What’s In the DNC’s 2024 Autopsy

Summary

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It Could Happen Here

Episode Title: What's In the DNC’s 2024 Autopsy
Date: June 3, 2026
Hosts: Robert Evans (Host 1), Sophie Ray Lichterman (Co-Host)
Network: Cool Zone Media & iHeartPodcasts

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Robert Evans and Sophie Ray Lichterman examine the much-anticipated and ultimately disappointing DNC 2024 Election Autopsy report. After historic Democratic losses in the 2024 U.S. election—including the presidency, House, Senate, and even the popular vote—the Democratic National Committee (DNC) pledged an honest reckoning. The resulting “autopsy,” delayed for nearly a year and released only under pressure, is dissected for its many failings, including factual errors, missing sections, lack of sourcing, and its utter refusal to grapple with the real reasons behind the party’s collapse.

The hosts break down not just the content and omissions of the report, but also what the autopsy says about the Democratic Party’s deeper dysfunction and lack of introspection, making for a darkly comic but telling post-mortem on American politics.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Autopsy’s Troubled Origins and Delays

• Background: After a staggering 2024 loss (House, Senate, presidency, and popular vote), new DNC chair Ken Martin pledged a full autopsy and public transparency ([02:09]).
• The autopsy was commissioned in early 2025, repeatedly delayed, then seemingly buried late in the year.
  • Key quote: "In December of 2025, Ken Martin announced that the DNC would not in fact be releasing the autopsy report." ([02:57])
• DNC's stated reasoning: Releasing the report would "inflame ongoing tensions within the party" and constitute a "strategic failure" ([03:39]), as explained in a series of vague statements.
  • Ken Martin quote: "Here’s our North Star. Does this help us win? If the answer is no, it's a distraction from the core mission." ([04:25])
• Speculation abounded about what the DNC was hiding—misuse of funds, Israel/Palestine policy, protection of party elites.
• Ultimately, after leaks and donor pressure, the DNC released a heavily annotated, incomplete version.

2. Report Authorship and Credibility Crisis

• Authored by Paul Rivera, a strategist and personal friend of Ken Martin who hadn’t worked on a presidential campaign since 2004 ([06:49]).
• Rivera worked on the autopsy part-time, scheduling interviews only before 9am/after 7pm or on weekends—and delayed core research ([07:38]).
• CNN leak: Key slides at a donor retreat were generated (in part) via AI, with basic methodological errors (like slide percentages adding up to more than 100%) ([09:59]).
• After CNN pressed with leaks and donor threats, the DNC dumped the report, disclaiming it at the top of every page:
  • Disclaimer quote: “…The DNC was not provided with the underlying sourcing, interviews or supporting data…and therefore cannot independently verify the claims presented.” ([12:21])

3. Report Content—or Lack Thereof

• Glaring Omissions: No discussion of Israel/Palestine, Gaza, Biden’s age or mental state, Biden’s late exit, or the lack of a primary ([11:37],[18:29]).
• Methodology: Claims of >300 interviews, but zero sourcing or notes. Names of interviewees not even given to the DNC.
  • “Despite claiming that 300 people or organizations were interviewed… the report never says who these people are…” ([23:44])
• Entire sections—including the Executive Summary and key state/House race reviews—are missing ([24:34],[28:14],[51:16]).
• What remains is riddled with:
  • Factual errors ([28:13],[29:58])
  • Misstated voting margins and history ([28:13],[29:58])
  • Typos, unsourced claims, contradictions, incomplete/missing sections, and evidence of AI-generated or at least AI-influenced work ([12:20],[16:09]).

4. The Report’s Analytical Failures

• The autopsy often “cherry-picks data to support assumptions,” but does so so sloppily that even those assumptions are never clearly stated or substantiated ([14:48],[15:23]).
• Analysis Examples:
  • Harris campaign hit for being outperformed by some state-level Democrats; but the report gets the numbers and even candidate performance backwards, contradicting itself ([38:52],[39:45]).
  • Stein (NC Gov) praised as a model, but his performance misunderstood and poorly contextualized ([36:21]).
  • Ferguson (WA Gov) offered as a “blueprint,” yet he ran behind Harris’s own performance ([39:45]).
  • Repeated, insight-free truisms like (“Candidate definition is essential”; “You need strong urban, competitive suburbs, and limited rural losses to win”) ([48:30]).

5. Unwillingness to Address Core Problems

• No introspection on:
  • Biden’s age, mental acuity, or decision to run
  • Absence of a primary
  • Complicity in the Gaza crisis (or failure to address it)
  • Disconnection between party messaging (“Bidenomics”) and voter reality ([41:07],[54:32])
• Notable quote: “There is very little you can actually take away from this report positively to improve election strategy going forward because there is no conclusion anyway. That's the 2024 autopsy that turns out was real, but was just really bad and didn't address anything real.” ([68:23])
• **Deputy campaign manager Rob Flattery’s parallel analysis (in The Bulwark) is far more honest—citing the party’s refusal to break from Biden’s policy and the unaddressed “giant rotting fish” of Gaza ([63:23],[64:19]):
  • “We spent the entire election with a giant rotting fish around our necks.”
• Flattery describes the campaign’s failure as one of branding, not just message, and within a context of deep alienation and anti-institutionalism ([58:46],[65:14]).

6. Most Important and Memorable Segments

Key Timestamps

• DNC’s Initial Promises and Delays: [02:09] – [05:13]
• Report Author and AI Gaffes: [06:49], [09:59]
• Disclaimers and DNC Response: [12:21]
• Report’s Glaring Omissions: [11:37], [18:29]
• Missing Methodology: [23:44]
• False/Contradictory Claims: [28:13], [29:58], [38:52], [39:45]
• Insight-Free Strategy Recommendations: [48:30], [49:18]
• Gendered “Strategy” Ridicule: [49:37] – [50:55]
• Lessons on Voter Disconnection & Brand Failure: [54:32], [58:46], [65:14]
• Gaza/Palestine and “Rotting Fish” Metaphor: [63:23], [64:19]
• Final Judgments: [68:23] – [69:00]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On DNC’s justification for hiding the report:
  "We're already winning elections in 2025, so there's actually no point in just looking back at why we lost in 2024." ([04:02], Host 1 paraphrasing Ken Martin)
• On the report’s content:
  "What this report actually is, is a poorly sourced opinion piece that's dressed up as an election autopsy. It misspells names, has typos, factual and statistical errors, and unsourced claims." ([14:47], Host 1)
• On AI-generated slides:
  "He ran his report findings through an AI engine, according to CNN, which also generated slides." ([08:29], Host 1)
• On candidate definition:
  "Candidate definition is essential. Clear accomplishments and concrete plans matter more than vibes." ([48:20], quoting from the report)
• On their “Male Voters” takeaway:
  "'Deploy male messengers, address economic concerns and don't assume identity politics will hold male voters of color.'... Men hate women. It's not the messenger, it's the message." ([49:53], [49:55], [50:06], Host 1 and Co-host)
• On autopsy’s biggest blind spots:
  "The report does not a single time mention inflation... The economy only gets mentioned six times." ([41:01], Host 1)
• On voter alienation:
  “The Democratic Party leadership seems increasingly alienated from the priorities of voters.” ([53:21], Host 1 paraphrasing report)
• On “branding vs. message”:
  "The brilliance of the Trump team's ad strategy was that everything was a proof point that leveled up to a core narrative. She cares about liberal shit, not you." ([58:46], quoting Rob Flattery)
• On Gaza as a campaign weight:
  "We spent the entire election with a giant rotting fish around our necks." ([63:23], quoting Rob Flattery)
• On the autopsy’s conclusion:
  “That's not the conclusion of the report because the final conclusion section is left blank.” ([68:23], Host 1)
• On lessons not learned:
  “No, did not address what I, I would argue were the key issues affecting the campaign: Biden’s decision to run again, his age, the lack of a primary, and Israel, Palestine.” ([69:00], Host 1)

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Core Takeaways

• The DNC’s autopsy is a case study in institutional avoidance, failing to tackle the real causes of party collapse (leadership disconnect, lack of primary, unpopular policy, lack of economic messaging).
• The document itself is so poorly constructed—rife with mistakes, missing sections, and a lack of sources—that the DNC explicitly distanced itself from its own commissioned report.
• The inner circle’s refusal to interrogate its failures, coupled with AI-generated or rubber-stamped analysis, demonstrates a deep lack of seriousness and self-awareness in the party elite.
• First-hand campaign perspectives (like Flattery’s in The Bulwark) offer a much more realistic accounting—tying Democratic losses to branding, alienation, Gaza, and the unaddressed elephant in the room: the Biden administration legacy.

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Episode Structure (with Timestamps)

1. [01:23] – Show introduction and episode setup
2. [02:09] – [05:13] – DNC’s post-election crisis, promises, and later reversal
3. [06:49] – [09:59] – Report author background, delays, AI in the analysis
4. [11:37] – [18:29] – What’s missing from the report: Gaza, Biden’s age, the lack of a primary
5. [23:44] – [29:58] – Methodology section, missing or unsourced interviews, factual errors
6. [32:07] – [41:07] – Contradictory analysis, focus on state races, outright statistical mistakes, absent focus on inflation/economic hardship
7. [48:30] – [50:55] – Discussion of “insightful” and gendered strategic implications
8. [58:46] – [65:14] – Facing the “rot” in the campaign: Gaza, branding, external criticism
9. [68:23] – [70:00] – The missing conclusion and summary judgments

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Final Thoughts

This episode skewers the DNC's autopsy as emblematic of a party unwilling to do the deep self-examination needed after catastrophic failure. The hosts' skeptical, deadpan delivery only heightens the absurdity and exasperation with the party’s inertia. The discussion is invaluable for anyone wanting to understand not just why the Democrats lost in 2024, but why they may continue to falter if this lack of accountability persists.

Summary by: [Your Podcast Summarizer]
Original Hosts: Robert Evans & Sophie Ray Lichterman
For more, visit: CoolZoneMedia.com

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Transcript

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

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[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

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[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

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[Nick Jonas]

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[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

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[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Call Zone Media.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Welcome to It Could Happen Here. A show about things falling apart. The thing falling apart. The past few years, the Democratic Party. That's what we're going to be talking about today. I am joined by Sophie Ray Lichterman. Hello.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Hi. I'm not excited about this.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

This is great. Because last time we were on an episode together, we were talking about our two favorite Democrats, Bill and Hillary Clinton.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Ah, yes. They gave me Covid at the dnc. I'll never forgive them.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Not talking about them today. But we are talking about the dnc, the other dnc, the one who puts on the dnc, the Democratic National Committee. So we're going to be talking about the DNC autopsy.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Oh, boy.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

First, some background.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Yes.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

After the Democrats lost the House, the Senate, and the presidency in 2024, if I'm reading that correctly, including losing the popular vote, something that has not happened in 20 years. The Democratic National Committee, the DNC wondered, why did that happen? So the DNC commissioned a report on what happened with the 2024 election. And this report came to be known as the 2024 autopsy. The newly elected DNC chair, Ken Martin pledged to make the upcoming report public, announcing after his chair election, quote, there has to be some lessons that we glean on that so we can operationalize it not just here in D.C. but through all the 57 state parties. We have to look backwards and look forward at the same time. The 2024 election autopsy was commissioned in early 2025 and was supposed to come out later that spring, but got pushed back to the end of summer and then the fall. And finally In December of 2025, Ken Martin announced that the DNC would not in fact be releasing the autopsy report. In Martin's brief statement, explaining, or rather not explaining, why he's backpedaling on his promise to make the report public, he claimed that the committee is, quote, already putting our learnings into motion.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Who votes Ken Martin in to be the chair? Because I know his career is basically Minnesota guy.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Yes.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Interning government jobs, vice president, chair, and

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

then basically around 400 members of state party chapters are chosen to be members of the Democratic National Committee, who then in turn vote on national party leadership and decide how primaries operate. Though if a sitting president is a Democrat, the president can effectively choose the chair. CNN reported that DNC officials had concerns that the report would, quote, inflame ongoing tensions within the party at a time they felt they had begun to generate winning momentum, unquote. And the committee officials decided that it would be a, quote, unquote, strategic failure on the part of the DNC to publicly look backward. That was their reasons for not releasing the report. We're already winning elections in 2025, so there's actually no point in just looking back at why we lost in 2024. And this was alluded to in Ken Martin's statement announcing that he would not be releasing the report, quote, we are aligned on what's important and, and that's learning from the past and winning the future. Here's our North Star. Does this help us win? If the answer is no, it's a distraction from the core mission. So the report would just be a distraction from letting us currently win going forward, per the DNC chair.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

That logic is ridiculous.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

No, because that's not the real reason why the report wasn't released. We. We'll get to why the report wasn't released to that.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Okay.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Very soon.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

That sounds like a majorly half assed reason. So. Okay, say more, say more. I'm listening.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

As the public release of the autopsy was continuously delayed in 2025 and just eventually canceled, speculation about the contents of the report grew that the DNC must be hiding the report because its findings on why the Dems lost so bad in 2024 must run contrary to the interests of party elites. So by burying the report, a DNC must be trying to protect the future political prospects of Kamala Harris, obscure the misuse of massive funds donated to the DNC and election campaigns. Or the report must actually definitively prove the Biden Harris administration's failure to act on the genocide of Palestinians while aiding and abetting Israel must have played a significant factor in the election, possibly the determining factor. So if the report found such things, then the DNC might want to suppress the report to not have that information be public. But now we know that's not the reason the report was not released. The autopsy finding that the Democrats pro Israel position cost in the election was not the reason the report was buried because last month the DNC begrudgingly released an incomplete version of the election autopsy which actually does not contain a single mention of Israel, Palestine or Gaza. It is not discussed in any way in a 192 page report.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Then what, what is, what is in this report?

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Oh, we will also be getting into what's in the report. Okay, yeah, a lot of bad statistics for one. Unsourced graphs and discussions on whether you should spend more money on digital ads or TV ads is really, really the bulk of the report, honestly. But before we get more into the report's findings, let's discuss the circumstances that led to the publishing of the unfinished autopsy nearly a year after the finished version was supposed to come out. So this autopsy was authored by a guy named Paul Rivera, who's a longtime Democratic strategist and personal friend of DNC chair Ken Martin. Now, Riviera has not worked on a presidential campaign since 2004.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Oh wow.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

And despite being the sole person, like, tasked with running the report and it's it's unclear how many people actually worked on it, but it was led by Rivera and seems to mostly be done by him. And despite that, Riviera only worked on it part time while managing other contracts with cnn, reporting that Riviera would say that he would only be available to conduct autopsy interviews before 9am or after 7pm or on weekends. That's when he conducted interviews for the report was only before 9am in the morning or after 7pm in the evening on weekdays and then also weekends.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

What's this weirdo doing? What's this problem?

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Not much. Yeah, apparently not not much, sir, because yeah, this report was like delayed almost a full year.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Yeah, sheesh.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Now only after his initial spring 2025 deadline. Did Riviera actually reach out to state party chairs in battleground states to interview them for the report? And he did not contact like key Harris campaign staff until September. And many were not even asked to be interviewed. Portions of the autopsy were first revealed at a DNC National Finance Committee retreat for top donors held at a hotel in Middleburg, Virginia last October. Now, per cnn, at the donor retreat, Riviera himself gave a quote, hour long presentation with slides in part drawn directly from the report, in part via running his findings through an AI engine, unquote, there was AI generated slides. He ran his report findings through an AI engine, according to cnn, which also generated slides. And that was what his presentation on the report at the Zona retreat was based on, was the, the AI's regurgitation of report findings.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Hold on, hold on a second. So he's not willing to do work after 9am or after 7pm, cannot conduct

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

interviews in that time? No, too busy.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

He can't do any of that time. But yet he's just like using AI. Yeah, great dnc, feeling really hopeful. Continue. What did CNN find?

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

So one of the slides that Riviera presented at this, at this donor retreat attract the candidates, quote, unquote, area of focus by quote unquote content, slash theme. CNN notes, quote. Riviera used an unclear methodology for the breakdown, assigning percentages to 10 categories of content or theme for Trump, Harris and their running mates. The percentages in every column, one for each candidate, added up to well over 100%, unquote. What he was trying to do here is like measure campaign themes like, you know, how much Trump focused on immigration compared to Harris. So he had these like 10 categories of like what the campaigns were focused on. But the percentages did not actually add up to 100%.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Of course they didn't.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

So he's just like making this stuff up, right? Like it's, it's again, they know there's like an unclear methodology for the breakdown. The fact these add up to over 100%. Like you cannot trust the legitimacy of any of this research now. So after parts of the presentation were leaked to cnn, CNN then obtained even more information about the contents of the shelved autopsy. Before publishing their findings. CNN presented the DNC with what they knew about the report, prompting the DNC to just release the full report as submitted by Paul Rivera. And around this time, donors were also threatening to withhold funds for not publishing the report. So that probably also Contributed. One of CNN's sources said that after the autopsy was published, Ken Martin informed DNC staff that Paul Rivera was no longer associated with the committee.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

These people. These fucking people. I mean, I did not read the entire report intentionally so that you could tell me about it, but the highlights that have been spread across the Internet is did not mention Gaza, did not mention Joe Biden's age, and did not mention when Joe Biden dropped out late, effectively.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

So what? We'll get into some of, some of those in a little bit more detail. I think one of the most interesting parts about the DNC's publishing of the unfinished report is that the published version of the autopsy contains annotations and corrections marked in red that the DNC added to the copy of the report as submitted by Riviera, and these were added for its public release.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Okay?

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

At the top of every single page, all 192 pages, reads a disclaimer, quote, disclaimer, this document reflects the views of the author, not the dnc. The DNC was not provided with the underlying sourcing, interviews or supporting data for many of the assertions contained herein and therefore cannot independently verify the claims presented, unquote, that is in red at the top of every single page. Ken Martin did issue a statement when the autopsy was published reading, quote, when I was elected DNC Chair, I commissioned an after action review of the 2024 election that I wanted to be honest and transparent and with actionable and specific takeaways for the future of the Democratic Party. When I received the report late last year, it wasn't ready for prime time, not even close. And because no source material was provided, it would have meant starting over. I could not in good faith put the DNC's stamp of approval on the report that was produced. After last November's massive Democratic wins, I didn't want to create a distraction, but by not putting the report out, I ended up creating an even bigger distraction. For that, I sincerely apologize. For full transparency, I am releasing the report as we received it, in its entirety, unedited and unabridged. It does not meet my standards and it won't meet your standards. But I am doing this because people need to be able to trust the Democratic Party and trust our word, unquote.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

I don't know, man. That doesn't really sound very trustworthy, bro. Sounds pretty bad. Sounds pretty bad. Here's a half assed report. It's not very good and I've delayed it for over a year, but yeah, I guess here it is. No, it doesn't include any of the big issue things. Enjoy it's.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

A stunning sequence of events that kind of highlights all of the issues that everyone already has with the Democratic Party. Like the guy who was chosen to do the autopsy just happens to be a personal friend of the DNC chair. And said friend then fails to interrogate the institutional bias of the party. It is such a condensed, condensed little version of why the party has had so many, so many troubles. And the report as published seems unwilling to actually be able to learn from successes that have been happening since the 2024 election. Effectively, what this report actually is, is. Is a poorly sourced opinion piece.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Yeah.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

That's dressed up as an election autopsy. It misspells names, it has typos, factual and statistical errors, and unsourced claims. Multiple key sections are left completely blank because Riviera never submitted them. The report is less interested in collecting data and interviews to inform analysis, but rather starts with certain assumptions and then cherry picks data to support those assumptions. But it doesn't even do that well because the included data is often inaccurate and at times the analysis contradicts itself.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Jesus Christ.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

A state party chair told cnn, quote, it was very clear that it felt like Ken's theory of the case for the future of the party through the lens of 2024 as opposed to a, quote, unquote, autopsy. And after reading the report, I agree this is very much a report that's designed to fit in with what Ken Martin wants the message of the last election to be. And it, it tries to squeeze that into these like very rough shape of like an after election report, but it's really not.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

This just like, reeks of like lazy AI work with all the like, left out sections that the things that don't add up, the misspellings, specifically the statistical

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

and like factual errors.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Yeah.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Are really confusing. And it feels like someone's getting, if not the actual writing, but it feels like, like the research was like AI assisted in the way that, you know, AIs will shoot out different answers for the same question.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Sure.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

So it feels like that in a few areas. And like, like you've already mentioned. Right. The report never brings up Biden's age or mental state as a factor contributing to the election. And in as much as the report criticizes Biden, it critiques the Biden administration's failure to adequately prepare Harris to be a viable candidate.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Does it discuss the debate? No, it doesn't bring up the debate where now we know that like from an interview from Dr. Jill Biden from a few weeks ago that she legitimately thought that Joe was having a stroke on stage during that debate with Donald

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Trump, even though she took him onto a different stage afterwards to tell him how good he did. And then they went to a Waffle House.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

I mean, the things you do after your husband, that's how you go after

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

you believe your husband has had a stroke.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

When shit has hit the fan, Gary, you go to Waffle House.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Maybe, maybe the Waffle House actually is the move.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

That'd be what I'm saying. The Waffle House is the least shocking of the entire situation. But that's not mentioned in there at all.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

No. It says, quote, the White House did not effectively support Vice President Harris over three and a half years to improve her standing before the candidates switch, unquote. That's all it says about. About switching from Biden to Harris. That's all it says.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

I don't, I don't disagree with that statement because, you know, the amount of people that we spoke to when we went to both political conventions, one of the common things that they said about Kamala Harris is like, how ineffective she's been and how they don't use her. And how, how can we trust her when they don't even trust her to do basic things for the administration, which was one of the main, like, Republican talking points about her, is like, she has no skills, which is not true. But that was a position that was against her. Is not utilizing her enough. And then, you know, they're like, bibbidi bobbidi boo. She's your candidate without a primary. Do they mention anything about there not being a primary?

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

No.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Okay.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

The port never interrogates or considers Biden's decision to run for reelection or lay blame on those who encouraged and enabled that decision. Nor does it identify the lack of a legitimate primary as a contributing factor leading to the results of the 2024 election.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

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[Joe Jonas]

Number one hits, millions of records sold awards, sold out tours. You think the Jonas Brothers are satisfied? Nope. It's podcast time.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

We're to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions.

[Joe Jonas]

Hey Jonas is available now and their first guest is a big one, Paul Rudd.

[Nick Jonas]

You know Steve Carell is a great singer. Didn't he tell you not to audition at the office or something? I told him, whoa. We were filming Anchorman. Clearly I was the idiot.

[George Taveras]

Thank God he didn't listen to me, right?

[Joe Jonas]

Listen to hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

This is Saigon, the story of my family and of the country that shaped us.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

The United States will not stand by and allow any power, however great, take

[Joseph Sherman]

over another country from iheart Podcasts. Saigon.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Please allow me to introduce Joseph Sherman. You don't think I'm serious about a free Vietnam. I should stop talking so much.

[Nick Jonas]

I like hearing you talk.

[Joseph Sherman]

One city, a divided country and the war that tore America apart.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

This is for Vietnam. I've taken a hit from Japanese ground fire during.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

They're pouring petrol all over him. He's holding matches.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

I'm on a landmine. For freedom. Let's get out. Freedom. Bomb it now.

[Joseph Sherman]

Saigon. Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Rob Benedict.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Staying here's madness.

[Joe Jonas]

The world should hear about this.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

There's a fire coming to this country and it's going to burn out everything.

[Joseph Sherman]

Listen to Saigon on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

And we're back.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Let's now pivot to how the report describes its own research methodology. Jesus Christ. This is quoting from the start of the autopsy. Quote, the report analyzes a range of publicly and commercially available data to identify actual investments, actions, and eventual voter behavior. The analysis also includes qualitative data obtained in the form of in person and virtual interviews with more than 300 organizations and individuals. After this sentence, the DNC has highlighted and annotated a little note that reads, no source material or data provided. Unsourced claims cannot be independently verified. So despite claiming that 300 people or organizations were interviewed, which may be true, the report never says who these people are, nor does it allude to their relevant expertise.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

This is just an op ed.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

A source at the DNC told CNN that Riviera did not even provide a list of names of the people he spoke to to the dnc, nor did he submit interview notes or recordings. So there's no record that we have of like, who these people are or why they were interviewed or what they actually said. And it's not like he's like quoting from people, like with quotation marks. It's like regurgitating maybe portions of interviews into different text.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Right.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Riviera also failed to provide data that he said was given to him by senior campaign leadership that he says is influencing the report. But we don't see it and he did not provide it to the dnc. So, like, they don't know. It's just. It's just some guy saying, trust me,

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

bro, that's what it sounds like.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

So after the introduction to the report is a section called the Executive Summary. This section was not provided by the author. This section is completely missing.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Great.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

After the missing executive Summary section, the report moves on to the electoral landscape, which has just very basic stuff. Quote, millions of Americans are suffering from poor access to health care, manufacturing and job losses and failing infrastructure, yet continue to be persuaded to vote against their best interests because they do not see themselves reflected in the America of the Democratic Party. Unquote. Just really basic stuff. Very like average a 10 year old can say this. Next, the report talks about how the Democratic Party rebuilt itself in the 90s, how after three consecutive presidential losses, the Democrats embraced a new strategy which got Clinton elected in 1992. And we all know how well that went.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Mm.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Then there's seven pages of summarizing party history from 2008 to 2024. I don't know if he was getting paid by the word, but that's just like. It's just seven pages that just don't need to be there. And then the report reads, quote, we must be careful to draw the right lessons from this experience and not miss opportunities to identify and build upon some of the positives of the 2024 cycle. We must acknowledge how close the margins actually were. The report then goes on to misstate how close the margins were, but. But on the other hand, it goes on to say that in the past 16 years, quote, Democrats have lost ground at every level of government. This remains true even in the face of the blue wave. In the Most recent elections, 2025 Gubernatorial and mayoral wins in Virginia, New Jersey, New York City, Detroit and elsewhere may lead to a false sense of security and a belief the Democratic Party has again found ways to bring voters back to the booth with their messaging. While these wins are welcome and point to optimism entrenched in the major party strategy, a dive into the details shows some of these elections were tighter than Democrats should be comfortable with and points to room for improvement in future efforts, unquote. It never gives this dive into the details. So we don't even know what it's taking there. And to me, this paragraph just demonstrates an unwillingness to understand why some of these elections went the way they did, especially the one in New York City. Doesn't want to acknowledge why someone like Zoran ran such a successful campaign and claiming that the margins were tighter than what Democrats should be comfortable with. Also ignores the fact that Zoron's biggest opponent in both the primary and general election was another Democrat who ran as an independent, someone who was associated with the Democratic establishment. It's a bizarre little tidbit that they throw in there.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

This is so weird, just like a highly unnecessary tangent.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

And it, it just shows this, like, uncomfortableness and, you know, on one side being uncomfortable, on the other side just, you know, also being incurious about why those Elections have gone the way they did.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Yeah.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

And what you can actually learn from them.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

This is baffling.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

I'm not going to go over every single section of the report because there's a lot. And the way that DNC annotated it gets interesting because at a certain point they stop actually trying to address or annotate specific claims. Yeah. And instead just annotate the titles of entire sections. Writing no sourcing provided for several claims in this section and no evidence provided for many claims in this section. Public reporting and data contradict several claims.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Wow.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

The introduction for the what Happened? Electoral Overview section is also completely missing, as well as the National Review section. These are just not included. The author did not provide those sections. The next section, the one on battleground state outcomes, contains very basic factual errors. In just the second sentence, quote states which had consistently and reliably voted for Democratic candidates, including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin voted for Trump, unquote. All these three states voted for Trump in 2016. I don't know if Riviera has a different definition of consistent or reliable, but these are. These are notably swing states and swing states that voted for Trump in 2016.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Yeah.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Just like a lot of little details like that just don't make sense. And later on in this section and beyond, it gets dates wrong, it gets the percentage of votes wrong. It falsely claims that a Capitol Police officer was beaten to death by insurrectionists on January 6th. That's not true. That did not happen. An officer killed himself a few days later, but he was not beaten to death on site at January 6th. The report uses the word gaslighting, which I think is funny.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

I. I just kind of wonder if you like, uploaded this, this to one of the, like, AI softwares to tell you if it's AI or tell you if it was, you know, plagiarized and those kinds of things. How much of it would be flagged?

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Yeah. Who knows, right? Like those. Those sorts of tools aren't the most accurate themselves.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

No. But it's just crazy.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

The level of errors is. Is shocking.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Yeah.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Like for instance, the report claims that in the 2024 election, Democrats netted two seats in the House, flipping 10 seats from Republicans while losing eight. This is not true. This is just not a true claim. Democrats netted one seat rather than two, flipping nine Republican held seats while losing eight Democrat seats. It's like there's just small little errors like that that I'm like, how, how, how did you do this?

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Unbelievable.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

There's also a bunch of just unfounded claims about the Intentions or assumptions coming from the Harris campaign, which may be true, but they're not supported in the actual report. Like, you're not providing evidence, you're not providing citations for some of the claims about what the Harris Party intended in some of their messaging or stances. But I want to move on to one of the biggest takeaways that the report had. It argues that anti Trump sentiment was assumed by Democratic campaigns and that campaign ads should have hit Trump harder to remind voters of how bad he is. Quote, the national campaign did not effectively drive Trump's negatives. The retrospective job approval for Trump was too high, and the campaign and allies failed to remind voters of his incompetence. The idea Trump's negatives were, quote, unquote, baked in is a major failure of analysis and reality, given how his favorability has cratered less than a year into this term. Unquote. The DNC notes that no evidence was provided for these claims and that this claim contradicts claims elsewhere in the report. Because a lot of the report also criticizes Harris for only defining herself as not being Trump, as focusing too much on Trump and not defining herself. So the report kind of tries to have it both ways here. The campaigns did not hit Trump hard enough, but were also too focused on Trump, never illuminating what attacks against Trump should have looked like. Exactly.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Is there any mention in these reports about Epstein? No, no, no, no, no.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Absolutely not.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Yeah, because it was baffling to me that because they needed to have Bill Clinton make the worst speech at the dnc, that they didn't target Trump over his relationship with Epstein at all during the campaign. So, you know, of course it's not in there.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

I mean, yeah, there's a lot of, a lot of things that you could hit Trump on. And a lot of, yeah, Democratic ads, like, did, maybe not in ways that people found convincing. You know, like when we were at the dnc, a lot of the anti Trump stuff was based around like the horror of January 6th.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Yeah.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Not his regular failures as president. Yeah, right. Like, like, like, like the day to day incompetence that he showed as president. It was like Trump is threat to democracy, which just did not turn out to be a compelling enough reason to vote against Trump.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Oh, my goodness.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

The report claims that Harris struggled with defining herself beyond not being Trump and just framing the race as prosecutor versus felon. The report notes, quote, the truncated campaign timeline didn't help, but the campaign did not quickly resolve on how to tag Trump and define Harris. The report says that the enthusiasm gap was predictable. That Trump just generated more enthusiasm than Harris does not provide evidence to support this claim, though some people may believe this to be true. But this claim is not supported in the actual report and it reads, quote, anti Trump sentiment alone was insufficient to motivate voters. The Harris campaign appears to have relied on Trump being unacceptable rather than building an affirmative case for Harris base. Voters needed reasons to vote for Harris as well as vote against Trump. DNC notes no evidence provided for these claims. So, like, I kind of agree with portions of this. I think, I think, yeah, you do need reasons to vote for Harris. You cannot be just defined as not being Trump. This does contradict the previous takeaway that anti Trump sentiment was not driven hard enough into voters. So perhaps this claim isn't necessarily wrong, but it is armchair analysis. It's not actually attempting to substantiate its claims. It's lazy and sloppy. And it ignores that there were also reasons to not vote for Harris. It's not just that the campaign needed to generate reasons to vote for Harris, but it also should have addressed or changed its course to address the reasons that people might not want to vote for Harris, which we will get to at the end of this episode. In terms of the election analysis included in this report, a lot of it is focused on comparing Harris's performance to state level races where Democratic candidates outperformed her, but also where she outperformed them. And the analysis often conflates the two. It reiterates that, quote, lower profile races needed affirmative cases to vote for candidates, not just opposition to Trump. And it credits successful state campaigns to local name recognition and digital presence, things that Harris was not necessarily lacking in. Harris spent a decent amount of money on digital presence and as Vice president had a degree of name recognition. There's more just odd errors here. The report gets the number of 2024 gubernatorial races wrong. It forgets that Delaware had a gubernatorial race. And it focuses much of this section of the report on Josh Stein of North Carolina, who's the governor. Yeah, quote, while Stein was able to keep the governor's office under Democratic control, it is concerning how Robinson was able to capture 45% of the state's vote even after his repudiation of equal rights for everyone and proudly and loudly asserting he was a black Nazi, unquote.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Man, I forgot about that guy. I'm mad that you brought him up. I forgot he existed.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

A lot of the section of this report is actually praising Josh Stein for how well he ran his campaign while also finding it concerning of how much the vote Robinson was Able to still get. Except it gets the number wrong. Robinson did not get 45% of the vote. He got just over 40%. And later in the report, it says he got 42.7%, which is also wrong. So it has two different numbers. The report says 45 and 42.7, neither of which are correct. The correct number is 40 people. There's a lot of stuff like this. This is just kind of baffling. And it's even more baffling because of how much of a load bearing section this Josh Stein bit is. All right, it writes about how Josh Stein ran almost eight points ahead of Harris. And it says that, quote, stein didn't just win by default. He addressed the exact problems Harris did not. But it never actually explains what those are. It doesn't actually explain this. It just says it in a sentence. Later on. It says that based on the North Carolina governor's race, Democrats should, quote, focus less on abstract issues and identity politics and connect with voters on the issues they say matter most, including the economy, disaster relief, and addressing housing affordability, unquote. But the Harris campaign was not actually focused on abstract issues and identity politics. They were trying to address these things, often inadequately, especially on the economy, because of how much Harris had tied herself to Biden. But she did address housing affordability for, like, a decent bit of the campaign. Whether voters actually voted knew that. That's a whole other question. Right? It's whether they were successful in communicating her platform on housing affordability is a different question. But it's not that Stein's success was focused on this as opposed to focusing on abstract issues, which is not really what the Harris campaign was actually focused on. The report continues, quote, harris saw dramatic drops in support among young Latino men and young black men compared to Biden's 2020 performance. However, Stein recovered significant ground with both groups, suggesting his campaign found effective ways to reach these voters. Stein's results suggests it's possible to win women and compete with men with the right approach, unquote. Does it explain how Stein did this?

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

No.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

No, it doesn't.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Of course it doesn't.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

It doesn't say. Now, the report also praises Washington Governor Bob Ferguson, who was elected in 2024, quote, running on a platform of housing affordability. Reducing costs for families throughout the state and improving public safety allowed him to easily capture the governor's office. His message resonated with voters concerned about how biodynomics failed to lower the cost of eggs and how the Trump administration would gut avenues of education and upward mobility. Stein and Ferguson, notably both then incumbent attorneys general for their states, had a definitive strategy to approach voters. Their wins provide a blueprint for candidates in other states seeking to align themselves with their voters, unquote. So Ferguson's win in Washington state is presented as a blueprint for candidates as compared to Harris's failed strategy. But in fact, Ferguson ran almost four points behind Harris. Harris did better in Washington than Ferguson did. But the report promotes Ferguson's strategy or its, its opinion on Ferguson strategy as the winning blueprint despite it doing worse in Washington. So that's what I mean in terms of there being lots of self contradictory claims.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Yeah. Did nobody proofread or edit or peer review?

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Well, no, I think that is a big part of this. Right. Is that once the DNC received this, they saw how bad it was and it was like, we don't even want to proofread and edit this. Like, this is just so bad. We, we just don't even want to deal with it anymore. Like it's just done. Like we're just, we're just putting on the shelf.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

But dude, released anyways.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Well, I mean, they released it after public pressure because of, you know, accusations that they were hiding certain findings that were damaging to the Democratic Party or the interests of party elites.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

No, it's just, it's just that somebody did a bad job when in fact,

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

it's just like, oh, this was just like a massive up. Like that's, that's why you're hiding it.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Right, right.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Like this, this, this section that I just like read. And the section on like Stein. Yeah, that's the only time where the word cost is used in relation to prices. This is, this is the only mention of affordability.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Oh my God.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

The report does not a single time mention inflation.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Oh my God.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Except in adjusting like donation numbers for inflation. But like it does not, it does not mention inflation as an issue. It does not mention the causes of inflation, messaging around inflation and how that may have been a factor contributing to the results of the election. The economy only gets mentioned six times.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Okay. Just thinking back to when we were at the RNC and I, I'm sure you had the conversations with, you know, newly eligible voters, young males.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Yeah.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

And you ask them, you know, why they're voting for Donald Trump. They would always say the economy is the first thing.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

It's the first thing. Yeah. And that's the core of Trump's ad strategy.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

How are they not understanding that, you know, bringing out Oprah at the DNC instead of talking about how you're going to lower the price of milk and eggs and gas and help people get jobs. Like, how are they not realizing that you're not reaching normal human connection?

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

And this like, continues to be a problem now. Right. People will look at macroeconomic factors.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Sure.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

And be like, by some accounts, the economy is actually not doing terrible. But those sorts of statements don't reflect the reality of Americans who are dealing with rising prices and may not be experiencing the same wage growth that some statistics show in the macro sense. And specifically the way that there's this like, condescending messaging around macroeconomics.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Yeah.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

That really, like, polarizes people against you because they're having a very hard time. They don't have a lot of hope for the future and just asserting that actually on a macros level, the economy is doing well. It feels like you're gaslighting them. Right. Yeah. So you see this in like, the discussion of like, you know, the vibe session.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Yeah.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Which I mean, I have a lot of opinions on, but that's, that's, that's another episode.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Oh, man.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

And right now we're gonna go to ads.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Oh, boy.

[George Taveras]

This is George Taveras and Sam Taggart from Stradiolab. Okay, picture it. Your apartment after a Saturday workout. The gym bag, the couch, maybe even the car. Mi amor. It's a full novella of odors and not the glamorous kind.

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[George Taveras]

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[Nick Jonas]

Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

And guess what?

[Nick Jonas]

We have some big News. What's the news?

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Huge news.

[Nick Jonas]

We created our own podcast called hey Jonas.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

We invented a podcast. Podcast.

[Nick Jonas]

Well, we didn't invent it.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

We.

[Nick Jonas]

We just contributed to it.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

First people to do podcasts. Pretty.

[Nick Jonas]

Yeah, Pretty wide range of podcasts, but this one's extra special. So how did we. How do we actually come up with the name hey Jonas? Guys, I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it and, well, we were thinking. I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing a

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

bit for the podcast where people could

[Nick Jonas]

call in and say, hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, hey Jonas. And offered it up as a potential

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

title for the podcast.

[Nick Jonas]

But thanks for remembering that. Guys, listen to hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

We don't care where you hear it.

[Sanjanah Bhasker]

Why is everyone obsessed with romance right now? Like everyone, your co worker who quote unquote doesn't read, is reading romance your mom? Book talk, the entire Internet. I'm Sanjanah bhasker. I'm Tyler McCall. And this is Radio 831, a romance podcast. The books, the tropes, the adaptations, the drama, the discourse, and what all of it says about how we actually love, yearn and obsession. We're going to Wuthering Heights, which, for the record, is not a romance novel. And yet it has haunted the romance genre for 200 years. We're getting into dark romance age gaps, certain Russian hockey players and sentient objects in love, which is a thing. That's the kind of conversation we're having every episode. Listen to the Radio 831 podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

This is Saigon, the story of my family and of the country that shaped us.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

The United States will not stand by

[George Taveras]

and allow any power, however great, take over another country.

[Joseph Sherman]

From iHeart podcasts, Saigon, please allow me

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

to introduce Joseph Sherman. You don't think I'm serious about a free Vietnam? I should stop talking so much.

[Joseph Sherman]

I like hearing one city, a divided country, and the war that tore America apart.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

This is for Vietnam. I've taken a hit from Japanese brown fire. Do you read me?

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

They're pouring petrol all over him. He's holding matches.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

I'm on a landmine for freedom. Let's get out. Freedom for Vietnam.

[Joseph Sherman]

Saigon, starring Kelly Marie Tran and Rob Benedict.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Staying here's Matt. Madness.

[Joe Jonas]

The world should hear about this.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

There's a fire coming to this country and it's going to burn out everything.

[Joseph Sherman]

Listen to Saigon on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Okay, we are back. So after this section talking about the gubernatorial races and stuff, it has a list of strategic implications for Democrats based on these state level races. And these implications are. Anti Trump sentiment has its limits. Irregular voters are swing voters. Candidate definition is essential. Clear accomplishments and concrete plans matter more than vibes. State parties matter. Voters are sophisticated. The 8 to 10% who split tickets are decisive. They evaluate candidates individually. Geographic formula is non negotiable. Strong urban plus competitive suburbs plus limited rural losses. You need all three. Unquote. Yeah, no shit. In order to win elections, you must win elections. Yeah, that's what this is saying, is that in order to win elections, you have to win the election. Yeah, we know, we know.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Yeah. There's this, there's this announcer in the NBA that got slammed many years back for stating, well, you know, the team with the most points at the end of the game wins. And that's exactly what this is. They're like, hey, if you get more votes than the other guy, you win. It's crazy, it's lazy that this whole, this whole thing reeks of just like.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Yes.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Lackadaisical, insufferable laziness.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Yes. I want to mention two, two other strategic implications, please. One, elections remain winnable with the right candidates and strategies, even in difficult environments. Demographics are tendencies, not destiny. And voter support is impacted, good and bad through campaign choices. Unquote.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Wow. Thank you so much for, for saying that. If people.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Genius.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

If people believe in and like the candidate, maybe they'll vote for them. Wow.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Voter support is impacted through campaign choices.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Just, just. Oh my goodness.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

So that's obviously laughable.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Yes.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

This last one is more interesting. Male voters require direct engagement. The gender gap can be narrowed. Deploy male messengers, address economic concerns and don't assume identity politics will hold male voters of color.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Men hate women.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Men hate women. It's not the messenger. It's not the messenger, it's the message. It's not about who the messenger is, it's the message itself. And they can't grasp that.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Why is that their take?

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

They're doing the same. Identity politics.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Yes.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

That it's that. It's like trying to critique. It's like, no, we need men to talk to male voters. That's the only way. That's also identity politics. You don't understand that. It's not about who's giving the message. It's about what the message actually is. How did white dudes for Harris work out? You literally tried this. You literally tried to do this. It did not work.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Carrison, once again, I did block that out of my brain. I did not like hearing it. Yeah. Their take is, sorry, if you want to talk to the boys, you also have to be a boy.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

It's crazy.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

What? It's lazy. It's stupid. God. All right, what else hit me? I know that you're saving some of the worst for the end.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Yeah, I am saving some of the bad stuff for last. There's a few other small errors I want to go through. Like, let's do it. Like, it claims that tens of thousands of voters in a handful of states are who sent Trump back to the White House. That's not, that's not accurate. That's just. That's just not inaccurate. In the DNC notes, what happened at all?

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Okay.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

And out of 34 Senate races, the report only reviews six of them, which it attempts to extrapolate a pattern from. And it does not review Wisconsin, a key swing state. And the author also just did not include this section on House races. This section is completely blank. It's also missing.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Cool, cool.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Now, it does have a list of, you know, lessons that we can learn from Senate level and state level races. The positive ones are that Democrats should maintain a year around presence. We should kind of always be campaigning. Don't just wait till the end. Just always keep a level of engagement. And that engagement should be community oriented. It should be grassroots in nature. You should be establishing partnerships with local community organizations and groups in working class communities because member to member outreach is more effective. Rather than having strangers do door knocking, you should have people from that neighborhood be door knocking in their own neighborhoods. And their messaging should be bilingual and culturally competent. So, like, all this stuff is like, yeah, like, I, I sure. This is like, I kind of agree. Right? This is like, yeah, very, very basic. But yes, this is, this is a good idea. You should strengthen your connections in Latino neighborhoods and with unions, and you should lean on those to help win elections. Yep. That's how politics works.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

You learn very young. Stranger danger. And so it's like if you are someone like me who has cameras at their house and you see a strange person coming to your door, you're not necessarily going to answer that.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

No. Someone with a clipboard is going to approach me, it's like, no way. And I'm not doing it.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

I can't. You're, I'm already overstimulated. Please leave me on. But if it's like, oh hey, it's my neighbor, yeah, I'm going to open the door for them and hear them out. That's, I fear that's just common sense. I don't think that was necessarily needed in this report. That's common sense, but it's something I don't disagree with for like the first time. And all these things that you said

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

now, the sort of negative things that the Democrats can learn from.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Yeah.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Include what the report calls the leadership voter gap. The fact that the Democratic Party leadership seems increasingly alienated from the priorities of voters. And voters may still support their local Democrat on the state level or local, local races, but maybe we'll vote for Trump because he's offering an alternative to the stagnating corpse of the Democratic Party, even if that alternative turns out to be also terrible and in some ways worse. So this is what they call the leadership voter gap. They also identify late engagement, doing the bulk of your campaigning from like September to November, seeding the entire summer for the Republicans to establish kind of the territory of the race, like what the issues are. The report mentions messaging misalignment. This is similar to the leadership voter gap where there's tensions between the leadership of the party or the concerns of the president and what working class Americans are concerned about. Quote, the Bidenomics framing emphasized macro statistics rather than the micro realities voters experienced daily and specifically tied President Biden by name to actual economic anxiety, unquote. I think that's completely fair. Another of the key challenges is Republican inroads with working class voters. This section has a typo, so it's kind of hard to read, but it

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

essentially states there's so many typos.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

But it essentially states that the Trump campaign targeted working class households with populous messaging which distracted from his anti worker record. And working class men, particularly manufacturing and construction, saw Trump as more aligned with their cultural values than Democratic candidates. To condense these down, Democrats need to have a year round presence, more economic messaging and address cost of living concerns that resonate more than quote, unquote, identity politics. This is kind of where the actual election analysis portion of the document ends. The rest of the document is on how to more effectively spend campaign funds. Debating door knocking versus text and phone banking, addressing dropping voter registration rates, comparing media and ad spending, digital versus TV ads.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Is there anything interesting in those findings?

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

No. Not really.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Okay.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

It's filling. It's filling the page count. Like the Democrats got a lot of money. The problem isn't the funds. We have the funds. It's that there's small ways that you can use them better. And sure, yeah. But all of this is just treating the symptom of not the problem. The problem wasn't that you were spending more on digital and not enough on broadcast. The problem was the candidate and the message, not differences in ad spending.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

It's not that you. You had ads running. It's that the ads you had running weren't connecting with the people whose votes you needed, the people that were going to vote for you already. That's who those ads were targeting to. As opposed to bringing in voters who were like, oh, man, I'm really not sure. Trump was pretty bad last time. I'm on the fence here. Or just first time voters.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

The first time voter registration was. Was down significantly.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Yeah. The fact that you ran ads in certain places, that was not the problem.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

No.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

You weren't advertising to the people that needed to be advertised to. Your messaging was wrong.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

And there's. Yeah, there's this more core issue that people did not get to actually pick the Democratic nominee. And the Democratic nominee had a lot of issues and direct ties to the many failures of the Biden administration. Which brings us to our final section here, I'm afraid. Based on three polling studies, the campaign pollsters concluded that it was, quote, important for the vice president to find separation from the status quo. They recognized voters were looking for change and felt it was necessary to find ways to demonstrate how a Harris Walls administration would be more effective in addressing American needs. The pollsters acknowledged the loyalty demonstrated by the vice president, but also suggested it was contrary to strong signals in their data about how even measured breaks would help position the vice president to win, unquote. And the vice president Harris did not do these measured breaks. She remained extremely loyal to the legacy of the Biden administration while she was vice president and while she was campaigning for president in 2024. Now, these campaign pollsters were also part of discussions on how to respond to Trump attack ads. Quote. In particular, the attack ad focused on the vice president's prior statements on transgendered Americans. You can't call him that, bro. They all recognized the attack as very effective and felt the campaign was boxed in. The ad was a video of her saying what she said, and it was framed as an attack on her economic priorities. If the vice president would not change her position, and she did not, then there was nothing, which would have worked as a response, unquote. This polling section's also missing its conclusion, but let's get into that a little bit more.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Okay.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Before the autopsy was released, Rob Flattery. I'm gonna say flattery. I don't know what it actually is, but I'm calling it flattery. He was Harris's deputy campaign manager, and he wrote an article in the Bulwark about what he said in his autopsy interview, also noting he was one of the few Harris staffers who was actually interviewed. Flattery argued the main issue of the 2024 campaign was branding, and he clarified that the Kamala is for they them ad was not actually the most effective attack ad. According to campaign data, it was the Trump ad from July 2024 with clips of Harris saying that, quote, unquote, bidenomics is working. Flattery wrote that, quote, the brilliance of the Trump team's ad strategy was that everything was a proof point that leveled up to a core narrative. She cares about liberal shit, not you. Her position on immigrants, she's focused on the wrong thing. Harris talking about trans prisoners focused on the wrong thing. Says Bidenomics is working. Focused on the wrong stuff. It was brands, not messages. The trans ad worked because of what it implied, not what it said, unquote. Rob Flattery, like the autopsy, insists that there was no way to directly respond to the Kamala is for they them Trump is for you ad, claiming that they tested five to six response ads against ads about the economy, and the economy ones tested better, quote, so, not wanting to make the fight about an issue we were losing, we talked about the economy more. A literal rebuttal would have been a loser. I absolutely stand by this decision. Look at the 2025 elections in Virginia where Republicans made trans issues the core of their advertising strategy. It failed because voters didn't find it relevant, unquote. Except that's exactly what Trump did with the they them ad. That was a big part of his ad strategy as well. So there's this sort of learned helplessness with how to address both, like, the trans issues as well as the Israel, Palestine stuff, which we'll get to in one sec. Like Harris not seriously addressing the they them admiration also did not seem to help. And you don't need to run an ad directly opposing that slop, but through media appearances, you can pull the old Uno reverso while affirming that you'll stand up for the rights of all Americans, no matter their gender or race. And that includes making health care more affordable and more Accessible. And it's Trump and the Republicans who are focusing on bullying a disadvantaged small minority of Americans to distract from the fact that they have no real economic plan. You can talk about the economy while still standing up for trans people. It doesn't need to be the focus of your campaign, but it sure as hell was a key focus of Trump's campaign, and you not addressing it did not help and contributed to real harm and negative polarization against trans people.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Yeah, I mean, a trans person did not speak at the 2024 DNC, which was weird and not normal. Trans people have spoken at many DNC conventions in the past, but in the 2024. Nope. And trans issues were barely even mentioned. Largely absent.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

And like, it doesn't need to be a key issue, but the fact that Republicans made it, made it a key issue means that it is worth addressing in some way and affirming that you will actually stand up for the rights of trans people. Beyond making very kind of vague, confusing statements like Kamala made, that she'll follow the law. That's which just does not make sense to anyone. This sort of learned helplessness around, like, not being able to address these issues. This is the same thing with Palestine. Yes, Altering course is simply not considered possible and in par with Palestine. Because Harris was the vice president. Flattery wrote, quote. Given the Biden administration's position, Gaza was an impossible issue to communicate around. Protesters drove coverage away from campaign events. Digital creators or even supporters were afraid to say anything nice about Biden because their comments sections would get rocked. For many voters watching the horrific, painful footage out of Gaza, it became a moral question, one we didn't have a good answer for. In ways that may not be reflected in a poll. It meaningfully reduced enthusiasm. As one person from the campaign told me. We spent the entire election with a giant rotting fish around our necks.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Is Joe Biden the giant rotting fish?

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Well, no, I mean, it's. I mean, in part, yes, but like the genocide in Gaza, like. Like this, like, you know, well documented mass death.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

They didn't let a Palestinian person speak at the DNC either. They had. They had one panel on it, which I attended. It was phenomenal. It was the largest attended panel of the convention. And then they refused to let a Palestinian person speak.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

I mean, even beyond just letting people speak, it's like there was no real plan to actually stop this from happening. Like, you can. You can cut off aid to Israel. You can do serious things. You can. You cannot send them weapons. You can take away weapons. You can do more things Things, as we've seen, America is not afraid to occupy territories in that region. You could literally invade and be like, no, you have to stop. But, like, the. Not being able to even consider that you could have an answer for this moral question. You. You could just change your position. Not being able to even consider that. And the compounding difficulty of Harris being in the VP role made this the giant rotting fish around the campaign's neck. Yeah. And the fact that the autopsy does not actually address this question, and flattery does, I think, is another damning indictment against the autopsy and its sheer incompetence of the deputy campaign manager himself acknowledging that this was a serious. A serious issue that meaningfully reduced enthusiasm. And like, the whole deal in this Bulwark article is that politics is now about brands, not messages. And this is kind of silly, right? Because these two things are related. Yeah. But the brand of the Harris campaign was largely defined as not being Trump and just being more of the same, which in 2024, wasn't exactly great.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

No.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Another of Trump's main ads featured a clip of Harris saying that she wouldn't have done anything different from Biden. So the branding issue certainly wasn't helped by. By the campaign's unwillingness to sever ties with Biden and criticize his policy.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

No.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Flattery argues that would have been hard, if not impossible, because of Kamala's position as sitting vice president. If she doesn't go against Biden's policy, it puts fractures within the party and the White House itself. But also it would demonstrate how she effectively held no power as vice president. So, like, there is. There is these issues, but if you actually have principles, that would not actually be an issue. You could just blaze through that. You could actually take the real correct stance on issues like Palestine and acknowledge the massive failures that the administration had. And you are now going against the status quo of the administration despite being the vice president. Right. That. That could have been an option, one that was just never actually considered for whatever reason. Right.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

I mean, statistically speaking, at that time, Joe Biden was. Had a very low approval rating. And so, you know, Kamala running as the pro Joe candidate doesn't really resonate with voters because they're unhappy.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Yeah, exactly Right. And if your message is just more of the same, then it seems pretty easy for your opponents to define what your brand is.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

And whenever she tried to say, you know, I'm gonna change this, I'm gonna change that, they were like, but you're in office now.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

And like, Harris herself did not actually Campaign on like, progressive immigration policies. She did not campaign on trans rights. She didn't campaign on identity politics.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

No.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

But in absence of a real message, it's all too easy to associate the campaign with the concerns of like, liberal elites disconnected from the economic realities of most Americans. And her previous statements on Bidenomics and how she wouldn't have done anything differently. Absolutely. Compounded this flattery, wrote that the campaign underestimated just how disillusioned people were and the widespread degree of anti institutionalism. But unlike the autopsy, he at least acknowledges Biden should have never have run for reelection in the first place and that Democrats should have run a real primary which would have provided an opportunity to actually address all of these, you know, issues about feeling tied to the death worshiping aspects of the Biden administration with Kamala being the vp. Yeah. Now, speaking of the autopsy, let's get to the final sections of the autopsy.

[Joe Jonas]

Yeah.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Near the end of the report, a paragraph reads, building to win requires new thinking and building to last requires thinking about more than the next election. It requires finding the best way to, to connect with the right voters in the right places. And if 2024 has proven anything, there is enough money to do it all the right way. And that's kind of the end. That's not the conclusion of the report because the final conclusion section is left blank.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Super.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

It's missing as well. So that sentence is kind of the last piece of analysis because it actually has no conclusion. I think that's the perfect, the perfect representation of what this report is is that it does not have a conclusion. It's literally missing the conclusion. There is very little you can actually take away from this report positively to improve election strategy going forward because there is no conclusion anyway. That's the, that's the 2024 autopsy that turns out was real, but was just

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

really bad and didn't address anything real.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

No, did not address what I, I would argue were the key issues affecting the campaign, Biden's decision to run again, his age, the lack of a primary, and Israel, Palestine.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Yeah, that. And honestly, people like to choose their

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

candidate in a democracy, really.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

And this entire thing really is very frustrating because who knows when a non CIS male will be the candidate again after that.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Yeah. I mean, at this point, I think anyone who can address serious economic as well as these moral issues. Right. Like imperialism and the US military is going to serve a better, a better chance.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

Yeah.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

Because that is the, the situation we have, we have found ourselves, themselves in. Yeah.

[Co-host (It Could Happen Here)]

The Democratic National Committee. It's a bummer. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzone media.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in Episode Descriptions. Thanks for listening.

[Joe Jonas]

Number one hits, Millions of records sold Awards Sold out tours. You think the Jonas Brothers are satisfied? Nope. It's podcast time.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions.

[Joe Jonas]

Hey Jonas is available now and their first guest is a big one, Paul Rudd.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

You know, Steve Carell is a great singer.

[Nick Jonas]

Didn't he tell you not to audition at the office or something? I told him, whoa, we were filming Anchorman. Clearly I was the idiot.

[George Taveras]

Thank God he he didn't listen to them, right?

[Joe Jonas]

Listen to hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Host 1 (It Could Happen Here)]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Sanjanah Bhasker]

Guaranteed Human.