Why Didn’t Pod Save America? with Jon Favreau

Summary

Podcast Summary: Hasan Minhaj Doesn't Know – "Why Didn’t Pod Save America? with Jon Favreau"

Episode Overview

In the February 5, 2025 episode of "Hasan Minhaj Doesn't Know," host Hasan Minhaj engages in a thought-provoking conversation with Jon Favreau, the founder of the influential political podcast "Pod Save America." The discussion delves into the evolution of political podcasting, the challenges faced by "Pod Save America," and the broader implications of media shifts on American politics and the Democratic Party. Favreau offers candid insights into the current political climate, the influence of media algorithms, and strategies for revitalizing Democratic engagement.

Key Sections and Highlights

1. The Evolution and Challenges of Pod Save America

Jon Favreau opens the dialogue by addressing the nature of content creation, particularly the balance between engaging titles and clickbait. He reflects on past attempts by "Pod Save America" to captivate audiences, acknowledging moments where sensationalism may have overshadowed substantive discussion.

"He’s very rich. Stupid, stupid thumbnail. I'll take responsibility." [00:49] – Jon Favreau

Favreau critiques some of the podcast’s former content strategies, emphasizing the need for more responsible and authentic engagement with their audience.

2. Impact of Trump's Presidency on Political Media

A substantial portion of the conversation focuses on the enduring impact of Donald Trump’s presidency on political discourse and media dynamics. Favreau contemplates how Trump has maintained significant influence through media, outpacing traditional outlets and reshaping the landscape for political podcasting.

"Donald Trump was at his best in some of those podcasts because he was just sitting there shooting the shit... he doesn't seem menacing." [22:53] – Jon Favreau

Favreau highlights how Trump’s ability to command attention has posed challenges for Democratic media outlets, including "Pod Save America," in maintaining momentum and influence.

3. Podcasting vs. Traditional Media in Shaping Public Opinion

The discussion explores how podcasts offer a unique platform for in-depth conversations and trust-building, contrasting with the fragmented and often superficial nature of traditional media. Favreau argues that long-form discussions foster a sense of authenticity and trust that is harder to achieve in formats constrained by time limits and sensationalism.

"If an audience is listening to you talk for like an hour, like you're talking to your friend, then they're gonna trust you more." [22:53] – Jon Favreau

He applauds podcasts for their ability to provide nuanced perspectives, which can enhance listener trust and engagement.

4. Polarization and the Role of Algorithms

Favreau critically examines the role of social media algorithms in exacerbating political polarization. He explains how these algorithms create echo chambers, limiting exposure to diverse viewpoints and intensifying partisan divides.

"The algorithms have just further polarized the country... Everything is politics now." [11:14] – Jon Favreau

Favreau emphasizes that this polarization hampers collective efforts to navigate national crises and undermines the potential for bipartisan cooperation.

5. Democratic Party's Strategic Challenges

The conversation shifts to the internal struggles within the Democratic Party, particularly regarding voter alienation and the difficulty in connecting with the median American voter. Favreau suggests that the party's strategies have failed to resonate with broader demographics, leading to disenchantment and reduced voter turnout.

"The Democratic Party is at its lowest point since any time I can remember since being in politics..." [07:02] – Jon Favreau

He calls for introspection and strategic shifts within the party to better address the concerns and needs of a diverse electorate.

6. Strategic Solutions and Moving Forward

Favreau outlines potential strategies for revitalizing Democratic engagement, emphasizing the importance of community-building, grassroots organizing, and fostering meaningful conversations. He underscores the role of "Pod Save America" in empowering listeners to take active roles in political change.

"We give people the tools and information to actually change the world around them... It is a hopeful act." [35:14] – Jon Favreau

Favreau advocates for a shift from a "lesser of two evils" voting mindset to a more proactive and hopeful approach to political participation.

7. Final Reflections: Agency and Hope

In concluding the episode, Favreau shares an optimistic outlook despite the current political challenges. He emphasizes the importance of agency, encouraging listeners to remain engaged and proactive in their efforts to effect change.

"The act of trying to bring people around to your point of view, the act of trying to organize, to build community, it is a hopeful act..." [35:14] – Jon Favreau

Favreau’s reflections serve as a motivational endnote, reinforcing the podcast’s mission to empower and mobilize its audience.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• On Clickbait and Accountability:

  "He's very rich. Stupid, stupid thumbnail. I'll take responsibility." [00:49] – Jon Favreau

• On Democratic Party's State:

  "The Democratic Party is at its lowest point since any time I can remember since being in politics..." [07:02] – Jon Favreau

• On Podcasting's Trust-Building:

  "If an audience is listening to you talk for like an hour, like you're talking to your friend, then they're gonna trust you more." [22:53] – Jon Favreau

• On Polarization and Algorithms:

  "The algorithms have just further polarized the country... Everything is politics now." [11:14] – Jon Favreau

• On Strategic Solutions:

  "We give people the tools and information to actually change the world around them... It is a hopeful act." [35:14] – Jon Favreau

Conclusion

"Why Didn’t Pod Save America? with Jon Favreau" offers an incisive examination of the intersecting forces shaping contemporary American politics. Through a candid and reflective conversation, Favreau and Minhaj explore the limitations and potential of political podcasting, the influence of media algorithms on societal polarization, and the strategic challenges facing the Democratic Party. The episode serves as both a critique and a call to action, urging listeners to remain engaged and hopeful in the face of political adversity.

The insightful dialogue underscores the essential role of authentic, trust-building media in fostering informed and proactive citizenry, highlighting "Pod Save America’s" ongoing commitment to empowering its audience despite the evolving political landscape.

Transcript

[Jon Favreau]

So we're both content creators, sadly.

[Unknown Speaker]

We.

[Jon Favreau]

Want people to watch our content, and we try to give our titles and our thumbnails a bit of a hook, okay? There's no shame with a little clickbait, but sometimes you pod save guys, you go a little too far with it, okay?

[Unknown Speaker]

Sometimes.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm gonna give you some of these thumbnail titles, and I need you. I need some answers. Okay?

[Unknown Speaker]

So These are the YouTube thumbnails.

[Jon Favreau]

These are the YouTube thumbnails. And we gotta talk about this.

[Unknown Speaker]

This is Elijah's fault.

[Jon Favreau]

All right? I. Democratic Party fan fiction. Start with our first.

[Unknown Speaker]

I hate this in advance.

[Jon Favreau]

Let's start with our first one, okay? This one. This is insane. How broke is Donald Trump? Now? In fairness, this video.

[Unknown Speaker]

Look how surprised I am.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

What are you saying? He has no money? How. What? Where's all his money?

[Jon Favreau]

The video, to be fair to you, was about something. About he needed to make bail on something and whatever. Can we stop with this nonsense?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

The man has huge buildings in New York City with his name on it. He flies around in jets.

[Unknown Speaker]

He's very rich.

[Jon Favreau]

He's very rich.

[Unknown Speaker]

He's very rich. Stupid, stupid thumbnail. I'll take responsibility.

[Jon Favreau]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Unknown Speaker]

Not gonna do that one again.

[Jon Favreau]

Here's another thumbnail.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, no.

[Jon Favreau]

Is Fox News doomed.

[Unknown Speaker]

Look that I'm gonna defend because at the time, that was when the defamation suit was happening and we didn't know how bad it was.

[Jon Favreau]

This one. John, I really want your genuine perspective on.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, no.

[Jon Favreau]

Could Trump go to jail?

[Unknown Speaker]

Where? Oh, well, see, I'm in my house, which means it was during the pandemic, which means it was probably after January 6th.

[Jon Favreau]

But, John, you really thought Donald Trump.

[Unknown Speaker]

Was gonna go to jail after January 6th?

[Jon Favreau]

We live in the United States of America. Presidents don't go to jail. That only happens in healthy democracies like Guatemala. There is no.

[Unknown Speaker]

What did you think?

[Jon Favreau]

After January 6th, it's not gonna be perp locked. Listen, man, like, this does not happen in America.

[Unknown Speaker]

I think that if the January 6 case had gone through and he had done a whole trial and he was convicted, I think there was and wasn't running again, right? Like, say he never decided to run again and become president. I think there's a chance you get some home confinement.

[Jon Favreau]

No, I mean what I mean by.

[Unknown Speaker]

You get an ankle bracelet.

[Jon Favreau]

In all seriousness, in America, if you are incredibly wealthy and incredibly rich and powerful, you can appeal your way into never serving.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, that's probably right.

[Jon Favreau]

Long before any votes were counted in November, it was Clear who would win the 2024 presidential election. Podcasters. Now they're calling it the podcast election. In some ways, this is like the podcast election.

[Unknown Speaker]

I mean, this is sort of a.

[Jon Favreau]

Podcast election kind of the podcast election. We are now in the podcast election moment. No podcast was better positioned for this historic collision of politics and men who like to hear themselves talk than Pod Save America. Started by a small herd of former Obama staffers after Trump's first inauguration, Pod Save America was the one stop shop for all your resistance needs. News, recaps, interviews, workshops on organizing fundraising for candidates. T shirts, sweatshirts, hats, mugs, tote bags, bumper stickers, pins, yard signs, baby onesies, pet bandanas, band aids, candles, fanny packs, their own brand of fucking coffee. Clipboards, pens, water bottles and socks. Seriously, are you guys a podcast or a fucking flea market? But by 2024, the resistance had stagnated, weighed down by its warehouses of unsold merch and a president who kept threatening to do 9 11. We're going to watch a debate, and.

[Unknown Speaker]

Tomorrow I'm doing 9 11.

[Jon Favreau]

And while we were all freaking out about Biden, the media landscape had completely shifted. A growing manosphere of brocasts had outbroed the Pod Save Bros as the home of political discourse. So to help me sort through all of this, I sat down with the podsafe founder, Jon Favreau to talk about podcasting's influence on politics, the resistance on life support, and the question on everyone's mind, who owns one of their Mother Earth is a MILF bucket hats? Why didn't Pod Save America? There's a real pocket hat says Mother Earth is a mill. Should we get started? You guys are like a real company.

[Unknown Speaker]

We are a real company.

[Jon Favreau]

You guys are real.

[Unknown Speaker]

We like to pretend. Yeah, we like to pretend.

[Jon Favreau]

Before the interview, let's take care of some business. This episode is brought to you by zipper. Go to this exclusive web address to try ZipRecruiter for free. That's ZipRecruiter.com hustle. ZipRecruiter. The smartest way to hire Mr. Jon Favreau.

[Unknown Speaker]

Hello.

[Jon Favreau]

Hello. Thanks for joining us.

[Unknown Speaker]

Thanks for having me.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay, we are speaking two days after the inauguration. This will come out a little bit later, and a million other crazy things will happen.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

But I just wanted to ask you. How you doing?

[Unknown Speaker]

So funny, because I've been asking my guests that as well. I'm okay. I decided that it took me about 43 years to figure this out, but I decided that there's no use in dooming about the future, because that's not going to affect the outcome. Being nervous about what might happen under a second Trump presidency. So I'm just trying to take one day at a time and do whatever I can to help.

[Jon Favreau]

This is very. That is very CBT of you. It's very cognitive behavioral therapy of you.

[Unknown Speaker]

That's. That's a couple years of that talking.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. So not panic about the future. Okay, so the reason why I wanted to sit down with you specifically, John, is after Trump's 2016, when there was this tidal wave of this kind of notmypresident energy, and it was very, very big and palpable in the media and popular cultural ecosystem, certainly that turbocharged some of the enthusiasm behind Pod Save America and Crooked Media. Almost was like a quasi headquarters for the resistance where popular figures and artists and cultural leaders would come through and podcast with you guys. Now we're sitting down two days after Trump's inauguration. It's exactly eight years to the month since you started the podcast. Do you feel. And this is just a feeling. Do you feel like the resistance failed?

[Unknown Speaker]

I do feel. I mean, look, he wins in 2016. Democrats win in 18, win in 20.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes.

[Unknown Speaker]

Better than expected in 22. Lose spectacularly in 24.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Unknown Speaker]

So the resistance succeeded in part. But Donald Trump is president now, so obviously something's amiss, something didn't work. And I think. I mean, for the Democratic Party right now, I think that the party is at its lowest point since any time I can remember since being in politics, when I was, say, I joined John Kerry's campaign in 2003.

[Jon Favreau]

So you've been working in politics for 22 years now.

[Unknown Speaker]

I'm old now.

[Jon Favreau]

You feel like this is the lowest for the party?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, I think so. I think Donald Trump has more power now. The Republican Party has more power now than they've had at any point in my lifetime, partly because of not just the majorities in Congress, though they are slight in the House, the courts, the Supreme Court. And now the way that Trump is already wielding power as president.

[Jon Favreau]

On the Pod Save America website, you describe it as, quote, a political podcast for people who aren't ready to give up or go insane.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay. Now, I think a lot of Democrats clearly have given up, and many of them have gone insane for sure. Okay, so have you lost your entire audience?

[Unknown Speaker]

No. I thought people asked before Trump won. They're like, oh, it's gonna be terrible for the country if Trump won, but probably pretty good for you guys. And I was like, first of all, don't care. Rather close the whole company down than have Donald Trump be president again. He's president again. But second of all, I was like, look, I worried that this time around, and it still may be true, that people will feel so dejected and so much despair that they will just tune it all together. And I think that. I think for some segment of the population, that has happened, I think some people just wanted to take a break since the election, but our audience has stuck around, I think, partly.

[Jon Favreau]

What are the DMs like? Just like, is it people on blue sky that have snorted Adderall? Is it like, desperate cries for help?

[Unknown Speaker]

What is the temperature? The temperature? Is a lot of people scared, looking for answers, angry? There was a lot of anger in the months after the election, and people just sort of wonder. It's a lot of people just, like, wandering around, sort of like, what do we do now? What happened? Like, I think people are still in shock.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay, so those DMs.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

The what do we do now? All lowercase question mark. How do you respond to that? You, on some level, are.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

You have a parasocial therapist relationship with your audience. What do you tell them in those moments?

[Unknown Speaker]

I tell them that it is fine to give up if you want to give up. Right. Giving up assures that the bad things will happen. It doesn't even give us a chance to stop it. And that's fine if you want, but also, it's going to be really hard to outrun those bad things, even if you're not paying attention to politics. You might not care about politics, but politics cares about you, and it's going to affect you. And I think we've all seen that. Like, for me, it really hit me that Donald Trump was gonna be president again. It was a week before the inauguration. I live in Los Angeles, and the fires hit, and there was so much misinformation, there's so much anger. It was so hard to figure out what exactly to do, how to navigate the crisis. Should we evacuate? Should we not? Because our information systems are all a mess. And you've got Trump, you know, talking about Gavin Newscomb, and then you've got everyone mad at Newsom, and then people are mad at Karen Beck. And it's just. It was such a mess. And I'm like, oh, yeah, this is what life in the Trump era is like. This is what we're gonna get for the next four years. Because even in the most optimistic scenario that, like, Trump just, you know, does all of his corruption makes a bunch of Money and we somehow get through the next four years, there are going to be disasters. There are going to be crises. Because every president faces disasters and crises. And the question is, how do you respond in those moments? And I worry now that we do not as a country have the capacity to collectively respond and navigate crises in.

[Jon Favreau]

This political environment as a byproduct of the disconnect that we have person to person with communities or algorithm to algorithm.

[Unknown Speaker]

Algorithm to algorithm for sure. And I think that what the algorithms have done is that they just further polarize the country. And so. And the other thing that's happened is again, everything is politics now. Everything that happens in the world becomes politics. That's probably always been the case. But there was a time when a wildfire or an earthquake or a hurricane would happen and Republicans and Democrats, even though they were fighting like crazy, would.

[Jon Favreau]

At least outside of partisan.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, it's like, let's just at least let this happen and take care of people. And now we saw it with Hurricane Helene. We saw it. The. Now it's just we're off the rails.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay. Okay. You know, I love doing this show. I get to interview all kinds of interesting guests and hang out with my amazing crew. Like Austin over here. Fun fact, he once went completely blind for three whole months. Hire experienced people who are excited about what they do. Like Austin. With ZipRecruiter you see a candidate who'd be perfect for your job. ZipRecruiter's pre written invite to apply messages let you personally reach out to your favorite candidates. It's the hiring site employers prefer the Most based on G2. Go to this exclusive web address to try ZipRecruiter for free. It's ZipRecruiter.comhusn ZipRecruiter the smartest way to hire don't use your trigger finger. You sneak around like this. One of the things that I've noticed post inauguration is the vibe shift has just been instantaneous. Why do you think Donald Trump is being culturally embraced in a way that would have been political suicide eight years ago now? It's just.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, I think there's a couple acceptance, couple reasons, couple guesses, because I don't know for sure. One is that people are scared. I think people are. Some of the people who are kissing up to him are genuinely scared of the power he has. I think that's true of some journalists.

[Jon Favreau]

Do you really believe that? From celebrities to tech oligarchs, do you.

[Unknown Speaker]

Think that there's a fear Tech oligarchs are a Different story. I'll get to them. But I think that. I think among Democratic politicians, Republican politicians, these people have had, like, threats to their families. They've had to, you know, they've gone through all kinds of things, and I think they're worried. So there's a little bit of that. I think, for corporate America and for the tech oligarchs specifically, they realize that Donald Trump is transactional by nature, and if you kiss his ass, he'll give you what you want. And what they want is for the government to leave them alone, because a lot of them have this libertarian bent to them. And I think some of them, by the way, have been radicalized by their own platforms. In the case of Elon Musk, I.

[Jon Favreau]

Think for me, and correct me if I'm wrong, I could be totally wrong. My take is it's a reflection. The vibe shift is a reflection of the power of the popular vote. In 2016, obviously, there was a legitimate argument to be made of, hey, Donald Trump's win is not a reflection of the country. The man didn't even win the popular vote. And people could be legitimately marching outside, being like, no, no, no, he won because of the Electoral College. But this time, there's no asterisk to the W. And I think that is why the resistance has somewhat evaporated and MAGA is allowed to run wild. It was a decisive victory. Do you think there's truth in my assessment?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yes, I do. I also think it's interesting. When he first won, it wasn't just like, maybe he's not legitimate, but it was this idea that it was so close, right? And we blamed a million different things, right? This was the. Like, it was Russia or it was Facebook or Hillary didn't go to Wisconsin, or it was just racism. Right. Or any of the other millions of explanations. Now, if Kamala Harris had lost the election by, like, 5,000 votes in Wisconsin, I think not only would you see. You see the resistance, like, you know, organize, march through the streets, all that kind of stuff, I think it would be even harder. It's clarifying what happened. At least this is how I see it.

[Jon Favreau]

Got it.

[Unknown Speaker]

Like, I feel like this level of win, which is not a huge win, but like you said, it is a decisive win. I think it is clarifying about where the country is. I said that before the election. I was like, if he wins, then we'll know something about the country.

[Jon Favreau]

You've said that the existence of crooked media is a way to give people a way to channel that emotion into something More constructive than Reddit. That's very funny. But the solution for POD Save America, the direction that I'm seeing is vote for Democrats. You even have a political action wing that is apart as a way to fund candidates. But I found something, and this is just from me traveling the country and performing for a wide variety of different audiences in different states. The general public as a whole doesn't trust politicians as a whole hundred percent on either side because they don't think.

[Unknown Speaker]

That they represent them less so than at any time in recent history.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And I don't disagree with them. They feel like they represent their donors. So how is voting even harder for Democrats the answer to their concern?

[Unknown Speaker]

It's not. Part of what we want to do and what we've been trying to do as well as just vote for Democrats, is having a conversation being in place for a conversation and a debate about the future of the Democratic Party and what kind of Democratic candidates we want to elect and focusing on primaries and what kind of party we want to be, what we want to stand for. And I think there's a healthy debate to be had. There's also a lot of emotion around that, especially now. But I think that's critical because I don't think now the reason we still say go vote Democrats is because when it's. At the end of the day, when it's Democrats versus Donald Trump and his brand of Republicans, then it's a pretty easy choice, even if the Democrats are perfect and you don't like them that much. But ideally, we wanna build a party that people wanna be part of and that people aren't just holding their nose and voting for the lesser of two evils, but actually excited to go vote for candidates. That's the goal. But there's triage to do in the Trump era, which is just like, we gotta stop bad things from happening. But then another big project is, okay, how do we get out of this? How do we get out of this crisis so that we're. Again, back to my earlier point, so that we're not winning elections by 10,000 votes in Wisconsin or 20,000 votes in Pennsylvania. Right. Because, you know, if Kamala Harris squeaked by right. This time around and she was president right now, but the vote was really, really close, we'd still be in this crisis, I think.

[Jon Favreau]

Would there? And this is just a, like a blue sky philosophical question.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Would there be any fumble that the Democrats could do that would potentially lose you as a voter to go or as a political commentator to go? You know what? In Good conscience. I can't tell you that voting for voting blue is the right thing to do.

[Unknown Speaker]

I think about. I think voting is not. Voting is about the outcomes that you want. Right. And it is a binary choice in this country because the way that our system is, it's two parties, people can start third parties, independent parties. Great. It's just very hard to gain traction. Reforms like proportional representation, ranked choice voting, all this stuff would be great. Again, we can't do any of this right now because we have full Republican control and they're all fealty to Trump. Right. That's the only thing we have right now. So in that environment, it is a binary choice. And if it is a choice between, say, the most annoying Democratic politician who annoys me to no end.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay.

[Unknown Speaker]

Who I don't.

[Jon Favreau]

You can name names.

[Unknown Speaker]

A lot of them. There's a lot of.

[Jon Favreau]

We're just wearing lots of.

[Unknown Speaker]

You know, what I can't pick is the problem.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay, got it.

[Unknown Speaker]

And Donald Trump or a Republican who are gonna do the things we're now seeing them do, and we'll see them do over the next four years.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay.

[Unknown Speaker]

Of course I'll vote for the Democrat because it's harm reduction. Right, gotcha. And so if Democrats suddenly just gave up all their values and started acting like Republicans or acting like Donald Trump, then yeah, maybe I wouldn't vote for them then. But I'm still. I'm always gonna vote for the lesser of two evils because I do think that the outcomes of elections matter. And I think there is a huge difference right now in whether Donald Trump and maga. Republicans control Washington and have a lot of power and Democrats do.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay, you may be exhausted by reading these think pieces, but a lot of think pieces have been written about. This was the election of podcasting. This was the podcasters election.

[Unknown Speaker]

Sure was.

[Jon Favreau]

Obviously it played a big role to some extent in terms of viewership. You had Lex, Theo, Joe, Ben, you guys, Jordan Peterson, Mel Robbins, shout out to Mel, come on the pod. But if you actually just look at Lex, Theo, Joe, Ben and Jordan, these five guys reached more people than msnbc, Crooked Media, Late night, certainly my podcast combined. What do you think about that? And do you think these think pieces are overstating how influential podcasters really are? Or are they overstating?

[Unknown Speaker]

It's impossible to overstate that. No, it's interesting. So much of what has changed about media over the last decade in some ways leads to the format that podcasting allows. Right. And by that I mean I now podcasts all my Days when I go do cable hits or I go on television or a late night show, whatever it may be, suddenly you're back in this environment where you're like, okay, you got five minutes. It's a five minute segment, and you gotta say it all at once. And you've got to get your talking points out and you gotta do. And there's an artifice to that that I think people in this information environment where social media makes everything so personal and authentic and sort of organic and right. Like, you're just. You're watching TikToks, you're seeing people just say whatever, anywhere. That when you see someone who is sitting during an interview, polished, doing their talking points, you don't trust them as much. And as you pointed out, like, trust is sort of the biggest challenge that people in politics face right now. And I think that people who, if an audience is listening to you talk for like an hour, like you're talking to your friend, then they're gonna trust you more. Even if they don't agree with you all the time, even if you say things that are not, you know that, like, they'll just be like, okay, well, at least I got to hear that person. I get to hear the nuance to the conversation. I get to hear that person joke a little bit. Maybe that person's a little more human than I thought. You know, I think that's what those podcasts did for Donald Trump. Like, Donald Trump was at his best in some of those podcasts because he was. It was hard to see him as the second coming of Hitler when he's just sitting there shooting the shit and asking, who did he ask about cocaine? He had this long.

[Jon Favreau]

Theo.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, Theo. Yeah. Yes, Theo. And you're sitting there, you're like, well, that's something new from Donald Trump. And he doesn't seem menacing, Right. And so I think that did him some favors. But I also think that more elected, spending more time just having conversations with people that are not, like, time limited. All right, five minutes is up. Did you get all your talking points out? Did you say what your communications director wanted you to say? I think that is a valuable way to build trust with audiences.

[Jon Favreau]

I have constructed another very smart, original question that you've never heard before, and it is totally gonna blow your mind. Why don't liberals have a Joe Rogan for the left?

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, my God.

[Jon Favreau]

And does this question make you wanna scream into a pillow?

[Unknown Speaker]

I mean, look, I've. No, because I've just. I feel like I have talked about it now, so Many times to death. We had one, his name was Joe Rogan. And then we decided that going on shows who are hosted by people that we disagree with is bad. And then if you go on those shows that somehow you are validating all of the views of the person who's hosting the show. And that is bad. So for a couple years, Democrats said we're not going to go on Fox. Bernie Sanders goes on Rogan gets all this criticism because of Rogan's views. Because if you sit down with someone and talk to them, suddenly you're responsible for all their views. Platforming, all that kind of stuff. It pushed a lot of people away and it's nonsense. And so I think that like, if liberals want their own Joe Rogan, they're going to have to understand that it could be someone who doesn't share all of our views. And that's okay. Cause most Americans don't share all of our views.

[Jon Favreau]

Would the pot save, guys? Go on Rogan?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, great. Yeah. I don't think he knows who we are or invite us, but yeah, sure.

[Jon Favreau]

My biggest critique of that argument is I just disagree with the premise completely. The majority of the people that exist in the media ecosystem or YouTube ecosystem fall into one of two camps. The first is I think they're either more curious than they are partisan.

[Unknown Speaker]

That's very true.

[Jon Favreau]

Straight up, like, I just don't know and I'm just trying to figure it out and I'm here to like have a conversation and. Or vibe. And the second is, is I just need the Google AdSense money.

[Unknown Speaker]

That is.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I'm 46 years old. What else am I going to do? My kids need braces, so I will. I need to do something. Yeah, you know, that's about right. But to emphasize the first point is that's what I legitimately think when people get there's these hard labels, I actually think it's counterproductive to. If the goal is to have like a really rich, robust, conversational society where you try to talk about these issues in a meaningful way, it is the.

[Unknown Speaker]

Only way to move forward. It's the only way progress happens.

[Jon Favreau]

Got it.

[Unknown Speaker]

And like, I think about this from the perspective of a political strategist because I can never leave that part of me behind. But so I think about it from an organizing perspective and the people I meet who have sort of like the best handle on politics and persuasion, whether they are far left, center, left, center, right, are organizers. Because if you are an organizer, you have to go door to door and you have to Meet people in the community who have weird views, views that don't line up with, not just views that are opposed to your politics, but views that just don't make sense. Right. You're very pro choice, but you're very pro gun or whatever it may be. And again, this is like the median American voter has all kinds of views that are somewhat complicated, complex, and sometimes contradictory. And in order to win elections, you have to persuade those people with some views you don't like or weird views to, you know, come join your team. Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Right now, there's a lot of liberal op EDS and columns about what the Democrats did wrong, but what did the Republicans do? Right.

[Unknown Speaker]

Donald Trump has figured out how to command attention, people's attention, in a way that I think no politician has in a long time. And I think that right wing figures are also.

[Jon Favreau]

Are you better than Obama?

[Unknown Speaker]

I was gonna say I think Obama's the last. It's hard to compare because it was such a different information environment, but I do think there's some similarities there in being able to command people's attention. I think Trump has done it in such a more intense way, because if you think about it, when he won in 16 and even in 15, you know, then it was Twitter. Right. He was tweeting all the time. He was in our faces all the time.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Unknown Speaker]

And he didn't care if it was positive attention or negative attention. It was attention. And he knew that making himself the center of everything, there would also be. There'd be, you know, negative polarization to that and he'd have a lot of opposition. But also, people know him and they feel comfortable with him. Right. And now I think what has worked for him hasn't worked for a lot of other Republican politicians, partly because there's a big swath of this country that knows Donald Trump from Apprentice. He's a celebrity right before.

[Jon Favreau]

He's a phenomenal. He's a TV personality.

[Unknown Speaker]

And so they think. And I think that helps because it's like, you know, how bad can he be? He was the guy in my living room all the time.

[Jon Favreau]

Sure. He's home alone too.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right. And so I think they're very good at commanding attention. And I think Democrats have not figured out quite how to do that. I also think that just from a tactical perspective, like, Trump professionalized his campaign this time around in a way that he hadn't in prior campaigns.

[Jon Favreau]

What do you mean by that?

[Unknown Speaker]

I think a lot of people who worked on Donald Trump's campaign this time around were like real Republican operatives. Who've had success with, like, establishment Republicans. I think because the whole Republican Party is now a Trump Party, he had a lot more talent to choose from this time around. So, like, you know, like Susie Wiles, his White House chief of staff, who was his campaign manager, it's like, very well respected in Florida and successful in Florida and respected by some Democrats in Florida. Right. And so, like, these people knew what they were doing on Trump's campaign in a way that they hadn't before. It was more of a shit show in 2016.

[Jon Favreau]

I also think that the Republicans spoke to the current cultural moment much better than Democrats. The disconnect that I'm seeing is the media and the media establishment is not delineating the difference between the median Democrat is not the median American.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And the Republican Party this time around was able to communicate to the median American far better.

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, and to that point, the other thing they did is basically say, so you don't like Donald Trump, that's fine. Did you like the Trump economy? Do you? Are you annoyed with the Democrats? Are you annoyed with what they've done culturally? Are you annoyed with the high cost of everything? Then you don't have to love Donald Trump, but he's gonna fix stuff. And that was a message that was directed to an audience that was broader than just his base. I think the other challenge for Democrats in the media is we think about, because we know more about Trump's base and Trump fans and what they think about politics than we do the median voter who doesn't pay much attention to politics. Yeah, but I think the biggest divide right now is this sort of this education divide, because it is people with a four year college degree which make up a third of the country. And then the two thirds of the country without a college degree is we.

[Jon Favreau]

Actually have a graph that I wanted to show you. Slide this in. So I'm so glad that you're talking about the, like, you know, we talk about education, we talk about class and the way people vote. So this is something that is a graph of. You can see high education, high income. So based on education and income, and it's tracking previous elections. What does this graph symbolize? You kind of break this down for me.

[Unknown Speaker]

I've thought about this for the two decades I've been in politics.

[Jon Favreau]

Really?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. I mean, look, a third of our coalition when Barack Obama won in 2008 was white voters without a college degree, which I think would confuse a lot of commentators, which is also why it was always, of course, racism played a role in Trump's victory in 2016, there are supporters of his who were just openly racist. That is true. There was an analysis, though, that sort of took hold after 2016, that the entire thing could be explained by racism and that sort of. Then it became, you know, your identity should dictate your politics. Right. That's clearly not the case now. But at the time I was like, well, we, our coalition was. There was a bunch of, there was a bunch of non college educated white people who voted for Barack Obama twice and then said, I'm going to vote for Donald Trump. And I don't think that the party's like, wrestled with that and what that means. I've sat down with those voters. Yeah, I've done a focus group for a podcast I do called the Wilderness. And I went to Milwaukee and I sat with a bunch of Obama, Trump voters. And like every other voter, you know, there's one guy who's like, well, you know, I'm pretty, I want marijuana to be legal and I'm pretty, pretty liberal on drug legalization. He's like, but also immigration annoyed me, so I voted for Trump. And there's this other guy who was like, you know what? Obama was change. Trump was change. So that's why I voted for Obama and Trump.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, they just wanted, just wanted change.

[Unknown Speaker]

Just wanted change. But I do think that, like, as the years have gone by, I mean, it's education and income there. I think that there. Wealth inequality in this country. Right. You have people who are in communities that have been largely left behind by globalization. And it's not necessarily that the living standards are so much worse, though they are. It is now that we are in this information environment with social media. You can live in this community where factories have moved overseas and you've seen Main street totally change and things have closed down and you're still making a living. You're trying to support your family. And then you pick up Instagram and you see these rich assholes, celebrities, comedians, politicians, media figures, they're all having a great time. They're probably making jokes about you. They're probably looking down at you and you get sort of angry. And you're also thinking like, okay, I don't want government handouts, but I do want someone who's gonna actually, like, fight for me and my family. And I'm working two jobs and I still can't, like, I still can't afford the basics of life. And that pisses them off. And I think for a while it was, well, that's just white people. So they're also probably racist. And again, there's these things all sort of work together. But then we saw this with working class Latinos. We're seeing this. And look, I think even among black voters, what's interesting is it is the over 50 black vote that is still like, you know, 70, 80% Democrat, 90% Democrat, partly because of memories of the civil rights movement. But younger black voters and especially younger black men are starting to move away from Democrats because, again, like the salience of racial identity, even the salience of income is now less than the salience of education.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay, you got to get out of here. Let's just end with some final words by you. Where does crooked go from here? Where does Jon Favreau go from here? What would you like to share with the audience?

[Unknown Speaker]

I would like to say that right now it feels awful, and I understand that it feels like a lot of people are just. They're angry, they're scared, they're just tired. And one thing to keep in mind is things change really fast. And never forget that we have agency. Like, the story that's going to be written over the next four years is not a story that we have no control over, no matter how bleak it seems. And what we're going to keep doing on pod, Save America and Crooked Media is making sure that people aren't just informed about what's going on or angry about what's going on or whatever else, but that we give people the tools and information to actually change the world around them. And we do that through we have Votes Save America, where people can sign up and volunteer and support causes and candidates they care about. We do it through all of our podcasts. And even though things seem bleak right now, one thing that helps me feel better, that I think can help our audience feel better, anyone watching feel better, is that when you're actually trying to make change, when you're actually out there trying to talk to people, persuade people, it feels better. And you're not always going to succeed, clearly, because of the situation right now. But the act of trying to bring people around to your point of view, the act of trying to organize, to build community, it is a hopeful act, and it's also much more fulfilling than just looking at your phone and screaming about the news.

[Jon Favreau]

That's awesome. Well, here's to agency and hope. Thanks, man.

[Unknown Speaker]

Thank you.

[Jon Favreau]

This is great, man.

[Unknown Speaker]

Thank you. It's really good. I love that. Great questions.

[Jon Favreau]

All right.

[Unknown Speaker]

Great questions.

[Jon Favreau]

Thanks for being on the show, man.

[Unknown Speaker]

Cool, cool.

[Jon Favreau]

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