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Debating the Trump Era with Abby Phillip
01:11:20
Who is worth debating? Where do we draw the line? Will all journalism eventually devolve into debate? Jon Favreau is joined by Abby Philip, anchor of CNN NewsNight, to talk about her viral cable news show, the battle between traditional journalism and punditry, and her new book on the presidential campaigns of civil rights icon Jesse Jackson, who rewrote the rules of the Democratic Party and helped pave the way for Barack Obama’s rise.
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- [00:00]
Jon Favreau
This episode of Pont Save America is brought to you by Graza. Always fresh single origin olive oil. The holidays are basically here, but we're here to tell you that olive oil makes the perfect gift. I. When I found out that Graza is going to be a sponsor, I was like, genuinely psyched because I use it all the time.
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Tommy Vietor
It's really good.
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Jon Favreau
They have, they have sizzle, drizzle, and there's another kind. Grizzle, mizzle, fizzle, frizzle. I don't know about that, but I. I don't know what frizzle does, but I use the drizzle. And what's the other one? Brizzle, Sizzle, sizzle. So I really do have a jar of sizzle and a jar of drizzle. And I use the sizzle all the time for cooking and I use the drizzle all the time for when I'm not cooking. I like it is really my go to. First of all, it comes in a great bottle that just makes it really easy to use and it just is great.
- [00:44]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah. Why do other olive oil bottles have.
- [00:46]
Dan Pfeiffer
That weird opening and you have to.
- [00:47]
Tommy Vietor
Like, slowly dribble them out? Why not all squeeze bottles?
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Jon Favreau
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- [01:51]
Abby Phillip
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- [02:42]
Dan Pfeiffer
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. You probably know Abby Philipp as the host of Newsnight on cnn, where she expertly and gracefully moderates what you might call boisterous panel discussions that often turn into viral moments. She's also one of the most thoughtful journalists covering Trump, or at least attempting to right now. And on top of that, she's also out with a fascinating new book that I'm loving, a Dream Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black political power, about Reverend Jackson's groundbreaking presidential campaigns in the 1980s and importantly, what those campaigns can teach us about where the Democratic Party is today and where it needs to go. For all those reasons, I've been really eager to have her on the show, and I'm so happy I was able to get some time when she visited LA on Thursday. Here's our conversation. Hope you enjoy. Abby, welcome to Pod Save America.
- [03:36]
Abby Phillip
Hey, thanks for having me.
- [03:38]
Dan Pfeiffer
A lot of people might know you from your job at CNN as the lead anchor and host of CNN Newsnight, but you're also the author of a brand new book, a Dream Deferred Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power, which is now on sale. Yes, exciting. We'll get into that in a bit. I just want to start with some questions about your day job. You've been covering politics for a long time now. Yeah, since 2010-2011-2010-2010.
- [04:04]
Abby Phillip
Yes. Back I was young. You were in the White House.
- [04:07]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, I was going to say so. It was like we were both young.
- [04:09]
Abby Phillip
But I was younger, actually. Yeah. I mean, I was young enough that you had no idea who I was at that time?
- [04:16]
Dan Pfeiffer
Well, you know, once I went into the White House House, I didn't know who anyone was. I was just stuck in there all day. So you were a political reporter throughout The Obama administration 2016 election, the highly functioning democracy that we've had since then.
- [04:29]
Abby Phillip
Yeah.
- [04:30]
Dan Pfeiffer
In terms of processing, analyzing, reporting the news, how does 2025 compare to everything before it? Do you feel like covering Trump's second term is just an acceleration of the craziness that's been building for a decade, or does it feel like something new?
- [04:50]
Abby Phillip
I think it is an acceleration of the craziness of the first term. It's like, obviously they had a lot of time to think about this stuff. They learned from their mistakes. And so a lot of things that are happening now are things that they wanted to do then, but they couldn't because they couldn't figure out the government. They couldn't get their act together, and now they're doing it. And also, Trump is so much more in control now than he was then. I mean, he doesn't not have a functional other branch of government in Congress, and so he literally can do whatever he wants, and it shows. And so, I mean, the first time around, it was like, covering a lot of hijinks. It was like a government that was just a bunch of people who wanted to do a lot of things, and then they couldn't quite figure it out. And something always went wrong, and it was always just this. Almost like a clown show. And I think this time there's. There are definitely some clown show elements still present, but they're much more organized and it's much more serious, because I think they're thinking longer term. I don't think they were thinking that long term when Trump was in the office the first time because they weren't sure whether his politics were gonna be lasting. And now we know, and I think now they're thinking about, okay, how do we really change this country permanently? And that's what we're operating on.
- [06:06]
Dan Pfeiffer
I find it harder to somehow keep up with the news this time around than even last time.
- [06:12]
Abby Phillip
There's more happening, for sure.
- [06:13]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, there's more of. And there's more of consequence happening.
- [06:16]
Abby Phillip
Yes.
- [06:17]
Dan Pfeiffer
Like last time, if you missed the scandal or the outrage of the day, it's like, we'll have another one. Whatever. It'll pass. This time, it's like, oh, well, we should cover that, because that's actually gonna have a real impact on people, and people might not be paying attention to it.
- [06:32]
Abby Phillip
And I also think the thing I think about actually is the stuff that we're not covering. It's the stuff that's happening that we don't really have eyes on, because they've gotten much better at keeping journalists sort of away from the nitty gritty details of what's happening in the government. I think that's the stuff that kind of keeps me up at night, is that we don't. I think we have less visibility now than we did before into the inner workings of the government, into even Trump's world. I find that the reporting this time around about and not a sort of day to day Trump reporter anymore. But the reporting that we have now about what's really going on in the White House, the deliberations, the conversations, who's influencing the president, how he's weighing in on things, is much more limited than it was in the first term. And there are consequences to that. I think we know less. I think there's still just as much happening, if not more, but we know less about it.
- [07:31]
Dan Pfeiffer
How do you feel about what's happened to the, the press pool in the White House? Because, you know, I just feel like there are, you know, Caroline Levitt and the staff are gonna do what they do at briefings and just sort of deflect and whatever else. Trump, sometimes when you're asking him questions, you actually get some interesting answers and to his insight. And I just feel like aside from Caitlin, that you, Collins, who you work with, and a few other reporters, we're just getting so many fewer real questions. When he hold, even though he's holding more press availabilities, you're getting fewer questions that are not just congratulating him, that's on purpose.
- [08:10]
Abby Phillip
Because you know that they, I mean, when they basically tried to take over the accreditation process for, you know, a White House press pass, the goal was to fill the seats with people who were sycophants.
- [08:25]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
- [08:25]
Abby Phillip
And they have done that pretty successfully. I mean, they call it new media, but these are all just, it's all Trump media. And so that's why, I mean, I get frustrated when people are like, the media's not doing anything, but they don't realize that the nuts and bolts of who's in the room matters and is now more controlled by the White House than it has ever been. And so it's not the fault of the day to day reporters who are still asking questions and are still doing their job. It's just that now the deck is stacked, like the room is packed with people that they handpicked because of their loyalty to Trump. And that is completely shifting what comes out of these press briefings and media avails. And, you know, at the end of the day, you made the point about Trump taking questions. I think Trump actually likes the back and forth. He doesn't mind getting the tough question from Caitlin or whatever. And he takes them because he knows it makes for good tv. And that's probably the one thing that is still kind of allowing the system to somewhat get information out of this White House.
- [09:28]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. It's obviously been a rough decade for journalism as an industry. Corporate consolidation Mass layoffs. Audiences now can get information from a million different sources, many of them for free, many of them not trustworthy. Trust in media is at lowest level ever. And then Trump comes along and especially in the second term, backs up his rhetorical attacks on the press that were a hallmark of the first term with frivolous lawsuits, FCC threats, making sure his allies have influence over certain outlets. What are the conversations like between you and your colleagues about the future of your profession?
- [10:13]
Abby Phillip
Well, I mean, the truth is I don't have a ton of conversations about this with my colleagues. I'm not, I'm not joking you. I just think we're, we're literally just working, just every day, every day. And what are we going to do? You know, we're kind of in a place where we don't have a lot of influence over the moves that are happening above us. So all we can do is what we know how to do. I think about this more broadly than in the media because the media is just one sort of cog in the capitalist system. And consolidation usually is not good for marketplaces. And I don't think it's necessarily great for the media. I think that we are in a place where a lot of consolidation needs to happen for financial reasons, but the loser is gonna be the consumer of information. And it also is probably gonna push more and more of those consumers to alternative media sources. And so that's just looking at the industry broadly. That's how I see it. And can I do anything about it? No. Can I do my job? Yes. And so I'm going to do my job. And I really do think that we can sit and complain about it all day long, but we have to just be able to have enough freedom to do the day to day work. And I still feel like I do. I look at a lot of the places where there are concerns about who owns them and what kinds of corporate top down mandates are they under. Places like the Washington Post, places like the Wall Street Journal. And they're doing excellent journalism, they really are. And so I just think people are going to need to make money and they are going to. But the broader themes that are going to drive what media looks like is actually the fact that there are going to be a lot of different places that people get information from. And the mainstream media consolidation that's happening right now is only going to hasten that shift. So we just have to be honest about that. And I think we all try to play in the pool of the new media landscape and do what we can but that's a shift that's inexorable. We are not going to stop that. And it's only going to go faster and faster.
- [12:39]
Dan Pfeiffer
I wonder if you worry about. I do. And as someone whose job relies on other journalists doing this excellent reporting that people are going to. Consumers are going to think, okay, I'm watching punditry and analysis and am I really going to pay for original reporting? I worry that sort of the balance, the incentives for actual journalism and reporting, you know, have gotten to the point where punditry is easier, cheaper, and more interesting sometimes to people.
- [13:12]
Abby Phillip
Sure. But I. It's okay. Like, I think it's fine, we can walk and chew gum at the same time, you know, because I think people like to crap on. I don't know if I can curse. Can I curse? People like to shit on context and analysis. And you can call it punditry, you can call it whatever you want to call it. But I think that what the marketplace is saying is that people are hungry for help understanding.
- [13:38]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, that is true.
- [13:39]
Abby Phillip
And information is everywhere. It is ubiquitous. So it is okay and good and normal and commendable that people are saying, help me understand this. And I don't think we should be on our high horse and be like, okay, the only thing that matters is that we just keep feeding you from the fire hose. People really want to, they want to comprehend this moment and we need to be able to give people both of those things at the same time. And yes, it is cheaper sometimes, literally and figuratively cheaper to do it that way. You know, I mean, I think that there is so much bad that can happen when it's just like a lot of people spouting their opinions. But I also think that doing that with integrity counts and we should not be out of the game of that and leave it to the crazies on the Internet to provide this skewed so called context. And so I think, and having done this in a lot of different parts of the media world at this point in my career, that we have to provide a whole menu of options to people who are consuming information. And it is not enough to just say, well, this is good for you, so eat your broccoli. No, like people, people want a range of things. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing to look down on. And context is hugely, hugely important. That's why opinion pages exist in newspapers, because people have points of view and it helps people digest the facts. So that's my, you know, that's my little soapbox. I Just think, we can't be, we just cannot be on this high horse about this stuff. We have to give people what they really are craving, which is both the news and the context.
- [15:41]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah.
- [15:42]
Dan Pfeiffer
I think you can make an argument that in this media environment where there's so many choices, that context and curation are like, more important than ever. Because it is. It's hard, right? When you're just like scrolling through a bunch of stuff, bunch of headlines. You don't know what's true, you don't know what's not. Like, it becomes more important to have some trusted voices that you know can help you make sense of the day.
- [16:05]
Abby Phillip
And I mean, when you leave it to the crazies and they're out there, all they're doing is just sitting around and they're spinning these webs of conspiracies in which everything is just so conveniently linked together and it makes perfect sense. And I think that is so dangerous when we cede all of that space to people who have no moral compunction about just steering people wrong. And I see a lot of that happening. And that is really one of the scarier parts of where we are. Foreign.
- [16:48]
Tommy Vietor
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- [17:39]
Dan Pfeiffer
I was like, huh?
- [17:40]
Tommy Vietor
I don't remember ordering from quints. It's weird.
- [17:42]
Dan Pfeiffer
I wonder where it's from.
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Tommy Vietor
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- [17:52]
Dan Pfeiffer
But it's great.
- [17:52]
Tommy Vietor
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- [18:16]
Dan Pfeiffer
In one Clorox toilet wand it's ALL IN ONE.
- [18:20]
Abby Phillip
Hey, what does all in one mean?
- [18:23]
Dan Pfeiffer
The Caddy, the wand, the preloaded pad. There's a cleaner in there inside the pad.
- [18:30]
Abby Phillip
So Clorox Toilet Wand is all I need to clean a toilet.
- [18:34]
Dan Pfeiffer
You don't need a bottle of.
- [18:38]
Abby Phillip
To get into this toilet revolution. Clorox Clean feels good. Use as directed.
- [18:46]
Dan Pfeiffer
I want to ask you about your CNN newsnight role as anchor debate moderator, seemingly kindergarten teacher at times. First of all, I just want to say, like, you make an incredibly difficult job look easy because I'm not sure people fully understand, like, how difficult it is to moderate a contentious panel like that in a way that is, I think, fair but still firm because you have to pick your moments, all while, like, fact checking in real time and offering your own analysis. Is there anything in your background or experience that helped you prepare for this? And I'm just curious, like, what you do to prepare for the show every day?
- [19:28]
Abby Phillip
Yeah, I don't know. I always say that I, like, I come from a really big family. I'm one of six kids. And I'm just really used to being in the middle of a lot of chaos.
- [19:39]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
- [19:40]
Abby Phillip
It's just and also a lot of people with different points of view. And I do think, I know it sounds kind of cliche, but I really do think that that helps because I've always just been able to deal with a lot of different personalities. I mean, my siblings and I have the same two parents, but we're all different, every single one of us. And you have to I love them. They're my family. And when we sit at that table on Newsnight, I think that the goal, what I'm trying to create is this sense that we can have this debate. We can correct each other and question each other and call each other out and still sit in the breaks and not want to smack each other. Now every once in a while, you know, people go into the breaks and they're still bickering, and we're just like okay, calm down.
- [20:37]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
- [20:37]
Abby Phillip
You know, but the goal is to have the ability to do that at the very least. And so, I mean, I think I am also just not that person. Like, I'm all. I'm down for a good debate, but I'm not the first person who will get heated in a debate. And it just so happens that I think works in this context because I'm more than happy to let them have their emotional ups and downs. And I usually try to not be at that emotional register because I just. It's not how I roll, just on a deeply human level. And the times when I do. When it does turn up, the dial does turn up for me are rare. And I try to keep it as rare as possible. So I think it's just helpful that my personality is just not that. And I mean, it used to be that people would be like, oh, she's too, like, even keeled or whatever. And it just so turns out that this format, it works for me right now. So there you go to all my haters.
- [21:42]
Dan Pfeiffer
Well, I was gonna ask, like, are there times where in your head you're thinking, okay, maybe I should step in? Or if I don't, I'm gonna get shit from people. Like, how much does that enter your.
- [21:54]
Abby Phillip
Yeah, I mean, like, transparently. We've been doing this version of the show for a little over a year. And at the beginning it was. We had to play. I had to play around with it. How much am I involved? How much am I correcting? How much am I fact checking? Do I really wanna be fact checking all the time? Do I really wanna just sit back and let them talk? Like, what is my role? And I think there's a negotiation that happens there. And, you know, there are some things that I don't fact check, maybe because, I don't know, it's come out of nowhere. People do bring things up out of nowhere. And I'm just like, I've never heard that one before. And then we have to go back and be like, what was that all about? So I'm not always able to. I'm not a computer, but I am very well read and prepared for a lot of the arguments that come up. So I miss things and, you know, people will still give me shit for missing things, but I'm a human being and we are in a live setting. Right? Like, we're not scripting these debates. We don't even have questions.
- [22:58]
Dan Pfeiffer
Like, people just go at it.
- [23:00]
Abby Phillip
We just. We have. We have information. We don't have questions. So we Come to. I come to the table every night with a list of conversation aids, but the conversation goes the way that the panelists take it, and you have to be comfortable with a certain amount of unpredictability. And I think that I have more recently found, I think, a good balance. Right. It's. I see myself as trying to play the role of the incredulous questioner on behalf of the people who are at home and are kind of like, do you really believe that? Or just. That's completely illogical, or how do you square that with this? And I think that some of these. Some of the role that I play is just impressing people, just in kind of testing the argument and forcing them to defend it and forcing them to see it through its natural, logical conclusion. And I think that's where I've landed so far. So far. But it's always shifting. It changes every single night. And we are always bringing new people on who have. You know, it's always something new. And that's great. That's what's nice about the show.
- [24:22]
Dan Pfeiffer
It's funny. I think the only time I've been on a. Or the last time I've been on a panel at CNN that was like, people on the left, people on the right was years ago. And I just remember watching people go at it as, like, it was live. And then we went to a commercial break, and I was sitting next to Glory Borger, and she was like, you know, you can jump in. They like when you jump in and mix it up. And I'm just like, this is scary.
- [24:45]
Abby Phillip
You know what happened? You know what happened during COVID people stopped being able to do it because everybody was in these boxes. And so the fact that we have everybody in the studio every single night, that's helpful. And it's. For a lot of people, it's kind of a new experience, and they don't get to do it that often. So a lot of people have to figure out how to talk to other people, like, look them in the eye and say the thing and keep the same energy that they would otherwise have on social media. And I think that's part of the psychology of it, too, is that you really have to be willing to, first of all, be on your feet. You have to be quick on your feet, and you have to be ready for anything, and you have to really be listening. Because, you know, a lot of times people are just. They have their little talking points, and they get mad at me when I'm like, I'm gonna interrupt you, because you're answering the question that you want to be asked. And this is not that kind of show. So that's a skill that I think we have tried to cultivate. What does it look like to actually sit in front of a person you disagree with and talk to them and challenge them and be challenged. And the people who have figured that out have done really well on our show. And I think it makes for both good television and I think it's an important thing to do.
- [26:07]
Dan Pfeiffer
I've never been a huge fan of the debate, much of it on the left, about platforming certain political figures on the right or legitimizing people on the right because you go on their shows. Because especially since I think most of these figures have large platforms already. But every time, you know, we've talked about this and every time I think about inviting a MAGA person on the show to have that in person debate, the only thing that gives me pause is it's hard to spend the entire time or I don't wanna spend the entire time correcting or saying that's not true or let's fact check. And then they fact check and I fact check and suddenly it's just like 30 minutes of a fact check. Yeah, I hear you on that. And so it's like I would love to have the debate about like deeply held beliefs that are different. Sometimes it's hard to get past the talking points.
- [26:57]
Abby Phillip
I'm with you. It happens. I mean there are plenty of times where we've had people on and it's.
- [27:03]
Dan Pfeiffer
Like you're just doing your thing.
- [27:06]
Abby Phillip
I'm just throwing my hands up like it's just what's the point? Because we can't have a debate unless we at least agreed to agree on facts. Like facts have to actually matter to you in order for us to have this conversation.
- [27:19]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
- [27:20]
Abby Phillip
Now I also grant people that sometimes people have other facts that matter to them more and that is okay.
- [27:28]
Dan Pfeiffer
Right, Right.
- [27:29]
Abby Phillip
But there are definitely some people who are just living in a different world and it's really hard and it's not. And I think that is, yeah, definitely a situation in which it is very difficult, if not impossible to have that conversation. And so you kind of have to find the right people who are willing to kind of level with you in a, at least in an open minded way. And I would kind of argue that that's not just unique to Republicans, although I think their information silo is probably more closed off. But it's in general, are you willing to concede something? Anything, Anything. And some people are not.
- [28:08]
Dan Pfeiffer
And some people are because I think there's this pressure that if you concede something on live on national television, then suddenly your side is going to be like, why did you just do that? And what's wrong with you? And you gave in. And it's a real, it's a. Yeah.
- [28:21]
Abby Phillip
It'S a psychological thing. It's about social media clout. It's about yours. You're standing in, you know, in, in the group.
- [28:31]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
- [28:31]
Abby Phillip
You know, because the group. You're standing in the group becomes the most important thing to you.
- [28:35]
Dan Pfeiffer
Right.
- [28:36]
Abby Phillip
Because your people might not like you as much anymore. And that, and that's. We have to come to terms with that in politics. That is such a big thing in terms of how people are willing to show up politically is that they're so afraid of being ostracized by people in their group that they're not willing to admit when they're wrong or when something needs to change or when the other person might be right.
- [29:02]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. Well, and especially I think on the left now, there's another reason not to do it, which is, well, if they're gonna do this, then we can't be the ones that are always saying we're wrong or we change our mind because we're in a fight against these people who are in a different kind of reality. You know, and it's sort of like, I think if you have values and beliefs and principles, they've gotta be universal, like no matter what the other side does.
- [29:24]
Abby Phillip
But do you, I mean, but I thought, you know, I've been talking about this a lot lately. Cause I feel like this has really come up and I mean, I wonder, as you are a card carrying Democrat, do you see that happening and do you think that's a problem? Because I think some people think that Democrats unilaterally disarm too often and leave Republicans to just do whatever they want. And then like in redistricting, for example, is an example of this.
- [29:55]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. Do you, do I think that it's.
- [29:57]
Abby Phillip
A, do you think that that's bad.
- [29:58]
Dan Pfeiffer
The Democrats are doing.
- [29:59]
Abby Phillip
Yeah.
- [30:00]
Dan Pfeiffer
No. On that kind of thing. I'm like, that's an easy one for me. Just because it's like we proposed national nonpartisan gerrymandering and we couldn't get a Republican vote for it. And if Republicans want to join us, then I'm like, let's stop the race to the bottom and do no more gerrymandering and let's reverse it. But otherwise we're not going to unilaterally disarm. I have sort of a different take on the broader. Republicans are always fighting and Dems don't fight, and the whole, like, you know, everyone likes to bring up the Michelle Obama quote. Like, you know, when they go low, we go high, and everyone's like, we can't do that ever again. And I'm like, it's not. I just think that our political goals are different in a way, which makes it asymmetrical. Like, I think that Donald Trump and a lot of the MAGA movement would be quite happy if people were more cynical about politics and not paying as much attention, and they would get to do what they want to do. And I think that Democrats at their best believe that government should be a tool for people to come together across, like, different ideologies, races, identities, and try to figure out something together. And if you're gonna believe that, it's much tougher to then go and just destroy the other side all day. Because we believe in a bigger community than that.
- [31:14]
Abby Phillip
Yeah, I mean, I feel like the government shutdown debate is a little bit of that, where it's like, I mean, I was there all the years that Republicans shut the government down, even when Trump was president. And in a way, Democrats have just are just doing what they did and justified for all those years. However, the government is still shut down.
- [31:35]
Dan Pfeiffer
Right.
- [31:36]
Abby Phillip
And people are still not getting paychecks and so on and so forth. I think I don't have any answers to that, but I feel like that is the dilemma the Democrats are facing, which is, do we really take on their tactics even if people get hurt, or do we have a higher bar for ourselves?
- [31:53]
Dan Pfeiffer
And what has heightened that challenge for Democrats is, of course, Donald Trump, and particularly how he's acting in the second term. Right. Because I'm very much like, I don't want. I'm in politics so that people are helped and I don't want them to get hurt. But, like, I also think that there's masked agents on the street, like, arresting people who are American citizens and nothing's stopping them. And I don't like. My view on the government shutdown was I would not have gone, I would not have made it about health care, because healthcare, to me is a policy issue that under a different Republican president or a different president, whatever you would say, okay, we had an election day one. This is the government. They get to do what they want. Right. And so it's a normal. Yeah. Shutting down the government over a typical policy fight, to me, is not as important, I think Or I wouldn't have done it unless it was shutting down the government over, like, you know, I think Chris Murphy has been saying this, like, why am I going to fund a government that's like, destroying democracy right now? You know, you guys can find the votes yourself.
- [32:56]
Abby Phillip
I think that, you know, my humble opinion as an observer of politics is I actually don't think that a government shutdown over capital D democracy would have worked.
- [33:10]
Dan Pfeiffer
I don't think it. I don't know that it would have.
- [33:12]
Abby Phillip
Yeah, I think it would have gone way over people's heads. And this is not an endorsement of a government shutdown over anything.
- [33:19]
Dan Pfeiffer
Right, right, right.
- [33:20]
Abby Phillip
But it's, but it's just to say that the uniqueness of this one is that the underlying issue is one that is a political vulnerability for the other side, whereas the other stuff is much less.
- [33:32]
Dan Pfeiffer
So it's true. It's also, then if you get to the, like, nerdy legislative part of it, though, you say, okay, why would we make a spending deal when they're gonna go back after the spending deal and just be like, well, we're gonna spend whatever we want. We're gonna not spend whatever we want, and we're gonna shut down whatever we want, fire whoever we want.
- [33:50]
Abby Phillip
Yeah.
- [33:51]
Dan Pfeiffer
And it doesn't really matter.
- [33:52]
Abby Phillip
And look, I hear that, but at the same time, I mean, some deal has to be made.
- [33:56]
Dan Pfeiffer
I know, I know. It's a. It's a tough situation. Do you feel like you better understand what drives MAGA politics because of this show?
- [34:08]
Abby Phillip
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [34:11]
Dan Pfeiffer
You feel like you got enough of the, like.
- [34:12]
Abby Phillip
Yeah, I mean, I talk to. I talk to tried and true, dyed in the wool MAGA people every single day. And so, yeah, I understand where they come from. I understand the information silos that they're in that make it hard to see outside of it. And it's not that complicated. I mean, I think that they like winning and Trump is winning in their minds. So in a way, to me, it boils down to mostly that because we have all shades of this sort of Trump supporter. We have people who are not really that into him, who are now people who are not even all that into him right now, but would prefer to defend him to the alternative. I see it all. And at the end of the day, the biggest thing that works for Trump is that they've figured out how to use raw political power to dominate their opposition. And turns out that's very appealing to a lot of people on the right, and they're willing to gloss over a lot of conduct in order to be on the team that is winning.
- [35:29]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
- [35:29]
Abby Phillip
So I think that's a lot of what's going on right now.
- [35:31]
Dan Pfeiffer
Do you feel like you understand Scott Jennings politics better?
- [35:35]
Abby Phillip
Yeah. I mean he's, I think what I just described accurately describes him that, you.
- [35:42]
Dan Pfeiffer
Know, cuz he's taken a journey. He's been, he's not up at all.
- [35:45]
Abby Phillip
He's taken a journey as we've talked about. I think he, as he said he would prefer Trump over the alternative. But I also think that he, he has seen Trump win on the culture issues, on the economic issues, on all of that, and he's willing to give him a pass on things that maybe he's slightly queasy about privately because I think he believes that going against Trump is a bad idea because Trump keeps winning.
- [36:23]
Jon Favreau
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- [38:37]
Dan Pfeiffer
Okay, seamless pivot From Scott Jennings to Jesse Jackson, about whom you wrote this.
- [38:42]
Abby Phillip
So much in common.
- [38:44]
Dan Pfeiffer
So what was your sense of Jesse Jackson and his legacy before you started writing the book, and what questions did you want to answer?
- [38:52]
Abby Phillip
My sense of him was what I think a lot of people's sense of him is, which is that he's an activist, he's a leader of the civil rights generation and is ubiquitous. Right. That he's in everything and that mostly it's just showing up. I think that was the sense that a lot of people had of him, have of him. And one of the reasons I wrote this book is because I found that this particular chapter, when he ran for president two times, is arguably one of the most significant parts of his legacy that rarely gets talked about. And it is the part of his legacy that actually, I think, kind of undermines the view of him as somebody who's just sort of surface deep and only just shows up and so on and so forth. Because I do think that running, you know, this running for president is a real difficult task and a little insane. Yeah. And it's a little crazy. And it attracts a certain type of person. And Jesse Jackson certainly is in that same category of people. But for a black man in the 1980s who grew up in the segregated south, who did not have much for him to end up on the same debate stage with all of these figures, not just Michael Dukakis, but Al Gore and Joe Biden and all these other people who later on went on to do other things. But he was on the debate stage with all of those people and holding his own on foreign policy, on economic policy, on a whole host of things. And then he comes in second place in 1988, and then it's kind of promptly forgotten about, partly because Bill Clinton, but also partly because Barack Obama. And I think that there's a lot there that is worth exploring, including explaining how we even got to Barack Obama. I think he's a huge part of that story.
- [40:55]
Dan Pfeiffer
Can you talk about that a little bit?
- [40:56]
Abby Phillip
Yeah. I mean, look, Jesse Jackson and Obama actually, politically, to be honest, don't have a huge amount in common. So it's not so much about that because I think Obama is way more centrist than Jesse Jackson was. However, I also think Jesse Jackson's sort of left wing politics of the 80s actually became kind of centrist in the 2000 and tens or whatever. But more to the point, I mean, just from a nuts and bolts perspective, had Jesse Jackson not changed the rules of the Democratic Party to make it easier for outsider candidates to come in and run against the establishment and still rack up delegates and still get to the convention, Obama wouldn't have beaten him.
- [41:47]
Dan Pfeiffer
How he beat Hillary Clinton, period.
- [41:48]
Abby Phillip
Yeah, it just wouldn't have happened.
- [41:50]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. If it was winner take all like the Republicans have in the primaries, we wouldn't have done it.
- [41:54]
Abby Phillip
And I mean, in a way, it's like, think about the foresight of that, because there were so many people in the 80s who were like, why run a black candidate for the presidency? You know, you're not gonna win. This country isn't gonna do that in this moment. And they were right about that. But I also think Jesse Jackson had this sort of tactical intelligence about the value of leverage. Some of that was built up for years and years of using leverage to get concessions from private companies on diversity and all kinds of other stuff. But he understood leverage really well, and he really pushed in both of those campaigns toward getting to the convention, getting changes to the platform, getting changes to the nominating process for the Democratic Party, the nuts and bolts of how you even get a candidate, let alone what that candidate it stands for. And it turns out that foresight was exactly correct. Because 20 years later, and this is why the book is called A Dream Deferred, is because it took 20 years for this to actually be seen. But that became the thing that allowed Barack Obama to bypass what would have been a blowout from a much more establishment candidate. It's also the thing that allowed Bernie Sanders to have as much leverage and influence as he did in 2016 and in 2020. And so there's so much about how he conducted politics, and we didn't even talk about the issues, but all of those things make him a very consequential figure who doesn't get a lot of credit for that chapter in his life.
- [43:37]
Dan Pfeiffer
Why do you think that is on the credit that he doesn't like? He's not, he hasn't gotten his due, I think either as a civil rights leader like John Lewis or a political leader, not only from, I think the public, but even from his contemporaries.
- [43:55]
Abby Phillip
Totally. There's a lot of drama. I mean, that's the truth is that his relationships personally, I think are very fraught. And I get into this in the book that when he ran for president, he did not have many endorsements, even from black elected officials. In fact, he had none in 1984 and in 1988 he had a few more. But overwhelmingly, a lot of his friends and colleagues, they endorsed the establishment Democratic candidate. And I think some of that has to do with not just the political part of it, but also just his relationships with people. And I think also Jesse Jackson is a character. He has like real main character energy in the sense that he has a lot of personality traits that are double edged swords. This incredible skill of connecting and oratory. And also an incredible amount of, I don't know, a desire to be in the public eye. Some people would say arrogance, ego, not unfamiliar. If you know people who run for president. Psychological turmoil around his father and how he grew up. And so there's all of that mixed together in this person. And so he was really polarizing. And I was talking to someone else just recently also about just the fact that he lives, he has lived as long as he has and that contributes to it too. He is 84 years old. And so for the last 60 something years of American history, people have known who Jesse Jackson is. Very, very few people have that many years on the books in public life. And inevitably that means that you are gonna have people who have all kinds of different views about you. All kinds of chapters of your life are gonna get forgotten. And I think that just the longevity of his life has been a part of the picture. It's just very easy to lionize people when they leave us in an untimely fashion.
- [46:13]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, that's true.
- [46:14]
Abby Phillip
Because it's easier. You don't have to deal with the full scope of their life. And I think in some ways he was blessed to live a long life, But I think the length of his life and the range of things that he did sometimes works against him.
- [46:29]
Dan Pfeiffer
Your book made me think. I was talking to some of my old Obama colleagues today and I'm like, what? I don't have a real sharp memory of Obama saying a ton about Jesse James.
- [46:44]
Abby Phillip
There's a reason for that.
- [46:45]
Dan Pfeiffer
Well, because what I remember is, I remember that his daughter was Michelle's maid of honor at their wedding.
- [46:52]
Abby Phillip
Yes, Santita.
- [46:53]
Dan Pfeiffer
So I was always like.
- [46:54]
Abby Phillip
And Jesse Jr. They were very close. And Jesse Jr. Was close in 2008, but before that.
- [47:00]
Dan Pfeiffer
And then I remember towards the end of the campaign, there was a whole thing with Obama and the hot mic moment. Yeah, the hot mic moment where he was upset about how Obama was going to black churches and he thought he was talking down to. I think he said, like, I want to cut his nuts out or something like that. I remember that being a thing on the campaign, which, by the way, that's.
- [47:19]
Abby Phillip
A whole thing in terms of like taking something that somebody says in a break and then publishing it. But.
- [47:24]
Dan Pfeiffer
And then I remember Bill Clinton inserting him into the Democratic primary when, after Obama won South Carolina. And Bill Clinton was like, well, Jesse Jackson won some states, too. God, that is. But I've never seen, like, I've never. I don't think I remember hearing Obama talk about him.
- [47:43]
Abby Phillip
Yeah, well, there's a very important reason for that, and it's because their relationship was not great. And despite the Chicago ties and the family ties and all of that stuff. I mean, I explore this in the book, and it's complicated because I think that a lot of people involved in that have a lot of regret, are kind of confused about why it turned out that way. I think people acknowledge that Jesse Jackson and some degree of resentment played a role. Yeah, right. That Obama was. I don't know. I mean, I think the truth is Obama allowed people, not him personally, but the fact of Obama was sort of a permission structure for people to sort of put Jesse Jackson to the side, or at least that's how he felt about it. And I do think that some of that psychologically played a role here. I mean, I talked to people on the Obama side and people on the Jesse Jackson side, people caught in the middle of the two. And I think that ego. Right. Jesse Jackson wants to be remembered. He wants to be honored. He wants to be given his due. He didn't always feel like he got it from both Obama and his team. He lashed out in certain moments as a result of that. In other moments, like in the hot mic moment, he was actually saying something that other people were saying, but it was unwise for him to say it where he said it. And the fact that it became public was a huge problem. And after, afterwards, you know, he gave interviews where he. Jesse did, where he said, I regret that so deeply. Because the truth is, when Obama won, Jesse Jackson was related.
- [49:50]
Dan Pfeiffer
I know. I remember a picture of. I remember the picture of him in Grant park with tears in his face.
- [49:54]
Abby Phillip
I mean, all of that said when Barack Obama won, Jesse Jackson reacted the way a man who was standing feet from Dr. King when he was killed would react to a black man being elected president. Disbelief, hope, fear, love, you know, and a little bit of regret that he wasn't able to do it, but joy that Obama was. And so those emotions were very real. And I think he had a lot of regret he said so about how that relationship transpired. And I mean, your lack of the fact that you don't have a memory of Jesse Jackson being part of the Obama world is because he really wasn't there. He hardly ever went to the White House after the fact that they're both in Chicago. They've met. I wrote about a relatively recent meeting that they had and that meeting meant a lot to him. It meant a huge amount to him. Because I think that he does live with some regret over that lost opportunity to have a relationship with the first black president. Somebody who probably wouldn't be in the White House had it not been for what he did first.
- [51:15]
Dan Pfeiffer
Did I also think even if they're, Even if they had had a close relationship.
- [51:19]
Abby Phillip
Yeah.
- [51:20]
Dan Pfeiffer
There was an effort on the campaign to not to make it a, you know, that he wasn't just the first. He wouldn't just be the first black president. Yeah, right. Like the history making nature of the campaign was always intended to be a light touch.
- [51:38]
Abby Phillip
Yeah, yeah.
- [51:39]
Dan Pfeiffer
And unspoken. And I mean, like I, I remember he gave the convention speech. He accepted the nomination in 2008 on the day of the. I believe it was the 40th anniversary of the march on Washington. And there were a few consultants who were like, in the first draft, we had King at the end, a light touch King, not like a heavy touch. And it was like, I don't know if we want to mention Martin Luther King. It's like a little too black.
- [52:06]
Abby Phillip
Yeah.
- [52:06]
Dan Pfeiffer
And I'm like, he is about to be the first black nominee of the party.
- [52:10]
Abby Phillip
And look, I think that that's a common theme. When Jesse Jackson ran in the 80s, the fact that he came out of the civil rights movement was a problem because it coded radical to a lot of white Americans. And I think the Obama campaign, and I don't want to speak too much, you're part of that world. But understood that, that for some people, you know, I think for most of us, we think, wow, these People are heroes. This was such an amazing time where we pushed the country into a period of, you know, reaching its, its true potential. But there are a lot of people who think civil rights movement and they think radical black power activists, and it is politically very dangerous to be in that space. And Jackson couldn't avoid it because that is the, that is the history that he came out of. But even at that time in 1983, when Harold Washington was running for mayor of Chicago and Jesse Jackson was a really big part of helping make that happen, even Harold Washington had to keep him at arm's length because again, for the white Chicagoans who he needed for the general election, Jesse Jackson coded radical and civil rights and black power. And so even in the 80s, and he and Harold Washington were friends, yeah, he was kept at arm's length. So that was nothing new. And the fact that did not really change after all that time, I think it just says a lot about the country and just how you have to navigate race and how you have to navigate the people who do have ties to those movements who were seen to have been asking for too much from particularly the white power structures that, you know, especially in the 70s and the 80s, controlled most of our politics.
- [54:15]
Tommy Vietor
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- [55:35]
Abby Phillip
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- [56:08]
Dan Pfeiffer
The other reaction I had going through the book was just this feeling of frustration and anger that there aren't many potential Democratic candidates today who have the ability, I think, like Jackson did, to speak from a place of passion and moral conviction about social and economic injustice, while also very explicitly trying to build a multiracial working class coalition. Going everywhere, talking to everyone, campaigning in pretty creative ways. Did any of that jump out at you when you were.
- [56:51]
Abby Phillip
That's the thing. I mean, that's the thing that you come away from this when you really dig into how that campaign unfolded. His unpredictability, his ability to kind of capture the moment, to be creative, but also to speak to people in a certain way. I just think that the last few campaigns that I've covered, especially candidates who have run for president in the Democratic Party, they substitute reaching people on a soul level for a laundry list of policies. And I cannot for the life of me understand why anybody would think that that's a good substitute. It's not a good substitute, I think.
- [57:41]
Dan Pfeiffer
Because it codes if you don't. If you talk about morals and you're passionate, it codes like too progressive. And that if you give your laundry list, then it's like your laundry list of policies that poll well. And so then you can code more moderate. But, like, I think it's a false choice.
- [58:00]
Abby Phillip
Yeah, it is a false choice. I mean, but also, like, I don't know, politics is the art of persuasion.
- [58:06]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
- [58:07]
Abby Phillip
And you have to move people. You have to reach them.
- [58:10]
Dan Pfeiffer
And we're moved by stories and emotion.
- [58:12]
Abby Phillip
Yeah, exactly. You gotta tell a story. And I do think that that is a lost art, or it's increasingly so a lost art. I don't know what kind of, you know, candidate school some, some people need to be put through, but I just think there's definitely a rise of the sort of dominant Democratic candidate that doesn't know how to reach people on an emotional level. And, but also, but, but to be fair, to be fair, Jesse Jackson was running in the 80s. He was running against those types of like almost technocratic candidates. Right. And that's why one of the reasons that they lost spectacularly against Ronald Reagan, who was very much not that, who actually was the sort of like, how do you move people? Kind of, kind of figure on the right. And so it is such an, to me, it's such an important takeaway from Jesse Jackson is that some of it's a skill, you can't really teach it. But selecting for that in candidates I think can be really important because if you, if you have a candidate who can speak to people, who can understand how to craft an argument that addresses the practical day to day needs, economic needs, safety, education, people's futures, you can actually speak to them on that level. That probably should be the price to entry. And it's not really anymore.
- [59:41]
Dan Pfeiffer
No.
- [59:42]
Abby Phillip
And I mean in this moment you have to ask the question, okay, there are probably some Democrats who do this, but the Democratic Party doesn't know what to do with them. Maybe it's, you know, and that's, that's, they have to figure that out. But I, but, but one of the, one thing I will say is that Jesse Jackson had this base that was so energized. It was a lot of young people, it was a lot of disaffected voters, it was a lot of new voters. And he brought them into the political process. And then the party was kind of like, we don't really need them. It just wasn't a priority to sort of bring those people fully into the process, even while he lost the primary into the general election. And I think that is a sort of lesson, right. That it can be a mistake even if you don't endorse the sort of left wing politics of a certain candidate. What do you do with their people?
- [60:46]
Dan Pfeiffer
Right.
- [60:46]
Abby Phillip
What do you do with their people? And the failure to do anything with Jesse Jackson's people, I think really hurt Democrats.
- [60:54]
Dan Pfeiffer
We've had that problem over time.
- [60:55]
Abby Phillip
Yeah.
- [60:56]
Dan Pfeiffer
But it's also like the reason that he has those people is not just because of his issue positions, though that's a big part of it, but it's also because of something unique that he had. And I think that that's part of what we are missing. I mean, just like, and you write about this that, you know, he campaigned with poor white people and farmers and literally went places where you would not think that Jesse Jackson would go and his rhetoric. I mean, I went back and read his 1984 speech at the convention because that was always one of my favorite speeches. It's funny, it made me go back to when I was first in politics and I first like loved speeches. I would go to this website, American Rhetoric.com and they ranked the 100. Yeah, the hundred.
- [61:39]
Abby Phillip
That's a great resource.
- [61:41]
Dan Pfeiffer
And so I went back there last night. Cause I was looking at Jesse's 1984 speech again. And it's like his speech, Mario Cuomo's speech at the convention, Lyndon John says we shall overcome. King obviously, when you look at those top 10 speeches, they are all speeches that are like powerful, telling a story, really, just searing in a way. But also Jesse Jackson, for all the, well, he's on the left and the politics and maybe he's radical. He was constructing a pretty persuasive argument and trying to reach people who were not with him.
- [62:15]
Abby Phillip
Absolutely. And that's part of the misconception about his candidacy was that he spent a lot of time in places that Democrats don't go anymore. He was at Farm Aid with Willie Nelson, talking to a sea of white people about progressive politics.
- [62:35]
Dan Pfeiffer
And this is like what, this is like RFK's campaign too, that we used to have candidates like this.
- [62:39]
Abby Phillip
He was with farmers between the two campaigns, between 84 and 88, with farmers whose farms were being foreclosed, rallying with them. He was going down to the Deep south, back to Selma and talking to the guy who, you know, 15, 20 years earlier had been on the bridge beating the civil rights protesters. So he went places that I think even today you don't see a lot of Democratic candidates willing to go to trying to persuade people who normally wouldn't be inclined to talk to him and actually succeeding in large part. And then those speeches, both the 84 convention speech and the 88 convention speech are very good speeches. They are arguably some of the best ever to be delivered at a political convention. And they also, when you read them, you're like, oh yeah, he's talking about hollowed out factory towns and steel workers who need to go back, get back to work and how we need to stop being engaged in foreign wars and spend the money on bridges and roads at home. And it's like, wait, who does that sound like?
- [63:45]
Dan Pfeiffer
I know, I know.
- [63:46]
Abby Phillip
And that's, I mean, that's not to say that Jesse Jackson and Donald Trump have anything policy wise in common, except that they understand that you have to talk to people about their actual lives in really concrete ways and paint a picture for them of their existing life, and then the version of it that you're arguing, you can change. And I think he really understood that well, and I think Trump understands that really well. That's why, you know, it's been really hard, I think, for Democrats to respond to Trump because I think he's kind of stolen some of their messaging on some key issues, and figuring out how to get that back is gonna be part of the task ahead.
- [64:38]
Dan Pfeiffer
It's become such a cliche in politics to, like, meet people where they are, but I kind of want some Democratic candidate to take that literally and, like, launch their presidential campaign by, like, going to West Virginia, going to Mississippi, going to these places that are going to have, like, no electoral value to a Democratic, to the Democratic nominee.
- [64:55]
Abby Phillip
Jackson was in West Virginia.
- [64:56]
Dan Pfeiffer
He was in all those places, you know, and, like, don't. Don't set up a. An event where it seems like it's all artificial and you have your advance. You just, like, go talk. You know, we're in a national environment. Someone's going to film it anyway. It's going to end up on social media. I mean. I mean, Trump did a little of this in 24, where we were like, why is he going to Madison Square Garden? Why is he going here? And part of it was just the message that. The place sense.
- [65:19]
Abby Phillip
Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I mean, Jesse Jackson launched his campaign in 88 in this small Iowa town called Greenville. He had gone there, like, the year before and was invited by locals and went to this church, and it was like. I think it was like Super Bowl Sunday or something, and a thousand people showed up. And then. So he really had a connection to this place. It was literally a small town, a tiny, tiny town, and there was nothing there. It was. So it's close to Missouri. So then when he announces his campaign, all these farmers from across the border come just to hear him. And it's this kind of like, they're in this old. This barn area and they've got people on tractors, and it's that kind of vibe. And here he was this candidate that everybody was like, well, that's the black candidate. And he doesn't launch in Des Moines. He doesn't launch in one of the bigger Iowa cities. He goes to the country where there are really only white people and there are a lot of farmers and there are a lot of people who otherwise have no reason to be interested in his message and drew a big crowd and launched his campaign there. And that was Symbolic, not just for the press, but for himself. Because I think he. It was important to him that people saw that he envisioned his campaign as encompassing more than just people who looked like him. He really did believe that the message that he had had resonance with those people, too. And they did, more so than I think people recognize, because it just doesn't get remembered. I mean, in the book, there's this great photo that I am obsessed with because it's like Jesse Jackson, and he's standing. I think he's on a tractor. And there's like a young boy, like a young white boy in the photo standing next to him. But then all these men, farmers, with sacks of brown paper bags on their heads with their eyes cut out. And they had the sacks on their heads because their farms were being foreclosed on. They were protesting against that, and they were hiding from the people for closing their farms. But they wanted to show up at this Jesse Jackson rally. And I tell the story in the book about how he did this rally with them. And then they went to a church down the street and the farmers sat with the sacks on their heads in the front row in the pews of the church, listening to Jesse Jackson give this, like, stem winder of a speech in a church. And it's the story of this candidate who was so different from everything else that was going on. But I think part of it was the media environment. There was no Internet, so a lot of that never really broke through. You know, I mean, some of those.
- [68:04]
Dan Pfeiffer
Stories, he probably would have done much better in an attention environment like we have today.
- [68:10]
Abby Phillip
Yeah. I mean, some of those stories were not even reported on. I talked to some people who were there, which is how I was able to write about it. But in the newspapers, it wasn't. People weren't writing articles about Jesse Jackson talking to farmers all that often.
- [68:25]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
- [68:26]
Abby Phillip
And you imagine what would have happened if they did.
- [68:28]
Dan Pfeiffer
What a quintessential American scene, though. Just the church and the. I mean, just. It's. Well, a good version of an American, in my view.
- [68:38]
Abby Phillip
Yeah. I mean, the brown paper sacks could be a lot of different things. A lot of different things could be very nefarious. But in that case, it was. It was not. But it just tells the story of also those people. They're just. They were the type of people who. Their family and friends would have not wanted to see them at a Jesse Jackson rally.
- [69:00]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
- [69:00]
Abby Phillip
But they showed up anyway because he was the only candidate talking to them. The only one.
- [69:06]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. Last question. I'll let you Go. How did you find the time to write this book? I think you were like a new mom when you were starting to write it and you still had your day job.
- [69:18]
Abby Phillip
I was. I was. I was pregnant with my. My one and only daughter when I.
- [69:22]
Dan Pfeiffer
When you started it.
- [69:23]
Abby Phillip
When I started it, yeah. And I. And I just started anchoring my first show, Inside Politics, when I started this. So, I mean, bad timing, I will concede. Yeah. I mean, it took a while. It took a while. But I also think, you know, part of it was in writing this book. I kept struggling with how does the story end? Like, what's the conclusion about today's politics? And because every. Every four years. Right. Something massive happens in our politics. You know, in 2020, when I first started writing the book, Biden had won. Then in 2024, Biden loses.
- [70:05]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
- [70:06]
Abby Phillip
So, like, where are we going? And I think that that's still kind of unclear, but I think one thing that is not unclear is that this fight for the working class American is well underway, and that is the pitched battle that both parties are in right now. And I think that's what this book is about. How do you reach those people? And if you are a Democrat, how do you reach those people while also not abandoning the coalition of voters that makes up the Democratic Party? And I think that is where there are so many lessons from Jesse Jackson. But I also just. I mean, it's. As a writer, sometimes you want to be able to say, well, this is what you do with this information. And I think the answer is actually that it's tbd, because we're still in the middle of this very important consequential conversation about the future of economic populism and political populism in this country.
- [71:02]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yes. And we have been for several decades. But this is an important part of it, of that discussion. Abby, thank you so much for joining us. The book is a Dream Deferred, Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power. It's fantastic. Everyone go pick it up. Thanks.
- [71:16]
Abby Phillip
Thank you.
- [71:17]
Dan Pfeiffer
Before we go, some quick housekeeping. We got a special deal right now. If you sign up to become a friend of the pod, we're offering an exclusive 20% off when you subscribe for a full year only through today. Sunday, November 2nd. Monthly subscribers can upgrade and annual subscribers can renew at the discounted rate. Why should you become a friend of the pod? Well, as a cricket subscriber, you'll get all your favorite pods, ad free access to our exclusive Discord community, and bonus content like Polar Coaster, created to give polling junkies like me their fix and hopefully help all of you understand where the polls are as we head into a big midterm year. You'll also get inside 2025, a monthly series featuring never before heard stories from the White House and insight into what it takes to actually run the government. Help us keep fighting for democracy and making this content possible. The best way to do that is to become a friend of the Pod. This is the last day to get this special offer, so don't wait. Head to crooked.com friends to subscribe. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to cricket.com friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review that helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Crooked Pod Save America is a crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo, Emma Ilik Frank and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Churlin is our Executive Editor. Adrienne Hill is our head of news and politics. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kanter is our Sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt de Groat is our Head of production. Naomi Sengel is our Executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Kiril Pelaviev, David Toles and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. What is the secret to making great toast?
- [73:23]
Abby Phillip
Oh, you're just gonna go in with the hard hitting questions.
- [73:27]
Dan Pfeiffer
I'm Dan Pashman from the Sporkful. We like to say it's not for foodies, it's for eaters. We use food to learn about culture, history and science. There was the time we looked into allegations of discrimination. Bon app? Petite. Or when I spent three years inventing a new pasta shape. It's a complex noodle that you put together every episode of the Sporkful. You're going to learn something, feel something and laugh. The Sporkful. Get it wherever you get your podcasts.
- [73:54]
Jon Favreau
The 2026 Chevy Equinox is more than an SUV. It's your Sunday tailgate and your parking lot snack bar. Your lucky jersey, your chairs and your big cooler fit perfectly in your even bigger cargo space. And when it's go time, your 11.3-inch diagonal touchscreen's got the playbook, the playlist and the tech to stay a step ahead. It's more than an suv. It's your Equinox Chevrolet.
- [74:19]
Dan Pfeiffer
Together.
- [74:19]
Jon Favreau
Let's drive.