, you know, 75% didn't vote for Trump. It was 49.8 or whatever it's going to end up being. So it still is very much a 50, 50 kind of a country. And when you look at a bunch of the more liberal ballot initiatives across the country, certainly the country's not right wing on abortion rights countries, not right wing on, you know, minimum wage, not right wing on not having paid sick leave or things like that, of that nature. So it's, you know, to me, it's not as clear cut. I think more to the point, Sagar, that you made, the piece that resonated more with me was that liberals have always felt like they had their own spaces already. Like they felt comfortable comfy with the New York Times and the Washington Post and they do CNN and whatever. I do think some of that has shifted. Like it's not as much antipathy towards those organizations as Republicans have, certainly, but there is a real shift among the liberal base that started even before Joe Biden got out of the race. And again, some of their critiques I agree with, some of them I don't agree with. But there has been a real breaking of the faith with liberals and the institutions where they have always felt like they totally comfortable and their perspective was being held up and they could see themselves in the coverage there. And so it does create an interesting moment for different social media experience experiments for different podcasts and independent media, et cetera, that didn't exist before. So in any case, I kind of view this in the light of that new liberal experimentation and that new liberal break with some of the institutions that they previously felt so confident and comfortable in during the last iteration. One last piece we can show you here, just to See this graphically of what it has looked like. We can put this D2 up on the screen so you can see a surge in blue sky, daily visits right after the election, and then you can also see a huge surge in account deactivations. So there has just definitely been, you know, for people who are not, like, necessarily as into politics as we are, where they're just kind of like, you know, this space is just not really where I want to be anymore. I think some of it is that too, where it's just like, you know, I'm just kind of done here in the Elon, Twitter, Musk, Twitter Twitter, Musk Elon Twitter era. I'm just kind of done with this. And so there is definitely something happening here. And like I said to me, it's just emblematic of this new landscape of, like, okay, well, the things we did to respond to Trump last time didn't work. The institutions we relied on to help guide us through this time utterly failed us. So let's try some other things and see what's going on.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, that actually can be very healthy. So I remember I would meet, like, predominantly old ladies who really hated Trump, and they were like, I fought him on social media, and they believed that. They believed they were engaged in a war by retweeting Mueller, she wrote, and Seth Abramson and all these other Eric Garland and all these social media stars from last time around. And I think it may be healthy this time that they're like, wait, no, that doesn't work. There are a lot of people who live entire lives via proxy, and that's the one thing I would beg you, don't do that. I noticed this with Ukraine. People literally believe that they're fighting on the front, on the. The democracy frontline or whatever. By tweeting against people who disagree with their position on Ukraine or by retweeting and reposting Ukrainian propaganda, is that beneficial to their cause? Maybe. Are you the same as a frontline soldier? No, absolutely not. There's a big thing like that in political commentary and even just political stats and all that. I notice on Twitter. There's an entire army of people who are on Twitter who believe that they're really impacting things for Donald Trump and his victory. Maybe 0.05% of them are. The rest, it's like, you're just chaff, right? You're just, like, retweeting and doing nothing mostly with your life. So I think that is also perhaps a healthy response, because I noticed a lot of that.

[Unknown]

You know, I'VE actually kind of shifted my view on that because I think that the posting was really important for Trump's victory.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But that's a selection bias because it's the people who are good at it that work.

[Unknown]

The vast majority are reply guys. But you need the reply guys, you need the retweeters. Like, that's part of what makes the ecosystem work. And so when you think of the story of this election, one of the big divides that came out is that people who were hyper engaged in political news, who were reading the New York Times or even engaged in MSNBC or whatever, Fox News, hyper engaged political news media consumers, they voted for Kamala. And people who were not hyper engaged, who were consuming this election more through just memes and culture and vibes, they voted for Donald Trump. So I don't think I can say at this point that the posting doesn't matter. I think the posting was important. I think that the, you know, the memes that came out of Trump at McDonald's and the image that came out after the assassination attempt with his fist in the air and the garbage truck, like all this stuff, which was just about online fodder and meme content. I don't know. I think posting actually ended up being important. I do think online is kind of the real world now. And, you know, liberals do have to grapple with that and people on the left have to grapple with that as well. So I don't think it used to be that. I think this is like kind of a new era we've entered into with the whole podcast election and the downfall of media ecosystems and the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk. But yeah, I actually think they're right that they are engaged in a real social movement that had real world impacts because so much of our life does exist online now and there isn't that separation. There used to be.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, I guess that's a good counter. I hadn't thought about it. I guess I think it's more existed and worked on the right because people are already not on mainstream media. And this comes to our MSNBC question, will they stay on mainstream media or not? That I really don't know. Yeah, I think they'll go back. I think they will.

[Unknown]

Online is the culture now. That's the, that's, that's the thing.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I've always been.

[Unknown]

And so, you know, culture obviously feeds politics. So if you aren't competing in the online culture, like, you're going to get dressed.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, well, maybe. We'll see.

[Unknown]

It's almost here. The NYX Black Friday Sale, the biggest sale of the year starts this [e-mail] don't miss your chance to save up to 60% on Innovative Intimates like leak proof underwear, wireless bras, shapewear and more. Everything will be on sale. Millions have made the switch to NYX's revolutionary period underwear and there's never been a better time for you to try them too. During the Black Friday sale, save up to 60% on super comfy machine, washable and stylish leak proof fundies. Plus shop the best deals of the year on NYX's best selling assortment of wireless bras including the Wing Woman and Revolution Bra. So mark your calendar for this Thursday and head to nyx.com that's kn I x.com for the NYX Early Black Friday sale, save up to 60% off everything including leak proof undies, wireless bras, activewear, shapewear and more. It only happens once a year@kn I x.com don't miss this.

[Krystal Ball]

Black Friday is coming. And for the adults in your life who love the coolest toys, well, there's something for them this year too. Bartisian is the premier craft cocktail maker that automatically makes more than 60 seasonal and classic cocktails each in under 30 seconds at the push of a button. And right now Bartisian is having a huge site wide sale. You can get $100 off any cocktail maker or cocktail maker bundle when you spend $400 or more. So if the cocktail lover in your life has been good this year or the right kind of bad, get them Bartesian at the push of a button. Make bar quality Cosmopolitans, Martinis, Manhattans and more all in just 30 seconds. All for 100 off. Amazing toys aren't just for kids. Get a hundred off a cocktail maker when you spend 400 through Cyber Monday. Visit bartesian.com cocktail that's B A R T E S I A N dot.

[Maurice Mitchell]

Com cocktail Looking for excitement? Chumba Casino is here. Play anytime, Play anywhere. Play on the train, Play at the store. Play at home. Play when you're bored. Play today for your chance to win and get daily bonuses when you log in. So what are you waiting for? Don't delay. Chumba Casino is free to play. Experience social gameplay like never before. Go to Chumba Casino right now to play hundreds of games including online slots, Bingo, Slingo and more. Live the chumba [e-mail] VGW Group no purchase necessary Void Work prohibited by law.

[Unknown]

See terms and conditions 18 + At.

[Sagar Enjeti]

The same time, there's Some very troubling news out of Ukraine. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. The Biden administration, with less than two months left in office, has dramatically changed US Policy in Ukraine, allowing Ukraine to use long range US Missiles to strike inside of Russia. The president for the first time authored, authorized the Ukrainian military to use the atacms, the AT cams, to help defend its forces in the Kursk region. Now, this is particularly insane for a number of reasons. One is that this was considered a red line for Russian President Vladimir Putin, which he has said repeatedly and said if you do so, then NATO will be considered an active military target and participant in this war. Second is if you actually look, Kristal, at the military operation where this is happening. This is to support a Ukrainian invasion of Russia. So this is Ukraine's invasion of Kursk where they crossed an internationally recognized border with a military operation and are now facing a Russian offensive of Russian troops and some 50,000 North Korean elite special forces. We are using these long range missiles for Ukraine to strike inside of internationally recognized sovereign Russian territory. Now, two wrongs don't make a right. Correct. If your entire case is they illegally invaded us, they took our territory and all this, and you're like, well, we're gonna invade you to show you who's boss. It's like, okay, philosophically I can understand that. But if your entire case is around having the entire world support your democratization project and all that, it's like, well, then it gets a little bit complicated. And so already we can confirm as of this morning that the first long range missile was used inside of Russia. But second, if you read inside of it, they say they do not expect this to change the course of the war. They do not expect this to change the course of this offensive. At best, you can kill a few more North Koreans or Russians. So it's not even strategically going to really change the outcome. And then finally, I think this is a really disgusting move because what I think is happening is that they are trying, number one, Anthony Blinken said they're gonna push every dollar out to Ukraine that they possibly and legally can while they're in office. And two, I think that they're trying to set the standard for Donald Trump and his administration in office so that they are then forced to try and get headlines in the media being like, Donald Trump reverses the policy of missiles, you know, long range missiles that are being used inside of Russia and allowed for the Ukrainian forces. It's a deep state, tried and true thing. They did it to Obama as well, whenever he was coming into office. And so the entire policy is nuts. The entire policy is crazy.

[Unknown]

I think the idea is that Ukraine feels like if Trump is coming into office, there is a decent chance. We don't know for sure if this is gonna happen or not, but there's a decent chance that he's gonna force some kind of a peace settlement.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes.

[Unknown]

And they want to be able to have something they can trade for their own territory in that settlement. And so the idea is if they can be successful in this. I'm not validating, I'm just explaining the logic. If they can be successful in this Russian attack and invasion and have some territory in Russia that they hold that they can use that as a bargaining chip to come out in a better position after these negotiations. So I think that's ultimately what's, it's what's going on here. And that doesn't undercut what you said, Sagar, of the level of danger of allowing this to unfold. I do think it's unlikely that Putin, because he also is seeing the same landscape of like, let's wait and see what Trump does when he comes in. I think it's unlikely that he reacts in the most aggressive and hostile way of like actively attacking a NATO country or, you know, using nukes or something like that. But, you know, you're running a risk and that's kind of a wild thing to do.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Look at already what they're doing. You know, again, Ukraine is losing. They have been losing territory consistently for months. We've been focused on the election, so we haven't been able to cover it. But put this up there on the screen. I mean, the largest missile attack on Ukrainian infrastructure literally just happened a couple of days ago. It's a disaster over there for them. I mean, their population already. The latest poll that has come out shows that 52% of Ukrainians want to pursue a negotiated settlement. That's up almost 30% over the last couple of years. Also, let's put this on the screen from the Wall Street Journal. Trump's push for the Ukraine peace finds, quote, growing acceptance in Europe. Germany, arguably the country with the most to lose and you the balance of power and all of that. Their chancellor has said, no way we're not sending more long range missiles or escalating the war in Ukraine. We'll provide them with basic military assistance. But their red lines, they're sticking to cuz they have real stakes. They also know they don't have the money to continue this war without the colossal amount of funds the United States has been pushing into this conflict. So all of the signs point to what is obviously best for everybody. Ukraine, Russia and for the entire world. Let's end the war now. Nobody is going to win the Russians or the Ukrainians. Although, and I will at least give the countercase, John Mearsheimer doesn't believe a negotiated settlement will happen because he goes, look, Russia is already winning the war. Why would they do it? Russia and the Putin regime, specifically the Putin regime, has very little respect for human life. They don't care. Right. A couple hundred thousand people are cadet, whatever. For some reason in Russia, they seem to be okay with that, especially the government. Well, now you've got these elite North Korean forces who are with you. You've got North Korea giving you ammunition. You've got Iran producing these suicide drones. You're actually rolling back the territory. You've got the sunk cost fallacy of a couple hundred thousand people. Maybe we don't. Nobody knows the number, but have died on the front line. The Ukrainians are failing. Why would I negotiate now? In a certain sense, they have the least amount of incentive right now to negotiate. So I'm hoping that Donald Trump can actually change that and bring this to some sort sort of bigger settlement and convince Putin that it's not in his best interest. But the deck is arrayed against them. It has been for years. Nobody wants to listen. Today is the 1000th day, apparently of the Ukraine war. Wild. Which is crazy. But. And if you consider like all of the macro, strategic and economic picture points in one direction, more Ukrainian territory lost. The more that they push this, the longer that it prolongs, you will see the age will continue to tick up in the Ukrainian military. The population will continue to suffer. Food, energy, cost, all of this already. I mean, a huge percent of the country has left. Their best and the brightest have left long ago. So they have massive problems. And worse really, is the escalation trying to tie the Trump administration's hands and like you said, pray and hope that this doesn't backfire. Do I think Putin is gonna attack us over it? No. But do I think that it still crosses certain red lines and gives a lot of incentives inside of the Russian military for how they should think very differently about approaching the west and even any hope of a rapprochement with them that lasts longer than Donald Trump, which is what I think everybody should like to see. So, I don't know, in the North Korea thing, just final point, we've talked about the fact that some thousands of troops are in Russia is a failure of Biden foreign policy. Donald Trump had a policy of engagement with North Korea. That was great because we actually had good relations. There were no missiles flying around. Whatever Biden came in, we immediately reverted to maximum pressure and sanctions. And what do they do? Of course, they go to China and Russia right back to where they were. And now there's troops on the Ukraine front line. This could easily have been prevented. If we have diplomatic relations, then we're fine. You know, their nuclear program, by the way, nothing has happened to plot twist over the last four years of maximum pressure on their thing. It's the same story with Iran, with Venezuela. After you reach a certain critical mass. It's not sanctions on all this. It will do nothing to do with it.

[Unknown]

How many years have we had sanctions on Cuba? What is that, 60? Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Actually made it more. Yeah.

[Unknown]

It's just insane. One last point on the European leaders and the call with the law, Schultz and all of that, because I think that's very significant, is not only do they see the writing on the wall in terms of this war, which has gone on for far too long, where the US And UK banded together to block any sort of potential peace deal, at the beginning, I mean, that really was the failure because that was the time when Russia was in the most precarious position, where it was unclear how people would respond politically, where it was unclear how much the sanctions would bite, or it was unclear how much the loss of life would create instability within the country itself. They've weathered all those storms. So that continues to have been the real failing and missed opportunity in this war. But I think also a lot of these leaders are looking at the fact that I did a monologue yesterday about how Democrats commitment to genocide in Gaza and also a number of voters mentioned the war in Ukraine was part of what turned them off from voting for Democrats again. Because even as you still see pretty decent levels of support for Ukraine, like Americans are sympathetic to the cause, but they also got the accurate sense from Joe Biden in particular, but by extension Kamala Harris, that this is what he actually cared about. He didn't really care that much that you couldn't afford groceries, that you couldn't. That your budget was stretched tight, that you couldn't imagine ever even being able to become a homeowner. The only thing he could really talk about was NATO in August and this visions of grandeur with regard to this imagined fight between democracy and autocracy where we're the good guys, when manifestly, with regard to our actions in Gaza. We are not the good guy. So I think they also are reading the political tea leaves, not just here, of how this had an impact on the election and helped to bring Trump back to the White House, but you see parties throughout Europe that are both on the right and on the left who are critics of the European and the American policy vis a vis Ukraine, who are on the rise. And there's a number of factors that go into that, but Ukraine is certainly one of them. And so I think that's the other piece, is not only reading the tea leaves and the writing on the wall with regard to the status of the war and how things are likely to go in the future, but also looking out for their own political survival and realizing that there is, you know, there's a real political backlash to this endless support for Ukraine and what is at this point, a hopeless cause.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, that's a good point. And, you know, ultimately this just feeds more into the Biden failure. His legacy was NATO. And now a guy is getting elected explicitly, at least with a pledge, we'll see what he does to end the war that he said was so vital and critical to US Policy and security. I will say I am an Aukus fan, too, so love Aukus. That's outside of that.

[Unknown]

An Aukus voter.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I'm not an Aukus voter. I appreciate the Anglosphere, and I think that is how we should have relations rather than some bullshit treaty from 80 years ago about why I'm supposed to go and die for north Montenegro or whatever.

[Unknown]

I think we should have just as a final close, as I think we should. And I think we both do have some skepticism of what Trump will actually do here because he has said a bunch of different things. Obviously, you've got Marco Rubio and a bunch of neocons that he's put into key positions. There is, you know, there's a reason why even though he made overtures to withdraw from Afghanistan, why he didn't do it. Because look at the political cost that Joe Biden paid for actually doing what voters had claimed they wanted and withdrawing from Afghanistan. Because guess what? Any time you try to disentangle yourself from one of these concepts, it can be really ugly. And the press almost uniformly turns against you, and the leaks from the generals about it could genuinely be damaging to his presidency. And he's no fool. So ultimately, he doesn't care outside of his own self preservation. So if he looks at the landscape and is like, this isn't good for me politically, I don't think it's not crazy to imagine that he takes a very different approach than what he at times signaled on the campaign trail. And he wasn't even consistent in what he signaled on the campaign trail.

That's right, it's almost here. The NYX Black Friday Sale, the biggest sale of the year, starts this [e-mail] don't miss your chance to save up to 60% on Innovative Intimates like leak proof underwear, wireless bras, shapewear and more. Everything will be on sale. Millions have made the switch to NYX's revolutionary period underwear and there's never been a better time for you to try them too. During the Black Friday sale, save up to 60% on super comfy machine, washable and stylish leakproof undies. Plus, shop the best deals of the year on NYX's best selling assortment of wireless bras, including the Wing Woman and Revolution Bra. So mark your calendar for this Thursday and head to nyx.com that's kn I x.com for the NYX Early Black Friday sale. Save up to 60% off everything including leak proof undies, wireless bras, activewear, shapewear and more. It only happens once a [e-mail] don't miss this.

[Krystal Ball]

Black Friday is coming. And for the adults in your life who love the coolest toys, well, there's something for them this year too. Bartisian is the premier craft cocktail maker that automatically makes more than 60 seasonal and classic cocktails each in under 30 seconds at the push of a button. And right now Bartisian is having a huge site wide sale. You can get $100 off any cocktail maker or cocktail maker bundle when you spend $400 or more. So if the cocktail lover in your life has been good this year or the right kind of bad, get them Bartesian at the push of a button. Make bar quality Cosmopolitans, Martinis, Manhattans and more all in just 30 seconds. All for a hundred off. Amazing toys aren't just for kids. Get a hundred off a cocktail maker when you spend 400 through Cyber Monday. Visit bartisian.com cocktail that's B A R T E S I A N dot.

[Unknown]

Com cocktail this holiday season, surprise everyone on your list with the best gifts. Tickets to see their favorite artists live. Choose from thousands of concerts and comedy shows including Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, Matt Matthews, Metallica, Thomas Rhett, Trans Siberian Orchestra, Sarah Silverman and so many more. Share a memory together or give a gift they'll never forget. Find the most exciting gift for every [e-mail] gifts that's livenation.com gifts.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Crystal, what are you taking a look at?

[Unknown]

Well, the war is on in the Democratic Party to assign blame for Kamala Harris loss and to help set the narrative for what will come next. Next, to boil it down, you basically got a maintain the status quo faction going up against a burn it all down faction on one side. You've effectively got all the people who were most directly implicated in this loss. You got the donors, consultants, operatives and establishment Democrats who by and large authored this campaign and the media figures who helped to construct and enforce this iteration of the Democratic Party. They're complicit in destroying parties movement, elevating Biden, blocking a 2024 primary and setting the messaging direction of the Dem party in general and the Kamala Harris campaign specifically. They believed that an anti Trump coalition heavily reliant on suburban Liz Cheney voters could be assembled and activated and win. Harris campaign strategy was by and large designed to appeal to this imagined affluent coalition. This group is interested in any and all arguments that can effectively maintain the current Democratic Party stack status quo. That includes punching left, which again is no different from the longtime Democratic Party status quo and denying that there's really any problem whatsoever. At war with this camp are those who believe that the Democratic Party lost the working class and with it the election because they failed that working class aoc, Bernie Ro Khanna. Those are some of the proponents. But there have been a few surprising mainstream allies in the fight. People like Senator Chris Murphy and even to my absolute shock, David Brooks. These folks have correctly suggested that Democrats take a lesson from Bernie Sanders, embrace real economic populism, piss off their high income base and donor class, and lean into the politics of class war. This camp, in which I am included, is the most correct, but also has the biggest obstacles in front of it since big Bunny interests are not likely to just abandon their interest in the Democratic Party. Well folks, we got a new salvo in this war between the status quo and burn it down factions in the form of a New York Times op ed by John Fetterman's former chief of staff. In an op ed titled When Will Democrats Learn to say no, Adam Jentelson argues that Democrats are losing because they cater too much to the world of left interest groups. In making the argument, he name checks aclu, Sunrise Justice Democrats and Working Families Party for pushing Kamala back in 2020 to support the current law and surgeries for transgender prisoners to decriminalize border crossings and for generally attempted to push Democrats left on criminal justice reform. This op ed postures as an argument for Democratic Party reform, but in actuality it already reflects the 2024 reality of the Democratic Party. This analysis might have held more weight back in 2020 when those groups helped to shape the debate that happened inside of that Democratic Party primary, not in 2024 when they hold basically no sway. Kamala abandoned all of the positions mentioned in their piece to the extent she ever really supported them at all. She ran on being a cop, adopted Republican immigration positions, embraced Liz Cheney, and literally never talked about trans issues at all. In other words, not only does this argument fail to threaten the status quo, it just reinforces it. The argument also may have had made more sense if rather than including a bunch of basically powerless groups that, contrary to the title, Democrats have no trouble constantly saying no to the op ed looked at groups like AIPAC and the Democratic Majority for Israel who have actually been insanely influential in the 2024 world of politics. AOC made this point on Twitter and is now predictably being smeared as an anti Semite. She wrote, quote, if people want to talk about members of Congress being overly influenced by a special interest group pushing a wildly unpopular agenda that pushes voters away from Democrats, then they should be discussing aipac. She is obviously correct. Their money has shaped everything from the crackdown on campus protests to the defeat of even mild critics of Israel, to the Kamala Harris own refusal break from Biden on one of his worst issues. And it wasn't just these lefty groups that came in for scrutiny though. In the pages of the New York Times, Jentelson also takes a shot at the antitrust movement. Here's the quote by wishing away these complexities, a coalition first mindset produces many candidates who are the inverse of what voters want. People with the cultural sensibilities of Yale Law School graduates who cosplay as populists by over relying on niche issues like Federal Trade Commission Antitrust act to start with, the structure of corporate power is far from a niche issue. In addition, it's truly funny that this line, including the Yale park could just as easily describe the now victorious J.D. vance as anyone inside of the Democratic coalition, something that our friend and antitrust advocate Matt Stoller pointed out. But most importantly, this line is actually the key to unlocking an understanding of what is really going on inside of this article. The Biden antitrust agenda was hated by the Democratic donor class who went to war with Lina Khan in every way they knew how. So it is quite convenient that in this piece attempting to blame the left for an election manifestly lost by the centrists. Jentison also seeks to throw overboard the parts of the Biden agenda which actually did threaten the class interests of those in the status quo camp. In fact, as Jeet here points out, a much larger problem for Kamala was the fact that she let donors talk her out of highlighting the most potent parts of her economic platform, including backing away from the Biden administration's terrific trust busting record. Jeet highlights this New York Times reporting that Kamala's corporate allies and donors hated the price gouging ban and pressured her to limit its reach. The Times reports quote, the price gouging touched on a broader anxiety among Ms. Harris's corporate allies who were worried that her economic policies might cater to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party party. The article also notes that Kamala backed off a hike in the capital gains tax to appease these donors and remained studiously ambiguous their words on a tax for the ultra rich. Now these are the frickin people the Democrats actually need to learn how to say no to. Another New York Times report includes details about how Kamala's super PAC found that an ad on price gouging tested through the roof in terms of effectiveness, yet it barely saw the light of day. Quote Another memo issued days later pointed out very high performing ads that have yet to get a big spend. One ad, Future Forward said had ranked in the 100th percentile, meaning it was the most effective, yet it had virtually never been aired. So here everybody is the ad that Kamala's donors did not want you to see.

I get it. The cost of rent, groceries and utilities is too hot. So here's what we're going to do about it. We will lower housing costs by building more homes and crack down on landlords who are charging too much. We will lower your food and grocery bills by going after price gougers who are keeping the cost of everyday goods too high. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. Because you work hard for your paycheck, you should get to keep more of it. As president, I'll make that my top priority.

The donors, the billionaires, the consultants, the corrupt establishment itself, those are the interests that need to be told no, that need to be purged wholesale. Any analysis that fails to make this case is nothing more than a defense of the Democratic Party status quo. And Sagar, one of the things that got a lot of note in that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber [e-mail] it's almost here.

[Unknown]

The NYX Black Friday Sale, the biggest sale of the year starts this [e-mail] don't miss your chance to save up to 60% on Innovative Intimates like leak proof underwear, wireless bras, shapewear and more. Everything will be on sale. Millions have made the switch to NYX's revolutionary period underwear and there's never been a better time for you to try them too. During the Black Friday sale, save up to 60% on super comfy machine, washable and stylish leak proof undies. Plus shop the best deals of the year on NYX's best selling assortment of wireless bras including the Wing Woman and Revolution Bra. So mark your calendar for this Thursday and head to nyx.com that's kn I x.com for the NYX Early Black Friday sale. Save up to 60% off everything including leak proof undies, wireless bras, activewear, shapewear and more. It only happens once a [e-mail] don't miss this.

[Krystal Ball]

Black Friday is coming. And for the adults in your life who love the coolest toys, well, there's something for them this year too. Bartisian is the premier craft cocktail maker that automatically makes more than 60 seasonal and classic cocktails each in under 30 seconds at the push of a button. And right now Bartisian is having a huge site wide set. You can get $100 off any cocktail maker or cocktail maker bundle when you spend $400 or more. So if the cocktail lover in your life has been good this year or the right kind of bad, get them Bartesian at the push of a button. Make bar quality Cosmopolitans, Martinis, Manhattans and more all in just 30 seconds. All for a hundred off. Amazing toys aren't just for kids. Get a hundred off a cocktail maker when you spend 400 through Cyber Monday, visit bartesian.com cocktail that's B A R T E S I A N dot.

[Unknown]

Com cocktail this holiday season, surprise everyone on your list with the best gifts tickets to see their favorite artists live. Choose from thousands of concerts and comedy shows including Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, Matt Matthews, Metallica, Thomas Rhett, Trans Siberian Orchestra, Sarah Silverman and so many more. Share a memory together or give a gift they'll never forget. Find the most exciting gift for every [e-mail] gifts that's livenation.com gifts.

So as we have of course been discussing, there is a big battle on for the future of the Democratic Party and also to understand how they just took such a shellacking. We're lucky to be joined this morning by Maurice Mitchell, who is the national director for the Working Families Party, who has many thoughts on all of these topics. Great to see you, Maurice.

It's good to be here.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, good to see you.

[Unknown]

Of course. So just your top line thoughts. What happened and what should happen now?

Well, I want to caution everybody, there's literally votes still being counted in certain places not to sort of just jump into the hot takes. What we're doing is we're attempting to be reflected and humble. But what we know is that incumbent parties all across the world, right, a lot of them lost, including the Democratic Party. And to us, what that means is that working people in this country and elsewhere are not happy with the political establishment and the economic establishment. And we need to listen to what people are saying. So I knocked on hundreds of doors in North Philly, in Atlanta, and. And what I heard.

Yeah, what did you hear at those doors?

I heard a lot of things, but I heard deep skepticism about whether or not politics actually mattered in people's lives and certainly whether or not the two parties, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, would do anything to make a dent on the crisis of affordability that people are experiencing, the crisis of gun violence that a lot of people are experiencing, and what I believe folks need to do, and I'm building the Working Families Party, but if I was to give free advice to anybody or the Democratic Party, it would be not necessarily to try to find easy solutions. I don't think the solution is in a one or two page memo that's been written over the past weeks or days. The solutions are in the people listening, right? So I think we need to put our hot take sort of impulses on the backseat and make sure that our listening game is really strong. So that's my advice. And then there's a lot of talk that I think is obsessed with this left right binary that I think kind of obscures what I'm hearing, right? There is a top down feeling that permeates throughout politics or political identity. A lot of people don't have a political identity, but they feel like somebody somewhere is taking from them, that somewhere, somehow, the system is rigged against them. There's a lot of people that feel that way and they're looking for solutions. I think that there are some people that voted for Donald Trump for all the horrible reasons that people might think they would vote for Donald Trump. And there's some people that just wanted change and he was able to articulate that he might be a anti institutional figure. I think a lot of those folks, even now as they see some of his pics, are realizing that may or may not be true. I think certainly when he governs, people will see that again. For the Working Families Party, the thing that we're going to do is we're going to obsess. And this is something that we said not just after the loss, we said this in the months before the loss and years before the loss, obsessed with the concerns of everyday working people and tell a story that is both true in our work and also rhetorically true about who the villains are. Right. So when people are experiencing this crisis of affordability that is real in people's lives, especially around housing, we name names and say who the villains are. And as political parties and organizations and politicians, it's your job to say who the heroes are, the working people, and who you're willing to fight for and willing to fight against.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, it's interesting. As I understand, Working Families Party is especially big in New York. New York is also the single largest state that swung to Donald Trump in this election. I think some 11% swing from 2020 towards the Republicans. So if you're thinking about what that looks like, what does a response to the shifts in Long island and all across New York, including actually even in Manhattan, in the Bronx, everywhere, urban, rural, et cetera, there was a major increase for Donald Trump. How can you win those people back? I mean, 11% in a single four year period in a blue state is shocking. It's absolutely shocking. And New Jersey was number two, which is even crazier.

[Unknown]

So I think in our analysis, what's required is a lot of nuance and it also requires us to actually look at each state. So I'm from New York. I actually grew up in one of the working class suburbs that you're referring to, that that swung last election, swung from red to blue and in this election actually swung back. Right. So you talk about New York, but when we kind of look at the data, the Working Families Party worked with folks in labor unions and folks in different organizations over the past two years in New York, specifically on a project called Battleground New York that was successful despite those swings, successful in a number of congressional districts to swing from red to blue. So the thing that I'm curious about in New York, where that's the top line story in the nation, where we unfortunately became together but didn't get the outcome that we wanted, what can we learn from the swings that Happened in the neighborhood that I grew up in, that I returned to during COVID the block that I live on. Right. So there's data points. Or in Connecticut, where the Working Families Party had a great election Day. Right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Interesting.

[Unknown]

Right. Where many of our working class candidates in purple districts in this election flipped those districts from red to blue. What can we learn about what kind.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Of races are these? Can you describe what kind of races?

[Unknown]

I mean, these are races where our candidates, our teachers, our labor unionists are regular working people. Right. We believe that there's a formula. It's not like it's not one plus one equals three, but people who are from the district, who are people that you could identify as folks in your community, People like Kendra Brooks, who is, by the way, in Philadelphia, is a WFP only city council person who lives in nice town North Philly, who governs the entire city of Philadelphia, or Nicholas O'Rourke, who have long stories of being advocates and connected to their community, could swing people in their communities on the ground, based on their story, based on their relationships, and based on issues that actually matter in their lives, not abstractions or at a certain level, on the air with presidential candidates and presidential politics, a lot of that could get lost. Which is why our bread and butter is the local politics we endorse in this cycle, in this election. 750 candidates. So I know a lot of politics is, especially in a presidential year, is the top of the ticket. In California, we have 100 WFP aligned candidates. I think close to 70 of them won this cycle. On the municipal level, the thing that connects all these candidates are the fact that they're like regular people. They're not talking like D.C. wonks. They're in the lives of their communities. And on that level, on the city council level, on the county level, you're able to swing people based on the issues that matter to them. I'll just give an example. Housing, which is something I come back to over and over again. In Philadelphia, for example, we were able to, the Working Families Party through Kendra Brooks, pass a eviction diversion, permanent eviction diversion piece of legislation that started in Covid. We made it permanent. And in Philadelphia, there's a 41% decrease in evictions. Right. That's keeping real families in their homes.

Yeah.

Recently we also passed through the Working Families Party a bill that prevents realtors from using AI and algorithms in order to artificially increase people's rentals. This is groundbreaking legislation. And the lobbies are very upset. But because these are folks that we recruited and are not part of the political establishment. They're willing to take the fight to the lobbyist. Right. So if I were to give the Democratic Party any notes, it's like politics are about fights. Who's the Democratic Party willing to take the fight to? And so I could tell you who the Working Families Party is willing to take the fight to. And we have results even in this election where we came together and we joined the united front and we lost at the top of the ticket. We have a lot of notes about how we might be able to rebuild on the grassroots level.

So you all are taking strays in the pages of the New York Times. Adam Gentleson, who was chief of staff to John Fetterman I think previously worked for Harry R.E. reid, is blaming interest groups such as the Working Families Party for pushing Kamala Harris too far left. They write in that article the same year a coalition of groups including the Sunrise Movement and the Working Families Party demanded all Democrats running for president embrace decriminalizing border crossings. This is with regard to back in 2020. What's your response to that? The idea that Working Families Party and other sort of left aligned groups have pulled candidates like Kamala Harris too far left and put them out of step with the working class?

Well, this was a presidential election where VP Harris campaign raisin spent $1.5 billion. The super PACs associated with her raisin spent much more than that, billions of dollars. Democratic Party operatives, very senior Democratic Party operative led these vehicles. And now some of them, not all of them, some of them are choosing to in the hours and days and weeks after this electoral loss that they participated in because we were all part of it, they're choosing to attack relatively small interest groups. I think that this might be an opportunity for reflection. I know that that's what we're doing at the Working Families part. We're asking questions, we're curious, we're doing a lot of listening, especially to working people. We're in the field right now. We're having both big calls like we had over 100,000 person mass call that we did 48 hours after the election. We're also doing debriefs in community and we're getting a lot of people coming in person in those debriefs. Look, when I was at the doors and I got the shoe lever to prove it, I not once I heard a lot of things. Not once did I hear at anybody suggest that what they were concerned with were some of these, some of the issues in the breathless sort of think pieces. And it's kind of ironic. We're talking about working people, but the way that some folks are trying to persecute, trying to prosecute that argument is in Apez and the New York Times. Right, but true.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, but they do kind of have a point. Right? I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, I'm not sure what the specifics are, but if that's a position that you're pushing, that was a huge reason why she lost. I mean, I was in Pennsylvania. I saw that they them ad play all day long. I saw immigration play all day long. Maybe in North Philly. It's not the same. Although there were a lot of, what, urban communities in Philadelphia, as I understand it, that moved to the right. Puerto Ricans, namely the most. I think immigration probably had something to do with that. So, I mean, I don't think Adam is 100% wrong. So I think your point is correct. These super PACs and all these people are full to blame. But if you're pushing candidates to embrace these positions, that's a problem.

[Unknown]

I would never say anybody that is attempting to figure out the wreckage of this election is 100% wrong and that there aren't many factors that might lead to it. And I would never argue that a particular ad or a particular ad wouldn't be effective or not, but I think in some ways that the level of analysis is too low. Right. Again, like I mentioned at the top of this conversation, this is a moment where incumbent parties around the world are being rejected by immigration.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Is a big part of that story, too. Don't think so.

[Unknown]

A lot of factors are a big part. You mentioned New York. I think. I think you can't talk about New York without talking about the fact that Eric Adams basically ran and governed every single day based on the premise that New York was a hellhole and that immigrants were somehow, in a very binary way, taking dollar for dollar from everyday people in New York.

Well, you spent a lot of state.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Resources on how.

[Unknown]

Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party, they basically adopted the Republican frame on immigration she ran. How many times did she talk about prosecuting transnational gangs, blah, blah, blah. Now, you could say there was an overhang from 2020, blah, blah, blah. But that overhang must have been much more present in 2020 when Joe Biden was able to win. So while I think that there, you know, I've been a critic of, like, wokeness in the Democratic Party and like, the word policing and the academic language and whatever, and I think that's fine, but it's Very convenient for the people who ran the multibillion dollar super PACs to be like, it wasn't our fault, it was their fault. We had nothing to do with it. When she ran the platonic ideal of the centrist Liz Cheney, like anti immigrant campaign that they would want her to run, it's just very convenient to then be like, no, because of something she said on a questionnaire back in 2020. That's the reason she lost.

That's my point. For better or worse, she ran the campaign that she wanted to run as a consensus based, sort of big tent Democrat that campaigned with Liz Cheney. But I also want to, I want to also be clear. The class dealignment that's been taking place, like working people leaving the Democratic Party, not all of them, one for one going to Donald Trump, many of them dropping out. That's many of the people that I talk to every day just dropping out of politics. Yeah, that's been taking place for a long time. Kamala Harris didn't create that phenomenon. Her campaign certainly didn't solve it. I don't think any one campaign could solve it. But here we are and we need to be, we need to be reflective. But I think a lot of these backwards looking takes will have people fight the last battle instead of the future battle.

Maurice, let me ask you specifically about one of the big battles that is going on right now for the direction the Democratic Party takes is about who was gonna DNC chair, sort of this important proxy fight over whether there's going to be, hey, maybe we need to deliver for working families in the way that a Bernie Sanders imagined or whether there's going to be more capitulation to the right and more shifts to the right going forward. One of the candidates who has been floated is Rahm Emanuel, who was originally in Clinton aide, obviously present leading up to and during the Obama administration, actually pushed Obama not to do healthcare because he thought it would be too upsetting to the powers that be. David Axelrod was promoting him as potential DNC chair. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.

[David Axelrod]

Here's what I would do if I were, if they said, well, what should we do? Who should lead the party? I would take Ambassador Rahm Emanuel and I would bring him back from Japan and I would appoint him chairman of the Democratic National Committee because he is the most skillful political kind of infighter in the Democratic Party. He's been, you know, he's been a member of Congress, he's been White House chief of staff, he's been the Mayor of Chicago. Now he's been ambassador to Japan, and he ran in 2005 and 6, the Campaign to take back the House when Democrats were trying to take back the House of Representatives. He knows how to do this, and he would be a presence in the media and so on, fearless about taking on Trump. I think that would be a really smart.

[Sagar Enjeti]

How many people in this room know.

[Unknown]

Who Rahm Emanuel is?

So in many ways, the party still is Rahm Emanuel's party in terms of the type of candidates, the type of messaging that they promote. What do you make of this push to put Rahm in as DNC chair?

I mean, so again, I'm building the Working Families Party. If I was to give the Democratic Party any advice, I mean, what do I hear there? I hear a bunch of elites talking about the concerns of their party instead of the concerns of everyday people. If you want to come out of the wreckage of this election, then every single thing your party does should reflect an obsession with being deeply in the lives of people who are experiencing the affordability crisis or experiencing just generally this crisis of legitimacy that all the institutions are experiencing. And all the conversations you have will reflect that. The choices of the head of your party will reflect that. We need organizers. We need people who are listening to lead us through what will be a very challenging four years. I know that's how we're thinking about. And again, I just think that these really, these elite conversations about what you're going to do for your institution almost is like you're having the wrong conversation. And we're on the verge of, in this country, experiencing something that. Look, I don't want to engage in hyperbole. It's hard to. When you look. When you look at Donald Trump's cabinet picks, we could imagine what this is gonna look like. We need fighting organizations that are willing to take the fight aggressively to Donald Trump and MAGA and be in the lives of everyday working people. And so if the conversation isn't about that, if it's about some political insider who. I mean, I talked to people in Chicago who look at the results of what happened in Chicago and how he left that position, be curious about what his role was in all those positions that were named, and also be more curious about what folks. Like, I live on a block, right? Like just a little bio, right. I'm not a pundit, Right. I grew up as a working class person. The reason why I'm here is because both of my parents got opportunities in unions. My dad was in sanitation at a school district eventually he was an electrician and got a union. My mom was a union nurse. And I lived on a block that was multiracial. A lot of ethnic white folks and immigrants and black folks in the suburbs of New York that went blue and has slowly become contested politically. There is a huge Trump flag on that block now on the corner, something I couldn't have imagined only a few years ago. I returned back to that community during COVID If you're not obsessed with what will make my parents, who are retired folks who put their lives on the line to make sure that the trains ran on time and that people got the care that they needed. If you don't put your focus on them and you put your focus on who the chair of the Democratic Party would be or what this relatively privileged Democrat Democratic Party operative says in the New York Times, you've lost the plot and we need fighting. A fighting movement that will be obsessed with putting at the center people like my family and people like my neighbors.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Maurice, thank you so much for coming in this. Maurice, good to see you.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Thanks, Maurice. Appreciate it.

[Unknown]

Thank you.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate you. Just programming note. I'm gonna be in Japan. Really excited for it until. For a while. Emily will be in for me. Delayed honeymoon. Okay. Don't get mad at me. I actually put it off, which the wife was not very happy about. But certain. Certain sacrifices had to be made for the breaking points audience until after the election. I'm excited to go, but I am going to miss you guys all.

[Unknown]

Yeah, we're going to miss having you here. I'm sure when you get back, there'll be all sorts of.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I'm sure I'm going to miss the biggest possible news event. That's just my luck.

[Unknown]

Emily will be filling in, of course, for Sager and she always does a great job too. So enjoy your trip.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Thank you.

[Unknown]

And for all of you guys, I will see you back here Thursday. Emily and Ryan will be here tomorrow, so see you again soon.

This holiday season, surprise everyone on your list with the best gifts. Tickets to see their favorite artists live. Choose from thousands of concerts and comedy shows including Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, Matt Matthews, Metallica, Thomas Rhett, Trans Siberian Orchestra, Sarah Silverman, and so many more. Share a memory or give a gift they'll never forget. Find the most exciting gift for every [e-mail] gifts. That's livenation.com gifts.

[Sagar Enjeti]

High Five Casino.

[Unknown]

High Five Casino is a social casino with real prizes and big Vegas [e-mail] the hottest games right from Vegas and all winnings go straight to your bank account. Hundreds of exclusive games, free daily rewards and come back to get free coins every four hours only at high5casino.com High5casino.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Is a social casino. No purchase necessary. Void will prohibited play responsibly. Terms and conditions supply See website for.

[Unknown]

Details at highthenumber5casino.com High5casino Gifting is hard, but here's a hint. Give the gift of connection from US Cellular. Not sure what that means? Here's a slightly more specific hint. You can choose four free phones and get four lines for $90 a month from US Cells Cellular. Your family wants new phones? How do we know? They told us. The good news is that compared to wrapping presents, you're great at getting hints. So take the hint and get them four free phones and four lines for $90 a month. US Cellular built.