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DealBook Summit
The 2024 Elections: What Happened and What’s Next?
01:32:50
A panel of political figures, advisers and journalists discuss the 2024 election and its aftermath. The discussion is moderated by Maggie Haberman, a senior political correspondent at The Times.
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- [00:01]
Maggie Haberman
What can you learn from Built for Change?
- [00:03]
Jason Miller
We could actually turn software into buildings and represent it in a virtual space.
- [00:08]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
So we did exactly this.
- [00:09]
Jason Miller
What will the next breakthrough mean for your enterprise?
- [00:12]
Anita Dunn
Reducing that level of complexity and you can focus on where your real value is.
- [00:16]
Sarah Longwell
How can your business thrive in a.
- [00:18]
Anita Dunn
World that's constantly evolving?
- [00:20]
Jason Miller
That is the difference.
- [00:21]
Van Jones
It's about breaking the silos of data, bringing all of this together.
- [00:26]
Jason Miller
Check out Built for Change, a podcast from Accenture. Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:39]
Kellyanne Conway
This is.
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Andrew Ross Sorkin
Andrew Ossorkin with the New York Times.
- [00:41]
Maggie Haberman
You're about to listen to some fascinating.
- [00:43]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Breakout conversations from our annual Dealbook Summit Live event, which was recorded on December.
- [00:48]
Maggie Haberman
4Th in New York City.
- [00:50]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
You're going to be hearing experts, stakeholders.
- [00:52]
Maggie Haberman
And leaders discussing some pretty vital topics.
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Andrew Ross Sorkin
That are shaping the business world and the world at large.
- [01:03]
Major Garrett
Hi everyone and welcome to our Dealbook Summit Task force on the 2024 elections. What happened and what is next? The 2024 election cycle is among the most consequential elections of our generation, with starkly different views for the nation having been offered by the Trump and Harris campaigns. And the aftermath leaves us with some critical questions that we are going to talk about today. I want to start by introducing this panel of esteemed experts and people who have worked on the recent election. Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark Major Garrett, the chief Washington correspondent at CBS News Jason Miller, who was a senior advisor to Donald Trump Kevin McCarthy, the former speaker of the US House of Representatives Anita Dunn, former senior advisor to President Biden Alexis McGill Johnson, the CEO of Planned Parenthood Van Jones, CEO of Dream Machine and a CNN host and author Jonathan Karl, the chief Washington correspondent at ABC News and Margaret Hoover, the host of Firing Line with Margaret Hoover on pbs. This is an exceptionally large group of people and we have 90 minutes for people to get in their expertise. And I would like this to actually be a conversation. So if any of you want to jump in and add a thought at any time as we talk or jump off of something someone else said, please do. Just give me a minute to introduce you so that people listening know who you are when they're not watching. And I'll just take a moment to reintroduce at that point. And let's get started with the person to my left, Anita Dunn. Given the breaking news of the last few days, my first question is to you. President Biden for months said he was not going to pardon his son Hunter. He did so on Sunday and did so with a sweeping pardon, whose language tracked in Modern times. Only with President Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon, why did it cover such an expansive time period? And how long has President Biden actually been considering it?
- [03:01]
Sarah Longwell
Oh, Maggie, thank you for such an easy question to start the morning. And I can only say that I don't speak for President Biden any longer and was not party to the conversations that were held about this. But let me just start by saying that I do not believe, and I don't think most people believe that Hunter Biden should go to jail and that, you know, he had a serious addiction, that he broke the law, that he has pled guilty to that, that he has been held accountable and has actually been publicly pilloried in a way that very few people who commit these crimes have ever been pilloried. So he has paid a certain price. He's also someone who has turned his life around, who has been sober now since 2019, who has a young child and is actually going to be a grandfather sometime next year. And had this pardon been done at the end of the term, in the context of compassion, the way many pardons will be done, I'm sure, and many commutations will be done, I think would have been a different story. So I will say I absolutely agree with the president's decision here. I do not agree with the way it was done. I don't agree with the timing, and I don't agree, frankly, with the attack on our judicial system.
- [04:11]
Major Garrett
Can you say a little bit more about that in terms of the attack on the judicial system? Because that was what was most striking to people who criticized this pardon, not just the point you just made about the timing, but the specific attack, after months of saying that he would respect the judicial process.
- [04:27]
Sarah Longwell
So I think the president's statement has to be taken at its face value. And clearly, like everybody else in the world, he has the prerogative of changing his mind. And that is indeed what he kind of said he did there. I think that, you know, as a, you know, from a Democratic Party perspective, from a Democratic perspective, as we were in the midst of the president elect rolling out his nominees, and in particular in the middle of a Cash Patel weekend, kind of throwing this into the middle of it was exceptionally poor timing and that the argument is one that I think many observers are concerned about, a president who ran to restore the rule of law, who has upheld the rule of law, who has really defended the rule of law, kind of saying, well, maybe not right now. So, you know, Maggie, as I say, I agree with the decision to pardon. I absolutely think that Hunter deserves a pardon here. But I disagreed on the timing, the argument and sort of the rationale.
- [05:26]
Major Garrett
Was this pardon discussed while you were still in the White House, or was this all new information for people after the fact?
- [05:32]
Sarah Longwell
I was never part of any pardon discussion when I was at the White House. Beyond the question of what do we tell the press if they ask about this? And there was a one word response, right. Which was no. And I think if you read the news reports and the reporting around this, it's very clear that the, that the White House was really not part of this process. It was a process that was done very much internally with the family and with the defense lawyers. So that's a different issue to Jason Miller.
- [06:03]
Major Garrett
Do you expect now that President Trump, President Elect Trump will go ahead and pardon January 6th arrestees and detainees as he has suggested he would? And is he going to point to this pardon as why?
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Andrew Ross Sorkin
Well, good morning, everybody.
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Major Garrett
Good morning.
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Andrew Ross Sorkin
Thank you for being here.
- [06:17]
Major Garrett
Starting right in.
- [06:18]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Yeah, thank you for being here to join me in celebrating President Trump's victory. So it's good to see all of you again. But going right at that, I think what you heard with that answer is a big part of the reason why President Trump won. I think people are sick and tired of the way the justice system has been politicized under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. When you go back and look at the polling in this race, which I think this is a big deal, when you talk about who's the bigger threat to democracy, a lot of people said that was Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, because they saw what happened the way that everything from the doj, the FBI, was turned on its head and used to attack a political opponent. So obviously you think that the Hunter pardon is pretty ridiculous, but I don't think anyone's actually surprised by it. Now, to your direct question, Maggie, regarding the J6 prisoners, the President has said over and over, and he's even said this since the election, those will be looked at on a case by case basis. And I think also when we talk about who's going to be doing that, I think Pam Bondi is a very serious player coming in to take over the doj. I think it's going to be definitely a change in tone and focus that we saw from Mayor Garland where the entire thing was politicized. So I'm glad to get the politics out of it. Let's go through and make sure that everybody is treated equally, and that's where we go.
- [07:29]
Major Garrett
I just want to stay on that for a second, two things that you just said. President Biden's Justice Department was politically weaponized against his own son. That's been an argument that has been confusing. And I'm just hoping you can explain what that means, number one. But number two, just one sec. President Trump has talked about retribution, and he's talked pretty openly about investigations into people who investigated him. So how is that different? And I'm genuinely asking and hoping you can answer this.
- [07:55]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Yeah, well, taking those in reverse order, the president said very clearly his only retribution or revenge will be success. And that's what it's going to be. And that's on day one. He's going to secure the border, going to drill, baby, drill. He's laid out a bunch of those. The Green New Deal, it's on its way out. But to the doj and the very clear weaponization of the DOJ against President Trump, against a political opponent, we've never seen anything like this in history. We saw the first four years with President Trump. There were no attacks. There was no going after Hillary Clinton or Bill Clinton or his other political opponents. But we did see that under Joe Biden, it's going to be in the second Trump term, be just like it was in the first, where justice will apply equally to everyone.
- [08:35]
Sarah Longwell
I'm sorry, Maggie, can I just jump in once I need it done? You know, I think many things have been said about Merrick Garland, and people have been criticizing him from both sides. You know, Judge Garland, he was a judge before. But I think the one thing that people really would not say about Merrick Garland is that he has been a political attorney general. The only person who's been convicted by this Justice Department, who had a special counsel was the president's son, the President of the United States. And, Jason, I just have to say that I think that, that when you look at, when you look at this Attorney General, this Department of justice, that of all the things you can say about it, the one thing you really cannot say is that it operated as a political arm of the White House. I can attest to that.
- [09:22]
Major Garrett
Jason Miller responded.
- [09:23]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Anita, did you miss the last four years? Did you miss the illegal raid on Mar A Lago? No, I know that's what I'm saying. I mean, the illegal raid on Mar.
- [09:31]
Van Jones
A Lago, that's not what the American people think. Even if you go to the poll, whether it's Republican or Democrat, I think it was maybe three months ago. Independents believe the greatest threat to democracy was Joe Biden getting reelected. And that was Independents, not Republican or Democrats. So what you say you can believe, but that's not what the American public believe.
- [09:51]
Anita Dunn
There's a difference between what the American people believe and what's true. So the idea. I don't know why. I don't know what we are. Why. The defense of Merrick Garland. Sure, Donald Trump lied about an election being stolen and then sicced a mob on the Capitol. And it's funny that you roll your eyes at this, Kevin, because you're the one who went down and resurrected him. You want to know what happen just now in the 2024 election is we elected the most dangerous criminal human being, corrupt human being that America has ever elected. And, Kevin, you helped him. You're the one who went and got him after. After.
- [10:26]
Van Jones
You're welcome.
- [10:26]
Anita Dunn
Yeah, sure. Thank you. And in doing so. And in doing so, you enabled this. And so Joe Biden, the idea that Joe Biden's Justice Department is the problem here, as opposed to Donald Trump and the fact that he tried to overturn an election and sick people on the Capitol is. I don't know if people let you get away with that in rooms all the time, but you should never be allowed to get.
- [10:51]
Major Garrett
Stop, stop, stop, stop.
- [10:52]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Won the popular vote.
- [10:54]
Anita Dunn
I do.
- [10:54]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
And the American public weighed everything, consideration. Looked at his first term. They looked at the disaster of Biden Harris over the past four years, and they reelected President Trump with historic numbers. That's because they want the economy back. They want the secure border.
- [11:07]
Alexis McGill Johnson
Just the. I think the question really was about the Justice Department being politicized. That was your assertion, Jason. I think the. The real issue here is that it's hard to make the argument that the Justice Department is politicized against for one particular party when the party in power's president's son was the one who is also prosecuted. So one could make the argument, maybe both sides make the argument that there has been some politicization or maybe over politicization in the prosecution of Biden's son. I understand the argument that you're gonna make, but it's very difficult to say that the Justice Department is politicized in one direction when this side of the president.
- [11:44]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Why didn't they. But let me.
- [11:46]
Major Garrett
Stop, stop.
- [11:47]
Alexis McGill Johnson
Real quick.
- [11:48]
Major Garrett
Stop.
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Alexis McGill Johnson
You also made the point. I just want to put a pin in this. You said it's very convenient to be able to pluck one thing that Donald Trump says and say that. That is the thing that he said. He said, retribution will be his success. He also had talked about putting Liz Cheney in front of a firing squad. He talked about hanging Mark Milley. I mean, so it's convenient to pick the definition of retribution. But he has said so many things, Jason. You can't just pick one of them. And then the issue, the final thing is President Biden's attack against the judicial system undermines the confidence that all of us have in the nonpartisan nature of justice. So in the pardon of his son, he should never have undermined the justice system in the same way that, frankly, those of us who look in a comment at the Trump administration were looking to Democrats to uphold a standard of, of a partisan and nonpartisan nature and Justice Department. And so that undermines the entire system, the integrity of the entire system for all Americans.
- [12:53]
Major Garrett
I want to move on to a related but different topic. And again, back to Anita. Was President Biden right to run again in the first place after suggesting that he would be a transitional figure to a new generation, and did he drop out too late?
- [13:10]
Sarah Longwell
So he said that once. I'm going to go back to what Margaret just said about you can take one statement. Somebody says one time. He said that one time in 2020. And like any president, once he got in there, he discovered there was a lot to do. Let us not forget, Maggie, we had an extremely successful first two years in terms of extraordinary legislative accomplishments, including the infrastructure bill that nobody had been able to do. Four years, including the inflation Reduction act, poorly named but monumental in terms of what is going to accomplish for the American people, and a number of other things. And then a midterm election that was far more successful than anybody believed was possible given the overall economic status of the country. So given that his decision to run, which was his decision because people make that most personal decision themselves, was, was not one that was really controversial within the party at the time. And it was a pretty logical one for him to make. There were things that he felt he still needed to do, and he thought he was the right person for the job. That's why people decide they want to run for the presidency. So, you know, the way it unfolded, I think people will spend the rest of their lives kind of looking at this election. But I'll say that the decision that he made was not. Was not a decision that was really a tough call for him. I don't think, given the fact that he felt he was a successful president with a vision of where he wanted to lead the country, and he had just led his party through midterms that no one predicted would be as successful as they were.
- [14:47]
Jason Miller
Van Jones, Look, I think Winning the midterms cost us because it gave a false sense of confidence to Joe Biden and to a lot of D.C. democrats. Most people in the party didn't feel that way. People were shocked that Biden wanted to run again and disappointed. And the polls showed it immediately. It wasn't like there was some big mystery about that. Look, this is a party that loves Joe Biden. Loves Joe Biden. You never hear people talk about a politician with as much love as they do. But people were disappointed that he decided to run again. And the red wave didn't show up in the midterms, but it sure showed up later. I also just want to say stuff we talked about before. Look, man, people are scared, Jason. I mean, you're very confident in President Trump, and I appreciate your confidence. I got people who are literally terrified because people take the things that he says seriously when he says he's coming after folks. Every one of the people that were just mentioned are people who are hiring lawyers, people who are thinking about leaving the country. And so if he didn't mean it, then I wish he would come out and say that. And I hope you tell him to do that. And there's also been reporting, yeah, he didn't go after Hillary Clinton, but there's been reporting that he did go after John Kerry and others, and he was being restrained. So just understand there is a level of concern on this side. The last thing I just want to say is that there's a reckoning inside the Democratic Party. Kamala Harris promised us freedom. Well, she delivered it to us because now we're free from having to run anything in Washington, D.C. that's not what we were signing up for. It's what we got. And I hope the party takes a chance to look at the fact that we pushed all our rebels out of this party. We had a rebellion in our party in 2016. It was called Bernie Sanders. You had a rebellion in your party in 2016. It was called Donald Trump. Your rebel won. Our rebel lost. And then since then, the rebels in our party have been pushed out. RFK was a rebel inside of our party. He wanted to run against Joe Biden fair and square. The DNC wouldn't let him, pushed him out. You can walk down the list. Don't forget Elon Musk was a Andrew Yang Democrat four years ago. He's out. You can walk down the list. Joe Rogan was very favorable toward Michelle Obama. He was a Bernie guy. He's out. So there's something that's happened in this party where the rebels in this party no longer feel like they have a place and we've got to be able to talk about that stuff. Honestly, I love Joe Biden. Joe Biden picked me out of the puppy pile and gave me a chance to be. To work with you guys. I love him. He should have. He should have walked away and let other people in this party step up to the bat. He didn't and paid the price.
- [17:20]
Major Garrett
Van and Alexis Miguel Johnson, just answer a question of how Democrats could have won. What could they have done differently? I mean, Van sort of answered this by saying not have Joe Biden. But given the race that was over the three months, what could have been done differently, if anything?
- [17:36]
Kevin McCarthy
You know, look, I mean, I definitely heard how the midterms gave us a false sense of hope. I do think that the fact that the midterms coming on the heels of Dobbs, right, the power and the anger and the outrage that people had, really was underestimated. And I think we continue to see that through. 24. I think abortion made not only in the midterms competitive, clearly, but it also kept Kamala Harris competitive because she stepped into that role and for two years has had been an incredible surrogate and messenger, meeting with folks across the country to really understand the impact and really frame the conversation around freedom. I do think that the economic messaging as it relates to it, abortion was not the only issue. It was a central issue. But connecting, even using abortion as a way to talk about the economic constraints that families were experiencing and understanding the decisions, the daily decisions that they were making, from buying a box of cereal to making decisions about if, when, and how their families would, you know, would survive. I think is was critical. So I would have liked to have seen a little bit more on the economic messaging that would have helped ground folks in and connecting more obviously to men and men's concerns, which I think came a little late.
- [19:03]
Major Garrett
On that note, Anita Dunn, if President Biden had stayed in the race, do you think he would have won?
- [19:07]
Sarah Longwell
You know, I don't think anyone has any way of knowing. Okay. And I think that for everyone who can say if this person had been the nominee, if this had happened, if that had happened, those of us who've done presidential politics know a lot of things happen in presidential politics you can't predict. I think that the contours of the race didn't change as much as people thought when you had President Biden step down and the vice president become the nominee. And I do want to say something about the vice president. She did A terrific job. Okay. She just did a terrific job. I thought that she was a leader. I mean, I obviously hoped she would win for a number of reasons, but one reason I truly hoped she would win was because I thought a great legacy for Joe Biden would be having put a woman in the pipeline so that when the opening occurred, a woman was the natural choice for people, which is, of course, something that I think is helpful to everybody. Having said that, and going to. Actually, your core question. What could have been done when you have a race as close as this one was and it was not a landslide? I mean, the president elect has less than 50% of the vote now and is going to win by 1.5 million elect popular vote, which is a victory.
- [20:20]
Major Garrett
He won, and more decisively than either of the previous two elections for either winner.
- [20:24]
Sarah Longwell
That's not. Joe Biden won by 7 million votes.
- [20:28]
Major Garrett
Not in the Electoral College.
- [20:29]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, but I'm. But I'm just saying he won. Okay, but when you have a race this close, right, when there's 250,000 votes across seven states, then you can spend a huge amount of time saying this tactic, that tactic. But I think that going to something Van said, that it's an opportunity for the Democratic Party to take a step back and to, you know, in a way that we have not for a while. And it's a healthy thing to actually ask ourselves, not just how did we communicate our message, should we have been on Joe Rogan, but what are we saying to people and are we listening to them, or are we expecting them to listen to us? Because I do think that the party itself needs to look at these results, look at what happened in terms of voting groups, and I know you're gonna get to that. But I think that this is, you know, it was not a wipeout the way 1980 was or 1994 was, or 2010 or some of the, you know, I'm old enough to have been around for, you know, Ronald Reagan carrying 49 states. It wasn't that, but. And we even probably picked up a little in the House or the House will be super close. The Senate is what it is. It was not that big of a victory. However, it is a message to this party. Right? And you want to say, no, we got wiped out. We did not get wiped out. I just say.
- [21:45]
Jason Miller
I was laughing. I did.
- [21:47]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
I did. I said, you got wiped out.
- [21:48]
Sarah Longwell
You want to say, we got wiped out.312 electoral votes.
- [21:51]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
It's a wipeout.
- [21:52]
Maggie Haberman
So there are ways to read this. President Trump increased his vote total in 9 out of 10 counties in this country. All right. In the places where the race was most closely fought, the battleground states, things were relatively close, but not all that close. The margins were bigger than they were in 2016 and 2020. On the Trump side, in places where the race was not thoroughly joined, Illinois, New Jersey, California, where people had just a general sense of direction and attitude, they voted for President Trump. That's an important thing for Democrats to ponder and to look at. When you're collapsing in New Jersey, when you're collapsing in Illinois, you're coming to a near collapse in California. There is something that you need to address and take seriously. One thing I would like to say about this question of justice being politicized. I've never covered a member of Congress or a governor or a senator who thinks any investigation from any U.S. attorney wasn't politicized. Straight up. Matt Gaetz thought that the Trump Justice Department investigation into him was politicized and said so, okay. Politicians always run to politicized justice when they're in the dock. All right. What President Trump said to the country is political popularity should immunize me from these charges. That was the question he laid before the country. The country gave an answer. You have to respect that answer, whether you agree with it or not. He said, I will put this in the forum of politics. I will delay everything judicially, as is my right under due process. Delay is a tactic. It is a long running tactic of Donald Trump. Everyone who brought these cases should have known that delay and then a political appeal would be the playbook. That's exactly what happened. And he got the verdict. Politically, that has immunized him.
- [23:44]
Major Garrett
Now, legally, Kevin McCarthy were going to say something.
- [23:48]
Van Jones
55 counties flipped to Trump. Some have not ever voted for a Republican. Lake County, California, hasn't voted for a Republican since 1984, if you want to remember that. So, no, it wasn't close. This was an amazing vote where it took place. When you look two years ago, Democrats should have looked four years ago when Joe Biden won. He only won by 48,918 votes. And you know, for the first time since 1994, not one Republican incumbent lost in the house. Everybody thought 15, they beat 15 Republicans, we beat 15 Democrats. So it was four years ago. You knew you had this problem in the last election. You had abortion, the Supreme Court, nothing to do with Joe Biden. And you had a redistricting which made fewer competitive seats. So it wasn't something that Joe Biden did to make some election and you lost the House. So I don't know when you lose a House, as somehow you were successful in an election to Marlott Garland. You're saying he did something he didn't go after? No, he let. Had the whistleblowers from the IRS not come forward to the Ways and Means Committee, Hunter Biden would not have gone forward to be prosecuted because he was getting a plea deal. He was getting waved away the last five years. They didn't go forward. So Marla Garland got pushed because whistleblowers came forward, not because he was some holy man of his attorney general. And the last thing I would say, when you look at this election going forward, she was always going to lose. If you look at the pardon the way he wrote it, if you look at running for reelection, I was on the other stage a year ago and I talked about why Joe Biden should not run by mental capacity, of personal experiences I had. The vice president came on a few people after me and criticized what I said and said. His age had no determination of going forward. These decisions of the pardon and running again were all decisions made with this president, with his family. And every time he's sitting with his family, he's made the wrong decision. And nobody on this table would have thought that he wasn't going to pardon him. So we thought he was lying to us the entire time. And I knew they were lying to us about his mental capacity every time I met with him.
- [26:14]
Maggie Haberman
Look, it's extraordinary that you had John Carl, you had a situation where 70% of the country was saying they didn't want a Trump Biden rematch, where the majority of Democrats were saying they didn't want Joe Biden to run again, and nobody really stepped forward. Now in terms of the promise to turn over to the next generation, be a bridge to the next generation, which he said once in Michigan after the primary in 2020, with Kamala Harris on the stage, with Gretchen Whitmer on the stage, and with other potential people seeing as the bridge to me, I know, and I'm sure other reporters here have heard that some of those took it as a promise. They thought Biden was really gonna do one term and out, regardless of whether he said and he did, to be fair, he was asked in the election whether or not he would commit to serving only one term, and he said no. But look, Biden took specific steps to ensure that it was gonna be extremely difficult for anybody to challenge him. He changed the primary calendar. He took some of his potential rivals and put them on his campaign Committee. This is stuff that any incumbent president.
- [27:22]
Major Garrett
Donald Trump did the same thing.
- [27:24]
Maggie Haberman
Absolutely. And then made it clear that there were gonna be no debates and there were gonna be no debates. So they were shut off. But ultimately, it's on those future leaders of the Democratic Party. And the bench was deeper than it had been for a long time not to ultimately step in and say, I'm gonna take them on. Nobody stepped forward to take them on. And that's the question that Democrats have to ask. But it's not whether or not Biden should have dropped out first, but whether why? Nobody other than Bobby Kennedy, Marion Williamson, Dean Phillips. Dean Phillips. None of these major figures. The governors came forward and said, I'm gonna take on Joe Biden.
- [28:01]
Kellyanne Conway
But there was something else going on at the time. There were articles where Democrats were saying, please dump Kamala Harris from the ticket. Change your vice president. That's a parlor game that's played every time there's an incumbent president who's eligible to run for a second term. But let's all be honest. And Van Jones and I talked about this at Milken Institute in early May. Let's be honest. Part of the reason that President Biden could not step aside is people didn't have confidence in the competence of Kamala Harris. And then all of a sudden, we're supposed to believe that she has worked hard, she does speak well. The American people saw it differently. And I'm glad, I'm relieved to hear that. Very few lessons, it sounds like, have been learned by my Democratic colleague.
- [28:39]
Jason Miller
Always think about yours.
- [28:41]
Kellyanne Conway
I hear yours. But let me just say this, Maggie. I think that this election was also about moments that Donald Trump has this sense of the culture. He just gloms onto a cultural zeitgeist and leads it. So I think him, rather than banning TikTok like Joe Biden did and Kamala Harris did by extension, he got on it. And Forbes magazine wrote an article maybe two weeks ago, tops, saying of the 10 top TikToks of 2024, eight came from the Trump campaign, five in the last week alone. So he's in the garbage truck. He's at McDonald's. You're watching Joe Rogan live. But then other people are watching it through TikTok. He goes to East Palestine before any. Before any official in the Biden Harris administration, before the Secretary of transportation, before the sitting senior senator, now the ex senator of Ohio, Sherrod Brown. And he's honoring the police officer who slain in Massapequa, New York, on Long island, while Clinton, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden are all at Radio City Music, call it a fundraiser. He beats Kamala Harris to Georgia and North Carolina, where people are in pain, where everything that they've had and loved ones have been washed away, literally. And Kamala Harrison Francisco at a fundraiser. So people see this. They know what they see, they know what they hear. And I think the big distinction in this last election, too, I'll say quickly, one was the Democrats would have won if they got away with convincing Americans to believe what the Democrats told them was real and true and authentic, rather than what they saw with their own eyes and heard with their own ears what was real and true and authentic. Everything from a sitting president's obvious mental and physical lack of acuity, agility, ability. But even the vice president, whose official schedule that they stopped publishing a while ago, had little to nothing on it, most weekends and then most days. So you can't just. You can't create a candidate out of somebody who is going to eat and own all of these things. Second thing I want to say is, very quickly, this is. I listened for 26 minutes. Very quickly, is that putting Harris on the ticket, I think, also sealed Biden's fate and him thinking that he was FDR hanging out with John Meacham. And instead of realizing you're here to be the post caretaker, you're here after George Floyd's murder, the idea that he was going to governor as Bernie Sanders, who had already been pushed out of the party as somebody who beat Hillary Clinton, folks, in 23 contests, that's a real primary opponent. And this is the election where Americans are saying, no more. You are not going to pigeonhole and narrowcast me and tell me what to think for whom to vote and how to feel based on my age, my gender, my race, my sexual orientation, my religion, my political party registration, my past voting behavior. And whether it's Anne Seltzer's phony poll or phony focus groups of junk saying that Kamala Harris is gonna win, attacking people like Kevin McCarthy. Thank you so much for having the courage in 2022, you and President Trump and the RNC, to have run these candidates in California and New York, because without that, we would not have had the majority in the House of Representatives. You had the courage to go into blue state and go into purple districts and do that. I think they misread the mandate, Maggie. In 2022 of the midterm, a lot of those terrible candidates fell short. They should have. They weren't great candidates. But The Republicans won 3 million more the popular vote than the Democrats. They misread a mandate for Joe Biden who wasn't even invited on the campaign trail. They sent out Barack Obama, not Joe Biden to campaign for candidates. So you've got it. We have to level set with the public and stop pretending that these counties didn't flip. And last point every second.
- [32:20]
Jason Miller
How many last points you gotta do?
- [32:21]
Kellyanne Conway
This is my last point. Well, they're all good ones. I'm not here spinning. They're really great points. And I'm not here spinning and pretending that this election, a lot of this conversation respectfully sounds like the election didn't happen yet. We talked about the same stuff over and over again. The fact is this, I said it a year ago, I'll say it again, cuz it was just raised the Democratic Party right now, every day they wake up, it's still January 6th, 2021 on the calendar. They get an electric vehicle, they get an abortion. You're out of touch with the public. This election was a rejection of wokeness and people. Every state went more red except Nebraska and Washington state. That is a sweep. That is a mandate. That is President Trump coming into office and the American people saying, please make my life safer, more secure, more affordable. Please get us out of these foreign engagements. And I think the always wrong, never Trumpers who had unlimited money cost the party, cost the Democratic Party, which they say they're not even a member. Another presidential election.
- [33:16]
Kevin McCarthy
Van.
- [33:16]
Major Garrett
Hang on one second, Sarah Long, I'll respond.
- [33:18]
Anita Dunn
Yeah, so first of all, thank you for pointing out that I do a lot of focus groups. I do. And they didn't say we all do.
- [33:25]
Kellyanne Conway
We just don't publicize them.
- [33:26]
Anita Dunn
They didn't say Kamala Harris was gonna win.
- [33:28]
Kellyanne Conway
What did they say?
- [33:29]
Sarah Longwell
Trump, Trump, Trump.
- [33:30]
Kellyanne Conway
No, you have stage five Trump deranged and said you're. There's no cure, there's no vaccine.
- [33:34]
Major Garrett
No one is figuring out who is talking.
- [33:37]
Kellyanne Conway
Who's you guys?
- [33:38]
Anita Dunn
People who are bad. Yes. Are bad for the country. Yes, that's right. Who attacked? Who attacked? Who's your guys?
- [33:43]
Sarah Longwell
Stop, Stop.
- [33:44]
Anita Dunn
Donald Trump. Really?
- [33:45]
Jason Miller
Yeah.
- [33:45]
Sarah Longwell
People stop.
- [33:46]
Kellyanne Conway
No, this is what they do.
- [33:47]
Anita Dunn
So here's the thing.
- [33:48]
Kellyanne Conway
She's going to sound like Kellyanne.
- [33:50]
Major Garrett
Let her talk.
- [33:52]
Anita Dunn
Because the thing is, I actually agree with a number of the things Kellyanne said about the, about the actual voters, which is that, and here's the thing, most of the independent voters, they were double haters. Right? They don't love Donald Trump. Most of them hate Donald Trump actually. But they also, and this is an indictment of the Democrats. Okay, Joe Biden should not have run. He was too old. And every voter said it. It was in all of the data that Joe Biden should not be the nominee. He should have been a one term president who was a bridge and let the party have a primary. That is the only thing that you can retcon at this moment and go back and say what would have been different. Kamala Harris coming in with 100 days left wasn't gonna do the trick. And I think that she did. She so exceeded expectations though, in terms of where the low expectations for her were. She increased her favorables and that allowed Democrats to sort of go back to something Kevin McCarthy was saying. You know, they were able to make it extremely close in the House. The Republicans are still losing House seats right now. It's going to be like a three seat majority. They held onto a lot of places in the Senate where Democratic senators overperformed Kamala Harris. And so Donald Trump didn't have the same coattails. But what was happening? Is it because there's some great thing about Donald Trump or were people so angry about inflation, so angry about a lot of COVID There's still a lot of COVID hanger. They were so angry about immigration. Democrats have no answer, no plan on immigration. And voters really care about it. And so, you know, I think that. And when I say, you know, there's sort of. There's a lot about what voters think that comes from the fact that people lie to them. Right. They were lied to about the 2020 election being stolen. It's interesting to hear Kevin Talk about 2020 right now and essentially in the frame that Joe Biden won because that is not a given in the Republican Party. They lie to people all the time. Donald Trump is a professional liar. And as a result. But they are better at working the media channels, Democrats.
- [35:52]
Kellyanne Conway
So the people are stupid. You're sitting here saying the American people are stupid.
- [35:55]
Anita Dunn
No, I'm saying you guys are better at Trump.
- [35:56]
Kellyanne Conway
I don't think you guys is. It's like a football team.
- [35:59]
Anita Dunn
The Trump campaign, the Trump. Trump went everywhere. J.D. vance went everywhere. Right. They went on every podcast. They talked to every person. And Joe Biden and Kamala Harris didn't.
- [36:10]
Major Garrett
But isn't that a different point, Sarah? I mean, the point. There is a point.
- [36:14]
Jason Miller
I called on 15 minutes ago. I'm just saying.
- [36:15]
Major Garrett
Yeah, Van. Hang on just one second. I just want to address that though, because I do want John Carl to speak to this and Major and Margaret, after Van talks But we're getting a little behind here. The issue of the media approach is actually a really important one. The issue of the issue immigration and coronavirus, which we haven't even discussed yet. And I want to get to. But Van, please make your point.
- [36:36]
Jason Miller
Okay, look, guys, a lot of the stuff we're doing is the same stuff we do all the time. We got a chance to talk real here. I want to talk real. You guys shouldn't be as happy as you are because 2016 people voted for change because they were fed up and sick of it and gave Trump a chance. 2020 people voted for change because they were sick of Trump. 2024, they voted for change. They're probably going to vote for change a bunch more times because something is off, man. There's something really going wrong for real everyday working folks in this country. And I'm not sure either party has an answer yet. We know how to beat each other up when the other one's in power. But can we solve any of these problems? My perspective doesn't come from the focus groups. It doesn't come from sitting on CNN next to my beloved Anderson Cooper. I was on the ground supporting folks in Philadelphia, trying to get folks to vote. I was trying to help Jewish voters get to the polls in the Philly suburbs. And I'm telling you, we are way off. The entire political class is way off. First of all, digital is a new door knocking. You gotta understand that. We were laughing our butts off at Donald Trump for suspending his door knocking campaign and letting Charlie, Kirk and Elon do a bunch of stuff online. We said, these guys are idiots. These guys are stupid. Then you start knocking on these doors.
- [37:52]
Maggie Haberman
You know what?
- [37:53]
Jason Miller
People come to the door with their phone in their hand. They're in a 24 hour digital surround sound. That has nothing to do with CNN. Has nothing to do with any stuff that we do. I asked myself, I got a teenage son. I asked him, who are the most influential people in the world today? I'm thinking to myself, he's going to say Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Jay Z. He says, kai sent Adin Ross, Jinxy and Sketch. I don't know who he's talking about. I said, what platforms are you on? He goes, I'm on Twitch, Kick and Rumble. I said, that sounds like you need to go to the hospital. What are these platforms? I'm telling you guys, the mainstream has become fringe and the fringe has become mainstream. There are platforms. There are people out there that are getting 14 million streams and we're on cable news, getting 1 or 2 million. And so there is a whole world out there. Kellyanne Conway, I hate to agree with her, but I do. A lot of times Donald Trump understood that and we didn't. And that's not just Democrats that don't. The entire political class is way off, way off, way off. And I'm gonna tell you something else. Men are hurting. Men. Men are hurting. And the feminist culture tells you, don't cry because you're the problem anyway. And the masculinist culture tells you, don't cry because boys don't cry. So you just aren't able to talk about how scared you are. You can't provide for anybody. You can't talk about how scared you are that you don't understand your kids and what's gonna happen to them. You can't talk about anything. So at least Donald Trump lets you have an emotion besides shame. And so, guys, we can sit up here all day long and do this talking point gumbo stuff that we do. But I'm telling you right now, you guys are gonna be in trouble next, because until somebody fixes these problems for real people, there is a rebellion in this country. And anybody who comes out and sounds like they aren't pulling their talking points out of Cracker Jack box will get a hearing whether they're right, wrong, or otherwise.
- [39:55]
Major Garrett
All right, hang on one sec. Margaret Hoover, to Ban's point about the media, mainstream media becoming fringe, which I'm not sure I quite agree with, but.
- [40:03]
Alexis McGill Johnson
You can't actually, given our surroundings, that's actually.
- [40:07]
Major Garrett
It is certainly true that the mainstream media does not have the impact it once was. What do you, John Major, see as the future for what reporting looks like as we go forward into the next Trump administration? And what is the approach that the mainstream media should take considering controversies of.
- [40:25]
Alexis McGill Johnson
The last term, the underpinning and the foundation of a representative democracy? It relies on a free press. It relies on transparency. It relies on people observing what is happening amongst those who hold power and then reporting it. And not just reporting it. I mean, reporting we don't have to think of in the traditional sense. But look, video cameras are everywhere now. We don't have to wonder whether somebody was held down for however many seconds we have a video of it. I think being able to see transparently on camera what is happening is part of the story. So I do think digital isn't not just the new door knocking. Digital is the new media. I mean, digital is how we hold those in power to account and people who are in the digital space who are capturing the moments where people who hold power, which is the trust of the public, that is how we hold people account. And then, you know, so this is. And the New York. By the way, we're all doing this because this is not being broadcast on cable news. This is not being broadcast on television. This is being broadcast by digital. And so we're all moving there, even if we're a beat behind. But it, but transparency is, I mean, reporting and telling the truth. And transparency is how we hold those in a power to account.
- [41:47]
Major Garrett
Alexis Mikal Johnson Yeah, I mean, look.
- [41:49]
Kevin McCarthy
As an organization that reaches millions of people every single day to have conversations around bodily autonomy, we are all on digital, right? So the idea that the Harris campaign was not on digital, that the ies like Future Forward were not on digital, and spending millions of dollars to reach those folks, to hire influencers to bring them to the dnc. Right. And have a totally different kind of reach outreach to young folks and people of color much differently than we have seen in the past. It doesn't mean that we need to know who tank and please and you know, all the folks are. But they are out there and they are having those conversations. You know, I think that the difference is. And I listened to Kellyanne talk about, you know, the rejection of wokeness. You know, we also saw a closing argument that was grounded in white nationalism and supremacy and patriarchy and the Madison Square Garden fiasco. Like, you know, the idea that that is what people are accepting, that young men are accepting that because of shame, of their masculinity and how they are engaging, that's the emotion they're leaning into, I think is way more problematic in terms of what we need to be thinking about and bringing the next generation into this. So I don't think it's just a critique of mainstream media not giving the information. I think we are living in a very digital society, but one that is so polarized, right? That has created like wherever you're getting your media, it's not like your media, the people who are listening to Tang are not the same people who are listening to Joe Rogan. Right. And so how do you actually bring them together and create the structures? That's what the parties need to be thinking about. That's certainly what the Democratic Party needs to be thinking about. How are you bringing people and fighting the polarization that seems to be locked into a different structure and one that is reinforcing, you know, some very problematic identities, you know, identity politics and othering politics that are very focused on hate and division. And that's what I'm deeply concerned about.
- [43:48]
Jason Miller
We'll be right back.
- [43:51]
Maggie Haberman
What can you learn from Built for Change?
- [43:53]
Jason Miller
We could actually turn software into buildings and represent it in a virtual space.
- [43:58]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
So we did exactly this.
- [43:59]
Jason Miller
What will the next breakthrough mean for your enterprise?
- [44:02]
Anita Dunn
Reducing that level of complexity and you can focus on where your real value is.
- [44:06]
Sarah Longwell
How can your business thrive in a.
- [44:08]
Anita Dunn
World that's constantly evolving?
- [44:10]
Jason Miller
That is the difference.
- [44:11]
Van Jones
It's about breaking the silos of data, bringing all of this together.
- [44:16]
Jason Miller
Check out Built for Change, a podcast from Accenture. Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [44:23]
Kevin McCarthy
I gave my brother a New York Times subscription.
- [44:27]
Major Garrett
She sent me a year long subscription.
- [44:29]
Jason Miller
So I have access to all the games. We'll do wordle mini spelling bee. It has given us a personal connection.
- [44:36]
Major Garrett
We exchange articles and so having read the same article, we can discuss it. The coverage, the options. It's not just news.
- [44:43]
Anita Dunn
Such a diversified disc.
- [44:45]
Alexis McGill Johnson
I was really excited to give him.
- [44:47]
Sarah Longwell
A New York Times cooking subscription so.
- [44:49]
Kevin McCarthy
That we could share recipes and we.
- [44:51]
Major Garrett
Even just shared a recipe the other day.
- [44:53]
Anita Dunn
The New York Times contributes to our quality time together.
- [44:57]
Major Garrett
You have all of that information at your fingertips.
- [44:59]
Kevin McCarthy
It enriches our relationship, broadening our horizons.
- [45:02]
Van Jones
It was such a cool and thoughtful gift.
- [45:05]
Anita Dunn
We're reading the same stuff, we're making the same food, we're on the same page.
- [45:11]
Jason Miller
Connect even more with someone you care about.
- [45:14]
Anita Dunn
Learn more about giving a New York.
- [45:15]
Major Garrett
Times subscription as a gift@nytimes.com gift.
- [45:19]
Kevin McCarthy
Get a special rate if you act before December 26th.
- [45:30]
Major Garrett
I want to speaking of polarization, turn to Kevin McCarthy. Oh, do you have something you want to say about polarization? Jonathan, do you have something to add?
- [45:40]
Maggie Haberman
I was just going to make a point on the media coverage and there's been so much tension. Donald Trump's vilification in the media, enemy of the people, opposition party, fake news, all of that. But it was interesting to see the way Kamala Harris engaged with with the so called mainstream media, which was for much of the campaign, not at all. She came out of a very successful convention and then almost went into hiding to prepare for her first major media engagement which was a 20 minute interview with her running mate on CNN that came and went like that and then went in to prepare for a debate and she didn't, not only did she not engage with Joe Rogan or all these alternative media you talking about, she didn't engage with the major broadcast media with the New York Times. And the complaints coming out of the Democrats were Almost as strident as the ones coming out of the Trump campaign about the coverage. And yet there were so little engagement. Tim Walls was chosen in large part got on Kamala Harris radar screen because of his effectiveness on cable television. And then he went into hiding. Did anybody hear from Tim Walz after he was, after he became the Democratic.
- [47:02]
Kellyanne Conway
Nominee for him, yes, all his disastrous debate. And I'd like to thank, well, you saw the debate.
- [47:05]
Maggie Haberman
But my point is, Kellyanne, my point is he didn't go. He didn't go anywhere. Even he went and he did his speeches. Even the little traveling press corps that follows the vice president or the running mate had almost no access to him, didn't engage, didn't take questions. I interviewed JD Vance time and time again myself, but they make themselves a journalist. He was everywhere. Tim Walz was in hiding, transparent and truthful.
- [47:29]
Kellyanne Conway
But I'd like to thank ABC News for giving a platform to Vice President Harris because the View definitely did her in just by asking her a simple question.
- [47:36]
Maggie Haberman
Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead, Jason.
- [47:37]
Major Garrett
And then Mitch.
- [47:38]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Yeah, I think we're talking about a lot of very important issues and I think Van probably made the best point that I've heard so far today, that the reason why people are frustrated is because their wages aren't growing and they see the rich getting richer and they see that they're working very hard and nothing's improving in their lives. Now, obviously that a very good four year run with President Trump and I think it's a big part of the reason why he was voted back into office. But it's also, it's not just the fact that on their wage growth they're also looking and seeing those clips on TikTok and on other places of the border being wide open. They're seeing the horrific, the horrific and disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. Some very serious things that people take as personal offenses that are impacting them while they're struggling to even, I mean, cashing out 401ks to even pay the rent just to get by. And they see illegal migrants being put up at hotels and being given their own communities. That makes people mad. And I think one other thing too, on the media point, going to what John said, when you talk about President Trump and essentially his flood the zone approach with media being everywhere, we're talking about a lot of critical issues. But the thing that hasn't really brought up is the authenticity issue. And as a candidate, people wanted to have a beer with and talk about their economic future with somebody who doesn't drink and somebody who himself is a billionaire, because it was authentic, because he could speak to them in direct and plain spoken and without a filter. And when you look at the way that Biden and Harris tried to hide, then President Trump cut through and it was very clear.
- [49:12]
Major Garrett
Major Garrett and then Anita.
- [49:13]
Maggie Haberman
So, Maggie, you asked a moment ago about press coverage from the incoming Trump administration. Kellyanne knows this. John knows this. When we covered the first Trump administration, I told a lot of reporters, do not get emotional about this. Do not fall into this trap of critics saying, you're normalizing Trump. The presidency is an institution. The country confers the normality of the presidency full stop. The occupant of the presidency is the president. And you cover the president and you do it with curiosity and clarity and accuracy, and that's it. And if you get emotionally involved in it, not only is that journalistically erroneous, Trump will manipulate you. Trump understands your emotions much better than you do. Figure that out, people. Trump is someone who possesses, within the political context, supreme emotional intelligence, especially where reporters are involved. So that's one thing Dilevel said. Kellyanne made a mention of culture. I just want to refer to something that Tony Blair used to say. Tony Blair said, when economic times are convulsive and people feel dislodged, they don't move left economically, they move right culturally. It was true 20, 30 years ago when Tony Blair said it. It's true now. And I've done a little bit of reading about Grover Cleveland because they are now matched historically.
- [50:35]
Major Garrett
You beat me to the punch on one of the questions I was going to ask you.
- [50:38]
Maggie Haberman
It is not, not historically coincidental that the two times we have had non consecutive reelected presidents were times of tremendous economic dislocation. All right, the digital age is what we live in now. The Gilded Age was occurring during Grover Cleveland's time in office and others. Massive dislocation, massive convulsions. People feeling as if the world they knew who is not only changing, but may never be there again. And they are uncertain about things. One thing I will say about Grover Cleveland, when he was nominated in 1884, the second day speech in Chicago, said the people love him, quote, because of his iron will, but they love him most for the enemies he has made. Now, that was in a completely different context. That was about Tammany hall and Grover Cleveland's new political life. But you could say that about Donald Trump and you could say that about Donald Trump From 2015 onward, the enemies he has made. And the American people keep looking at the people that are enemies of Trump and say, you know what, there's something about that that makes me side with him, despite all of the misgivings you, Sarah, have given voice to. And that's just a fact.
- [51:55]
Major Garrett
Anita. Done.
- [51:56]
Sarah Longwell
So I want to go back to what something Van said, but I think we've all touched on it and haven't really discussed it yet, which is that it is a change electorate and that the people, you know, and if you look around the world, the people who were in power after Covid and after we came out of the pandemic tended to suffer because there is economic dislocation and people are unhappy. But one of the, one of the disturbing things for the Democratic Party and something that we as a party have to face up to, is that we have absolutely lost our credibility with people who are at the lower end of the economic scale. And that is since the New Deal, right. What our party's identity has been. So right now, we're a party that thinks that we are representing them and thinks we're talking to them, but we actually are not doing a very effective job. And I want to go to the role inflation play, okay, because we haven't touched on it a little. But, you know, if you were to say to me, why'd you lose? The easiest answer out there is inflation and prices and the cost of rent. And, you know, Jason touched on this a little bit. It's absolutely true. You know, people in this country remember 2019, okay? And they remember it was a time when grocery prices were a lot lower, when they felt like they could go buy a house because interest rates were low. You know, we heard this over and over again from voters. 2019, it was, you know, and Joe Biden was elected president in 2020, losing the economy to Donald Trump. They still thought Trump was better on the economy even as Joe Biden was elected, but it was a huge issue. And inflation is something that I think you can't message your way out of. And so if you were to say to me, what is the Democratic Party's biggest problem right now? Is that the people we think we're representing don't think we are representing them when it comes to the core issue for them, which is the economy and how am I going to make it? And I used to pay this much, and now I'm paying that much and I can't afford it. And Van talked about this, but I think it is such a real thing for the Democratic Party that as we, you know, over the last 10 years or so, really, the last four election cycles. The acceleration of this has just become serious very quick.
- [54:16]
Major Garrett
Ben.
- [54:17]
Jason Miller
I don't want to go quick. I want to go as long as Kellyanne, I got to say so look, I think that you're talking about something that's important for this party. Both these parties are hypocritical. You have the Republican Party. That's the party of Lincoln. It's a party of, in its own mind, it's a radical anti slavery party. It's a party of individual rights and individual dignity. And they have a bunch of white nationalists running around in there. That's a problem. Our party is supposed to be the party of FDR and working folks. But if you don't eat kale and go to yoga classes, you can't go to most of these meetings. And so that's a problem. So you have two parties that have fundamental hypocrisies built into them. We thought that their hypocrisy was going to blow them up. We thought that playing footsie with all these crazy people is going to blow up. But it's our hypocrisy that blew us up. And so rather than sitting up here and trying to defend everything, I think there's an opportunity because most people listen to this New York Times is going to be our people. So look, there's a bunch of stuff we did wrong. You touched one of them people hurting economically. And we kept trying to tell them that we're building cathedrals for them in 20 years with this inflation reduction act. It didn't work. We also ran people out of our party on crypto. 50 million people bought some crypto. That's a bet on a future. They are trying to get to a better future. Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren. Beating the hell out of crypto, beating the hell out of Silicon Valley people was not smart. Not inviting Elon Musk to the White House when he's doing an EV Day because he doesn't have union workers was not smart. You're pushing people out of the party. That's a mistake. People are concerned about the health of their children. We used to own that. Michelle Obama owned that, that we gave that up. RFK starts talking about it, he's a nut. There's a lot of people after Covid, a lot of our folks, suburban housewives and other folks who are very concerned. We could have talked about the issue. We didn't. We're pushing people out of this party. And the last thing I'll say is I hate all these people. The anti woke the anti. This the anti that. But you gotta look in the mirror at a certain point. We've had five movements in a row in our party. They rely on dehumanizing binaries where you're putting down some people to lift somebody else up. I love all our movements, but there's a moral flaw. When every movement's gotta put somebody down. Black lives matter. All white people are racist. That is not gonna work. No, hold on a second. Hold on a second. That is in fact a part of the ideology that subconsciously there's unconscious bias. And the way that lands though, for people is you're calling them names. There's got to be a better way to say it. You walk through all of our movements. You look at Bernie. I love Bernie. All billionaires are evil. Everybody, 99% is a victim. Oprah Winfrey is a billionaire. She's not evil. You look at the climate movement. All traditional energy is evil, including poor, sick coal miners. Environmentalists can throw ketchup on the Mona Lisa and their heroes. That doesn't work. Look at me too. Look at now, if you're Jewish, if you're Jewish, you're a colonizer. If you're against, if you're for the Palestinians, you can do whatever you want to. These things are landing very poorly because it's not Dr. King, it's not Nelson Mandela, it's not Ella Jo Baker, it's not Van Lou Hamer. Progressives are at our best when we're saying we want dignity for everybody. We want to free the jailed and the jail. We want to free the people who have been oppressors and the people who have been oppressed. We want to free everybody. When you stand for everyone's dignity, everybody's humanity, the whole world stands with you when you do these dehumanizing binaries. Even though we're well intentioned, it lands poorly. So there's a lot of stuff for us to look at. I think we can take these same movements, love everybody, bring everybody to the table, tell white guys we need them. Tell white guys we're mad at them because we need them. We're mad at them because we love them. We want them on our side. There's a different way to talk about this stuff. We've got to take these sub movements seriously. We've got to. Look, you guys going to beat me up and I don't care. I'm telling you right now, there is a progressive movement that's available that if we take people's economic pain seriously, like you said, take women's fears Seriously, like you said, but also draw this circle a little bit bigger. Then when the thing comes back to us, not only can we win, we can govern and get something done.
- [58:43]
Major Garrett
I want to key off something you just said about Elon Musk and the lack of an invitation to him and turn to somebody who knows him well. What is your sense of how much influence Elon Musk actually has over Donald Trump right now? And how long do you expect this love fest is going to last? Kevin McCarthy, how long does it last?
- [59:04]
Van Jones
I think it lasts quite a bit. One thing I know about the two of them, they got together in the first term. Elon will not equate himself to be a Republican or Democrat. There's something that drives Elon. It's the First Amendment. And you're right, you pushed him out. The Democrats pushed him out, offended him, is the biggest maker of EVs and you pushed him out. Elon didn't set up to think that I'm going to support Donald Trump. Well, he thought he would lose the country if these policies with the Democrats stayed in and he had to leave California. He watched what happened to him in California and he says, I have no other place to go. They'll make every state that way. So he called it upon himself to engage, to try to save the country. He endorsed him when he watched the assassination attack because of the reaction that he gave. It wasn't in his mindset to go then and I think it lasts a while. But there could only be one president. So people get tired of one another and I think it could be wearing, but I think Elon has done better in the process. Now, in my conversations with him, all these decisions are not decisions that Elon would make, but I think he feels very fair about giving advice. I think Trump, Trump is really good about embracing because there's a lot of things. What's unique about Trump. Trump is probably our last presidential, our television president. I mean, if you think about it, we've known Donald Trump from TV long before he ever ran. That's what helped him. But he's also the president that moved us to the digital. There's a lot of things that are happening from space, from everything else. That president doesn't know about it, but he trusts certain people and I think that will be an education that would move on.
- [60:56]
Major Garrett
Talk a bit about just staying with you for a second. Mike Johnson is entering this new Congress with a razor thin majority. There is almost no room for error. Two things I want you to talk about. One is how exactly is this going to work and how much more important does it make the Senate and specifically John Thune? And also why does Donald Trump run ahead of the Republican brand the way he has consistently and can any other Republican presidential nominee put together the coalition that Trump.
- [61:21]
Van Jones
Okay, to be fair, Van Jones, Republicans have problems too. We didn't win. Donald Trump won.
- [61:28]
Major Garrett
Hence the question.
- [61:30]
Van Jones
And I would say before this election, whoever lost the election was the first party to correct themselves. I disagree with the election about Hillary Clinton. People were voting against Hillary Clinton in that election and both parties have problems. Why you think the Bernie Sanders and the Trump rise up? They haven't solved the problems for all this time. You're 100% both parties. So people are free to go to either way and who's going to capture them? Republicans used to win when we had low turnouts. We now win. We have big turnouts because what did President Trump do for us? He brought us people, lower educators. He brought us mass people. If you look at Hispanic population, we do best in those areas. So what's going to happen in Congress itself was the question. I think the power is going to rest with Thune because how the next goes is how you finish this year. You are doing the president a disadvantage that he's going to have to worry about last year's funding. When you think about the debt ceiling. I made the debt ceiling. Now why? So you could take care of it before the next president. If I advise this to Johnson, what I would do is I would finish all the funding and I would do the debt ceiling before the next president takes in. He never got a honeymoon last time because you started attacking him. He's got a. He's better prepared in transition. Why are you making him deal with last year funding when he wasn't even around? The top lines are already set. The appropriators know how to do it. Johnson's worried about a speaker's vote. That will never happen to him. What happened to me? Because President Trump is there. You got adult supervision. Nobody else can win either. So you can't get to that point. But you're doing the president a disservice if he has to go deal with all last year's funding. The Senate is going to become the power. Thune is also central casting. He's the person that's going to confirm him. I think he's going to find that he's going to work well with President Trump. You've got reconciliation. So the biggest fear you have of tax that's going to get taken care of. But you want to bring salt back, you're going to have to pay for that. How are you going to make the system work again? Again, if you end this year without defending the funding, the next year doesn't start so well.
- [63:41]
Major Garrett
Jason and Kellyanne, I want you both to address something. We've talked a little bit about what President Elect Trump has said about retribution. Jason, I know you said he said his only retribution or revenge will be a successful presidency, but he's also actually just said revenge. And he has announced that he is going to make the FBI director if he can get him confirmed. And it would require either forcing Chris Wray, his other appointee, for the FBI to resign or firing him. He is going to name Cash Patel, who told Steve Bannon last year that it was imperative to, quote, go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media. Do you to both of you expect that that is something that Donald Trump will follow through with? Jason or Kellyanne? Jason, drive in, I think.
- [64:26]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Well, first of all, I think Cash stepping in is going to bring reform to the FBI that's much needed. And I think too many Americans have lost confidence in the FBI and the doj, American justice system about where it stands. They feel that justice is being applied inequally with President Trump. I think the only people who need to be worrying are people who leak classified information, people who have sought to undermine our justice system, people who have violated very serious laws themselves. Now, I know that many folks here in the media, and obviously we're doing this with the New York Times, take this very seriously. President Trump, being a strong supporter of the First Amendment, is always gonna protect that. And I'm not concerned about that at all with this next Trump term. But I do think that there has to be a reckoning with the way that we've seen the leaks and the classified information. All the nonsense has gone on behind the scenes that has to be fixed because Americans need to have confidence in this legal system and with the justice system.
- [65:31]
Anita Dunn
It would be so bad if people were keeping classified information, like in a bathroom. That wouldn't be good, right?
- [65:38]
Kellyanne Conway
I feel like it's 2022.
- [65:40]
Major Garrett
Kellyanne Conway, do you same question to you about Cash Patel. Do you anticipate that he will follow through with what he had said he would do last year, or do you see it as Jason sees it, which is that this is just going to happen?
- [65:51]
Kellyanne Conway
Jason sees it, and as President Trump sees it, Kash Patel is qualified for that job. I hope he gets confirmed and it's very clear. Going back to household names. Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bruce Orr, Nellie Orr. People don't have confidence in the seventh floor of the Justice Department. They saw how politicized our FBI became. That is Nothing against the 30, 35,000 rank and file men and women who work at the FBI and show up every day doing their jobs. I think that our relationship with law enforcement has taken a beating over the last however many years saying defund the police. Three of the dumber words coming out of the Democratic Party. It makes people nervous to see that our military, our border Patrol, our FBI are certainly our local law enforcement feel they feel under resourced and under respected in doing their jobs. And that is a big part of the Trump mandate and the Trump coalition. I wanna say something else about the media I keep open as a window on my laptop. Jeff Bezos, his Washington Post op ed. I think that that beyond. We're not going to endorse in the presidential race and people had a hissy fit and quit and cancel their subscriptions because they have this expectation that the media are emotional about Donald Trump Major. That they will, everybody will be. Jim Rutenberg, one of your colleagues at the New York Times, who in August of 2016 wrote a piece basically saying, maggie, listen, I'm supposed to be objective and fair and unbiased, but the prospect that we can even have Donald Trump as president means I have to stop this. I feel this time I'm sorry, you're.
- [67:24]
Major Garrett
Saying Jim Rutenberg wrote a piece saying that?
- [67:26]
Kellyanne Conway
Yes, in August of 2016.
- [67:27]
Major Garrett
In other words, that doesn't sound like Jim Rutenberg. I know, and I can't say. I'd have to go back and look at what you're saying. But Jim Rutenberg is an excellent colleague.
- [67:33]
Anita Dunn
And an excellent reporter.
- [67:34]
Kellyanne Conway
No, he is. I'm not criticizing him. I'm saying that this time I think everybody, a lot of people in the media took that mantle and they said to themselves, I have to stop Trump. It's my moral obligation to stop this person and call him names and so forth. Even Adam, as Jonathan knows, I think you've written three books with Trump in the title. There's this love, hate relationship, there's this symbiosis of a relationship. But I think what Jeff Bezos says is important for all of us to digest. Where he says, look, he says we in the media. He was talking about the Washington Post. He said, we in the media have a low approval rating. We don't have this vaunted position we once did. We need to Win back the trust. I think many of our institutions do, including the FBI. And if anybody who is covering Cash, Patel or any other nominee and did not do it with the same enthusiasm and accuracy, when Alejandro Mayorkas told this country, told Congress Under Oath in 2021, three and a half years ago, the border is closed. The border is secure. And since then, 10 million people have come here, government statistic. And since then, people open up their phones, turn on the TV and they see people here in New York City getting debit cards, cash, cell phones, clothing, hotel rooms, your kid's seat in a New York City classroom. And they say that's not fair. And they don't think of themselves as xenophobes and racist. They just say this isn't fair. When did this happen? And so I feel that every president has grace and latitude to put the nominees up, that they want to serve them well. I think President Trump is choosing people he think will do an excellent job in those individual opposite. And one more thing, Maggie. He's chosen people who he knows are communicators. He wants his democratization of information back for America. Here's a man who, whether you liked it or not, by 6:02 every morning, you knew what he thought about for the day cuz he had tweeted it. People miss that transparency from their commander in chief, from a White House telling us behind the scenes, Joe Biden's actually a triathlete trapeze artist. We just can't see it. They want somebody to have democratization of information so that in this country, in this world, whether you're the stay at home mom, the plumber on the job looking at his phone, or a billionaire.
- [69:43]
Jason Miller
You like those tweets a lot more than I do, I'll tell you that.
- [69:45]
Kellyanne Conway
Everybody. Well, you know what? Good. At least we know what he's thinking. And he's choosing people in the cabinet who are gonna do the same.
- [69:50]
Alexis McGill Johnson
Kellyanne, you mentioned some important policy points, but there was a question that Maggie said about prosecuting the media and I think specifically with Cash Patel. If Jason and Kellyanne could respond to the promises that Cash has made, not just to prosecute the media, but also to go after specific people who have been part of the Justice Department and the previous administration, including Bill Barr, John Bolton, Mark Esper, Joe Biden, Pat Sibolian, hrc, Pat Cipollone, Alyssa Farrah Griffin.
- [70:16]
Major Garrett
To be clear, he has a lengthy.
- [70:17]
Alexis McGill Johnson
He has a lengthy television. It's in his book. He published it in the appendice. All the people that he plans to prosecute if he's in charge. So I mean, can you all say.
- [70:25]
Kellyanne Conway
Are you saying lawfare is a bad idea? Margaret?
- [70:28]
Alexis McGill Johnson
I'm sorry, are you guys doing it? Are you guys comfortable? Previous colleagues? No. You and Jason?
- [70:36]
Major Garrett
No. This is a question to both of you.
- [70:38]
Alexis McGill Johnson
And this is somebody who, as you say, Donald Trump is only going to nominate people who are going to prosecute. His vision for government is prosecuting people who held those positions of power in the previous administration, his own administration, the proper way to go.
- [70:54]
Kellyanne Conway
Are you suggesting that people have committed crimes?
- [70:57]
Alexis McGill Johnson
Cash Patel has said that he will prosecute. Bill Barr, Mark Esper, Mark Milley, John Bolton, Cassidy Hutchinson, Pat Filoni, Alyssa Farrah Griffin.
- [71:06]
Jason Miller
You can say that's a bad idea.
- [71:07]
Alexis McGill Johnson
Appropriate.
- [71:08]
Kellyanne Conway
So I think what's gonna happen is he'll be asked about all of that in his confirmation hearings and we should welcome those questions. He's a big boy. He can answer those questions. I assume he'll have pre confirmation hearing meetings where he could be asked those questions as well. I am happy to see you, Kellyanne.
- [71:22]
Jason Miller
You think that's a bad idea, though? I mean, I'm being honest. Here's the thing. I'm being honest with my stuff and you guys aren't. You think that's a bad idea?
- [71:29]
Kellyanne Conway
No, I don't think it's a great idea to prosecute people without just cause. I don't know all the facts. I do know some of the people you're mentioning were very difficult for me to deal in the White House as senior counsel or president because.
- [71:42]
Jason Miller
But not criminal.
- [71:43]
Kellyanne Conway
No, because they weren't very effective. They were obsequious. They always had their pom poms out and it was hard to give them any position of responsibility. He loses and all of a sudden. And they found anti Trump religion and they write their books and they go on TV and they do what they do. But I think everybody here is getting a little nervous because maybe there's some regret, maybe not here writ large. There's some regret of the way Donald Trump's been covered. And by the way, had people who are obsessed with Donald Trump spent in iota, I mean, a scintilla of that time not focused on Trump, Trump, Trump focused on the Trump voter, the growing Trump coalition, Trump country that we have now, where these, you look at the map, it looks red almost everywhere. Had you spent time focused on the Trump bone instead of looking down on them and telling who they should be and what they should, whom they should vote for and how they should worship their God. And raise their kid and what they should eat.
- [72:36]
Anita Dunn
I'm sorry, are we not gonna just take a moment to be chilled by what Kellyanne just said?
- [72:42]
Kellyanne Conway
But I said, don't prosecute people without just calling.
- [72:45]
Anita Dunn
Is that what you just said? Because I did just say. I saw you.
- [72:48]
Kellyanne Conway
You're just always off on some tangent. We don't know Kevin McCarthy insulting me by name.
- [72:54]
Major Garrett
Let Sarah talk.
- [72:55]
Kellyanne Conway
She's just insulting people by name.
- [72:56]
Major Garrett
Everyone is insulting everybody by name.
- [72:58]
Alexis McGill Johnson
Everyone insulting each other since you guys sat down next to each other. So don't say Sarah's doing it. That's just not fair.
- [73:02]
Major Garrett
Margaret, stop.
- [73:03]
Anita Dunn
Yeah, and also, I don't know that it's an insult to say that Kevin McCarthy said that the election was stolen, that that was a lie to the American people that they now believe.
- [73:12]
Major Garrett
Can we keep this focused on Trump?
- [73:15]
Anita Dunn
I don't know. You just talked. You brought up Orr and everybody else.
- [73:18]
Major Garrett
Sarah, if you wanna respond to what Kelly answered, where was the best collusion?
- [73:21]
Anita Dunn
So the reason that I do focus groups all the time is because after Trump was elected the first time, I wanted to understand why. Because I was a Republican, right? I'd been a Republican my entire life. And I wanted to know why voters liked this person that I thought was repellent and who was saying things like, go grab women by their genitalia, who's doing all of this crazy stuff, who's now an adjudicated rapist. There's a lot of things and there's a couple things that were in some of the answers that I think are really important going forward. So one is it's not just that people are being pushed out of the Democratic Party. There's actually a political realignment going on. And so the Democratic Party is now populated by a lot more of these college educated voters, and there aren't enough of them. The Republican Party has built a multiracial, multiethnic working class coalition for a variety of reasons, much of which is part of negative polarization, a rejection of something else, as opposed to an affirmative. I don't think that Americans wanted tariffs. I don't think that Americans want a lot of the things that Trump wants, but they are rejecting. Just like in 2020 when you say never, Trump, always wrong, or whatever your thing is, we beat Donald Trump in 2020 because people thought he mismanaged Covid. They were tired of him, they were sick of him being in their face all the time. And they wanted the stability. But then what they got still was a bunch of things that they also didn't want mainly higher prices and an open border. But I actually also want to go back to something Jason said, because I think it's important for Democrats to understand that the entire world has changed. And Van was saying this, too. I had written down authenticity and had squared it, and then you brought it up. And I think it's deeply important. When I listened to voters in the focus groups, when I knew DeSantis was cooked against Trump, when they said, he seems like a regular politician. And the thing about Kamala Harris is technically, she could be quite good, actually. I think surprisingly good compared to where Republicans had set the bar. But she did not feel authentic. She felt like a regular politician. Joe Biden feels like a regular politician. Voters don't want that anymore. And people are going to have to adjust to that terrain. When you give a good speech or even a good debate and you win on points, that's not enough anymore. You've got to be able to walk in to all kinds of places, hostile places, and sit down and have a conversation. And if you can't do that, you can't win.
- [75:38]
Jason Miller
Can I, Van?
- [75:39]
Major Garrett
God.
- [75:39]
Jason Miller
Look, I think Kamala's campaign went from brat to flat. And it was obvious there was a moment when she first got in there, she was loose, and she seemed to be saying, eff it. And people could relate to that. And then it seemed it got super professional, super slicked up. It became kind of talking point. Bingo. And people didn't stick with her. I think. I mean, what I found. The message that worked for Kamala Harris on the doors in the barbershops was a message she never used. It was, kamala Harris wants to lift you up. Donald Trump wants to lock you up. We never prosecuted Donald Trump on all the stuff he wanted to do on Stop and Frisk. We gave him a free pass. Donald Trump said he wanted to bring back Stop and Frisk a lot of stuff that scared the crap out of young black men. We told him. But the other thing that we were able to do with Kamala on the doors was, Donald Trump's a little baby billionaire. He's a little billionaire. You want to be rich, You're a young black man. You want to be an owner. You want to be an entrepreneur, you want to be a provider. Why are you following this little baby billionaire? Kamala Harris represents real billionaires. She represents California. She represents the biggest. Hold on a second. The biggest bunch of billionaires in the world vote for her and donate her. And so then you begin to link into the aspirations of these young men. Who don't like what Donald Trump says, but they like what he's been able to do with his life. And so there was a huge disconnect from what the campaign thought was gonna work and what was actually resonating with young men. I'm gonna tell you, young men of color are up for grabs. They don't like Republicans, they don't like Democrats, and they don't like their circumstances.
- [77:22]
Major Garrett
Kevin McCarthy, one thing I will say.
- [77:24]
Van Jones
At times we overthink this. If I just look at a city council race or any race, I start on election day and work backwards. What is in the voters mind in elections day? Kamala Harris didn't flip one county, not one county. She did worse on the gender vote than Joe Biden did. And I would say this one question to any race, what's in the voter's mind on election day? She had more than a billion dollars and I'm being free. I could not tell you the three things she was going to accomplish if she got elected. The only thing that comes to mind is she was going to give first time homebuyers $25,000. So that's a putation on the campaign itself. What was the campaign about? We could say all these other things, but to a voter out there, what are you going to do?
- [78:09]
Major Garrett
Hang on one sec. I want to switch for a second to ask Anita a question here in terms of just talking about what's on voters minds and a point Jason made about immigration. We're in a sanctuary city. We are in a city where the mayor, who has also been indicted, has been praising President elect Trump a lot. He also angered the Biden administration by being very critical about the border policies. Did he have a point given where things were and where the electorate has shown it was? I mean, do you think that the Biden White House was slow to react to what was clearly a crisis in the minds of voters or anything should have been dealt with differently in the first two years.
- [78:50]
Sarah Longwell
That's a huge question.
- [78:51]
Major Garrett
It.
- [78:52]
Alexis McGill Johnson
But yeah.
- [78:54]
Sarah Longwell
You know, I think that, you know, I think that immigration was an issue that was seen as something to be managed as opposed to really addressed. And don't forget, every administration, and this one will be no different, comes in in reaction to what has gone before and what the 2020 campaign and what the Biden administration was reacting to were the policy of President Trump and his first administration. Family separation, children being locked in cages, things like that, that were very powerful images for the American people. And you know, obviously came into office. Covid, we had title 42. So we had a shut border at that time. We had unaccompanied minors, which was our first immigration problem, solved it. But there's no question that the administration should have moved, moved more quickly once Title 42 was no longer in effect to get control of what was happening there. And there's no question, quite frankly, that had we done that, New York, Chicago, cities where you saw a dramatic drop off in Democratic vote probably would have looked a little different.
- [80:04]
Van Jones
So this is another reason why you lost Elon Musk was what was happening on the border. This is another reason why you have two counties in Texas who have never in the history of America voted for a Republican vote for. It's another reason why we're winning Hispanic vote.
- [80:18]
Maggie Haberman
Well, yeah, you know, look, one of the central arguments against Trump was he's chaos, he's gonna bring chaos back. And if you look at Joe Biden's approval rating, it actually went down well into his first year. It was with the withdrawal from Afghanistan and those images, which were more chaotic than any images, frankly, that we saw during the four years of the Trump presidency. So you combine that with the images coming from the border, which were, again, not only so many people coming, the whole chaos around it. And Kamala Harris had an answer on the border, which was the immigration bill, which was an immigration bill that wasn't brought up until almost three years into the Biden presidency. And she also said, and we had an immigration bill on the first day of our presidency. Well, that bill, which wasn't. They never really pushed for it, wasn't gonna go anywhere, Was not a border security bill. It was the opposite. It was rolling back everything that Trump had done. So she really didn't have an answer on that or frankly on Afghanistan.
- [81:19]
Major Garrett
Anita, did you have something you want to say?
- [81:21]
Sarah Longwell
Well, I think the one thing I would say is that the answer for Kamala Harris was we do need to be tougher. And I think that that was an obvious one. Everyone would have accepted it. Yes, we need to be tough. Yes.
- [81:35]
Maggie Haberman
And we should have been tougher, and we should have been tougher.
- [81:37]
Van Jones
But was she the immigration czar? I mean, then she argued. I really wasn't that. But we all watched at the State.
- [81:43]
Jason Miller
Of the Union for him to say it. Here's. Look, the minute those governors, those red state governors started putting buses full of folks in front of Congress House and every place else, we were in deep trouble. And if I had, you know, direct con, as you said, call those governors of the White House, sit down and let's figure this thing out. There was an opportunity to be bipartisan, Joe, on the issue and he didn't do it. And we paid a price. Look, I think the freedom that we have now is not the freedom we wanted, but Democrats. I do think, because most of our people listening to this are Democrats who are miserable, who are depressed, who cut off the news, who are talking to three therapists today. Guys, guess what? For the first time in a long time, we don't have to run institutions that most people hate or protect them. There is an opportunity now. These guys own it all. Donald Trump is the most powerful person in human history. He has the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House, the popular vote, a massive movement behind him, a massive media system that Taylor made for him. He owns it all. And thank goodness, because people are going to figure out if his ideas are good or bad. Now for the first time, we don't have to run these things. Let our rebels have a chance. Let people who got new ideas have a chance. Let people who are coming out of these neighborhoods have a chance and let's let love have a chance. We can lift up poor black and brown folks without putting anybody down. We can lift up women without putting anybody down. We can stick up for the earth without putting anybody down. There is a condescension. There is a I'm right and you're wrong. There's a I'm better than you that we can just let go of because there's going to be enough pain and suffering out there and people looking for real answers that if we let some of these new ideas come forward, new people come forward, I think we can actually inherit in two years a real movement. And that's what's needed.
- [83:53]
Major Garrett
Alexis, hang on a second. Kevin. Alexis.
- [83:55]
Kevin McCarthy
Mikhail Johnson and I love you. I love you dearly, have known you for years. And I don't disagree that there should be love and hope and freedom to let the other folks fail, right? In some ways. But that pain and that suffering and that harm is real. Those are the people who come through our doors every single day. The undocumented folks, the women, the low income folks who don't have any other place to get their care right. And they're not. They may come for birth control, but they are leaving and they are worried that they are going to be locked up, that their kids are going to be grabbed from school, that they're going to be grabbed from the job like the fear and the terror. And I think the challenge that I have is, is the idea that Somehow the movement made this binary, right? It is the fight for humanity. Right? The dehumanization already existed, it already was happening, and it was being codified into policies, just as it has with Dobbs. And so I see this as a rollback on 50 to 100 years of progress that we have been making among communities of color, among gender, among, you know, people who just want to live their lives. And I think we are overstating the multiracial coalition that Trump brought in. Right? I really do, because I think there are enough people who stayed home who weren't inspired to come out because the Democrats didn't offer something, but they were still very consistent in their numbers. Just a little bit of reach, which we would expect, but it's not some overwhelming majority. And I think when you start to take away rights from folks, right, you're not saying that they're equal, right. You're saying that they're not your peers because you don't take away rights from people that are your peers. And you're allowing the dehumanization to flourish. And the reason we're all in therapy and worried is because of the pain and the harm. So we cannot just let a tyrant kind of be in an institution like the presidency without that, you know, that fear and reckoning of what we need to be doing.
- [86:03]
Major Garrett
Let me ask Sarah Longwell a related question. What happens to the future of the Never Trump movement from here?
- [86:09]
Anita Dunn
I mean, I don't think Never Trump is a relevant thing to talk about anymore. Like Never Trump. Republicans were something from 2016, we were all Republicans. We were never gonna vote for Donald Trump cuz he didn't represent our values. And then we set out to beat him, and then we beat him in 20. We beat him and all the little Trump wannabes like him in 22. Because we were able to move a bunch of McCain Romney voters into the Democratic Party. They were unwilling to vote for not just Donald Trump, but Kerry Lake this time, Mark Robinson, you've got a bunch of insane people that the Republican Party has brought in because of Donald Trump. However, like I said, there aren't enough of those voters. The vast majority. There are just more non college, working class voters and Donald Trump, though, much less non Donald Trump Republicans. But Donald Trump himself can pull those people out in a general election. If I were Republicans, I would be deeply worried about a non Trump future because Donald Trump, uniquely, because he was on tv. I'll never forget when I was trying to understand why Donald Trump appealed to voters in the first place, how many people had watched the Apprentice. Now, I never watched the Apprentice. That wasn't it. But they all had. And so this idea of Donald Trump as a television carefully curated businessman is just an idea that is locked in the public consciousness that gives him a superpower that other people don't have. They also forgive him many of his trashiest, most despicable qualities because he's on tv, because he was on Page Six. It's like a celebrity thing that they forgive so they don't treat him. That's the reason there's a big asymmetry and how voters hold de politicians accountable versus Donald Trump. And so for never Trumpers, I think right now, like, there's no more. Unless, I mean, I don't know. I don't think that Donald Trump, because he, in those tweets that he puts out, he said he would suspect the Constitution. He's obviously already flirting with the idea that he could run again in 2028. He's too old, I think, to actually do that. But I don't think there's another time to sort of resist Donald Trump. I think for a lot of us now, we became very focused on democracy, right? We became very focused on how do you preserve the things that are the best about America that Donald Trump wants to tear down. It's funny, when I listen to these guys say, well, they don't have faith in the FBI. It's like, oh, well, maybe you guys called in the deep state for a really long time, or they don't have any faith in the media. Well, maybe you guys have been calling them the enemy of the people. And I'm not saying some of that didn't exist already. And Donald Trump was able to tap into it, but he has exacerbated. He has torn down people's faces.
- [88:46]
Jason Miller
The trap that we now fall into, though, is because of that. And I don't want to take away from any of the pain that was just spoken to. We should have started with honestly. But the only blessing in this massive curse is that we can now dream beyond just defense.
- [89:01]
Major Garrett
I would like an answer actually, though, to what the movement ends up looking like.
- [89:04]
Jason Miller
Yeah.
- [89:04]
Anita Dunn
And so I think now we have to be in a position when Kellyanne says things like, I don't know, maybe he's gonna prosecute.
- [89:10]
Kellyanne Conway
I didn't say that. Sarah, stop.
- [89:11]
Major Garrett
That's. Let's. Let's.
- [89:13]
Kellyanne Conway
It's not what I said.
- [89:14]
Major Garrett
What. What is.
- [89:15]
Kellyanne Conway
And you just want to sound like it ended up looking more sugar daddy money for your focus groups.
- [89:18]
Van Jones
Okay.
- [89:19]
Kellyanne Conway
They don't have money in the resistance.
- [89:20]
Jason Miller
Stop.
- [89:20]
Major Garrett
Stop. I'm gonna cut this off. I'm gonna this off for now. Jason Miller, does President Elect Trump still have faith in Pete Hegseth as his Secretary of Defense?
- [89:30]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Yes, and Pete's going to have to go through the process, meeting with the senators individually and then going in for his confirmation hearing. As we know, we've seen one presidency already. We have a second one, that only one person is going to make these decisions, and that's President Trump. But I would say when you look at where he is now in 2024 versus 2016, this is an entire different level of organization and preparedness for a new administration. I would make the case that we've never seen an administration ever come into day one ready to go like President Trump is, quite frankly, because he's done it before. So when you talk about the personnel having named people for each cabinet spot by Thanksgiving, that's way ahead of the pace from where it was in 2016. He has a chief of staff that's in place. They have executive orders. They're ready to go on day one. President Trump is ready to hit the ground running. But also, I make a critical point.
- [90:20]
Kevin McCarthy
Also got a playbook of Project 2025. Playbook, 900 pages.
- [90:23]
Maggie Haberman
Right.
- [90:23]
Anita Dunn
That they have.
- [90:23]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
I'd also make the important point. He's already the president, effectively. You have foreign leaders coming to visit him. He's issuing threats to terrorists.
- [90:31]
Major Garrett
Don't we still have one president at one time? Or is this.
- [90:34]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
I'm saying, in the eyes of world leaders, they're already looking past Joe Biden because the Democrats have put him out to pasture. But people are now recognizing that America has to be respected again. And that's why they're coming to Mar a Lago. That's why they're calling him. So President Trump's gonna bring in this whole new era of reform when he goes to Washington in January. And I think that's gonna be good for the country as the economy goes up and we secure the border.
- [90:58]
Major Garrett
Two followups. He's also had two nominees. And depending on what happens with hegseth, and they're not nominees yet, but announced nominees withdrawn, that's also record setting. So there's no question that he has absolutely put out a number of people as he plans to appoint. But is there something in the vetting that could have been different in terms of how he is selecting some of these people, or is that beside the point?
- [91:22]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
I think when you look at the body of the cabinet that he's named, so Far these are some very solid folks. And Scott Besant going into Treasury, Lutnick at Commerce, I have a lot of confidence what these people are going to be able to do. These are some very st stellar people.
- [91:36]
Major Garrett
Matt Gaetz lasted eight days. Kevin McCarthy. Do you have thoughts on that?
- [91:41]
Van Jones
I'm surprised he lasted eight days. No. Gates wasn't vetted. Gates needed to get out of Congress and Trump gave him an advantage because he had to resign before the report came out. So I don't equate that no one thought he would ever get in. But I would exactly say what Jason said. He is better prepared. And the one thing you have to remember too is, is Trump has 10,000 hours. He knows what to do with the job. He knows he only has four years and he doesn't want to waste one moment. The only thing I would take from all this discussion and Van, tell me if I'm right or wrong. When Republicans lose, we never say we have to have therapy.
- [92:16]
Anita Dunn
You just say you didn't lost. You just say you didn't lose.
- [92:19]
Van Jones
I never knew who she was until today. And I don't know if I'd ever listen to her. But what's interesting to me is I don't think that's the right advice for the Democratic Democrats. And I know what you said, let them own everything. The only thing I would say is the election's over. The one thing I will tell you, America has some very big problems. One thing I tried to do as speaker, the Select Committee on China, reconstitute the others. But I tried to bring everybody together on our big issues. We can't do it by one party. Our debt. We got to reform our education system. When you also look at defense, whoever captures AI and quantum is going to have an advantage. But whoever has energy is going to have those. We cannot. Say one party, you have it all. Because our whole government is designed that you have to have compromise. There's power in the minority. So what I would say, engage in the process. They may have power right now, but you can. The minority has power.
- [93:10]
Major Garrett
Van Jones. Van, I have the final word.
- [93:12]
Jason Miller
Look, I agree with you and I'll work with anybody to help the people at the bottom.
- [93:16]
Van Jones
You've proven that before.
- [93:17]
Jason Miller
I've proven it. I work with anybody. The least of these, the addicted, the afflicted, the convicted and the evicted. The people that Jesus called the least of this. I'll work with anybody. But the future of this party is gonna be people whose names we don't know yet. It's gonna be people like John Fetterman. It's gonna be people like Ro Khanna who are thinking outside of the box. This party has a future. Last time we got trapped in we have to oppose everything all the time. Every tweet is the end of the Republic. This time I think you're gonna see a much more judicious Democratic party and we have the opportunity to come up with brand new ideas is that while you guys are trying to run everything, we can actually start building a real movement. And that's the opportunity we've got.
- [93:54]
Major Garrett
With that. Thank you all for being here today and mostly holding your fire and see you next time.
- [94:16]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Dealbook Summit is a production of the New York Times. This episode was produced by Evan Roberts.
- [94:21]
Maggie Haberman
And edited by Sarah Kessler.
- [94:23]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Mixing by Kelly Piclo. Original music by Daniel Powell. The rest of the Dealbook events team includes Julie Zahn, Hilary Kuhn, Angela Austin, Hayley Hess, Dana Prokowski, Matt Kaiser and Yenwei Liu.
- [94:39]
Maggie Haberman
Special thanks to Sam Dolan, Nina Lassom.
- [94:41]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Ravi Matu, Beth Weinstein, Kate Carrington and Melissa Tripoli.
- [94:50]
Jason Miller
Thanks for listening.
- [94:51]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Talk to you next time.