D (1:41)

I mean, no one was really going to school. Like, remote learning was. Someone had a great tweet, which was just remote learning, and it was just sledding hill at Prospect Park.

A (1:51)

All right, let's do this. Hello and welcome to this live 2028 Democratic primary draft at the Comedy Cellar in New York City. I'm Galen Druck. Here with me is staff writer at the New Yorker, Claire Malone. Welcome.

D (2:11)

Hi, Galen.

A (2:13)

Round of applause for Claire. Also here with us is founder of Silver Bulletin, Nate Silva. Round of applause for Nate. And a round of applause for all of you. The most important part, the audience. Yeah, it's cold out. Drink up.

D (2:30)

For the listener, Nate and Galen both have new glasses, which I just feel like we should give their full air.

A (2:36)

What do you guys think, 1 through 10? On a level of applause, I think.

D (2:40)

Yours makes you look sort of like an English prep schooler kind of thing. And yours makes you look like Rachel Maddow.

A (2:52)

I didn't say whether that was good or bad.

D (2:55)

I was going to say who's the. Oh, this is going to be bad. Who's the guy on Mad Men who committed suicide? The British, also British guy.

C (3:04)

A little seasonal affective disorder. Something to worry about. That's right.

A (3:08)

So I want to just take a second before we begin to make sure that everyone is in the right place tonight. The last live show that we had here, there was a drunk couple sitting in the corner over there that thought they were coming to see some standup comedy and found themselves at a politics podcast and they were pretty disappointed. So this is your warning right now. You are welcome to stay if this is not what you expected. However, none of the jokes are going to be performed by professional comedians tonight. So you've been warned. We advertise this as a live 2028 Democratic primary draft and we are absolutely going to do that. In just a few minutes. You'll get to see us tussle over whether or not Gavin Newsom should be is the most valuable first round pick. But we are going to begin with the news of the day, which I'm sure you can guess. We've spent at this point 10 years together discussing the news as it's come hot and heavy since 2016. In fact, we started the 538 politics podcast in January of 2016. So we have known each other for exactly a decade now and been talking about all kinds of fun and not so fun things during that time. So let's begin there and I promise you we will get to more lighthearted things quickly. But on Saturday, a federal immigration officer shot and killed Alex Preddy, a 37 year old Veterans Affairs ICU nurse, at a protest in Minneapolis. It's the second killing by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis in less than three weeks, the first being Renee Good. In both killings, the Trump administration rushed to brand Good and Preddy as domestic terrorists and fabricated events. Despite the shootings being visible in multiple videos, the Trump administration now appears to be backtracking and doing damage. Control Commander at large of the U.S. border Patrol, Gregory Bovino has been withdrawn from Minnesota and Tom Homan, the border czar, has been sent in with some indication that the administration is drawing down immigration enforcement officers in Minneapolis. This comes at a time when the Senate is debating approval of funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which runs out this Friday, setting up the potential for a partial Government shutdown. I will say this is now the second live show that we have done at the Comedy Cellar in the run up to a government shutdown. You know, there are more developments that we can get into, but I want to start here, you know, for GD Politics podcast listeners. I published a podcast on Monday of this week positing that Alex Preddy's killing serves as something of a political turning point. And I can explain my thoughts in a little bit. But first, I'm curious for both of you to weigh in. Claire, why don't we begin with you?

D (5:52)

The interesting thing about his killing was, I think for people on the right, in the right wing media sphere, I think the fact that he was carrying a gun and that he was a VA nurse were actually two sort of a gun with a legal permit and that he was sort of doing all the correct things. Right. That he was not pulling a gun. I've seen some sort of interesting, you know, I'm not a bootlicker kind of things coming out of right wing social media and from certain influencers where they're sort of saying, like, listen, I can see what's happening here. And like, this guy was sort of doing things in the right way, which I think was interesting. And I do think that there is a certain, like, gun ownership valence that's on that. I also think that there's just a. The fact that we all can see the video. And now there are two videos in such short order that the Trump administration sort of has this boilerplate language that they roll out. There are certain buzzwords, domestic terrorist, like, you know, defensive shots, like all of those things have been kind of rolled out. But they really do lose their power. And they, I think they got out over their skis in using that in such a videoed incident. I don't know if I was expecting that out of certain right wing influencers. I mean, it's obviously not like everyone's kind of like, yeah, you know, right wing influencers are like, I should get out of Minneapolis. But it does feel different than Renee Goode. I think there was also, I mean, it's gendered, too. I mean, like, there was a lot of pretty gross rhetoric about, like, Renee Goode being gay and, you know, sort of slurs used around her death and describing who she was. And that didn't happen with this guy. And I think in part because he's like, in some ways they're both sort of these quote unquote, ideal victims, which is feels sort of horrible to say, but it's True. You know, like one's a mom, one's an ICU nurse at the va. You know, it's. There's something interesting happening and I don't know if it's a turning point, but you might be right. I'm curious to hear your, your take.

C (8:07)

I mean, I think it's one of the bigger moments of moral clarity in a long time. I mean, how you define that is complicated. I think you haven't seen like, the centrists and the libs and the left united on an issue for a long time. Ever since, I mean, the Renee Goode case initially, to me, as someone who, at least on platforms other than Twitter, likes to reserve judgment. It was a bit complicated, right? She is resisting arrest. She's not merely observing, but disrupting in a friendly and in my opinion, non threatening way, but disrupting operations. Right. And different videos make it unclear at first kind of what type of contact she makes with the officer calling her a domestic terrorist. She's like a, you know, little lesbian with a Subaru. It's like, not like a domestic terrorist, a different profile, right? Like, that always seemed absurd, but it seemed at first like one of these kind of like buzzfeed, white versus blue dress moments where like. And I kind of. We wrote a little bit about the story at New York Times chat. Like, I'm like, okay, this is a controversy. Like it's not going to solve anything, right? But then more and more evidence comes out that the contact with the officer was very incidental, right.

A (9:23)

If I were, it's a jury.

C (9:24)

I don't know all the legal facts, right? To me, the gaslighting from Stephen Miller, people like that was the most alarming part of the story. And then you have this case where it's just frankly, like crystal clear because if they had anything on him, it would be out and exaggerated tenfold by now, right? And so like, the question is, we have all these stories occurring in the media about like Greenland. I bought a Greenland flag actually on Amazon.com I was gonna bring it here, but I forgot, right? We have Greenland and like Venezuela and the, excuse me, Federal Reserve chairman being prosecuted, right? It's like, okay, it's just like a bunch of random shit that happens in early January or it's like they're part of the pattern, but like, but then you actually have this happen again in a more unambiguous way and they double down even further. However, like, I find myself feeling actually kind of more optimistic in a weird way because they have had to retreat so much. So Quickly.

D (10:21)

Yeah.

C (10:22)

And like, democracy is, like, not. It's a battle, right. You know, metaphorically at least. But, like, you know, I think sometimes some of the coverage of Trump is like, okay, when I'm stealing from a future Silver Bulletin post, right, you think of a game where one team is on offense, poker, football, whatever else, right? And, like, when the team presses the ball. They won the presidency a year and a half ago and they won control of Congress, Right. They're going to, on average, make gains. Right. But how many gains have they made? The resistance, I use that term mostly unarmonically.

A (10:54)

Right.

C (10:55)

Seems strong in certain ways. And Democrats have taken an issue, immigration, that had been Trump's biggest asset, and turned it into at least a neutral issue. We can talk about this. Like, I think it's, like, not entirely about immigration. It's because it, like, you know, look, Biden and Harris and Hillary all ran in some form of, like, democracy's at risk, and if you don't vote for us, then democracy is going to get it. Right. Part of the problem is that, like, when you make that message three times in a row, it loses force, I think. But also, like, these things are fairly abstract, right? You know, the Kilmar, Abrego Garcia case, I argue that, like, okay, well, look, Democrats should be careful here because, like, there's no video and the facts are ambiguous and can be litigated here. There is video here you have American citizens being killed by fucking people in, like, military fatigues. It's just fucking gross, right?

D (11:49)

And I have. And they're. And they're white, which I do think is like, okay, I do think that's a big thing in this.

A (11:55)

In this particular case, the largest civil unrest of my lifetime was in reaction to a black man being killed in Minneapolis, George Floyd. So I think that it's important to note that. That, like, it's not as if Americans won't protest totally.

D (12:09)

No, no, no.

A (12:09)

Somebody of color is killed at the hands of law enforcement.

D (12:11)

But I think that there is. I do think that there is gendered and racial valence on this. And I think the fact that there are two large protests in the past five years, in the six years and they're both in Minneapolis, is an interest in Minnesota is an interesting thing. But I think the. Well, you should do your take. I don't wanna.

A (12:30)

Yeah, I mean, I think it matters that this is a really sympathetic character, right? Like, you can watch videos of this guy, Memor, people who passed away under his care in the ICU unit of the VA hospital. Like, that's a pretty sympathetic image of somebody who was shot in the street by law enforcement or immigration. Federal immigration officer in Minneapolis. But a lot of my reference points are past administrations, past political moments. And a lot of us probably remember the beginning of the Biden administration. Biden seemed quite popular and was getting a lot of stuff done. But the bottom kind of fell out when two things happened. There was a spike in Covid cases towards the end of his first summer, and the withdrawal from Afghanistan was thoroughly botched. And that felt like a violation of the agreement that Biden had made with voters because the premise of his election was something of a return to normalcy and the adults being back in the room. One of the sort of main pacts that Trump made with the American public in his pitch in his 2024 election campaign was public order and immigration enforcement. This is a huge violation of that. First of all, this is the literal fucking opposite of public order. And second of all, this shooting American citizens is not immigration or enforcement. And so I think while in many ways I would argue that the Biden administration and failures there sort of radicalized the American public in a sense on the issue of immigration and pushed it towards Trump. I wonder if this is a turning point in the opposite direction where it's. Look, I think immigration is complicated and if we really want to get into all of the polling, maybe listen to the last GD Politics podcast episode or we can discuss some of it here. But it's muddled. But I think this is such a violation of that pact that it starts to push people in the opposite direction, where you get Ruben Gallego, a senator who might come up during our Democratic primary draft, who voted for the Lake and Riley act, who has been one of the most hawkish Democrats on the issue of immigration as a senator from Arizona now saying that he wants to scrap the entirety of ice. So. And you even have like Laura Ingraham saying, oh, I never really supported creating the Department of Homeland Security in the first place after 9 11. Right. Like this is. And I don't think that's going to deep cut. I don't think that's where the Republican Party is going to land. But I do see this as a turning point for that reason.

D (15:11)

That's interesting. I do, I do think the very. The fact that we can all watch, what I think most people would agree with is like shoddy police work. You know, like ICE is not actually doing a very. Like, you know, a lot of these people, as has been reported on widely, are not particularly experienced in like, just regular, basic, like, traffic stop, cop stuff. You know, like, here's how you do it. Balls and strike stuff. And so in some ways, it's also like a. A normal civic issue, right? Just like, are your police. Is your police force good, or are they out there, like, antagonizing people? That's an interesting I.

A (15:49)

And I think you're right about the Second Amendment stuff, by the way, too. Like, this put the NRA in a position of having to defend the left position.

D (15:56)

Yeah.

A (16:00)

Our first lap of a very somber segment.

C (16:04)

You can tell.

A (16:05)

Thank you for that.

C (16:05)

You can tell, like the. I mean, the George Floyd case is very, very complicated for lots of reasons, including that occurs while Trump is in office. It incurs. Occurs during a pandemic. Right. You have this racial reckoning that is sort of related to it and sort of not. It's like one of the more complicated moments in American history. I'm not sure people have really processed it. This seems more uncomplicated in a way. I am reluctant to use a term like fascist in the copy of Silver Bulletin. I try to be precise. Here we're having drinks. We're being a more unambiguous.

A (16:39)

What about a beer? I'll say fuck it. I'll say fascist.

C (16:43)

But you, you kind of are discovering who the fascists are.

D (16:47)

I mean, Bovino. I mean, Bovino's coat.

C (16:50)

You know what? Yeah, come on. No, like, Stephen Miller is like a Five Sigma. He's like the fucking Michael Jordan of fascism, basically. Like a Five Sigma outlier. Like, in any regime, I think, you know, morality is contingent in lots of ways, right? And there are people that, presented with one set of circumstances would be. Would be people that would be regarded as good people. Like, he is somebody who, in 99.9999% out of 100 instances, would side with the authoritarians and the fascists and the bad people. And the fact that. And you see in Silicon Valley, right, Like, you see, like, people who are like, like, there's not a defensible position, you know, defending the border is defensible. Enforcing immigration laws against illegal undocumented immigrants. Ambiguous, ambivalent about the term. Right? That's. You could argue it's what people voted for. I think it's probably not very popular, like, take people out of Minneapolis, which last I checked, is not near the Mexican border, and deport them. Right? But killing how many people in fucking military fatigues roaming the streets of Minneapolis with a bunch of, like, Lutherans and lesbians, right? And, like, just shooting people at Random like that's. You have to be fucking fascist. I think it's a good idea.

A (17:55)

Okay, so on the topic of people in military fatigues out in the street shooting Lutherans and lesbians, this is sort of the reaction that Democrats in the Senate seem to be coalescing around. And for context, the House has already passed funding for the Department of Homeland Security. I think seven Democrats, moderate Democrats, joined in Republicans in passing it. But obviously between when that passed and when the Senate is considering the death of Alex Preddy happened, and so now what seemed like it would ultimately sort of be more of a procedural type thing and the government would stay open and it was likely that all of this funding would be approved. Democrats are saying no hold up. And what they appear to be coalescing around are five restrictions on ICE as a condition for funding the department. So they are. The Department of Homeland Security must cooperate with state probes. So so far the federal government has been saying, you know, Minnesota, you're not going to play a role in investigating these killings. Customs and Border Patrol has to stay at the border. Again, for context, Greg Bovino, his purview used to be the southern border and the people. So it's not actually ice.

D (19:04)

I don't know is your ICE is going to the Olympics.

A (19:06)

I did see that ICE is going to the Olympics. And now the Italians are protesting too.

D (19:10)

I was like, what is going on?

A (19:12)

But the. So the officer who was involved, who killed Alex Preddy, these are people who are used to patrolling the southern border, whereas ICE usually does interior enforcement anyway. So they're Democrats want to Sen. Customers and Border Patrol back to the border and not into American cities. Warrants for arrest IDs and body cams and then ice out of churches and schools. That's. That's the sort of ground that they're laying for agreement on funding the Department of Homeland Security. Now, according to Polymarket, there's an 80% chance of a government shutdown this Saturday, you know, one minute past midnight on Friday. So given that those appear to be the demands from Democrats right now for support, are you at 80%, buying, selling or holding? Nate, you can go first if you like.

C (20:03)

I'd hold. Look, look, I had critiques of the Democrats previous shutdown because it was so vague right here it's the opposite. Maybe it was like tactically a failure. They didn't get what they wanted. But like, strategically it kind of, you know, and again, like kind of Trump stepped on his own dick a little bit by like cutting off benefits for, you know, cutting off Food stamps, things like that. He had actually been holding his numbers until they're like, we're not like actually cut off food stamps. We'll see like the party of the working class or whatever, right? No, but here, like there is a specific goal in mind. And look, in polling there's probably some non response bias, meaning that like people who are more motivated by the news respond more. But like again, you see lots of evidence on this. You see how Republican stakeholders are feeling very trepidatious about this. You see in like Google search data how even though, you know, you could argue that the Greenland thing or the Jerome Powell thing is objectively as important. Right. But like this story has like struck a nerve, Right? And historically when you see like, you know, look, I was up until 2 in the morning reading the article about like Kent State, you know, I mean, like this kind of struck a nerve as something that like history will remember a little bit and we can debate why exactly that is. But like I. This does feel like a significant moment to me.

A (21:15)

So you think shut down. Wait, I don't think it matters.

C (21:19)

I don't think it matters that much really. I think what matters is that you, you know, people are fighting back and that. And that Trump is to some degree in retreat.

D (21:29)

Bye.

A (21:30)

Bye. Yeah. You think we're shutting down? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. I like, I like that, Claire. Being bold.

D (21:35)

I mean, it doesn't mean anything anymore to people. Like, I mean, I'm sorry, I'm saying it was a joke, but like it's really true. We shut down the government all the time. Yeah, it's. So yes, I think we will shut down the government.

A (21:46)

Okay. All right. With that we're going to move on to something a little more lighthearted. Hopefully that was enlightening or meaningful to people. But we are going to do a 2028 live Democratic primary draft. So yeah, yeah, we can get into it. Okay, so I'll say we're gonna do a snake draft and I need an audience participant.

C (22:11)

By the way, I have two employees. I have. Eli and Joseph are both here. So thanks guys. It doesn't have to be we need a Vanna White.

A (22:18)

We do need a Vanna White. So I think that will finally be.

C (22:20)

Van for Van White.

A (22:21)

Van White, that will probably be Eli. But I also need some audience participation to decide who's going to go first in this snake. You look really excited. Okay, so our names are in this hat. What's your name? Wait, your name is Eli. Oh, but this is a different Eli. Okay, here, pick, pick. A name out of the hat. Who is that? Oh. Oh, boy. I didn't want to go first on this one. Okay. All right, next name. You don't put it back here. You can keep it. Nate.

C (22:51)

Nate, we're going to go a little.

A (22:52)

Yeah. All right. And then you don't have to pick the name. That's Claire, but thank you. Great job. Okay, now can Eli come up? Because you have a job as well.

D (23:02)

I don't think Eli was informed of this.

C (23:04)

Eli might have been. It might have been a casual conversation.

A (23:06)

Eli, come around this way.

D (23:09)

You're holding up a white. You're holding up a whiteboard, I'm sorry to say. Yeah, yeah, the whiteboard's behind. Let's introduce Eli for this, everybody.

A (23:20)

Eli works for Silver. Bulletin for Nate Silver. Yeah. Round of applause. Round of applause for Eli. Okay.

D (23:28)

Follow him on Twitter. And only fans.

A (23:32)

I'm on one of them.

C (23:36)

Should I go through the rules, or.

A (23:37)

Is it like the pharmaceutical commercials? Come up with some elaborate rules for our draft, so please read them.

C (23:43)

Okay. Winning the nomination is the most important factor, but not the only one. For each pick, you get 25 points if the candidate becomes Democratic nominee for president at the convention and TBD location, five points if they officially run, five points if they make it. Until the first state used to be Iowa, probably not anymore. Three states per state or territory won or Democrats abroad. Two states, two bonus points. After Super Tuesday, stakes get higher. One bonus points for winning a swing state, and then we have a bonus if you picked last. So Claire picking last. We got a 10 point bonus. I get a 5 point bonus. Galen with the first mover advantage gets no bonus.

A (24:18)

Can I trade with you? I'll take a 10 point advantage going on.

D (24:21)

No.

A (24:22)

Are you offering points? Okay. No.

D (24:24)

So we're checking the results.

A (24:25)

In two years, I'll pull it. Yeah, exactly. I'll pull up my big boy panties and go first. Eli, did you get that? Are you ready? As much as I enjoy contrarianism, I am just going to go where the polls tell me to go on this one. Did I already hear groans?

D (24:45)

You're hearing that slicked back hair.

B (24:49)

That.

D (24:50)

Sweet, sweet podcast bro voice?

A (24:54)

Yeah. I will pick, in this case, Gavin Newsom. And. The reason I'm not so happy about it is because I feel like he's probably overbought right now. And we have a long way until, you know, the end of 2027, beginning of 2028. But here's what's working in Newsom's favor at the moment. I think we're already gearing up for 2028 to be something of a clown car primary in which 20 plus people run. And being out early and being seen as a winner is really valuable in those situations. I mean, we saw in the clown car primary of 2016, the early polling leader, Donald Trump led the entire time and won. We saw in the clown car primary of 2020, the early polling leader led pretty much the entire time and ultimately run one that was Joe Biden. And so if we're going to go by what happens when attention is fractured across 20 plus different candidates, then that puts Gavin Newsom in a good position as far as attention is concerned. He also clearly, I mean, according to our rules, you get points for running and staying in. He wants it. He wants it bad. And he's willing to. And he's willing to clearly, as we've seen, mold himself into whatever the party may want from him. And I also think part of this theory of the case, I have different philosophies for what Democrats could want in 2028.

D (26:36)

Different.

A (26:36)

But under this philosophy, Democrats want their own Trump, basically. They want somebody who is going to come in and get even and do to them what they did to us. And he feels like the kind of sort of strong, punchy type character who can do that. I have more than I can say. And if anybody read the Atlantic article about all of the extremely liberal policies that he supported and passed in California, about how every single one of them is like a reverse engineered Republican attack ad come 2028, I have also read it and I have taken that into consideration and I think that will be a real factor. But I'll leave it there.

D (27:16)

Okay. I like that logic. Are we commenting on each other's picks?

A (27:19)

Yeah, with the first pick.

C (27:20)

Yeah.

D (27:21)

Yeah. I mean, I just think he has sort of a punchable face and that, that will, I mean, I. This is actually.

A (27:31)

You can't say that when my mouth is full of water.

D (27:33)

Actual, I mean, this is actual political analysis, though. It's that like, people, people just like. I totally think that your clown car theory is, is logical, but I just think once voters meet him, they won't like him. I just don't. I just don't. It's like the Beto effect.

A (27:53)

Yeah.

D (27:54)

You know, better. Didn't have a punchable face, but he had sort of like a punchable Vanity Fair cover, you know?

A (28:00)

Yeah.

C (28:00)

He was going to be my pick, Claire. He was going to be my pick.

A (28:03)

First, first round, pick over. Hey, better than Eric Adams, am I right.

C (28:10)

Galen? Okay, you Want to talk about Gabby? I mean, look, he has increased, not in my esteem personally, but my estimation of the odds, because, like, I thought after an unsuccessful 2024, Democrats be like, either have to move to the center or move to the left, but you can actually. There's this cohort of Democrats thinking you can just actually be more cringe. Right. Instead just increase level of cringe and increase the messaging. No, look, Newsom's done some smart stuff. I thought the redistricting stuff showed a boldness that Democrats often lack. And, like, is materially important to the House this year. Right. He has made some semblance of trying to, like, be a little bit more, I don't know, heterodox and his, like, podcast invites again, I think you're kind of, like, inviting the same problems that you had with Kamala Harris and in different ways. Biden and Clinton, however, like, the normies. Not quite normies. Right. The very activist base does not want to be told that Democrats suck. Right. I tell people that, but, like, they want to be told that, like, you were. You were in the right about everything. You just had the wrong message. And, oh, by the way, you know, maybe nominating a white guy instead of a black woman, that might help too. Right. And by the poll. So he would have been. I mean, he would have been like, I was really prank. I didn't get the first pick. I think if I were actually putting real money on it, he would probably have to be my first pick. Even though I think he's, like, probably overrated by the markets. I think I. I understand your logic. I'm not gonna. Bad pick you, Caitlin.

A (29:38)

Okay.

C (29:38)

All right.

A (29:39)

All right. I just want to say one thing, which is that I do think there's a lane for somebody who will absolutely trash the Democratic Party. But that'll. I'll get into that later. So go ahead. Go ahead, Nate.

C (29:48)

So despite my bad track record with picking New York City candidates, I'm going to go with Zoran Mamdani. No, I'm just kidding. I'll take aoc, who was Galen. And my first overall pick last time, as somebody who, you know, if there is a movement.

B (30:06)

And that is the end of today's preview. Head over to GDPolitics.com to become a paid subscriber and catch the full episode. We ended up drafting 18 of the likeliest Democrats to win the nomination in 2028. So listen to the full episode if you'd like to see where the folks that you think are likeliest fell or if they made the roster at all. We also got pretty silly. I promise it's a good listen. Also, like I mentioned, you can watch the full video@gdpolitics.com youm get to see all the facial reactions and laug and more. And as always, paid subscribers get about twice the number of episodes and make this independent podcast possible. So go join our crew@gdpolitics.com see you there.