← In Good Faith With Philip DeFranco
In Good Faith With Philip DeFranco
Can The Texas Democrats Outlast The Republican Siege? – With Dan Pfeiffer From Pod Save America
00:59:07
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- [00:00]
Philip DeFranco
Welcome back to the In Good Faith podcast with Philip DeFranco. Wouldn't you know it? My name is Philip DeFranco and today my guest is Dan Pfeiffer. He's a host for Pod Save America and the Crooked Media Podcast Network. And before that, he was a senior advisor to President Barack Obama. And today, with everything that's been going on, we talked about the redistricting standoff, Trump firing the person in charge of accurate economic statistics, how Democrats can fight back better, and really just so much more. Say if you already hit that follow button and gave us five stars. Just sit back, relax and enjoy today's show. So, Dan, I was gonna, I was gonna come in really to talk to you at first about something lighter, but it looks like Dan Pfeiffer is fiending for a fight this morning, you know, so. Because. Right, okay, so I'll set the stage. Last week, jobs numbers come out, looked bad or we'll say at least not great. Trump hates it. He fires. I believe it's Erica McIntyre over it. She's the Commissioner of Labor statistics. People left, right, center are like, what the hell is this about? And this morning I see you tweet all of these supposedly smart Trump supporters like Chamath and Ray Dalio pretend Trump fired the BLS director because of a disagreement over survey methods. Well, here's what Trump said this morning on cnbc. It's a highly political situation. It's totally rigged. Smart people know it, be people with common sense know it. And a lot of people like to keep their head under the covers and just not believe it. So with you coming out of the gate this morning swinging, if that's your view and that's your reaction, are these guys liars or stupid?
- [01:33]
Dan Pfeiffer
Well, I should just say, to give you a sense of how much I'm feeding for a fight, I sent, probably sent that at before 6am my time because I'm on the west coast. So it's really just out of bed, open up my laptop and started swinging. Like I think that they are both in some senses. I think, I think you have a set of people who decided they were gonna support Trump in the 2024 election for some set of reasons. A lot of it probably self interested, financial. You know, in the case of like the all in tech bro podcast guys, they, they were inside the tent all of a sudden with all this access to power and now they're going around trying to justify and explain and intellectualize the things Trump are doing that they would in other any other situation be highly Offended by. Because I was watching both. I saw tweets over the weekend from Chamath and one and from Ray Dalio, the, the finance guy saying, making a point that is a legitimate point, that maybe there are better ways to get the jobs numbers. Like it's where. Because like with any. It's a survey. With any survey you have response rate issues where people aren't responding as much as they were before. For all hosts that reasons. Is there a better way to do it? And if that were Trump's argument, that would be a thing. But that's not what Trump's argument is. Trump has no thoughts on survey methodology and he said when he did it that they were corrupt. And so just like be honest with yourself. You can say I like Trump, but I don't like what he did here. But don't try to go around trying to like intellectualize the obviously just like spur of the moment authoritarian. And this is a very dangerous thing. Like we sort of laugh about it, but the jobs numbers move the market. They are, they help, they help the Fed governors decide whether to set interest rates. So if those are rigged or even if there's a perception that they're rigged, like why would any. Whoever Trump puts in, everyone's going to assume because he fired this person for giving numbers that he did not like, it's gonna assume that the numbers are not legitimate. Cuz that person has an incentive to give the numbers Trump wants. And so we're like in a dangerous situation and we need. And one of the ways authoritarians succeed is because powerful stakeholders just give in instead of actually calling out what's happening. So, yeah, I'm kind of fired up this morning. Sorry.
- [03:40]
Philip DeFranco
Yeah, well, I guess I was a little confused because it seems like why wouldn't, why does he go this route which maybe potentially it buys him some months of grace with some of the people that support him if the jobs numbers don't change and we're, we, we do, you know, trust the numbers that continue to come out when it seems like he could have used this as maybe a hammer to go after Jerome Powell to go look at the jobs numbers. I've wanted you to go a certain way. I don't understand that. Like, do you have any thoughts there?
- [04:08]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, it's, it's all. I think we were in a situation. I remember reading this story about Pat Cipollone, who was the White House counsel Trump's first term. And what he used to do is Trump would say something and he would say, give me a week to go See if we can get this done. And then by the. By the seventh day, Trump would have forgotten about it. So it was like his tactic to keep Trump from doing the things Trump doesn't want to do. Now everyone in the government does. Tries to be the first person to do what Trump wants to do. So he wakes up, says sees the numbers, is pissed off, decides to try to fire this person, and they immediately just fire them instead of trying to think about it. Because if you take a step back, Trump wants rates cut, but he also wants good jobs numbers, and those things don't actually work. So he's in a situation right now where he was. If these numbers were legitimate, they are legitimate, but it would get him his rate cut. But instead, he's doing the thing that. It makes no sense, and there are people helping him do the thing that makes no sense.
- [05:01]
Philip DeFranco
Well, so with numbers that. Yeah, with the numbers that come in next, do you. Do you have a fear? Because I was listening this morning to Bill beach, right? He's the former head of BLS in 2017. He was a Trump appointee. He's freaked out by this change. He thinks it doesn't make sense. But his mindset seems to be, there's going to be a perception issue. But also the numbers, he has faith that they will continue to be correct because of the people that are working in that department. Like you said, there is a conversation about funding and where they're putting money and methodology that things could be better. But he has a faith and a trust there. And as someone that comes from, I think, you know, a very strategic background, do you think that the focus on, can we care, do we trust these numbers? What's the impact on a market, to the market going to be if everything is business as usual? Does that, does that kind of hurt the messaging of like, okay, well, people keep saying, oh, that's. That's scary, but it ends up actually not being anything that big.
- [06:06]
Dan Pfeiffer
Well, I think the problem here is, like, the point that I saw Bill beach make this point about the numbers that came out that made Trump mad, which is, there is a system in place. There are people. There is. It's very hard for one person to mess it up because there are all these inputs coming in. The question we just don't have, because there's no transparency in government, is when the next person comes in, right? Like, what happens at the end of that product right before it actually comes out? And so we just, like, there are definitely some safeguards in the system, which may be fine, but we Just don't know. And when you erode like this is Trump's, this is how he ended up here, is he erodes trust in institutions to the point that people question everything, even when it is well founded, you know, evidence about to everything from Trump's crimes to climate change. And so this just adds a real uncertainty into the economy in what you need. The economy demands certainty, right? Businesses have to be able to plan, they have to be able to think about if the unemployment rate is going up. People will have less money to spend on their products. So they will think about what product lines they're going to launch, what factories they're going to build. And we already have all this uncertainty in the economy from Trump's like on again, off again, taco tariffs. This adds something else. And it's just, it's like, it's very, I think I find it very, very concerning. Like maybe we just are not. We have. No, we will. It'll be very hard to have real confidence in the numbers going forward as long as Trump is president and maybe going forward after that. Right? Because it just, it, it's always, it's like this was a thing, this was a thing no one ever did, right? Like when Obama was president, Jack Welch, who was the former CEO of George, like really famous business guy, right before the election, the numbers were good for Obama and he went on msnbc, it was on Morning Joe, I think. And it's like the numbers are cooked. The Chicago guys are cooking the numbers. And everyone, Republicans and Democrats, people in the business community assailed him because that was such an irresponsible thing to say. But now we're just not only just like, that was just a guy outside, like a well respected business person outside of government. Now you have the president firing the person who gives the numbers. Like that's concerning, right?
- [08:12]
Philip DeFranco
And I mean, a lot's changing now, A lot's going to be changing in the, you know, the near future when we start looking at a one to two year window. I mean, it's connected, but I mean, do you think that the central bank independence is going to last? Whether it be perception wise or, you know, whatever the reality is on the.
- [08:31]
Dan Pfeiffer
Ground, I'm very concerned about it because we know that this Republican Senate will confirm a ham sandwich, right? They've done Pete Hegseth, they've done Tulsi Gabbard, they've done RFK Jr. And so Trump is obviously only going to appoint someone who he thinks is going to do what Trump wants when Trump wants it. And so Will the Republicans confirm that person? Probably. And then you have that person in for, potentially for 10 years. So, yeah, I am concerned about that. And you know, if you start cutting rates at a time we're going to spike inflation, growth is down, it's all very dangerous. Right. There's a reason there is an independence in the Fed and it's not just in this exact moment in the American economy is if like the, the US Dollar is the world's currency. Right. It is the safest investment in the world. And if people start to question whether U.S. monetary policy is actually is being politicized, that is going to have reverberate across the world. I am not an expert in any of this, but the people who I've talked about, talked to about this on Positive America and elsewhere scare the shit out of me.
- [09:33]
Philip DeFranco
Right, Yeah, I mean there's, I don't know, I mean we're talking about that and then. But when you talk about they'll confirm anyone, it makes me think of, you know, the Republicans in Congress and, you know, obviously House Republicans, they're going to soon have a vote on tariffs. Do you think that it's going to be another rubber stamp situation or do you think, can the polling get to a place where they actually do something where they actually take a stand into any meaningful degree rather than three people act like they have a different opinion, but it feels safe to because they know it's gonna pass anyway.
- [10:07]
Dan Pfeiffer
I think that can only happen after the filing deadlines are done so that they're no longer worried about a primary. What they're so scared about right now is that Trump will back their opponent and they will lose their primary. Next spring, most of those primary deadlines will be over. So then at least for this next election, they will not have a fear that Trump can run a primary opponent against him. So there's a chance we might see a Modica Moore independence after that moment. But right now they would like, they view this, even the ones in very like purple districts view this in a two step process. They have to get through their primary first. And if Trump backs their primary opponent, they will lose. This is why Thom Tillis dropped out of the North Carolina Senate race. And then once they, once they become the nominee, then maybe they can possibly find some independence. But I don't have high hopes for it. No one ever made a lot of money betting on the political courage of Congressional Republicans, so.
- [11:01]
Philip DeFranco
Well, okay, but, so as we get closer to the midterms and we're still, I mean, God, it's Almost been. Yeah, we're months away, but it's going to hit a year eventually. Away from the election, people are still finding, you know, lines in the sand, talking points. It even feels like over there with Pod Save America. Although I don't think you were a part of the specific podcast that day or that segment. You guys got a lot of attention over Israel and Gaza. And I wanted to know, like, when, when you guys go into. And I'm going to oversimplify it, you could walk through for the. The audience. Like, when you guys are about to put out that episode, is there a conversation of, you know, what does this say for. For our brand, our audience, Dems in general, independence out there? Like, what's. What's. I guess what's the conversation? Because it made a splash.
- [11:56]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yep. Yeah, I think I would. As you mentioned, I was not part of that episode. I do Thursdays that was. Or I do Fridays. That was a, A Tuesday episode. I aligned. I talked a little bit the next episode that I aligned with a lot with much of what they said there. I think we, you know, like, anyone who is in politics or media, you have to think about the impact of what you say, right? That it has some impact not just on your podcast or your brand, but also, like, how. How will it be weaponized against Democrats? Like, we know that Fox News loves to do a Obama Pod Bros. Do you know, Trash X. Right? Like, and that should never change how we feel. We. Since like, that was a. I told my co host I think that was one of the best episodes they ever did because it was very raw and honest and hard and heartfelt and like, that's how they believe that's what we should say. But you have to, you have to at least think like, you know, anytime I think anyone with a platform opens their mouth, like, what. What are the. You know, what. What are the ripple effects of you saying these things, right? Are people going to listen? Are they going to be mad? Are they going to want to distance themselves? But if you sincerely believe it, you just got to say it. Like, this is what. Like, as someone whose job for most of my career before podcasting was to say the words, I was speaking for someone else, right? President Obama, other politicians I work for. And there is something liberating about being able to just say what you think, right? And let's be honest, like, you know, we don't work in the White House setting. When you work in the White House, what you say really matters, right?
- [13:33]
Philip DeFranco
Any.
- [13:34]
Dan Pfeiffer
Any, like, junior press person could cause a market Crash by saying the wrong thing or cause international incident by saying the wrong thing. Host of a podcast, people listen. Right. Obviously, like we're very fortunate with the audience we have, but it's not the same stakes, I'd say.
- [13:47]
Philip DeFranco
Right. I imagine they don't. Well, you, anyone can tie anything to anyone, but I imagine people go, don't go. Well, that's essentially Obama saying it.
- [13:53]
Dan Pfeiffer
Right. Yeah, I think, I think much to probably President Obama was probably happy about this now, but people do not attribute what we say to him directly after all these years.
- [14:03]
Philip DeFranco
So I guess what, what is the reaction been to you know, kind of saying that the next Dem nominee shouldn't accept AIPAC money, that military aid to Israel needs to be cut off, that it can't go back to a pre October 7th status quo? What has that been for? I guess people that you know and then people that maybe were never interested or maybe were against the POD Save America group.
- [14:28]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. I think if you had been listening to POD Save the World, which is the Tommy Vitor and Ben Rhodes podcast which focuses on international affairs, you like, none of what was said there would be surprising. They have been incredibly aggressive critics of the, of how Israel is connected to the war in Gaza. They were in very, very aggressive critics of how the Biden administration, the Biden administration strategy is real. I think for some people who maybe don't listen to that podcast, who don't pay as close attention because the clips of what my co host said went viral, there are probably some folks on the left who were pleasantly surprised. Right. The assumption might have been that we were. I think our ideology, both individually and as a podcast is a little more complicated than I think people assume. But I think for a lot of people on the left, there's a lot of like those neoliberal pied bros who say this and assume that on every issue maybe that we're more in line with the Democratic establishment than they are. And I don't think that's actually the case. And this is certainly one where they're not. And I think some people who we are friends with and agree with and have worked with just fundamentally disagree on that. And that's been a. And our criticism of Israeli conduct in Gaza. And then previously the Biden administration's strategy for that has been a point of contention with our former, with some of our former colleagues for a long time now.
- [15:46]
Philip DeFranco
Well, I guess, yeah. I mean do. And do a lot of those conversations end up unfortunately equating being against what Netanyahu is doing with automatically being Anti Semitic. Is there a lot of conflation when.
- [16:00]
Dan Pfeiffer
You have those conversations in some corners? Yeah, for sure, in some corners. Not necessarily with people in good faith. Right. Like, I think you can have good faith disagreements on this stuff, but like on Twitter, that is a very common, it's a very, it's a common tactic from the right. It's something that even dates back to when Obama was doing the Iran deal and when people. I was leaving right about the time that that was coming together. But like when it was trying to pass in Congress the years later, like that, that was a common attack from a lot of the sort of neoconservative. Right. Would be if you're for the Iran deal or you're against Israel on this thing, you disagree with Netanyahu that that equates to anti Semitism or just criticism of Israel equates to anti Semitism as opposed to criticism of the Netanyahu government. So I think that's not, I think you can have a good faith disagreement on these issues, but I think that's not a good, that happens in the less good faith part of the conversation.
- [16:56]
Philip DeFranco
Well, okay, so when you're, if you're having an in good faith conversation there, I mean, how do, how do you navigate it there? Where you go, okay, well that's, I think that it's not that and this is why.
- [17:04]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, I think it, you just like sometimes you just have to agree to disagree. Right. With people who have disagreements. Like just they're like, you can like my argument, I've had these conversations with people is simply like, we can put as like a lot of the conversation around, particularly what's going on with famine in Gaza gets. Starts going backwards into this conversation of like, whose fault is it? How did we get here? What role does Hamas have? The Hamas ministry, the Gaza Ministry of Health is Hamas run. And therefore we can't trust them and just say my view is tell people so put that aside for right now is you have starving people, particularly starving children. And whether the number is as high as the ministry says or even a fraction of that, it's too many starving children. And we, and it is true that Israel can do more to get aid to these people. So let's just ask them to do that. Right? To try to like just focusing on, when you focus on this specific part of it, it try to like, that's the place where maybe you can sometimes find some common ground that's like that this is a, we can save children's lives if, if people do more and this to make the point that it is true that Hamas has real responsibi, like, it obviously has real responsibility. They like without October 7th, we're not in this situation one of the most horrendous terrorist attacks in American history. But Israel is an American ally for more than a half century here. Right. They've been our partners across the board. It is not. We can and should hold Israel to a higher standard in this situation than Hamas, which is a terrorist organization. Yes, I would love it if Hamas would do more to help its people, but why would we expect them to do that? They where they knew this was a likely consequence of the attack they did on October 7th. So yes, Israel can and should do more and just sort of get to there. Like these are very like Middle east peace has never been an easy conversation to have in any, you know, going back centuries now. But obviously it's a very freighted conversation with people like, who are operating in good faith right now for sure.
- [19:07]
Philip DeFranco
Right. And when you look at both sides right now where there are drastic divides among existing bases regarding Israel and Gaza, do you think that we are going to see a shake up maybe not necessarily going into the midterms, but into the next presidential. Because polling right shows just an overwhelming majority of Democrats do not approve of what Netanyahu is doing. Republicans, it's kind of stayed steady at around, I feel like 70% support. But if you go online, those who are against it are incredibly against it. President, the president supporters saying this is an America first, this is Israel first. Like, do you think that we are going to see to some degree swapping, or is it just people expressing their displeasure? If you were to guess based on what you're seeing, it's pretty like maybe.
- [20:04]
Dan Pfeiffer
You end up with a barbell effect where you have, you have people on both sides, right, who like the, I don't want use of the term extreme here, I think is unnecessarily pejorative. But you do have sort of the isolationist wing of the, of the, the MAGA Republican Party and you have a growing number of Democrats. And so you could possibly see some votes in Congress that bring those two together. If they get to like they could get to a majority on, for instance, suspending offensive weapons, funding for offensive weapons to Israel or something like that. This is really a, it's sort of a stunning shift in only two years in the politics here because since the founding of the state of Israel, it's essentially been assumed bipartisan unanimity with maybe with a handful of exceptions on on supporting Israel and particularly on supporting Israel militarily. And so the idea that now you have 27 Democrats vote to ban funding for offensive weapons in Israel last week you have these Republicans who are against it. That is a dramatic shift in the politics in a post Netanyahu Israel that could start, look, you could have. This is very specific to Netanyahu and the way they've conducted this war and the fact that there has not been under Netanyahu at least for a decade now any sort of real hope for any sort of two state solution. Basically the Israelis have taken that off the table. And so for much of time you could believe that both you could support Israel and that there was actual and that Israel wanted to solve the problem. Two state solutions. So if you were someone who believes in a two state solution, it was not inconsistent with supporting Israel now because of Gaza and everything's happened. It's much more complicated than that. So I just, I would hate to make predictions on what I think is going to happen here. I think you could find some interesting coalitions on specific issues, on specific votes in Congress. But we'll have to see what happens, you know, what happens in the near future here.
- [22:23]
Philip DeFranco
Yeah, it's just, it's something that's, that's really aside from everything that's happening. When I just think about it from the parties and support here in America, it has been wild because I mean you, you probably know far more people in this space. But it's been interesting to see some in 2015, 2016 go from never Trumpers being very vocal almost to the point of it being their identity. And then Israel, Gaza happens and full on Trump support. And so I am very interested on that split but I am going to move past that topic because what I was going to actually open up today.
- [23:00]
Dan Pfeiffer
With because and it was we're here 25 minutes in. We're here.
- [23:04]
Philip DeFranco
No, no, it was much lighter was. I really enjoyed your piece recently about how the flood of Dem fundraising tax have hurt the party. And I want to kind of just for, for my audience hear you talk about it not just from a place of like it being annoying.
- [23:20]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
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Philip DeFranco
But just like your whole mindset behind that, if you would.
- [23:23]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. So over the course of time. Right. Like I'll give you an example. Like when I worked for President Obama during his campaigns people would complain to me about the, the frequency of fundraising emails all the time and I would like go talk to our, our digital fundraising people and I'd be like people are really annoyed about this and they would show me. And it's like actually a lot of the ones that people are getting are not ours, right? They're just, we're the head of the party. You're getting fundraising emails. It must be our fault, right? But like we obviously we were trying to raise a lot of money online, but that's always been true. Like people were complaining about the direct mail fundraising, like actual showing up in your mailbox in the 80s, right? Like this is.
- [24:00]
Philip DeFranco
Right.
- [24:00]
Dan Pfeiffer
Politics needs too much money. People are annoyed being asked by it. The anger and frustration is exponentially larger now than it was before, I think for a couple reasons. For three reasons. One, we've moved to text messaging, which is much more intrusive than emails because now you have spam folders, your updated and promotion update and promotions folders on Gmail. Like it's kind of removed from your life. You have to, whether it's your mom, your sister, your girlfriend, your job, or a random progress or can't you ever heard of. You still get that glaring notification about a text message, right? Like, why are my text messages not read? It's obviously not because I didn't respond to someone I know and love. It's because I got 15 email texts from a pack I've never heard of. And the tone has become so just cataclysmic, right? And so what I think the party has failed to realize and the party, when I say the party, I mean everyone in the party. I don't mean just like the head of the dnc, it's basically everyone. Is that in a world where it's very hard to follow the news, where just people, we're getting information all random places. One of the most valuable relationships that any candidate, political action committee, business, politician has is a direct one on one relationship with their consumer. Right? Where you have the ability to email them directly, text them directly, call them directly. And we're taking our number one best asset and we're just. The only way we're thinking about it is how to get as much money out of their pockets as fast as possible. And now thinking about how do we persuade them to do things. And so I thought about like obviously, as by professional obligation, pay a ton of attention the news. So I was like watching when Hakeem Jeffries, you know, spoke for eight hours or whatever it was to delay the passage of the Republican bill, which is like, obviously that's a largely symbolic thing. But it was symbolism matters. And he was doing. And what he was doing helped. But most people who are Democratic base because it Happened randomly in the middle of the day where most people at work, most people in the Democratic base learned about it from a text message demanding money in exchange for that. Right. People learned that PBS and NPR being defunded, not from PBS and NPR or the news from a text message. So if like you're, like I said this in my piece, which is how would you feel about a friend who only calls you and asks you for money? Right. It's like that's sort of where we are. And it's not. We're not thinking about how best to use our massive email or email and primarily text lists. We're not thinking about the impact of it. And everyone is thinking individually about their own campaign, their own pack, and not thinking about the fact that I'm not just getting emails from the D or text from D triple C. I'm getting them from a million people. And the other thing is there are a lot of scam packs and a lot of people using pretty sketchy fundraising techniques. That's making it worse. And it's impossible to be a good actor in this system. I think Bernie Sanders, who's raised a ton of money online, his team has always thought very strategically about how to use their list. They don't overuse it. They will sometimes use it just for pure informational or persuasion purposes, not just to ask for money. But if you're getting a gazillion text, you're not just in your head be like, oh, Bernie does a good job. Right. It's just, you're just annoyed by the text. So we're now in the situation where no one has an incentive to be a good actor because you're getting all the downside of the bad acting and maybe, you know, less short term benefit and money because of it.
- [27:35]
Philip DeFranco
Can you expand on the scam packs?
- [27:38]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. So there are these packs that like that have been set up that are primarily. There's a really big story that went around today in A and democracy. It was a substack called Democracy and Data. I think that broke down a lot of how this works. But there is these packs that basically are started by digital fundraising firms. And so they raise money into the pack to pay themselves for the fundraising costs and then take their cut off the top. I pretty plugged into the Democratic infrastructure. I get, I get texts from PACs I've never heard of. And you have to click the link to know what it is. Right. And they also do these things where it's like, they'll be like, Barack Obama said, it's time to give, which Barack Obama obviously is not endorsing this random pac. He gave a speech at some point where he said, you know, now's the time to get in the fight. Right? They do that. Like, Rachel Maddow issued a warning or, you know, Stacey Abrams said that there's, like, using people's names and. And most of that money is this constellation of PACs that is run by this company called Mothership Strategies that was the subject of much discussion this week. They're very controversial in the Democratic Party, but I think it was something like 11% of the money they raised actually went to candidates. Oh, wow. Like, a lot of it. It's not all going in their pockets, right? It's a lot of. It is their costs. But this level of aggressive text. Yeah, it's insane. And this level of aggressive texting has a very high overhead. And so. But they are. They're raising. They're setting up these packs. They are raising money in those packs to pay for themselves, basically. And so it's very. This is like the party has to. I believe the party really has to take a stand here.
- [29:25]
Philip DeFranco
The question is, will they?
- [29:26]
Dan Pfeiffer
Because. Well, it's hard. It's really hard. There's no one in charge. There's no. I said this in the piece. There's no fundraising czar who can just say this. There are people, like. There are a couple things I think people of power and influence can do. One, they can name and shame the bad actors. Right?
- [29:44]
Philip DeFranco
They can say the shame still work now.
- [29:47]
Dan Pfeiffer
I think it does. I think informing voters about where the best places to spend their money. Because the other problem with this is this is really important.
- [29:53]
Philip DeFranco
Okay, informing as well. Yes. Okay.
- [29:54]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, Informing, right. You just say. Or like, let's say a lot of times you'll see, like, Kamala Harris said these. We use Kamala Harris name. Right. And to say, like Kamala Harris issues warning. Kamala Harris's FLO operation could say, we have no association with that. Right. Like, you have to. You have to shame people. They actually did that during the campaign with a set of these packs related to the ones I mentioned who were raising money and they. They thought essentially siphoning money because people thought they were giving to Kamala Harris, and they're actually giving to these packs, and they actually called them out. So that's one ActBlue, which is the platform that runs through everything, could do a host of reforms to make it harder for people to get spammed, set up, put in place some minimum, some standards about how you do things. There is a group of. This is about 140 Democratic fundraising professionals who wrote a letter last year with a set of recommendations for ActBlue to do. And I think we really could, in the 2028 Democratic primary, try to, through pressure from people with platforms and people with influence, to normalize better fundraising techniques among our nominees and call out the people who are using the sketchy ones.
- [30:56]
Philip DeFranco
I will say, I appreciate you sharing the second part of that, because I do feel like there's this common thing with Democrats, whether it be the politicians or a lot of the communicators, is this is bad. And then there's no end and. Right. And there's no secondary thing. And it's like, okay, well, I was already feeling bad. Yeah, I was already feeling hopeless. What fixes it? And just knowing that there are steps that people could take it can add to the pressure campaign. I think things more like the normalize that. That gets into kind of more of an intangible. Okay, well, what's.
- [31:27]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, it's something that. Something that people in the. Who are actually in charge, who have influence, who control things. Like.
- [31:33]
Philip DeFranco
Right.
- [31:33]
Dan Pfeiffer
Should. Like there you could. Peer pressure works in politics, particularly in a primary where everyone's competing for the same set of voters. Like in 20. In the 2020 Democratic primary, there was real pressure on candidates not to take Pacific corporate PAC and lobbyist money. And so you don't want to be the only person doing that, because even if you would otherwise. Otherwise do it, I think you can do a similar thing here, which is we're going to use better techniques to do this. We're going to put in a set of reforms. And the DNC could. There's one thing the DNC could do in the primary because they do have leverage in a primary because they control the debate stage. Right. And so they often do pledges. Right. Where. Because they adhere to the calendar. Right. Like I'm not going to compete in a state before New Hampshire. And if you do, you can't get it on the debate stage. So they could say, here's a set of practices to use in your online fundraising. Agree to that as a condition of making in the debates. There are things we can do in there. And I think if you do that in the primary, it does make it harder for people at a lower level to do the sketchy stuff.
- [32:41]
Philip DeFranco
So from there, I want to jump to Texas, obviously, a lot of attention there, the Dems fleeing the state. But do you. Do you think that this is a situation that's going to last past the next two weeks. Is this kind of more just raising awareness and showing some fight rather than, I mean, I don't imagine, I mean, could be completely wrong that we're living in a moment of history where all these people are going to stay in Illinois and New York until December. But do you think, do you think this is. Is something that. It's just, it's raising awareness on the situation and it's kind of giving Newsom and others the, the public ammunition to, to make the changes in their states.
- [33:22]
Dan Pfeiffer
Maybe they will stay away. I don't know. I mean, they're, they're highly incentivized to, to not allow the Republicans to redistrict some of them out of their own seats. Right. If they do legislative redistricting and some of them have congressional ambitions. So maybe, maybe they will. I don't know. In the past, these things always. People always come back. Let's happen when there have been previous times of people fleeing. Delay is very important here. You slow the process down is key. Raising awareness, I think, is the most important thing because one, everyone should know what's happening here. Two, it adds political pressure on the Republicans isn't necessarily a popular thing they're doing. And you make an important point which it does stiffen the spine of the Democratic governors in the other states who have the capacity to, you know, mount some sort of response to this.
- [34:11]
Philip DeFranco
Do you think it's a really, it's a really unpopular thing among their existing base? As far as the Republicans, it's not.
- [34:19]
Dan Pfeiffer
It'S an open question about how popular is among their base. I just think in general, like, there is such distrust and such belief that the system is corrupt, that like, taking extraordinary measure to give yourself additional political power is something that Democrats can use to make a case against Republicans. Like I always, like it's always this question of, like, is the hardcore Trump supporter going to care about this? No, they're hardcore Trump supporters. He could do literally almost anything and they will be fine with it.
- [34:46]
Philip DeFranco
I think it goes past that. I think as long as, as long as even kind of the, the most milquetoast. You know what? I just don't like the Dems to at least a certain degree. As long as they're given, everything's bad, so no one's bad sort of situation and mindset that gerrymandering already happens. So why is this any different? Right? It's all a toxic, corrupt game then. I think maybe I'm being too cynical. I don't think it moves the Needle. And at this point, Democrats and Newsom and others realizing that it's just the rules have changed, the understanding has shifted, and you have to play by this game. I think that's where we are. It's just power to be crude for a second. It comes down to the core thing of big, fuck small. And you just, you just. It's a power grab at this point. And if you're trying to play by a set of rules from 10 years ago, you're going to be small.
- [35:38]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, I agree. I don't think I am fully supportive of the Democrats doing. I think what Newsom is doing is good. If we can do something in Illinois. I know Governor Hochul talked about this the other day. They're going to try with New York. New York is challenging for a whole host of legal reasons that I'm not a full expert in, but we should try to do everywhere we can. I think that. So I'd say a couple things. One, the, like, I don't think this is the issue is going to swing the election for sure, but we should like it is an opportunity to make it. Like I believe the case Democrats have to make is that Trump and the Republicans promised that they were going to come in and be the reformers of this corrupt, broken system, and now they are that system, and they're using it to help themselves and enrich themselves. And this can be a data point in that argument. And I think, like, one of the things I try to do when I do my political analysis is to focus on who are the people we can actually persuade, who are, who are available to us and try to break that down. So the groups that I have been, that I think about in terms of this midterm are people who voted for Trump for the first time in 2024. Right. These are new voters. Right. I think. And some of them are HS agency electorate. Some are people who had not voted previously. Maybe they're, you know, in their 30s and the 40s, but they, they came because of Trump. The second group is the most gettable for Democrats, which is people who voted for Biden in 2020 and Trump in 24. Right. Do those people have buyer's remorse? Can we get them? And then there is people who want. Who may supported Trump, may have supported Trump in 2020, but think we need a check. They believe in divided government. They want to check on power. And those people are also available to us in this particular thing in Texas might be an argument for that, because even in 2018, when Democrats crushed in the midterm like, you had a whole bunch of people who voted for Trump, who voted for Democrats for congressional, for Congress. Three quarters of them ended up voting for Trump in 2024. But people, there are people who do believe very strongly that divided government is good. We need balance. We need a check on power. And so there is gonna be a set of voters. So those three voters are groups of voters. We get. They're not. They don't make up the majority of voters, they don't make up a priority of voters. But it's these pockets of voters that we can go persuade. And that is the difference between losing the House and winning the House or having a shot at the Senate or having no shot at the Senate.
- [37:53]
Philip DeFranco
Do you think that going into the midterms, things might get so polarized that. What is the term instead of gerrymandering? It's a. Is a dummy, dummy mandering. Where do you think? I mean, these are really strong districts, generally speaking of, you know, plus 10 Trump. But, I mean, we've seen some interesting things happen in special elections of big shifts. Obviously, you can't base anything off of a special election specifically, but, I mean, do you think that there is a risk in a down year or. No, that's too much of a gap in most of the places.
- [38:24]
Dan Pfeiffer
I think their Republicans were smart in how they did their 2021 redistricting, which was they did not maximize their number of seats. They did incumbent protection. And this was particularly true in Texas, where they sort of saw the changing demographics, particularly among suburban areas becoming more Democratic. And so they drew the districts to protect their incumbents and protect the number of Republican seats. Trump is now asking them to do the thing. So this is a very important point with Texas, which is Trump is asking them to do the thing they were unwilling to do in 2021, which is to try to increase the number of Republican seats. Because it's pretty simple math. There's X number of Republican voters. If you spread them out over 25 seats, it's, you know, you have certain number of voters per seat. You spend them over 30, you have fewer Republican voters per seat. And what is really interesting about this to me, and I think, I think Democrats should do everything they can to stop this. But over the medium term and the long term, they could really come to regret this in Texas because they are betting that the Trump's numbers with Latinos in Texas are the norm. And there is no evidence to date that since Trump came on the political scene that Republicans perform as well with Latinos. With Trump off the ballot. So according to exit polls, Trump won Latinos in Texas by 11 points in 2024. In the 2020 20. In the 2022 midterm, Beto O', Rourke, who lost by 11 points, beat Greg Abbott by 17 points amongst Latinos. Mm. Right. And so he. Did you see a similar thing nationally with how Republicans did with Latinos in 2024 and how Republicans did with Latinos in 2022. There's like, I can't remember the swing is. But it's a pretty significant swing. And so they, like I think they are putting there, they may. That may help them in this exact election right now, we don't know that yet, but if there's a big enough wave, it could. They could lose a bunch of these seats. Endeavor. They could actually regret doing what they did. I think in the long term, they are likely. Even if there's a shift, it doesn't even have to go back to the numbers that Obama and Clinton were getting in 2012 and 2016 with Latinos. That comes back to a little bit better than where Biden was in 2020. Some of these seats will be in play for Democrats and they could end up this process with more seats than they have right now.
- [40:45]
Philip DeFranco
Let's get a little dumb then, as we're looking even further. 2028. Everyone hates the question. It's a stupid question, but I feel like I always wanna ask everyone right now, does anyone have an inkling of not even looking at polls? Because all the polls are based off of the last election and, you know, the new election is where the country is going to be. Is there anyone that. That kind of pops out to you as a potential front runner or someone that you think would be interesting for Democrats right now?
- [41:15]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, I mean, it's. You raised like, as you say, everyone hates the question. I hate the question. It's an impossible one to answer. I always.
- [41:24]
Philip DeFranco
But just imagine the clip three years from now.
- [41:26]
Dan Pfeiffer
I know, I know.
- [41:27]
Philip DeFranco
Dan knew it. He knew it.
- [41:29]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. Really. It really incentivizes you to really, like, take the big swing. Because if you're just like, oh, it's, you know, it's Pete Buttigieg. No one's gonna be like you, Dan. In 2025, Dan Pfeiffer predicted Pete Buttigieg would win the nomination. I think the candidate who. I'm not saying this person is gonna be the nominee. I'm not saying this person is our strongest nominee. I don't think anyone knows the answer to that. Yeah, I always tell people That I was around in politics after George Bush won in 2004, after George Bush won, everyone was like, what Democrats need is a. Is a governor or a senator from a red state, a moderate from a red state who can win something. Like, people were like, this is impossible to imagine. People were crawling all over themselves to try to work for Mark Warner at the time. He was the guy, right? I worked for Evan Bai at the time. I was the Senate communications director. People were like, Evan Bayh, he keeps winning Republican Indiana. He could be the guy. And then in January 2008, we nominated Barack Hussein Obama from the south side of Chicago, via Hawaii, Indonesia, like no one knows, right? I think just one of the things that I am watching all the candidates for here and I will answer your question, I promise, is electability. We thought of, we generally think of like, how do they persuade swing voters, right? Like, what's their bio? Can they raise money? One thing I'm very interested in now is how do they. Is how good are they at getting attention? Can they navigate this media environment in a way that is more deaf than Democrats have done recently? And the person who I think I'm just, I think is being under sort of counted in possibility here is aoc. Oh, okay. I think she obviously is great at the Internet. She knows how to get attention. She is an outsider. And I think an outsider who can run against the Democratic Party is a very interesting thing. You've seen the polls, Democrats, we hate our party right now. And a lot of times this is how Clinton ran. Like Clinton, essentially. Bill Clinton ran in 92 running against the Democratic Party. Barack Obama was the anti establishment candidate in 2008. I think we're gonna probably nominate an anti establishment candidate this time. And I just think people should. I don't know if she wants to be president or if she wants to run for president. Obviously she has challenges like everyone else. But I'm just interested in candidates who can navigate the modern media environment and win the attention wars. Because I think that's one of the places where Trump and Republicans generally have kicked our butts for the last few years is we just don't. We're like all playing this old game of like, how do we get on CNN and Meet the Press and let's rage about New York Times headlines on Twitter as opposed to, like, how do you actually get and hold people's attention and. And that gets harder every single day. I mean, you know this, I know this, this is sort of what life is like in the, in the media content game. But like, who is a presidential candidate who can do that? And so I just have my eye on aoc.
- [44:21]
Philip DeFranco
I mean, if it, if it happens. We got the clip now.
- [44:25]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, there we go. Yeah, I would say I set my clip, you know, because there's always that, like, person on Twitter who they find.
- [44:31]
Philip DeFranco
That you can ride that for like, six years. Yeah, yeah, you got that, actually. So on the note of, like, you were mentioning hopping on MSNBC and stuff, what is your. What's your news diet, whether it be for your job or whether it just be general consumption?
- [44:47]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, it's been really changing over the last couple years. I was, like, very Twitter heavy for a very long time. It's also weird if you work in politics, like in a Senate office or a campaign office or White House, someone does this job for you. Like, you wake up every morning and someone has sent you a document with all the clips and you just read them. That was like, very nice. Then when I got out in the world in 2015, I was like, on my own and it was like the peak of Twitter, right? I would just get on Twitter, I would read and it would like. Twitter would then refer me to stories that I would read in full. And now I've kind of like, I subscribe to a lot of substacks. I'm a substack writer. I subscribe to a lot of them. I look at the. I like, check my inbox in the morning for that. I read all the sort of tip sheets, like Playbook, Axios, Brian Felter's media newsletter. Just like the things that are sort of summarized in the news for you. But now I kind of do what I used to do in like 2005, which is I wake up and I go to newyorktimes.com and read the stories. So, like, I. It's sort of like, it's kind of like all over the stuff. Like a lot of individual people and then some of the sort of more institutional media kind of just like, know like what? Like, I find the New York Times ticker, like the running blog, to be very helpful because I'm waking up, I'm on West Coast. So by the time I've woken up, Trump's done something like nine crazy things. So it's like a very quick way to find out what those are, and then I can go dig into them further by looking at other sources or finding the clips online. Like this morning, he was having a truly bananas interview on cnbc. But that, like, that was happening, like, at, I don't know, before I was sleeping, so I got up really early and then I like went and watched the. I didn't watch the whole interview. I just watched the clips on Twitter to like, keep up. But it's never, it's like, yeah, it's just a. You're just like on a hamster wheel 247 trying to like, keep up in this media environment.
- [46:36]
Philip DeFranco
Yeah. Because I get so I. In the morning, I'll often get a one sheet for my team. But what I've found these days, because I'm most interested in the past year and then moving forward is what's happening in different spaces. And so my news diet has become almost all right wing media. Oh, interesting. And so, like, at times it'll be like, okay, I'll have like a four box on my TV and I'll be listening to Fox News. But like, really specifically living, living in the commentator space because that's where we've seen kind of the, the most movement. And it feels like in the right wing space right now, there's kind of like the only thing I can kind of equate it to is I don't know if it's a Highlander situation. I don't know, like, they are taking each other out. And I mean, not all of them. There's like these coalitions, but it looks like they're taking each other out to be like the one, the guy. And it's been really fascinating. And I also, I at times wonder if those on the left might benefit from it rather than it being seen as like this squabbling infighting where there is more of a just. I don't know if I want to equate everything that's happening to disagreements of ideas. There's a lot of, like some crazy ideologies getting thrown around. But I don't know. I mean, do you ever, do you ever flip on? You're like, I want to watch the war room.
- [48:05]
Dan Pfeiffer
Let's see what's happening. I, I see. I, I don't. I never watch cable news in general. Like, it never comes on my tv and it didn't when I was in the White House either. Like, that was a real point of pride because I thought it was very distorting in my worldview, because in the White House, you have a TV in front of you and you have the quad box on. You watch all of it. And so I never had it on then either. I do, like, kind of. I usually see it through like clips on TikTok or on Twitter. Like, I'm very interested in what is happening, particularly in the, especially in the midst of this Epstein stuff in the Trump adjacent manosphere world of people who like the, like Rogan, Andrew Schultz, Theo Vaughn who just like were with Trump but now have some real concerns. Like that's very fascinating to me how people are. How people who, who were not like they're not hardcore conservative Republicans by nature but came on like why they ended up supporting Trump and then like how they're wrestling with some of the things he's doing is very interesting to me because I think it's emblematic of some of those voter groups I've talked about how they're processing some of that information.
- [49:05]
Philip DeFranco
Yeah, I don't know. I just, I, anyone that I talk to, I always, I recommend it past. Past just like the, I hate the, the term but like what everyone talks about with like the manosphere guys pass that because I think that a lot of people in the, in our space are. They're just looking at the clips that get shared around and, and they're completely missing the other points that are connecting with people and it is setting them up for failure when they can like say one line about the person as a dismissal and then a person sees it. I think it, it kind of, it, it's not a, it's not a complete one to one, but I think it, it talks a little bit about going into the last election and everyone was like, J.D. vance is a couch weirdo. And then, and, and all of a sudden he's on the debate stage and you have Two, you have two potential VPs complimenting each other. And I was like, I thought he was a fucking crazy person. And then, and all of a sudden you set yourself up to be like for a group of people to be like, oh, I was misled about everything and it ends up actually being helpful. I just, I don't know. That's.
- [50:13]
Dan Pfeiffer
No, I agree. I think that sometimes it's a blind spot for me sometimes too is I'm. This is like, like I'm an online person and so like I actually had. I like during the election I started listening. I like, I would listen to full episodes of Theo Vaughn and Flagrant and Rogan to try to. But I like, I had the wrong impression of some of those guys which sort of was like, oh, it's just like more because I'm looking at the clips and a lot of the clips shared by progressives like me. And so it's like, oh, they, you know, they're, they're just hardcore right wing people and I Didn't fully understand the audience. Like one place where I actually had some understanding was. And this was mostly from clips, like I never watched the whole thing, but I would get so many Kill Tony clips. Right. You know, it's just like I'd see a lot of it all the time. Because TikTok really thinks because I'm a late 40s white man who likes sports that I must be like red pilled. So it's like constantly giving me. So. So I was constantly just assumed that I will. So I was. But so when. Because I'd seen so much Kill Tony and then I was kind of like, like not I didn't like it, but I was kind of curious about it. So then when the whole thing happened with Tony Hendrich and at the Trump rally at the end, like I had some context for it, but a lot of times, like when Trump first went off the ovan, I didn't have context for it because I hadn't been paying enough attention to that. So I do think I did. Like you got really got to like, you know, this is true of all media is like, pay a little attention to your mental health issue going through this stuff.
- [51:37]
Philip DeFranco
Oh yeah.
- [51:37]
Dan Pfeiffer
But there is. I try not to watch Fox News. I think that's not particularly helpful. But like, I think getting outside of the, like the main spaces is smart.
- [51:49]
Philip DeFranco
Well, that makes sense. I mean, Fox News has been a very specific thing for a long time and you can kind of like just pop in and be like, okay, so.
- [51:56]
Dan Pfeiffer
That'S where they're at right now.
- [51:57]
Philip DeFranco
Or that's, that's the line they're hitting. Whereas there's just. There's so much more happening. And I think what we end up seeing is that even if, you know, cable news is setting the con some, most of the conversation up or at least where things are gonna stem from, so much more interesting and molding is happening in.
- [52:18]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
- [52:19]
Philip DeFranco
Space. I actually think a lot of blind spots.
- [52:22]
Dan Pfeiffer
I think a lot of it. It used to be Fox set the tone for everything. And I actually think that now what's happening underneath is setting the tone for Fox in a very different way.
- [52:31]
Philip DeFranco
Okay. Yeah, well, I mean, I guess we'll see. I saw right before we started, I guess there was an update on Trump and Murdoch. They are now postponing Murdoch's deposition. Do you, have you seen that already? Do you see it as it potentially being some sort of Trump cave or it's just legal?
- [52:50]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, I hadn't seen. The Trump Murdoch relationship has always been very interesting and complicated. Like Murdoch obviously opposed him tremendously. Rudup Rupert did in at least up until the end in 2016. And obviously the Wall Street Journal ran those stories after Trump asked them not to or yelled at them and screamed at them and told them not to. And so that's interesting. But they're. The business of Fox News is so tied into pro Trump. Like they had that experience in right after January 6th when they turned on Trump and they lost other viewers to Newsmax and Oan at the time. And so you know, it's like they both think they're the alpha in the relationship but they both need the other one. And so there's a lot of like back and forth. So I don't know. I don't know that I didn't see the details of this. And so the, the suit will be interesting. You know I would be, I'll be shocked if it proceeds too far one because it seems relatively ridiculous and, and Trump is more willing to push the envelope and I think the non like the CBS's, the Paramounts and the Disney's are more likely to bend to Trump than Murdoch interestingly enough because Murdoch has actual leverage in the situation that the others don't. Because Trump cares what's on Fox News in a way he may not care about the others.
- [54:02]
Philip DeFranco
Yeah, I'm just so fascinated by Murdoch in general of how I guess at the end of the day he is just a businessman because he does it like he has favorites. But it seems like through the Wall Street Journal and the Fox News situation, I don't understand how you have that fucking position.
- [54:18]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, he, it seems like he, I think he's a businessman and I've heard Brian Stelter from. He was on Ponte America last couple weeks ago talking about all of this and he said that Rupert Murdoch really views himself as a newspaper man like in a ideological sense. Like in the, the British ideological tabloids were like you have a point of view but you also do journalism. And so that's why. And he's very proud of the owning the Wall Street Journal. Like that's a real, like it's a status symbol for him and so he does not get involved in decisions on what they run. Fox is a little bit like which his son really runs more but is like a, that's just like it prints money for him. Right. And that is more maybe the non journalist side of his brain like come alive. I don't. It's, it's interesting. It's really, it's. Yeah. I mean a lot of the Fate of the world rests in the hands of this whatever he is, 92 year old man right now. So it's not great.
- [55:16]
Philip DeFranco
But yeah, yeah, it's, it's funny that you mentioned Stelter. So I listened to that episode and as I'm kind of like doing this podcast and talking to people for the first time and becoming more familiar, it's been very fascinating to see certain audiences and certain groups reaction to the other. Like it sounded like when Stelter got on he was like nervous. He was like, we'll see how the fucking audience reacts. And I was like, oh, is there something there? Because even, even, Even watching Channel 5 in the past month and Hunter Biden going on the Pod Save America guys rant, I was like, I was like, oh shit, what's happening? I was like, what I feel like about chapter 12. And although I will say just to be transparent, coming going in to that relatively blind. It was the closest I think I probably got to someone before they were a MAGA supporter. Hearing Trump because he spoke with such passion that I was like, yeah, I don't even know why, but yeah, fuck those guys. I mean he took you over.
- [56:18]
Dan Pfeiffer
It was, it was, it was resonant, I would say amongst some people. I would say that, yes. Yeah.
- [56:24]
Philip DeFranco
Has that, do you feel like that was just a quick moment in time or it's, it's, it's passed and like, do you. Is that, is that a situation that's continued?
- [56:32]
Dan Pfeiffer
I guess I think there are there when we sort of help. We're like very public about the idea after the debate that Biden should at least entertain the idea of dropping out. Like that was a very controversial position for us to take. It's very controversial for me personally. I'm from Delaware. I've known Joe Biden my whole life. Not well, but he's been like in my life and I work with him in the White House for six years and there are people who were very good friends with, who we're not friends with now because of that, who works in the Biden White House and were very upset by that there. So there's still some lingering tension I think which was brought to very vivid and evocative language by Hunter Biden, that that tension among some people in the Biden world still very clearly exists and that's an unfortunate situation. Like I wish we, that that was not the world we were in. I very much agree and stand by the position we took back then. But that is a lingering point of tension among some people. Some of them were you Know, I think our audience was, was, was with us for this, but there were some people who probably listened to us before that who loved Joe Biden and disagreed with that and maybe don't listen to us now. There's people who had probably never heard of us or who. Or were who came aboard because of that. Like, our audience has grown since then. But, yeah, I mean, it's, it was, it's uncomfortable. Like, I was uncomfortable by the Hunter Biden thing because, like, I like, was a, you know, I like Joe Biden a lot. Like, I liked working with him. I think he's a, he was a great vice president. And it's, I just, it's an unfortunate situation.
- [58:00]
Philip DeFranco
Dan, before I let you go, is there any kind of last thing that you want to hit on, whether it be what the Democrats need to do, the future, going into the midterms, anything. I just wanted to, I always like to, when possible, open it up.
- [58:11]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, I would just give one. We are staring down the barrel of a possible government shutdown. At the end of next month, government funding runs out. The Senate could not even agree to pass some nominees. At the end, Democrats stood firm, which is what I want them to do. But this is going to be a very big deal and I think could last for a very long time with real dramatic effects. And so I think people have it because it's August that people are thinking about. It's the end of September when government funding runs out and there's no real path to do it. And Democrats very rightly believe, why should I cut a deal if I appropriate all this funding and then you just freeze it? Like, what, what role do we have? And so this is going to be a very interesting, highly consequential month in Congress coming up. So everyone should enjoy their August, and then we're right back in the soup after Labor Day.
- [59:00]
Philip DeFranco
I don't know if people are going to be able to enjoy their August. But, Dan, I appreciate you. Thank you for the time, man.
- [59:05]
Dan Pfeiffer
Oh, thanks for doing it. Thanks for having me.