Draft for Publish on 2025-10-23

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Offline with Jon Favreau" — Episode Released October 23, 2025

Main Theme:
Is the Internet Breaking Our Brains? How Attention, Media, and Communication Are Reshaping Politics

Jon Favreau sits down with Chris Hayes, host of MSNBC’s “All In” and author of "The Sirens Call," to dissect how the shifting landscape of attention and digital media is transforming American politics—especially for the Democratic Party. The discussion interweaves the lessons of the 2024 elections, the decline of paid media’s efficacy, the risks and opportunities of viral communication, and the demands for a new kind of political candidate. The conversation pivots from campaign strategy to political psychology, candidate selection, and the broader question of how we connect—if at all—in an age of fragmented, ceaseless, online stimulus.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Democratic Party’s Attention Problem

• Kamala Harris as Case Study (04:00–07:00):
  Chris Hayes posits that Harris’s core problem “was not her message… It was an inability to get enough people to hear it.” The 2024 swing toward Trump was significantly pronounced in states with little to no campaign presence or advertising, highlighting that “unless people are hearing that message, unless you’re somehow breaking through, the message is not going to matter that much.”
  [Chris Hayes, 05:49]:

  “From 2024… unless people are hearing that message, unless you’re somehow breaking through, the message is not going to matter that much.”

2. Paid vs. Earned Media: The Evolving Game

• The Waning Power of TV Ads (07:02–10:13):
  Campaigns have historically been “vehicles for buying TV ads” (Chris Hayes, 07:43), but that model is degrading. While paid ads still matter, especially among older voters, "money cannot buy attention as reliably or directly as it once could."

  • The challenge and opportunity lie in mastering the new, fragmented paid and earned media ecosystem—including streaming, TikTok, and influencer content.
  • Jon Favreau:

    “I just think that paid media as a whole is just so much less effective... it’s just less authentic for young people.” (10:49–11:46)

• Risk Aversion and Earned Media (12:17–14:49):
  There’s a huge difference in risk:

  “The downside risk of a screw up [with ads] is very low... If you put a candidate on my show… things can go sideways.” (Chris Hayes, 12:26–13:02)
  Professional staff culture, especially in the Democratic Party, tends to default to “prevent defense” and risk aversion.

3. Candidate Recruitment and the Qualities That Matter

• What Parties Look For (14:03–18:00):
  The playbook emphasizes two things: money-raising ability (“Are they rich or have rich friends?”) and bio/resume (military service, Rhodes Scholar, etc.). “Are they good at talking to people? Do they have riz?” ranks much lower.
  Favreau echoes:

  “I can't tell if it is a supply problem or a recruitment issue... Are they just not caring about it?” (18:35–19:11)

• Fundraising as a Gatekeeper (19:23–20:14):
  The ability to raise millions severely limits the pool of potential candidates. This dynamic affects both parties—Hayes brings up Mitch McConnell’s recruitment mistakes, too.

4. Authenticity, Risk, and Attention: The Modern Candidate Dilemma

• Quality vs. Quantity of Content (36:33–37:56):
  Always be posting—but does quantity outweigh the risk of occasional cringe?

  “No one's keeping a batting average… but a level of basic quality control is necessary.” (Jon Favreau, 36:50–37:44)

• Negative Attention, Resilience, and the Trump Factor (27:42–30:53):
  Trump’s feral, pathological need for attention is unique, but his upbringing in 1980s NYC tabloids primed him for “the casino, tabloid, algorithmic social media” world. Negative attention, rage-bait, and “setting yourself on fire every day” make it easier to break through, but these are structurally antithetical to functional, pro-democracy messaging.

• Humor, Inspiration, and New Innovations (33:01–34:02):
  Humor remains powerful (“Trump’s secret weapon”), and authenticity inspires—but both are hard to fake. Chris points to the innovations of Zora Mamdani (candidate-as-interviewer) and Jeff Jackson (TikTok explainer videos) as new, non-rage-bait paths to attention.

5. Lessons from Recent Campaigns and the Graham Platner Case

• The Graham Platner Drama (52:00–59:59):
  Platner, a Democratic candidate with a controversial tattoo (alleged Nazi symbol), becomes a test case for whether “negative attention” is terminal in the primary and the general. Hayes draws parallels to Tea Party insurgents defeating establishment picks to the party’s detriment (Mike Castle/Christine O’Donnell).
  Hayes:

  “Does this hurt him in the primary? … he’s up 30 points. That shocked me.” (54:28–54:47)
  Jon Favreau:
  “I would never have guessed that the margin would be that big… does negative attention mean as much anymore?” (54:33–54:47, paraphrased)

• Charisma, Message, and the “Median Candidate” (47:11–51:05):
  Not everyone can be AOC or Mamdani, but “it does have to be optimized for the bell curve of talent.” Still, when a candidate is genuinely and fluently authentic, it’s palpable—versus reading the “polling memo."

• Taking Swings When Down (22:08–24:00):
  Using a football metaphor, Hayes underscores:

  “If you’re up by three touchdowns, you don’t risk it. If you’re down, you gotta throw the ball. A lot of confusion in campaigns comes from not knowing which you are.”

6. Broader Implications: How Do Democrats Escape the Trap?

• Go Everywhere, Reps Matter (34:02–36:16):
  Candidates need continuous exposure and practice to get better at high-wire communication. AOC and Obama both improved over time with “reps.”

• Different Strategies for Different Levels (40:34–41:23):
  For Congress or President, attention strategies rule; for city council or school board, “go viral” doesn’t work—door knocking and local mailings still matter most.

• Core Takeaway for 2028 and Beyond (63:43–66:44):
  For the presidential race, communication skills must be at the top of the list for candidate selection.
  Jon Favreau:

  “If you can’t grab and keep someone’s attention, I don’t know how that person wins the presidency.” (63:48–64:03)
  Hayes:
  “At the national level... attention is so important. It matters the most at the presidential level.” (64:03–64:21)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Chris Hayes (05:49):

  “Unless people are hearing that message, unless you’re somehow breaking through, the message is not going to matter that much.”

• Jon Favreau (11:46):

  “I'd rather put my candidate on your show… than buy an ad on your show.”

• Chris Hayes (13:08 & 18:00):

  "There is a very intense risk aversion [among] Democratic party staff culture."
  "If you go into a district and you think, who can raise $2 million… there’s not a lot of people."

• Chris Hayes on Trump’s Attentional Edge (27:49):

  "He has a kind of feral, pathological need [for attention] that's not replicable... He honed his skill in a particular environment that's now all of ours, all the time."

• Chris Hayes (31:38):

  “Algorithmic social media, competitive attention marketplaces, they look like Times Square casinos and tabloid checkout counters. That's what they are. And that's Donald Trump right there.”

• Jon Favreau (63:48):

  “If you can't grab and keep someone's attention, I don't know how that person wins the presidency.”

---

Important Segments & Timestamps

• Paid Media vs. Earned Media: 07:00–13:00
• Candidate Recruitment Flaws & Fixes: 14:00–20:00
• Risk Aversion, Quality vs. Quantity of Content: 21:00–37:00
• Trump and the “Attention Casino” Era: 27:42–32:00
• Lessons from AOC, Mamdani, and Jeff Jackson: 32:00–34:49
• Local vs. National Campaign Attention Tactics: 40:34–41:23
• The Graham Platner Test Case: 52:00–59:59
• What’s Needed in 2028: 63:43–66:44

---

Closing Thoughts

The episode crackles with tension around a central, uncomfortable truth: the old ways of reaching voters—through massive fundraising and polished messaging—aren’t working as they used to. In an age of hyper-fragmented attention, only the inventive, risky, and often messy approach stands a chance, especially for Democrats. The party must prioritize recruiting and nurturing communicators who can break through the noise—with all the risks that entails—or risk ceding the stage to those who thrive in chaos.

“The message doesn’t matter if nobody hears it. And in the TikTok era, only the truly interesting or daring get heard at all.”

For any campaigner, strategist, or voter hoping to “fix” democracy, this is vital listening.

---

Guests:

• Chris Hayes (MSNBC, author of "The Sirens Call")
• Host: Jon Favreau

Listen on all platforms and Crooked Media’s YouTube. New episodes every Thursday.

Transcript

[Jon Favreau]

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[Chris Hayes]

When they're recruiting candidates, they are looking for, number one thing, can they raise.

The money, which is are they personally rich? Do they have rich friends? Number two is bio resume, basically, you know, high name recognition because, you know, they're a sitting elected statewide person or.

They were a Marine and a Rhodes scholar and they, you know, know now they're a neurosurgeon, whatever. Are they good at talking to people? Are they good at getting attention? Do they have riz that actually doesn't rate that high in the candidate recruitment playbook. And so part of this too is about thinking about candidates in a little bit of a different way because those staffers are probably correct that some of the people that have been recruited you don't want going two hours unscripted in a podcast Foreign.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm Jon Favreau and you just heard from friend of the pod, Chris Hayes, the host of MSNBC's All in with Chris Hayes and the author of many books, including his latest the Sirens Call, which he talked about last time he was here. The Sirens Call is about our attention, why the competition for it has become so fierce, and the implications of that dynamic for just about everything. This week Chris wrote a piece about attention for the New York Times that caught my eye because it's about why Democrats have been losing the war for people's attention and how they might be able to change that. This is something I've been thinking about and talking about quite a bit, especially since 2024. And I've become especially frustrated with party leadership for not making it a higher priority to find and support candidates who have an aptitude for communicating and connecting with people in. In a way that gets and holds their attention. Sounds obvious. And yet here we are. Anyway, Chris and I get into all of it. Lessons from 2024, Trump, Mamdani, Obama, AOC and of course, the Graham Platner drama.

Spoiler.

We solved everything. And just a heads up, you may have noticed that this episode came out on Saturday morning, which is our new and hopefully permanent time slot. We figured we'd give you all weekend to listen to the show while you're hopefully resting, walking, and not looking at your phone, except to find this podcast, of course. Okay, now for my conversation with Chris Hayes.

Chris, welcome back.

[Chris Hayes]

It's great to be back.

[Jon Favreau]

Last time you were on, we, we talked about your outstanding book on attention Sirens Call. Still one of my favorite books this year.

[Chris Hayes]

Thank you.

[Jon Favreau]

Also, apparently Barack Obama's.

[Chris Hayes]

Barack Obama also liked it, which was pretty awesome.

That I will say. That was pretty cool.

I loved this year he made an.

Addition to his picks list where he.

Had like little hand written reviews. But I was digging it, putting a.

[Jon Favreau]

Lot of time into something my phone blew up.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, that was cool.

[Jon Favreau]

So this time I wanted to talk to you about a piece you wrote for the New York Times this week as part of a series they're doing on the future of the Democratic Party. So your piece is also about attention, but in the specific context of why Democrats need to focus on getting more of it. You start by arguing that Kamala Harris's quote, core problem was not her message, however imperfect it might have been. It was an inability to get enough people to hear it. Maybe you can start by making the case as to why you think Harris's message was less of a problem than her getting attention.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, I mean, I think it's really.

Important to ground analysis what went wrong in 2024 in the results. Right.

And one of the things you saw was the swing towards Trump in uncontested states.

There's effectively no campaign, there's no local ad buys, there's no local events.

Was larger and sometimes really considerably larger than the swing towards Trump in the swing states. Where there was a campaign, which is to say, take away the campaigns and the attentional information environment, plus inflation and.

The just state of the country was.

Pushing towards Trump and the campaign in the states, that it was spending $2 billion actually seems to be fairly effective in moving that back a few points. Yeah, I think it's important to recognize that because I think it so much can be chalked up to the campaign. But like, why was New Jersey, New.

York and California, these enormous swings to Donald Trump?

And that's where they weren't.

No one saw any Kamala Harris ads. Right. No one saw the candidate.

So my point is, yes, I think.

The arguments about both the issues Democrats.

Stand for, the coalition and the big tent, the message are all really important and useful. But one of the big takeaways, I.

Think, from the campaign is from 2024.

Is unless people are hearing that message, unless you're somehow breaking through, the message is not going to matter that much. And that is an enormous thing for not just national candidates to figure out, but I think from president down to.

Basically the congressional level, everyone's got to have a theory of attention.

[Jon Favreau]

This is obviously tough to unpack, but I want to try to do it, which is like, you could also argue though, that if the, if the message itself had been more compelling, even in the, in the swing states, then more people would have spread it, shared it.

[Chris Hayes]

Yes.

[Jon Favreau]

More people would have heard it. So, like, I always try to figure out how to figure out the interplay between the message itself and what actually generates attention. Isn't it the message itself that generates attention or lack thereof.

[Chris Hayes]

So that's a good point, what I'm trying to talk about here. And I think it's useful to talk about this distinction between what we called paid and earned media. Right. So in campaigns, these two categories, paid media is the ads you buy, mailers, radio ads, and mostly television. Earned media is the interviews you give and the media events you do. Press conferences you do, campaign events. Let's just talk for a moment about.

Paid media, and I think you'll agree.

With this, although I'm curious to hear how you see it. As someone who has worked in the.

Trenches, I don't think people outside politics.

Understand how much for the last 20.

Or 30 or 40 years, what campaigning.

Is raising a ton of money and spending that money on TV ads.

In the same way that Paul Krugman.

Once said the US Government is like a social insurance program with an army attached. And like, because basically our large entitlement programs and Defense department are like 85% of the budget. A campaign is a vehicle to purchase TV ads.

And so what that means is that exists because the TV ad solves an attentional problem. How do you get people's attention? I'm running for office. How do you know about it?

I buy TV ads.

And one of the points that I'm making in the piece is that model really worked pretty well.

It's just degrading.

And because it's degrading, you have to be thinking about how are you reaching people that aren't seeing your ads, which if you're buying them on local news.

Right, on networks, is a larger and.

Larger share of the electorate, particularly young people. So go back to your point. I think the paid ads were pretty good. They tended to be, I think, pretty effective. The earned media, the strategy to get that message out into the ecosystem more.

Broadly, I think was deficient.

[Jon Favreau]

There is an implication in talking about the sort of like how paid media is not as effective as it once was, which is, and you say this in the piece, and I think this might surprise a lot of people, especially people who follow politics closely, which is that money cannot buy attention as reliably or directly as it once could. And I think the implications there are. It means that fundraising in this new world might not be as important. It could mitigate some of the. The damage that Citizens United has unleashed on our campaign finance system, or at least even the playing field for candidates who don't have a lot of money but do have a lot of aptitude for getting attention.

[Chris Hayes]

Yes, I think all of those things are true. I think it. It remains to be seen how this all plays out. So we're sort of at a strange hinge point, right?

Lots of people still watch tv.

There's this sort of tendency to kind of over read the death of television. I know this because I work in television and I still have a TV show and I talk to 5 million.

People a week, like there's people watching.

But clearly it's changing profoundly and the old model's coming apart. And so the question becomes, I think you'll see two things.

One is, I think you're going to.

Start to see ads crop up in a lot of other places, right? So if the streaming services start doing more and more ads, well, then if you can geotarget in a congressional district to the people who are on Netflix.

Particularly if you can kind of demographically model who's probably a swing voter, or.

You can even better buy that data, right?

That's a huge new area.

We might Start to see, we might start to see more ads on TikTok.

So there are ways in which the.

Paid ad world might adapt to these changes.

But I also think that that first point you made, which is if you're good at getting attention in earn media.

Through all sorts of different ways, right. Vertical video like Zora Momdani, TikTok as Jeff Jackson did in down in North Carolina, you have avenues to reach people that you didn't have before and that.

Also sidestep some of the obstacles you.

Might have faced previously.

[Jon Favreau]

I have a take on this that is unsupported in the sense that I haven't been involved in a campaign for quite some time now since 2012. But I just think that paid media as a whole is just so much less effective. Forget about where you're reaching people. Forget about television versus your banner ads versus your TikTok ads. It feels to me that in this information environment where we are now, especially younger generations, so used to just watching content with people who are just authentic in themselves and a little rough around the edges, that the typical paid media ad, whether you're seeing it on television, whether you're seeing it on your screen, on your phone, it's just I can't imagine that it is as effective as earned media appearances. Like I'd rather put my candidate on your show talking to you. Thank you. And reach the people that you reach.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Then buy an ad on your show for my candidate and like if I had to pick one. Right.

[Chris Hayes]

So A, I totally agree. B, I absolutely share your intuition here.

I want to be humble and say I don't know how testable the hypothesis.

Is and what the data say. So I do want to be humble about this. One thing that I think though that, that I write about in the piece and I think you will really, I think you'll agree with, is to go back to that thought experiment.

Do I want to book my candidate.

On Chris's show or do I want to buy a 30 second spot?

If you buy a 30 second spot.

The downside risk of a screw up is very low. You tape the ad, you're in an.

Edit room, make sure that every little thing and occasionally you screw up ads as people know. So stuff gets in there, someone looks kind of silly. It it doesn't land the way you think but you have this control.

Also there's an industry of people that.

Get paid for purchasing those ads.

[Jon Favreau]

I was about to say that.

[Chris Hayes]

Who have a direct financial incentive in.

In, in buying ad time.

If you put a candidate on My.

Show or any show or long form.

Podcast like things can go sideways.

They can give an answer that then gets magnified. You can have a moment where you don't look great.

And I think this is true of.

All political professionals, but particularly in the Democratic party, there is a very intense risk aversion. Waltz compared it to playing prevent defense was how he talked about the campaign, which is in football like you're sort of hanging back.

You don't want to give up any long touchdown passes. So you let a lot of little.

Things happen in front of you. And I think there's a very similar kind of mentality through much of the, the political staff culture in Democratic circles, 100%.

[Jon Favreau]

And I think a lot of it stems from not fully trusting the candidate when you have a right. And they'll like when you have, when you have a candidate, you can trust.

[Chris Hayes]

Some people in response to this to say, yeah buddy, it's like, you sure you want to uncork some of the people I've worked for? And my response to that, which I would like to hear your take on is it goes down to the level of candidate recruitment to come back to.

This model that dominates politics.

And I really can't emphasize enough. When they're recruiting candidates, they are looking for number one thing, can they raise.

The money, which is are they personally rich? Do they have rich friends? Do they have a bank account? Number two is bio resume, basically, you know, high name recognition because, you know, they're a sitting elected statewide person or they've got a great story.

They were, you know, they were a Marine and a Rhodes scholar and they, you know, now they're a neurosurgeon, whatever. Are they good at talking to people? Are they good at getting attention? Do they have Riz that actually doesn't rate that high in the candidate recruitment playbook. And so part of this too is about thinking about candidates in a little bit of a different way because those staffers are probably correct that some of the people that have been recruited you don't want going two hours unscripted in a podcast.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Favreau]

I would say along with resume and bio there's other qualification which is do your politics and your issue positions and your ideology match the voters in your district in your state. And I think this is where yeah the dscc, the DCCC especially are like and we're you know we'll talk about this them putting their thumbs on the scales of primaries left and right here but they want a candidate who can win and of course ability to raise money. Good bio but also like politics that aren't too left really is the sometimes too right but mostly too left.

[Chris Hayes]

Totally agree with that.

Although the one thing I would say.

Is it tends to be the case.

That those first two do A lot of that job.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, that is true.

[Chris Hayes]

You know what I mean? It's like, if you're going out to this swing district in Kansas and you want someone, like, are you gonna find someone with, like, a huge fundraising circle.

And, like, a sterling bio who's also, like, a hardcore socialist?

Like, probably not.

So I. But you're right, of course.

And look, no shade on that.

Like, I want to be very clear, like, you could not run Zora Momdani in Sharice David's in Kansas and expect to win. You would lose by 25 points at least. Right. Like, this is real and you should 100% be sensitive to that.

But I also think that, like, that fundraising thing, really, I just think it's.

Always so striking to me as a person who talks for a living, the wide delta of the ability to talk in professional politicians.

[Jon Favreau]

I. I don't understand it. Like, I really don't. And I don't know. I mean, this. I was going to ask you, like, I can't tell if it is a supply problem or it is a, like a recruitment issue. Right. Like, if you talk to the people who are recruiting these candidates, would they just tell you, well, this is who we got. And we can't find really good talkers out there who are normal human beings who don't sound like robots when they. And spitting out talking points. Like, we just can't find them. They're not signing up. Or are they just not. They just don't care about it. Right. Like, I can't tell.

[Chris Hayes]

I can't tell either.

And. And then on top of that, there's also that people who are good talkers get kind of trained into being very talking point machine, you know, cautious.

I mean, look, I really think the.

Fundraising thing is a big part of.

It, because I just think if you go into a district and you think.

Like, who can raise $2 million?

Like, how many people are there anywhere.

That could raise 2 million?

It's not a lot of people, if that's how you start thinking about people. And that really is the first threshold.

For all of these races. And so I think that has a huge effect on who you end up with.

I mean, look, McConnell has used this method.

This isn't just a democratic thing.

McConnell's used this method and he's, you know, he's run some real lemons out there. I mean, yes, yes, Hovdi in. In Wisconsin, which is a totally winnable seat. It's like that guy had the bio.

He had the money personally. He's a rich dude, and he has the fundraising and he had the politics, basically, that was it.

He was not a particularly great candidate because he was not recruited to be.

A guy who could talk compellingly about his vision for the country.

[Jon Favreau]

The other challenge within the Democratic Party on this is so there's at the staff level, people being worried that they can't send their candidate into a two hour podcast. You also, and this is a tough one to tease out, but like, you also hear from consultants who make the ads and who then test the ads. So they're in the polling and they do the ads and they're buying the ads and they get a cut of the ads. So there's a self interest there. And you hear from them that, like, this is very important, that paid ads are still important, that things are changing, but that they're still really effective. And I don't want to dismiss that judgment just based on the fact that there is some self interest there, because both could be true. But I've seen this forever and a lot of these people are like, you know, friends of mine, people I've worked with. But you're sort of like, I don't know. It is a little bit more art than just science in determining whether an ad is an effective way to move a voter.

[Chris Hayes]

Yes, there's a lot of both. And this is the thing about politics always, right? It's always art and science. It's always data and gut. There are people who can create new models and formulas that didn't exist before that you couldn't reverse engineer. And then everyone comes along and is.

Like, okay, now vertical video is a.

Thing like we'll all do vertical video, right?

And part of that is useful evolution. The other thing that I think about.

The risk calculus, right.

Because I do think that a paid.

Ads are still effective in many respects. And I think there's evidence for that.

But I do think the risk factor.

Is a huge part of it.

And one of the things I think is really important to think about is it really matters, the context of whether you think you're winning a race or losing a race in the same way. To go back to the football metaphor.

Yeah.

Like if you're up by three touchdowns.

With three minutes left, you should absolutely run the ball and not take a lot of risks.

If you're down, right, three touchdowns, you got to throw the ball. And there's a lot of confusion. I think, I think sometimes this is the polling, like, are we down or up?

What?

You know, And I think, you know, if you go back to that Main race in.

In 2020 with Sarah Gideon, I think was the candidate against Susan Collins.

Yeah, look, the polling had her up.

Like eight points at some point.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

That was never true. That was. It wasn't like she was up and then she lost. The measurement was wrong. And the measurement being wrong means you.

Take a strategy that's also wrong.

If you're up eight, you're doing something very different than if you're down three. And if you're down three against an incumbent who has shown her ability to win in that state over and over, you gotta take some swings, you gotta throw the ball down the field. You gotta take some risk. And that, to me, is a huge.

Part of this as well.

[Jon Favreau]

But it's like a. It's like an old political cliche that you're always supposed to run like you're 10 points down.

[Chris Hayes]

Right. That's true. Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, maybe it's. Maybe it's old and no longer a cliche because maybe people aren't doing that anymore. But I also wonder if. I mean, the Gideon example is interesting. I wonder if because so many races are so close and within a couple points of each other, and the. In the internal polling might show that as well.

[Chris Hayes]

Yep.

[Jon Favreau]

That. That causes some of the confusion about whether you're up or down. Right. Like, I think if the Harris campaign was looking at all the swing states and they're like, okay, we're up by one or two in Pennsylvania and the blue wall states, we're down one or two. And, you know, so maybe a risk would be bad because it could blow this one point lead we have. That might just be enough right now. I think if you have the mentality, no, we're five points down all the time and we should take a risk, then that's great.

But I also understand, I totally understand.

In the Trump era, the level of, oh, gosh, do we want to take a risk? Because the consequence of taking a risk that doesn't work is what we're living through right now.

So I think there has been extra.

Caution added to Democratic Party staff and consultants in the era of Donald Trump because the stakes are so big.

[Chris Hayes]

I think that's totally true. And I also think that you end up in a situation where, because of that and because there's sort of this war between usually different factions about within a campaign, as I think you would agree. Right. People have different views on stuff.

You know, one of the things you can get trapped doing is the less.

Media you're doing, the less you are out there, the more amplified every individual hit is, and the more possibility there is for some gaffe to go viral or to get a lot of attention totally.

Which then confirms the fears of the people who are urging fewer appearances. Whereas if you say something and then the next day you do five more interviews and the day after that you.

Do five more and you do five more and you get asked about it a bunch and you wipe it away.

Or whatever, the stuff just comes out.

No one can remember anything anymore.

[Jon Favreau]

Which is a huge, which is a really important point. It is.

[Chris Hayes]

And it's, you know, it's like when we think about the Howard Dean Scream, which is the kind of iconic viral moment that wasn't even, it wasn't even anything. He didn't say anything wrong. He didn't do anything wrong. There was literally nothing morally, politically, substantively objectable at all about the way his voice sounded for four seconds on an overdriven microphone.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And it was like, ended the campaign.

[Chris Hayes]

And it was like looped and it was all. Nothing sticks like that anymore. And I do think that that's something.

That the right has internalized a little more than the left has, particularly because Donald Trump is just so sociopathic and.

Like has no remorse. So everyone sort of just fought like, doesn't matter.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Favreau]

Why do you think Donald Trump is so effective at getting attention? What's the formula?

[Chris Hayes]

I mean, I think he has a.

Kind of feral, pathological need for it that's like, not replicable.

[Jon Favreau]

That's what I was going to ask. If you think it's replicable, it's like.

[Chris Hayes]

Why was Napoleon so driven? You know, it's like, I think his.

Psychological brokenness combined with.

And this I think actually is applicable. Coming up, in 1980s New York City.

Tabloids, which was an incredibly competitive media environment. In fact, when you saw Curtis Sliwa.

On the debate stage, if you were watching the New York mayoral elections, I think people had to admit, like, wow, this guy's good at grabbing and keeping attention.

And I'm like, they came up in the same milieu, literally. When I grew up in New York City, two of the people most likely to be on the wood, as they called it at the bus stop in the tabloids was Curtis Lee, Donald Trump.

Man.

Like, these are creatures of a very particular attention environment that is now all of our environment all the time. Yeah, it was very weird back then because it was very competitive. You had three different daily tabloids.

You were fighting for attention among them.

Big controversy, polemics, negative attention, got people's attention, and you could sort of trade off that. So I think he honed his skill in this particular environment that just happens.

To be very good for what we now live.

[Jon Favreau]

I have this theory that it. It's much easier to get attention when you're willing to set yourself on fire every day. People would pay attention to that. It would not necessarily be good for you. It would not necessarily be effective in trying to win a race. But Donald Trump is willing to do that. Right. And he is willing to sort of take on the negative attention as well.

[Chris Hayes]

Yep.

[Jon Favreau]

But I do think that it is especially harder for Democrats because I think the kind of content that is most likely to go viral today and grab our attention. Right. Is content that makes us angry, afraid, more polarized. It tends to be sensational, gossipy, dramatic. Not a lot of nuance, not a lot of gray. And it's basically everything that is antithetical to a functioning democracy.

And so I've always wondered if it.

Makes it especially difficult for the pro democracy party to break through without sort of undermining their political beliefs and political goals.

[Chris Hayes]

It's a really great question. And it gets to a foundational question which I sort of touch on in the book but never quite come out an answer which is, is the current attention marketplace like structurally reactionary?

[Jon Favreau]

Yes.

[Chris Hayes]

Right.

Like is it the case that in.

Highly competitive attention markets what out competes are lurid, base, rage filled kinds of bait? And I think the answer is kind of yes.

So I do think that for instance.

The evening news is structurally reactionary when it comes to crime.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Has been for. And local news especially.

[Chris Hayes]

Look, that's what I mean.

I'm saying local evening news is structurally. Now that's not to say that there are amazing crime.

Like these are people that I have.

Known and respected that no one's doing anything wrong individually.

It is a news story if someone in your city is shot and killed. And in fact the survivors of that and the victims deserve that acknowledgment.

But in the aggregate. Right. Like what it does is it produces.

A kind of reactionary mindset. So part of that is the problem. Yes. Algorithmic social media, competitive intention marketplaces, they look like Times Square casinos and tabloid checkout counters. That's what they are.

[Jon Favreau]

That's.

And that's Donald Trump right there.

[Chris Hayes]

And that's what Donald Trump is. But I will say this. I do think like the Jeff Jackson.

Example that I give in the piece. People talk a lot about AOC and Momdani and you know, the left.

Joe Rogan Jackson's a really interesting case because this guy is. He's a sort of center left Democrat.

His politics are not super left in any way.

And the way that he started going viral on TikTok was just like explaining.

To his constituents what they were doing.

Like, here's what we're doing in Congress today. We got this vote and we gotta take that vote before we do this vote. And it was just like plain spoken and really effective. And I do think to your point of like that to me was going viral in a way that was not.

All of the worst impulses, lowest common denominator. And what I do think is people.

Gotta try stuff to discover what's out there. And the Mamdani innovation of being the.

Interviewer was a brilliant innovation. Brilliant.

That's a new thing. I'd never seen a candidate do that before.

I have never seen A candidate interview people on camera. Brilliant.

I'd never seen someone explain congressional procedure.

And what their day was like. Like Jeff Jackson did, like, you got to try new stuff.

There might be stuff that does work in this format.

And that also isn't rage bait.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. I also think humor works to get attention. If you can pull it off.

[Chris Hayes]

I mean, that's Trump's secret weapon.

It's why when Curry Lake or other.

People try to pull it off, it doesn't work. Cuz they're humorless. DeSantis.

[Jon Favreau]

I think on our side, inspiration can work too, even though, you know, it's a much more cynical time. So that's tricky. You have some advice for Democrats in the piece. Just gonna go through some of them, go everywhere. Right. We sort of talked about this with, with Harris. I do wonder though, like, isn't it weird that you have, you know, you talked about in the piece AOC Mamdani, you brought up Jeff Jackson. I could probably count on two hands how many Democrats I would feel comfortable putting on Rogan. Right. Like, and I'm not the cautious staffer. I think that people need to take risks. But I sort of wondered about that after the whole Kamala Harris Rogan story came out, because I'm like, okay, they did try. It didn't work. Could she have tried harder? And could they have moved the schedule? Yes, they could have. But then I was like, how would that have gone?

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, it's a fair question. James Talarico. I will give a shout out to the, the Texas state senator who's running for Senate in Texas, who, who did go on Rogan and acquitted himself very well.

[Jon Favreau]

If you're worried about your candidate and you don't know that they can go on Rogan, do you send them on anyway? Like, is it better to go and do the two hours that might be a little rough and then that's what people remember. Or is it like, no, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna find, I'm gonna find something else.

[Chris Hayes]

I think that really depends on who the candidate is. Yeah, it really does. And how good they are at talking in that setting.

But it's also a little bit of a reps thing. For instance, it's interesting. I, I do a lot of public.

Speaking, but it's never, I'm never giving speeches and I'm certainly never, I don't think in my life I've ever given a political speech.

And one of the things I've noticed is I'm a pretty good talker and I'm pretty Good at speaking. But I can't do that thing that.

Really good politicians do, which is like, crescendo and like, get to the end and like, the audience gets up and swells.

And that's like a.

That's a particular skill.

If I were running for office and.

I got the reps in, I think I would be able to do that.

So it is a kind of a reps thing.

[Jon Favreau]

That is very true. David Axelrod would always say this about Obama, that when he was a state senator traveling around Illinois, he was not the guy who appeared on the stage in 2004 at the convention and gave that speech and in fact gave pretty lengthy, sometimes quite wonky yes. Speeches and learn to be a really good speaker.

[Chris Hayes]

I don't know if you've ever read the Chicago reader coverage of the Bobby Rush primary, which is just like this, like, nerd professor doofus, like, showing off.

[Jon Favreau]

This is Obama. What are you talking about?

[Chris Hayes]

Obama challenging incumbent, former Black Panther, sort.

Of beloved, iconic figure on the south side, Bobby Rush, and basically getting his ass handed to him. And that really, those contemporaneous accounts of him losing that primary really speaks to.

The fact that, like, he got better and he got better at doing specific things. So I think part of it is if part of what the times demand.

Is just talking a lot to people.

Then you gotta both recruit candidates to do it, but also they gotta do it a lot to get better at doing.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, the reps thing is important. And, you know, one of your pieces of advice is always be posting. Of course. Absolutely. And you note that one thing successful content creators will tell you about excelling in the world of digital attention. There's no penalty for quantity.

[Chris Hayes]

No one's keeping a batting average, which is true, sadly. I mean, I kind of wish we.

Lived in a world in which everyone did less and tried to make it better.

That would. I would love to. I say this as like a cable.

[Jon Favreau]

News host, but this is.

This is my question. So, like, I do wonder if, like, a level of basic quality control is necessary, especially when you're putting out that much content. Because I always think of, like, the people who are only casually consuming political news, and if the moment that they tune in and look at their phone, you have some fucking terribly cringy post or a video clip where, you know, politician sounds like they were trained on the. A Democratic consultant version of ChatGPT.

[Chris Hayes]

Yes.

[Jon Favreau]

Then you might be like, I'm done. I'm not. I'm not coming back to this. But, like, I don't know who knows, maybe then, you know, then Chuck Schumer shows up in your phone again and it's. It's better than the last time, and maybe you change your mind. I don't know.

[Chris Hayes]

Right. I mean, I think that does go.

Back to this idea of how long does the impression last if you're not constantly creating new stuff. I mean, Vance was really interesting to me.

Right. Because Vance is a fairly able talker.

He's quite smooth, but I also think is kind of charmless. It certainly doesn't have the kind of strange charisma that Trump has.

He also just gave a ton of.

Interviews during that Ohio primary. Right. Which was like, again, when people talk about the groups and the groups were the ones that killed off the Kamala.

And because she took position in the primary, all of the really problematic things.

That Vance said and the people he spoke to were in the context where.

He was like, vying with a bunch.

Of other complete right wing fringe figures to win the Republican primary.

And it did come back to bite.

Him, like the cat lady thing and.

Giving the interview with the guy who.

Thinks that the age of consent is too high and, you know, on and on and on.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Even as these sentences come out of my mouth, Right.

[Jon Favreau]

It's like, right, this is the world we're living in.

[Chris Hayes]

This is the world we're living in. Right.

The guy who thinks, and I just think he overcame it by just like talking so much. It just kind of got buried under.

Quantity a little bit. Right.

Don't you feel like that was the case?

[Jon Favreau]

I do. And I wonder if he is making up for the lack of charisma now by just being in everyone's face all the time, which is what he learned from, from Donald Trump. And like, yes, we sort of all make fun of him for, like, like, shitposting all the time. He's just tweeting. He's tweeting, Tweeting at me. Tweeting. He's tweeting at all of us all the time. And it's like, maybe that's helpful in the long run. I don't, I can't tell because maybe people are like, okay, well, he's, you know, he's at least responding to questions. He's out there. He's on Twitter, he's on tv, he's given interviews. I can't tell if that will make up for the clear lack of charisma, at least in relation to Donald Trump that he has, but it is certainly, it's worth thinking about.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah. And I wonder also how, I mean.

Whenever you're talking about this, there's a few caveats too, right. Like none of these rules are universal. And one thing you can always point to is like, look at Roy Cooper, right? In North Carolina. Like, you know, Roy Cooper is perfectly good at talking, but he is a very traditional old school politician.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes.

[Chris Hayes]

He's careful with his words.

He's not doing a ton of viral stuff.

He's not courting negative attention. He was a very popular two term governor, Democratic governor of the state of North Carolina, where he won in really difficult terrain, you know, consecutive elections, and managed to pass the baton to a third straight Democratic governor. That is a huge thing. He left with very high approval ratings and he doesn't do anything that I'm talking about here.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

So there's not one model.

The other thing I would also say is that I really think the stuff.

That I say about attention stops working below a certain level of district. A friend of mine and I were talking about this, whose spouse is actually a state legislator. You can't win a city council race by going viral.

Like, it just, the way the algorithm works is not geolocated enough.

It doesn't work that way. You have to go knock doors and send mail.

And so, like, there's a theory of attention for how you get people to.

Know that you're running in a local race, state rep, state senate, city council, school board, that's like, shake hands at morning drop off, send out four pieces of mail, hit the doors of your staff and your volunteers.

That still works.

And if you think you're gonna like.

Game that online, like, I really think.

That'S not gonna work.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, it also, I'm, I'm fascinated to see how Roy Cooper does running a national race statewide, but national in this media environment.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Because I think that if he, if he does well, I think that's a very good data point that would make me rethink at least some of the attentional dynamics.

[Chris Hayes]

It does. Although the one thing that I would say about that is in the same.

Way, it matters, Right. Are you winning or are you losing? About how you, you know, what your strategy is. If you have 100% name recognition among your voters, you're just in a different attentional environment, what you need from them.

If you're trying to take on an incumbent.

If you're Graham Platner or whoever, it's.

Like, how does anyone know he's running? This guy was the governor for eight years. So he just has a very different mission. And to Schumer's credit, I think that's.

One of the things they look for. Right.

That's a good recruitment. I don't think Anyone could possibly second guess Roy Cooper.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Chris Hayes]

Are you.

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[Jon Favreau]

You mentioned Mamdani and those videos and him interviewing people. Why do you think that worked? Like, from an attentional standpoint, Like, I've been wondering that myself. Because it's unique. I hadn't seen it before. It is very watchable. He seems very reasonable. He seems genuinely curious talking to the people that he's interviewing. I don't know.

[Chris Hayes]

One, he has charisma. You know, he's. He's a charismatic dude, and that's a huge part of why it worked. Two, they're very well done, the videos. Like, they're like, technically, they are quite assured. They do not feel schlocky. They feel tight. So there's some real craftspeople working on those.

And then three, that first one, which is the first time that I knew there was this Democratic socialist assemblyman in the. What's sort of tongue in cheek called.

The Commie corridor in New York City, which is a certain section of northern Brooklyn and Queens where a lot of sort of DSA activism and intellectual success has come out of.

Yeah, I sort of generally knew, but I didn't even.

I don't think I even knew what he looked like.

And then that video where he goes.

To two different districts, one in the Queens and one in Bronx, actually in Fordham road, which had two of the biggest pro Trump swings in 2024 to talk to people about perfectly grabbed the zeitgeist.

And the fact that he was not.

Front and center, but other people were.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Was so smart, but also super manipulative because I watched the video and then it was like, okay, well, this is interesting. And then it's like, oh, I'm running. You're like, well, wait a second, what interviews did you edit out? I was like, oh, this is just propaganda for your campaign. You're not doing journalism. You're not like, it's like, who knows what the things that got left on.

The cutting room floor said.

But as messaging, it was so powerful to hear those people.

[Jon Favreau]

I think that's part of it though, because if you knew he was running, you would think this is another ambitious, self interested politician doing this. So I'm going to take it with a grain of salt.

[Chris Hayes]

Totally.

But it was completely disguised.

Right.

The end is a reveal.

I really thought it was like a journalist, I guess, or an influencer doing it.

And then at the end it's like, this is why I'm like, oh, wow.

I was like, wow, that was clever.

[Jon Favreau]

There. There was this very online debate, as most of them are after AOC1, where, you know, a lot of folks on the left said she mainly won because of her, you know, populist progressive agenda. And a lot of other people said, I think, you know, she, she won mainly because she's a generational talent. Yeah, she's incredible in how she communicates and connects with people. I can feel this coming with Mamdani as well.

[Chris Hayes]

Yes.

[Jon Favreau]

But I also, like, I still feel this way. I felt this way then with AOC and I feel it now with Mamdani. There have been plenty other candidates with populist progressive agendas who just have not been as politically successful. And it feels like these two are just special talents.

[Chris Hayes]

I totally agree that they are special talents.

And I also think that everyone wants.

It to be the case always.

Right.

That every victory shows why they're, you know.

[Jon Favreau]

Confirms their priors.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, confirms their priors.

And also is the roadmap for their side in a factional dispute to emerge victorious. There's so much that's sui generis about that first AOC victory. But just to talk about Mondani, because I've been closely following the race, I do think the affordability message is what has allowed him to transcend some of the ideological barriers that can pen in left coded candidates.

[Jon Favreau]

I agree with that.

[Chris Hayes]

And I think he's been very smart and savvy, and I think starting that campaign by talking to working class people of color in Fordham Road in the Bronx, talking about why they moved to Trump, wasn't just propaganda, because I think it actually did animate what the campaign is centered, which is affordability.

[Jon Favreau]

And she did that too, by the way, in 18.

[Chris Hayes]

She did that too, in 18.

And I do think that if you look at those swings and you look at those precincts, working class folks were feeling the effects of inflation the hardest, and particularly in urban environments where rents were really squeezed.

So I think it's both.

Right. It's the message and the messenger.

But in Mamdani's case, I think that.

Focus on affordability has been a very key part. And I think the one thing I'll.

Say about focusing on affordability is, in.

His case, it's sort of left coded. But it doesn't necessarily have to be like, you can have other solutions, you know, plausibly. But focusing on that has been a huge key to building the coalition he has.

[Jon Favreau]

It's funny, though. It's like there's so many other Democratic candidates who have clearly read the memos and the polling on affordability, because it's, you know, it's. It's left coded, or at least the way that Mamdani has talked about it is. But this is one area where the mainstream Democratic consultants in the center left would agree with folks on the left and, like, everyone should be talking about affordability. But for some reason, when a lot more mainstream or moderate Democratic candidates do, it's not necessarily just the policies that might not be as appealing because they don't really talk as much about the policies, but just the way they talk about affordability seems like they are just reading off the polling memoir. This is my real problem. Like, I just.

[Chris Hayes]

I mean, I totally agree. And this is a real question about, like, I don't know does it matter.

Or does it not? I don't know.

I want to say that it matters.

When you sound like a fluent human and not like someone reading off a sheet of paper.

One of the things you always have to remember, Right.

About any organization that's doing things at scale is that the process has to be optimized for the bell curve of talent in any domain.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Like, you can't run any organization where it's like, we're going to do it in a way that's optimized for the top 10% of performers, because by definition you can't just have a top 10% of performers.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

So the same is true of politics at some level.

Right.

Like, it does have to be optimized for kind of the median candidate who's like, I, I am here to tell you that Donald Trump is tearing down the ballroom. That doesn't do anything to lower your.

Costs, you know, like, and I know.

Because to do things at scale, that's kind of how things work. But I agree with you that it feels different when you see someone doing.

It intuitively and fluently than when you feel like you're watching the polling memo being read.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And it's almost like too many median candidates right now. And not like that top 10% is, you know, I don't, it's like a top 2%. I don't, it's just not a, you know.

[Chris Hayes]

But I also do think, like, for instance, I think in Michigan you have.

Three pretty good candidates. They all have their, I think their advantages. They're. I think they're all pretty gifted politicians.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

I think this primary season is going to be very interesting because there's a.

Lot of potential for races to be.

The like person with the traditional bio and not a great attention getter or maintainer or talker and the person with the non traditional bile, who is good at that.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And I think we'll see those pitted.

Against each other in primaries a fair amount. It'll be very interesting to watch how that plays out.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, let's talk about Platner, because when.

[Chris Hayes]

I read, I haven't heard of him.

[Jon Favreau]

When I, when I read your piece.

[Chris Hayes]

Can we, can, can someone pull the plug on the Internet for a second Grant Platner discourse? I like, I, I can't. This is too much.

[Jon Favreau]

Which, honestly, it's like why I waited this long in this interview. But I, when I read your piece, it was like Monday and I reached out to you because I was like, I got to the part of your piece of advice where you said, don't worry so much about negative attention. And I'm like, we have a really interesting test case right now.

[Chris Hayes]

Sure do.

[Jon Favreau]

On negative attention. What are your thoughts on this whole. On the whole Platner thing?

[Chris Hayes]

Let me first start with just my. My substantive thoughts on it, because I think it's worth.

I mean, I did not know personally.

That the tattoo, when I saw it.

Was this fairly infamous Nazi symbol.

Personally, I did not know, nor did I.

[Jon Favreau]

No.

[Chris Hayes]

The context of I was drunk in.

A bar in Croatia and got this tat. Seems totally possible, and I don't have any reason to think he's lying. And that seems exculpatory.

Does feel like if you do find.

Out later, then you gotta get that covered and weird that you didn't.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes. Unless you are like, he says he is a person who thought, I'm never running for office. I'm not gonna do politics. I'm just like a guy living in rural Maine, and I'm kind of embarrassed that I got this. But no one's saying anything to me about it. And every time my shirt's off, no one's ever. And the army checked me when they, you know, like, you could. I could. I could at least imagine. I'm not saying that that's what happened, but.

[Chris Hayes]

No, and agreed. And it doesn't. I think that connects to the original.

Part about it, which is that, like, it's not so obviously legible as that. Such that it's not having a swastika on your chest. Right. So because it's not legible, then that rationale makes a little more sense. I still understand why people are skeeved out by it for sure.

You know, so I'm not going to.

Weigh in about, like, you know, this.

Is disqualifying or not.

I understand why people are skewed out of it. I sort of understand the story, but sort of don't. The broader question now is, okay, a. Substantively, if you're a voter, like, how do you feel about this? And how do you feel about what he said? And, you know, or a donor. You can make up your mind about that.

But now there's this real question.

There's two questions. One is, does this hurt him in the primary?

And the latest polling is like, he's.

Up 30 points on Diana Miller, which honestly, that shocked.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, like, I didn't shock me. I would have guessed that it would not have hurt him as much as the Internet has been saying. I would never have guessed that the margin would be that Big. And who knows, it's one poll, so we'll wait for others, but.

[Chris Hayes]

Right. So totally shocked by that.

So now, now we come to this.

Very interesting set of test cases of the things that I've been writing about, but also a kind of recurrence of what we saw happen on the right in the Tea Party primaries. Right. The insurgent candidate closer to the base beating the hand picked candidate by the party establishment, oftentimes to the detriment of winning the seat. The Delaware Senate seat being the most obvious one in which Mike Castle, who had been the at large congressional beloved moderate Republican, lost in a shocking primary upset to a woman named Christine o'. Donnell. For the Youngins here, it was a whole thing. Google it. She had to have a ad where she said, I am not a witch. She got absolutely trounced in what would have been probably a very winnable race for Castle.

And there were a whole bunch of.

Candidates like that, people that were more.

Extreme but also looser and said all sorts of things and got a lot of negative attention, more polemical.

The base loved that.

They loved when they riled up the other side. They elected them in the primary, then they ran the general and they got their butts kicked. And there's probably, you can probably count between four and nine Senate seats that.

Were winnable Senate seats over the course of 10, 12, 14, even, even if.

You look at Blake Masters and you know, and on and on that Republicans have just gone with the person that the base liked because they told it like it is.

And the median voter was like, no, thank you.

And I don't know if that is what happens in Maine on both fronts.

I don't know if it's very early in the race. Maybe people come around.

I also don't know if like the attentional environment has changed such that that backlash and the negative energy created by.

A Christian o' Donnell means you lose.

The race because people are like, who's this guy who's never held office and also has a Nazi tattoo and also maybe is a communist as he said on Reddit. And like this is a vetting nightmare for all the reasons that the person reviewing this would be like, please do not. We're not going to have you as a candidate. Or maybe the attention environment has changed so much no one remembers that.

And he is a very talented communicator. I mean 100%. He's a super interesting dude. He's a good talker.

His own politics might be closer to the median voter in a weird way than Any Democratic, like, person I've seen in a long time. In the same way, kind of.

I mean, not in the same way, but in a kind of similar way.

To the way Trump is.

[Jon Favreau]

This is what I was thinking about when you were mentioning the Tea Party stuff.

Right.

Because I think. And I think this is how a lot of the Democratic establishment is viewing this race. If you look at the race as Janet Mills is the mainstream Democratic electable governor that the whole state knows and that Graham Platner is this insurgent leftist that the base will like, but in the general, independents and even a few Republicans will be like, absolutely not. Right. And I think if you look at it that way, then it is obvious that he shouldn't be the nominee and that she's the better bet. But I think the test for him and for other candidates potentially like this, and this is what happened with Trump as well, by the way, is like, is there a case that Grant Platner could have a more appeal to unaffiliated voters, independent voters in Maine, which there are many. They just also have some just interesting, different kind of quirky politics in Maine, you know, and in that same poll, you know, Janet Mills, approval with independence is like, sitting at 35%.

[Chris Hayes]

Yes. You know, which is a real issue, too.

[Jon Favreau]

Which is a real issue, too. I'm like, that, to me, is what's interesting. And if, look, and if he can't break into independents and Republicans and get some of those votes, then, yes, the establishment is correct. But I just. We are in a moment right now where I think for Democrats to win not just in a fairly blue state like Maine, but especially in some of these redder states, we have to do something to scramble the coalitions because we're not going to get there just by, just by, you know, winning the Democratic base and then, like, reaching out for a few independents here and there.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah.

I mean, and I think that that.

Scrambling is really interesting. And I think that I don't know where this all goes, but I also.

Think it's kind of good that it's all happening. Like, maybe that's a cop out. But I truly, I'm like, I'm glad he got in the raise. I'm glad the oppo dump happened. Like, yes, is the time.

Thank you.

Not two weeks before the election. Not like, yes, yes, this is what primary is for. Yes. Maybe there's a million other things that.

Come out, or he just falls on.

His face or he just proves to be, like, incredibly adept candidate, you know. You know, like good. You know, Everyone go out there and make your case. And, you know, the other thing about all of this is I genuinely don't.

Want to discount people being like, there's a lot of people who are like.

A Nazi tattoo is disqualifying.

Like. Like, that's the full sentence. And I don't think that's at all a crazy instinct.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't know.

[Chris Hayes]

I want to be very clear, but.

I was thinking about.

I was thinking about, like, people were talking about, like. Like another Fetterman. Right. I've seen this sort of trope of like, that. You know, Fetterman was very much progressive. He was a big Bernie guy, and he. He was elected, and he's become a kind of. I would describe him as sort of.

Like a McCain of the Democratic Party a little bit.

[Jon Favreau]

Like, maybe even more like, I can't remember the last time that he's like, sounded like a regular Democrat.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah.

I mean, what McCain was very good.

At, as you recall, is he had a few issues where he was very high profile, at war with the Republican Party, but would vote with them, like, 95% of the time.

[Jon Favreau]

Right. Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

The ACA thumbs down was such a.

Depression departure from his usual MO in fact, and really remarkable when he saved the aca.

But what he figured out, he kind.

Of figured out this kind of space that was very good. I mean, the guy had incredibly high national approval ratings for much of his career because of this.

And the reason I was thinking about Fetterman is, like, I understand why people.

Are appalled by some of the things Fetterman has said about what's happening in Gaza and said about Palestinians. I mean, some of the things you've said, I found, like, really deeply, deeply gross and offensive. It's also the case that, like, to the best that we can tell, his approval rating has increased in Pennsylvania, mostly because of Republicans.

Well, right, exactly. But that's the point, right?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. I think he's lost some with Democrats, with houses.

He has.

[Chris Hayes]

But his overall net approval in Pennsylvania has gone up. Yeah, that's fairly clear.

And.

And it's like, Right. Having huge high profile attention, getting fights.

With your own party is particularly voters.

Not paying a lot of attention. A signal of moderation, like, and that signal of moderation, that signal can be sent in many different ways.

Bernie Sanders being a great example of someone who was independent and in his rhetoric attacked Democrats and Republicans all the.

Time and signaled to his voters that he was a moderate in some ways. Because of that, there are different ways to send these signals to a fairly.

Checked out voter that you are not just like a down the line partisan or ideologue.

And I understand why people who are down the line partisan sonata locks hate that. And no one is blaming you for hating it. But it's not like that is a.

Crazy political approach to the median voter.

[Jon Favreau]

I always thought one of the silliest attacks from Hillary Clinton on Bernie in the 2016 primary was, well, you're not really a Democrat. I'm like him not being really a Democrat is probably what attracts so many people to him. People don't like the Democratic party. They don't like either party. You know, like people are just, it's. They've been steadily disliking both parties for some time now. If you can totally. Even if you're like a socialist from Vermont, if you can say you're an independent, that's helpful. Better than saying you're a socialist, I think. Totally final question on this because we've been talking about state races and House races. We're gonna have another election in 2028, hopefully for president. And I do think that trying to nominate a candidate, and again, and you mentioned this in the piece, that it is so obvious that it almost feels weird stating it. But nominating a candidate who is extremely charismatic and can talk well and get attention, like it's gotta be at the top of the list. And when you think about the last, okay, Hillary in 16, Biden in 20 Biden and then Kamala in 2024, like it has been. And you know, some have been better than others and fine at communicating. But like. And I think that Kamala Harris did a good job in her 107 days in communicating.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, I agree.

[Jon Favreau]

But we've talked about the sort of prevent defense and the risk avers.

I think that's just gotta be at the top of the list. Like I don't think like your good resume and you're electable here and there. And the other thing, like that's important too. But I do think that if you can't grab and keep someone's attention, I don't know how that person wins the presidency.

[Chris Hayes]

The inverse of the point I was.

Making about local race is that it matters the most at the presidential level.

Like it matters the least.

Like you know, your school board, your.

City council, like you don't need to go viral attention at the, at the national level is the, that that is so important. And I, yeah, it is like strange you take a step back and think.

There are all sorts of virtues as people or as politicians that the last three Democratic candidates had Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

And Joe Biden in 2020 was successful.

And he won by four and a half points.

I don't think anyone would say, like, their biggest skill and the thing that sets them apart.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes.

[Chris Hayes]

Is how good they are at communicating.

People did say that about Barack Obama.

[Jon Favreau]

And Bill Clinton, and they said it about Donald Trump, and they said about.

[Chris Hayes]

Like they said about Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Like, that was the thing people said about them. Like, the number. There's a lot of other things said about him, but kind of the defining thing. And I think some of that, in.

Our perception, is gendered 100%. But I also think there are genuinely talented, incredibly talented communicators.

[Jon Favreau]

AOC is maybe the. One of the best in the party.

[Chris Hayes]

Probably the top five.

Top five. So I take that seriously. I think it's real.

But, yeah, like, it is a little weird when you go back and think, right. Like, that's kind of maybe necessary. And I do think, look, 2020 is different. And the combination of COVID incumbency and Biden had an unusually high level of name recognition. Like, there's all things that came together.

But, yes, I agree with you personally. I think that has to be at the top of the list.

[Jon Favreau]

We'll see. Because right now, I look out at it there, I'm like, okay, I don't know. People are doing a lot of talking about a lot of different people. And I'm like, I'm still waiting to see that. And of course, a campaign changes you, or at least as Axelrod always says, reveals who you are. And people also grow during the course of a campaign and become better so that that could happen. But, yeah, it is striking to me how little attention within the party is paid on. Okay, if the person's going to win in 2028 and we're going to nominate them, they've got to be a really good communicator.

[Chris Hayes]

I'm just thinking there are people that.

Are really good communicators in. Again, there's a distribution here throughout the party as there's going to always be.

But I think that thinking in those.

Terms is actually really important for everyone who's gonna be along for this ride.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, me, too. Well, we'll leave it there. Chris, thank you as always, for joining offline. It's fun to have you.

[Chris Hayes]

That was fun.

[Jon Favreau]

All right, I'll talk to you later.

Bye.

[Chris Hayes]

Thanks a lot.

[Jon Favreau]

Two quick notes. Crooked Con is two weeks from today. As you may have heard, a ton of new speakers were added to the Nov. 7 lineup. Lina Khan, Adam Mockler, Tim Miller, Pramila Jayapal, Jen Psaki, Simone Sanders Townsend Today we're sharing the full Crooked Con schedule. Here's a little preview of that. I'll be moderating a panel called what's the Story? It's about how we mobilize voters with a clear story about who we are, who we fight for and what we'll do. I'll be joined by Jen Psaki, Faz Shakir and Democratic strategists Liz Smith, Rebecca Katz and Adam Jenelson. Vote Save America will also have an action hub that will come with its own set of programming, so stay tuned. For more details on that, See the full schedule and be sure to grab tickets if you haven't [e-mail] there aren't many left. Also, if you haven't already, check out Alex Wagner's new podcast Runaway country right here at Crooked Media. It is a fantastic show. First episode is already out and it's doing really well. We're getting a lot of great feedback. In the show, Alex talks to voices at the center of the headlines, from.

The fringes of the resistance to the.

Marrow of maga, to the many people who found themselves smack dab in the middle of a fight they never asked for. Join Alex as she brings together the.

Stories of everyday Americans trapped in our.

National car with no brakes, alongside conversations with some of the smartest thinkers in politics. Buckle up. The road could lead anywhere. Tune in to Runaway country with Alex Wagner every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts or subscribe on YouTube.

As always, if you have comments, questions.

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Offline is a Crooked Media production. It's written and hosted by me, Jon Favreau. It's produced by Emma Ilick, Frank Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. Jerrick Centeno is our Sound editor and engineer. Audio support from Kyle Seglin, Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Delon Villanueva and our digital team who film and share our episodes as videos. Every week, our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America.

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