Did Republicans Just Lose the House?

Summary

Pod Save America: "Did Republicans Just Lose the House?"

Release Date: May 23, 2025
Hosts: Jon Favreau, Dan Pfeiffer
Guest: Representative Lamonica McIver
Episode Description:
In this episode, the hosts delve into the recent political upheavals, including the passage of a controversial House bill, the fallout from Donald Trump's actions, and insightful data revealing why Democrats fell short in the 2024 elections. The episode culminates with an exclusive interview with Representative Lamonica McIver, who faces felony charges amidst her oversight duties.

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1. U.S. Political Climate and Recent Events

a. Attack at the Israeli Embassy and the "White Genocide" Conspiracy Theory

The episode opens with distressing news about an anti-Semitic attack targeting two staffers at the Israeli Embassy in Washington. The attackers, motivated by extremist views, violently opposed recent events at the Capitol Jewish Museum.

Jon Favreau ([02:40]):
"We’re starting briefly with the deeply upsetting news on Wednesday night that two staffers at the Israeli Embassy in Washington... were shot at close range and killed in an anti-Semitic attack."

The discussion quickly shifts to Republican Congressman Randy Fine's inflammatory remarks regarding Gaza, illustrating the heightened tensions and the propagation of conspiracy theories within political factions.

Randy Fine ([04:11]):
"The fact of the matter is the Palestinian cause is an evil one. ... The only end of the conflict is complete and total surrender by those who support Muslim terror."

b. Ripple Effects of Extremist Rhetoric

Jon and Dan express concern over the rise in anti-Semitic sentiments and the dangerous polarization exacerbated by such rhetoric.

Dan Pfeiffer ([04:49]):
"It is inherent in the language that Stephen Miller used... this can be used as a way to go after foreign students... suppress people's freedom of speech and their freedom of assembly."

Jon Favreau ([06:02]):
"Anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic attacks have been on the rise for the last decade... it's just like they don’t want people who disagree with the administration to have the freedom to speak out."

2. Passage of the House Tax Cut Bill

a. The "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" Explained

House Republicans successfully passed a sweeping tax cut bill aimed primarily at the wealthiest Americans, sparking significant controversy.

Jon Favreau ([09:16]):
"The biggest news of the week... House Republicans passed Donald Trump's economic plan that gives $1 trillion in tax cuts to the richest 1% of Americans."

b. Impact Analysis: Benefits for the Wealthy vs. Cuts to Social Programs

The bill allocates substantial tax breaks to individuals earning over $1 million annually. However, these benefits come at a steep cost to social safety nets.

Dan Pfeiffer ([11:06]):
"The moderates... were willing to trade all of that away in order to get an increase in the cap for the state and local tax deduction, which mostly benefits wealthy homeowners."

The legislation also includes drastic reductions in Medicaid funding and food assistance programs, adversely affecting millions, especially children.

Jon Favreau ([15:04]):
"When we were debating repealing the Affordable Care Act, we were talking about how 20 million people could lose their health care. Well, now, 14 million people could lose their health care."

c. Deficit Concerns

Despite the extensive tax cuts, the bill is projected to increase the national deficit by over $3 trillion.

Jon Favreau ([15:04]):
"Because there's other tax cuts as well, this whole bill would still increase the deficit by $3 trillion. Over $3 trillion."

d. Future Prospects: Senate Challenges and Democratic Strategies

The bill's passage in the House has set the stage for a tight battle in the Senate, where Republicans have a narrow majority.

Dan Pfeiffer ([16:02]):
"Every single vulnerable Republican, every one of those people in a purple district... were the deciding vote for this bill."

Dan emphasizes the necessity for Democrats to exert substantial political pressure on Senators to mitigate the bill's impact, especially its Medicaid cuts.

Dan Pfeiffer ([22:00]):
"We have to put so much political pressure on them that they scale them back. But failing that, at least we'll be informing people that they exist."

3. Donald Trump’s South Africa Meeting and White Genocide Theory

a. The Controversial Meeting

A pivotal moment discussed is President Trump's meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, where Trump propagated the unfounded "white genocide" conspiracy theory.

Jon Favreau ([27:26]):
"Trump holding up a bunch of random press clippings... it's just a white genocide conspiracy theory."

b. Analysis of Authoritarian Tactics

Hosts analyze how Trump’s rhetoric is a tool to instill fear and consolidate power, drawing parallels to authoritarian regimes.

Dan Pfeiffer ([34:42]):
"This is not about what's happening in South Africa... The world is getting more diverse. America is on an inexorable path towards being a majority minority country."

Jon Favreau ([36:06]):
"Grievance politics... Republicans rather serve Trump than serve their constituents."

4. Election Data Insights from Catalyst Report

a. Shifts in Democratic Coalition

The episode delves into the Catalyst report, revealing significant losses for Democrats among young voters and voters of color.

Dan Pfeiffer ([50:39]):
"Kamala Harris lost critical ground with young voters and people of color, especially men of color."

b. Impact on Future Elections

The data underscores the challenges Democrats face in retaining their traditional coalitions while appealing to new electorates.

Dan Pfeiffer ([56:05]):
"Even with Latino voters, Hillary Clinton did better than Obama. Kamala Harris won 54%, a 16-point drop."

Jon Favreau ([60:39]):
"People who follow politics closely... but Trump won with people who don't follow politics that closely or consume a lot of political news."

5. Interview with Representative Lamonica McIver

a. Overview of the Incident

Representative McIver details the events leading to her felony charges following an oversight visit to an ICE detention facility.

Representative Lamonica McIver ([65:42]):
"We were waiting... greeted with disrespect, confrontation... ICE officials arrived and confronted the mayor instead."

b. Reaction to Charges and Political Intimidation

McIver frames the charges as politically motivated efforts by the Trump administration to silence opposition and intimidate members of Congress.

Representative McIver ([68:21]):
"It's a political intimidation... the DOJ... are putting felony assault charges against me for doing my job."

c. Support from Democratic Colleagues

She highlights the unwavering support from her Democratic colleagues while criticizing Republican counterparts for their allegiance to Trump over constituents.

Representative McIver ([73:48]):
"My Democratic colleagues have been extremely helpful... Republicans prefer serving Trump over serving their constituents."

d. Impact of the Republican House Bill

McIver underscores the detrimental effects of the newly passed House bill on social programs and emphasizes the betrayal by Republicans prioritizing Trump over their districts.

Representative McIver ([76:28]):
"Republicans are more concerned about Donald Trump than the voters in their districts... people are going to die, hospitals are going to close."

6. Conclusion and Forward Look

Jon and Dan wrap up the episode by reflecting on the dire state of the Democratic Party, the erosion of its coalition, and the urgent need for strategic changes to regain political ground.

Dan Pfeiffer ([56:05]):
"There is no path to Democrats winning elections... we have to be willing to ask very hard questions."

Jon Favreau ([60:56]):
"If you like Pod Save America, you'll love the message box. Subscribe and stay informed."

The episode emphasizes the critical juncture at which the Democratic Party stands and calls for introspection and strategic recalibration to address the evolving political landscape.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Jon Favreau ([09:16]):
  "The biggest news of the week is that in the middle of the night, House Republicans passed Donald Trump's economic plan that gives $1 trillion in tax cuts to the richest 1% of Americans."

• Dan Pfeiffer ([11:06]):
  "They moved forward when the work requirements would go into place to the end of 2026 and made more drastic cuts to the clean energy tax incentives... they gave in on that."

• Representative McIver ([68:21]):
  "It's a political intimidation... I'm the latest victim of that."

• Dan Pfeiffer ([56:05]):
  "Even with Latino voters, Hillary Clinton did better than Obama. Kamala Harris won 54%, a 16-point drop."

• Jon Favreau ([60:56]):
  "If you like Pod Save America, you'll love the message box. Subscribe and stay informed."

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Key Takeaways

1. Rise of Extremist Rhetoric: The episode underscores the alarming increase in extremist and anti-Semitic rhetoric within certain political factions, contributing to societal polarization.

2. House Tax Cut Bill's Controversial Passage: Republicans passed a significant tax cut bill favoring the wealthy, with extensive cuts to social programs like Medicaid and food assistance, further deepening the national deficit.

3. Authoritarian Tendencies: Trump's meeting with South Africa's president highlighted his inclination towards conspiracy theories and authoritarian tactics to incite fear and consolidate power.

4. Democratic Coalition Erosion: The Catalyst report reveals substantial losses for Democrats among young voters and voters of color, pressing the party to reevaluate its strategies to rebuild its coalition.

5. Political Intimidation: The interview with Representative McIver highlights the Trump administration's use of legal charges as tools of political intimidation against opposition members within Congress.

6. Urgent Need for Democratic Strategy Shift: The hosts emphasize the necessity for the Democratic Party to address internal challenges, reconnect with diverse voter bases, and counteract the damaging policies and rhetoric of their Republican counterparts.

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Conclusion

This episode of "Pod Save America" provides a comprehensive analysis of the current political turmoil, the implications of recent legislative actions, and the shifting dynamics within the Democratic Party. Through incisive discussions and an impactful interview, Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer illuminate the critical issues facing American democracy and the urgent need for strategic recalibration to safeguard and rebuild the Democratic coalition.

Transcript

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[Jon Favreau]

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

[Jon Favreau]

On today's show, we'll talk about the big billionaire welfare bill that just passed the House. Trump turning his meeting with South Africa's president into a white genocide. Media presentation, the most corrupt dinner in presidential history that's happening Thursday night. And brand new data that finally offers some definitive conclusions about why Democrats came up short in 2024 and who the party has to win back in 2026 and 2028 and beyond. Then Dan talks to New Jersey representative Lamonica McIver about the Trump administration charging her with two felonies while she was conducting congressional oversight at an immigration detention facility. But let's start briefly with the deeply upsetting news on Wednesday night that two staffers at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, a couple who were just days away from getting engaged, were shot at close range and killed in an anti Semitic attack outside an event at the Capitol Jewish Museum. The gunman, born and raised in Chicago, shouted free Palestine and posted a manifesto on Twitter titled escalate for Gaza. Bring the war home. He has now been charged the killings were universally condemned by elected officials and activists across the political spectrum. Trump posted his condolences and said that, quote, hatred and radicalism have no place in the usa, though some on the right, like Stephen Miller, White House aide, called it an example of a, quote, growing cancer of far left domestic terrorism. And here's what Republican Congressman Randy Fine said about Gaza when asked about the shootings on Fox.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The fact of the matter is the Palestinian cause is an evil one. The only end of the conflict is complete and total surrender by those who support Muslim terror. In World War II, we did not negotiate a, a surrender with the Nazis. We did not negotiate a surrender with the Japanese. We nuked the Japanese twice in order to get unconditional surrender. That needs to be the same here.

[Jon Favreau]

Jesus Christ. So there's still information coming in about the killings since it's early, but what do you think the danger is in this moment, beyond some of the gross and offensive takes we have read on the Internet and seen on Fox?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, as you pointed out, it's a deeply disturbing, horrific example of violent anti Semitism in this country. And it's what we have to unite to stop in this country. But what is scary about it in this moment with this president in the White House, is that it is things like this, these sensational, emotionally evocative, violent events that authoritarians and fascists latch onto to use as a pretense for a broad based oppression or targeting of a certain population. So you can easily, you can see that it is inherent in the language that Stephen Miller used that you quoted, that this can be used as a way to go after, as the Trump administration has frankly already been doing, the larger Palestinian rights movement in this country, the larger, almost entirely nonviolent, peaceful Palestinian rights movement in this country, as a way to go after foreign students with their visas, to target universities, to target organizations, to suppress people's freedom of speech and their freedom of assembly. And so this is sort of thing you can easily see Trump and his minions latching onto in a very dangerous way.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I mean, anti Semitism and anti Semitic attacks have been on the rise for the last decade, especially since October 7th. Not just from the extreme left, like in this instance, but from the far right as well. It's also true that people who commit political violence almost always hurt the cause that they purport to care about. That's certainly true for those of us who believe the massacre of innocent civilians in Gaza is not the answer to the massacre of innocent civilians in Israel. On October 7, Yair Rosenberg wrote a piece in the Atlantic about the killings and had a good line. I thought neither Palestine nor Israel will ever truly be free until their societies are liberated from megalomaniacal men who perpetrate demonic acts in their name. But as you said, aside from all that, the administration has been cynically exploiting antisemitism to further their own authoritarian project, and as you said, targeting sort of the pro Palestinian movement nationwide, but also just anyone who disagrees with them, whether it's about Gaza or not, about any other issue. And so it's, you know, it's universities, and sometimes it's about protests, sometimes it's not about the protests. The. Sometimes it's protests about Gaza, sometimes it's other protests. It's whatever the protest is at the moment. They just don't want people who disagree with the administration to have the freedom to speak out and to organize in this country. And that is becoming very clear. It was clear today when the Department of Homeland Security sent a letter to Harvard revoking their Student Exchange and Visitor Program certification. Which means that, to quote DHS in the letter, Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students, and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status. There are 6,800 international students at Harvard. That is roughly 27% of the student body. And imagine being one of those students right now. You have to, what, transfer schools or worried about losing your legal status now, there's a judge in California who issued an injunction on the administration's attempt to remove legal status from international students. And it's a nationwide injunction, so unclear if it applies to this case or not. I imagine Harvard will also sue in this particular case, and I imagine there'll be an injunction here as well. Otherwise, you're gonna have a bunch of international students who, if they don't transfer, could lose their jobs and potentially lose legal status and be deported. But it's just one example of, you know, the DHS is using the protests and anti Semitism, but that's not what they really want to do. They just don't like Harvard.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, they want to send a message to people that they view as their enemies.

[Jon Favreau]

It's disgusting. And for the rest of us, whether it's a cause you care passionately about, whatever side of an issue you're on, recognize that the administration does not want to stop at pro Palestinian protesters or media people that they don't like or different colleges that they don't like. Like they. Unless you are completely in agreement with the administration and never speak out against them, you are at risk from this administration.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

If you're one of those people who believed that freedom of speech was a real reason to vote for Donald Trump in 2024, I have some bad news for you.

[Jon Favreau]

Right? Right. Yeah. What a fucking joke that was. Okay, biggest news of the week is that in the middle of the night, House Republicans passed Donald Trump's economic plan that gives $1 trillion in tax cuts to the richest 1% of Americans. These are Americans who make over $1 million a year. Just those trillion dollars in tax cuts are paid for by kicking 14 million Americans off their health insurance and cutting food assistance for nearly 11 million people, mostly children. The one big beautiful bill act, which I regret to inform you, is the official name of the legislation. It's actually. I had to look. It's actually on the paper. Would also put nearly 700,000 jobs at risk by gutting clean energy tax credits. And despite all of these cuts, because there's other tax cuts as well, this whole bill would still increase the deficit by $3 trillion. Over $3 trillion. The bill passed by a single vote, 215 to 214. Every single Democrat voted against it, every single Republican voted for it. And it passed after Republicans made even deeper cuts and changes to win the votes of the hardliners in their caucus, many of whom still aren't happy, but got to yes after a gentle nudge from Dear Leader himself, who said that A no vote would, quote, be the ultimate betrayal. The bill now heads to the Senate, where Republicans can only afford to lose three votes. You said last week it's the Republican moderates who always cave and the hardliners who always win. What'd you think of how this one ended up?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That's largely how this played out. The moderates, who originally wanted very few Medicaid changes, very little cuts to Medicaid, not people losing their health coverage through Medicaid, were willing to trade all of that away in order to get an increase in the cap for the state and local tax deduction, which mostly benefits wealthy homeowners up to $500,000 income in their states. So they traded that away for that. The far right deficit hawks did not get a bill that reduced the deficit, obviously, since they got one who massively increased it, but they shot the Runway.

[Jon Favreau]

There by a couple trillion dollars.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

They were just horseshoes and hand grenades, Sean. They were almost there. And the bill moved to the right on both Medicaid. They moved forward when the work requirements would go into place to the end of 2026 and made more drastic the cuts to the clean energy tax incentives from the Inflation Reduction act, which is something the moderates almost universally opposed. So they gave in on that. And we'll see what the final vote is when they have to. We'll talk about what comes next when the final passage of this vote. But the fact that it passed by one vote means that every single vulnerable Republican, every one of those people in a purple district or the ones who won a district that Kamala Harris won, were the deciding vote for this bill.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I think that the conflict between the hardliners and the moderates is much less important than the role of Donald Trump here. And like, I think these Republican politicians, you know, they still have their own views about policy, and they may even vote according to those views when a Democratic president is in office. But when Donald Trump is in office, the most important policy position that you have as a Republican is whatever the fuck Donald Trump believes. And the fact that he could go in there and tell the hardliners, oh, you're all pissed. You're all threatening to vote it down if it doesn't cut the deficit more, if we don't have deeper cuts, fuck you, you're voting for the bill and told the moderates, oh, you're worried about losing, eh, Whatever. You lose, you lose. But let me tell you, you're gonna have a primary if you don't get on board this. Like, they are all just they'll do whatever he says.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's a call to personality, is the party. And they all bend the knee to one person. And that person has an entirely incoherent and uneducated set of policy. He doesn't really know what he wants. He just wants wins. Doesn't matter what the win is, doesn't matter what the cost is. And he believes he can lie about it. He can lie about the deficit, he can lie about the Medicaid cuts and lie about all of it and get away with it. So all he cares about is his win. What it takes to get there and who gets hurt along the way is of no concern to him. And these members then go along and it makes no sense. We talked about this for weeks. It was impossible to square the circle. What people wanted could not happen. You could not. Some people wanted Medicaid cuts, some people wanted more Medicaid cuts. Some people wanted to reduce deficit, some people wanted bigger tax cuts. And they all just went in line because that's what Donald Trump wanted, not because he cut some deal that met in the middle on various things. They just ended up going where he wanted to go because they were afraid they'd lose their primary. Because the primary comes before the general. If you lose your primary, you don't even get a chance to suffer the consequences in the general for your vote to kick your. Your constituents off. Health care and food assistance to pay for a tax cut for rich guys.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. I mean, in a way, they got the worst of all worlds. They have a bill that is huge, will hugely increase the deficit. Will also deeply cut Medicaid.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

We'll also give tax cuts to the richest Americans. Will also screw over poorer Americans and much of Trump's base. I don't know who's leaving this with. We'll talk about what happens next. But if the House bill became law, I don't know who wins from that. Except 1%. Top 1%. Top 0.1%. That's about it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, Data for Progress did this polling experiment where they used some modeling, but basically they modeled support for cuts to Medicaid throughout every congressional district in the country. And nowhere was it higher than 15%.

[Jon Favreau]

14 million people. And you get 14 million because I think it's around 9 million for the Medicaid cuts. And then they also declined to extend the enhanced subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. What that means is that's where you get up to 14 million. When we were debating repealing the Affordable Care act, we were talking about how 20 million people could lose their health care. Well, now, 14 million people could lose their health care. A lot of other people, by the way, that's not even counting the people who are just gonna pay more for their healthcare. Medicare beneficiaries who depend on Medicaid are gonna pay more for their healthcare. A lot of people are gonna lose their Medicaid. Other people are gonna pay more for their Medicaid. People who are buying their own health insurance on the Affordable Care act exchanges are gonna pay a lot more. Some of them will lose their health care for good. Rural hospitals are gonna close because of this. It's probably the biggest assault on health care, on people's healthcare coverage that we've seen in our lifetimes.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's one of the greatest transfers of wealth from the poor to the rich in the history of this country.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And guess what? We should be going the other way on the transfer of wealth.

[Jon Favreau]

We should be going. Yes, yes, that. Exactly. Any other stuff in the bill worth knowing about.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, it defunds Planned Parenthood by denying Medicaid funding to any organization who has abortion services as part of their offering, which is intentionally written to target Planned Parenthood. There is a massive increase in the defense budget. Good job, fiscal hawks. A $100 billion. I think it is for Trump's mass deportation plan at one point. I don't know if it's the final bill that they were. Eliminating the excise tax on tanning. Be huge priority of many people.

[Jon Favreau]

Jesus.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The thing is, this bill is so big and so people. So few people have read the whole thing that we're going to be discovering what's in this bill for weeks.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that brings us to the Senate, which will be taking up this bill.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Before we get to the Senate, can we just for one moment just pause on the fact that they call it the One Big beautiful bill Act.

[Jon Favreau]

I know, redundancy there.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's been a while since Schoolhouse Rocks has been on tv, but it's a bill until it's an act. And it would have been so easy to just do one big beautiful act.

[Jon Favreau]

You know, And I fucking hate all the acronyms on everything related to Congress. And for the. I didn't know it was called this until I saw someone write. I got one of those emails from some group that was giving us, you know, what's going on with the bill, and it's like, oba. Oba. I was like, what the fuck is oba?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Reid kept putting that in some of his writing, and I did not know what the OBBB was For a long time.

[Jon Favreau]

Jesus Christ.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Makes it easier. They also have biff.

[Jon Favreau]

They have these, they had these MAGA accounts that for like every child born. They were going to put $1,000 in the stock market.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But now I think they're not $1,000 anymore. I know, it's like it's just a tax free savings account now basically, right?

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, that's cool. That's cool.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Basically it's the. They named it the MAGA account. And I was like, they must have made MAGA stand for something, right? And they, it just stands for maga, right?

[Jon Favreau]

No, no, this is, this is, this is a small thing, but this is how they fuck this up. MAGA stood for something. It was like account or something. I can't remember what it is now. But then in the middle of the night last night they suddenly changed. One change in the bill was changing all the instances of MAGA account in the legislation to the Trump account. They need to change the Trump account.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Right. But the end result here is it sounds on paper like something like baby bonds with a child tax credit. But what it really is likely to end up being is, is a tax haven for wealthy people.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, cool, cool, cool. Everything else in there.

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[Jon Favreau]

All right, the Senate. So John Thune said today, oh, the Senate's going to write it. We're going to write our own bill and we're just going to use the House bill as guidance. You got Murkowski and Collins who both said that they are, they don't like the Medicaid cuts. Then you have other people like I think Kevin Kramer was saying he wants deeper Medicaid cuts. You got Rand Paul saying I don't want the debt ceiling lifted in this bill.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Ron Johnson, oh, on the whole thing.

[Jon Favreau]

Ron Johnson's worried about the debt. He said he wants deeper cuts. So what do you think? What are the opportunities in the Senate here for Democrats to if not kill the bill, at least improve it?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's interesting because there's no negotiating with Democrats here, right? There's no Joe Manchin or anyone left that you would like. So Thune can lose three votes and he's got all sorts of problems all across the board. He has similar to the House in the sense that he has moderates who like Murkowski and Collins who do not want success Medicaid cuts and performative populists like Josh Hawley who also saying they don't want Medicaid cuts. And then you got a bunch of people, more Medicaid cuts. Where is that going to come down? There's people who are going to care about how the Medicaid cuts are like which Medicaid cuts there are, not just the top line. And ultimately you're probably going to they're going to be forced to pass something pretty close to the House, I think, because otherwise it's not going to pass. And they have a ticking clock here because the debt limit is in this bill, which I did not mention when you asked me this question. And the debt limit has to be extended X date, the date when we run out of cash is supposed to be in July, I believe is the last time Scott Besant said it. So before these folks leave for August recess, they have to pass something to extend the debt limit or we would default or we would mint a $1 trillion Trump coin or something to solve the problem.

[Jon Favreau]

That'll do wonders for the bond markets, I'm sure.

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Yeah, great.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The bond markets are very excited about everything that's been happening these days. The House is done to the Senate what the Senate usually does to the House, which is send them a bill that they can't make a ton of changes to. What I would think about from the perspective of Democrats is put as much pressure as you can on senators. Absolutely. Including the ones like Thom Tillis who were up in 2026, and use this as an opportunity and try to get some of those Medicaid cuts scaled back in some way, shape or form. But even absent that, the reason why this fight is worth having and making a big sinking fight is we know these Medicaid cuts are incredibly unpopular. We also know based on a Navigator Research poll that came out this morning, most people do not know about the Medicaid cuts. They ask people what stories you've been hearing a lot of. And only 27% of respondents said they've been hearing a lot about the Medicaid cuts. That's half what we've been hearing about the tariffs or the new Pope and stories like that. So we have some time here. But in every day that this bill is not yet law, we should try to put so much political pressure on them that they scale them back. But failing that, at least we'll be informing people that they exist, that they will pay the price next November.

[Jon Favreau]

On Tuesday, Trump went to the Hill and told Republicans in a closed door meeting, quote, don't fuck with Medicaid. But of course they fucked with Medicaid.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Boy, did they.

[Jon Favreau]

And he's thrilled. He's taken a victory lap. He's saying it's amazing. Clearly, you know, you mentioned this. He just thinks he can get away with lying about it, which maybe he can with his base at least because, you know, the way they have set it up now, they moved up the work requirements, but the cuts to Medicaid and the people losing their health insurance probably won't happen until after the midterms. The work requirements are scheduled to go into effect right after the midterms. I guess if the ACA subsidies don't get extended past this year, then that'll start hitting people soon. But there is a question of, we know that when people actually feel the effects of policy, their political opinions can change, but when they are told the effects of policy, they may either not believe it or just not hear it, or just be or believe the lies they're told from the people that they voted for and support. So how do you think about the most effective way to make a political case other than just screaming about Medicaid cuts? And also, sorry, I'm asking you a lot of questions. Medicaid versus like 14 million people losing their health care. What do you think about that? Because I never want to, like leave out the ACA stuff and just talk about Medicaid because then if someone isn't on Medicaid, they might think, oh, I'll be fine when they may not be fine.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Right. So I think it, I do this in the following ways. One is it's absolutely essential to tie the cuts to Medicaid to pay for the tax cuts for the rich.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And the reason why this is important is what we have to do is this is telling a story about who Trump and these House Republicans in particular are fighting for. And it's not for you, it's not for working class people. It is for the rich. And that was a very effective message in 2018 because Republicans wanted to pay for those tax cuts with cuts to Medicare, Social Security and repealing the aca. They're gonna lie about it. I mean, remember all the ads in 2018 of Republicans staring into the camera saying I would never vote to kick people with pre existing conditions off of healthcare after they had just voted to kick people with pre existing conditions, existing conditions off of health care. And so they're going to lie about it. That didn't work then and we can make sure it doesn't work now. Medicaid, in the word Medicaid is incredibly powerful. In that same Navigator poll, 75% of people, including 62% of Republicans, oppose cuts to Medicaid. When you ask people to, if they want to cut Medicaid a lot, cut Medicaid a little, keep it the same or increase it. Most people want to increase it, increase funding for Medicaid. And so we shouldn't run away from that. But the broader story here is that the House Republicans want to, and Trump and the House Republicans want to give huge tax cuts to the ultra wealthy incorporations. They want to pay for it by cutting Medicaid, kicking people off their health care and taking food off the table from school children. 18 million kids lunches are at risk in the snap cuts in this bill. 3 million people losing food assistance. And so it is that the story we're telling is not about the specific policy. It's not the specific impacts which are going to come down the line. It's, it is a story about who these Republicans are and who they're fighting for.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. There's one thing that I think is pretty easy to understand and also just infuriating when it's put like this. If you make over $4 million a year, you will get $400,000 in tax cuts. If you are the 40% of Americans making 50,000 and under, your income is going to go down. So people making under, people working, people making under $50,000 are going to lose income. So that fucking people who make over $4 million can get $400,000 as a tax cut. That's what our government's spending money on. $400,000 for multi millionaires. Like, I don't know, it just. It seems like that is a. It's a pretty easy thing for people to understand. And if they want to defend that, great, go defend that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We have to make him defend it.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes. All right. Another notable moment from this week took place during Wednesday's Oval Office meeting between Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, which our president used as an opportunity to spread his favorite new conspiracy theory that there's a genocide against white South Africans. Trump held up a bunch of random press clippings. Then he dimmed the lights for the video portion of the presentation, which was a hard to follow montage both for viewers at home and for President Ramaphosa. Here's a sampling of what it all sounded like. You're taking.

[Patient]

You're taking people's land, we have from them. And those people, in many cases are being executed. They're being executed and they happen to be white. Now, I will say apartheid, terrible. That was the biggest threat that was reported on the time. This is sort of the opposite of apartheid. What's happening now is never reported. Nobody knows about it. These are articles over the last few days. Death of people. Death, death, death. Horrible. Death, death. I don't.

[Jon Favreau]

It was. Tommy and I watched the whole thing live unfold while we were in the office. And it was just. First of all, it went on forever. And it was the most surreal experience. A lot of. A lot of the coverage tried to compare it to the Zelensky meeting, which it really was. It's. It was also a completely batshit crazy meeting. But the Zelensky meeting was, like, really tense. And J.D. vance is yelling. This one was just like. It was like he was holding a salon. And all of the delegation that came with the South African president, they got involved. They brought some white Afrikaner, like professional golfers. Cause I guess the South Africa, the poor South African president must have thought to himself, oh, I must have. The white golfers to potentially communicate with this white golfer who's quite racist, and maybe that maybe I will be able to break through by bringing my white golfers like it was. And then. And then he's. We're gonna talk about it, but he's screaming at the reporters, yelling at Peter Alexander for asking a question about the Qatari plane. He's holding up the press clippings. President Ramaphosa's like, that video you just showed. I don't know where those crosses are. I don't know who you're talking about. And Trump's like, well, it's in South Africa. He's like, no, I know, I know. Because he's like, where did that all come from? He's like, it came from South Africa.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's like, no, dude, the Zelenskyy meeting was, like, pretty normal compared to this. Like, I mean, if you put aside the fact that it was, you know.

[Jon Favreau]

It was angrier and more.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, it was sure that one felt like. Like, put aside the fact that the most surreal part of this Linsky meeting was that you had the United States beating up on the ally we were supporting in the war in service of Vladimir Putin. Like, put that aside for sec. It kind of felt like a meeting that could be happening behind closed doors, just with people being dicks, because it is high stakes. We're. We. We were sending a lot of money there. They're trying to get people like, what? Like, that's. This was bananas. You just have the South African president just randomly showing up here for a meeting. Like any normal pro forma meeting we have with world leaders all the time. And the president is like. You use the term press clippings. These are mostly Facebook posts that are printed out like it is.

[Jon Favreau]

Natalie. Natalie, do you have my. Do you have my clips? That's what he was yelling.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And then.

[Jon Favreau]

And Natalie, who just exists with a printer, I guess. I guess she's a human printer with a real printer. And then she just.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think that's her job. She's the one that's literally the profile of Natalie. Yes.

[Jon Favreau]

She prints out Facebook posts and hand them over, which makes her one of.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The top 10 most powerful people in the government right now. Fucking Marco Rubio would love to be able to hand Facebook posts to Donald Trump these days. You can always kiss Natalie to try to get.

[Jon Favreau]

That's going to be Marco's fifth job. Pretty soon. He's going to be announced as that. But, yeah, no, the white genocide conspiracy theory as. As much as we were just laughing is Horrific. It is. It is. Basically what's going on here is Trump. And before Trump, Elon Musk. And before Elon Musk, way before Elon Musk, I don't know, just random, like 4chan and 8chan. Trolls on the Internet started this, believe that there is a genocide against South African farmers, most of whom are Afrikaners, White Afrikaners. And they are worried about. They're basically, the theory is that the overwhelming majority black population of South Africa is going after the land of the white farmers because white farmers have most of the land, even though they represent a tiny percentage of the population and are murdering white farmers all over the place and committing a genocide against them. Now, white Africaners in South Africa, in the government, do not believe that a white genocide is occurring. And in fact, in the Oval Office, we're like, oh, no, there are murders and there is crime in South Africa, but it's nothing. It's. It's nothing like a genocide. And there are stats on this. There were nearly 7,000 people were murdered in South Africa between October and December of 2024. Of these nearly 7,000 people murdered, 12 were killed in farm attacks. And some of those people were black. So that's the white genocide theory, the opposite of apartheid, as Trump so beautifully put it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The reasons why Trump brought this up, I think are very telling about his worldview, the central premises of MAGA ism and the spread of right wing nationalism around the world. This is not about what's happening in South Africa. Right? The world is getting more diverse. America's getting more diverse. We are on an inexorable path towards being a majority minority country. And what Trump has always tried to weaponize is this fear that the white, Christian, mostly men, are going to lose their political power that they, in his view, believe is their birthright as the country becomes more diverse. That is Stephen Miller's we're losing our American identity. Immigration is diluting who we are and all of that. And so this idea that somewhere across the world there is an example of a place where whites are the minority and this mythical genocide is happening is a tool to scare people here, to incite people to more racial animus, to be more racially polarized, and that is ultimately like, that is how authoritarianism works, is you pick an other right, it could be black people, Latinos, immigrants, Jews, and they are threatening the regime. And you should be so scared of this happening that you are willing to voluntarily hand over your rights and freedoms in exchange for safety. And so, like, that's the court. This is not. This is like, that's all like, when Trump talks about how we go back to the 50s again, that's a very specific reference to a time before the Voting Rights act, to a time when America was much more white. But this used, like you look at what happened in Hungary, it's a very. Orban has a very similar playbook for how he was able to consolidate power. So this is not like. This is obviously tied to the fact that the world's richest man hangs out with Donald Trump all the time, and he also has to be a white South African who pushes this specific conspiracy theory. But the reason why it, like, Trump vibes with it is because it's consistent with his worldview.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, and the key here is grievance politics, which is what Trump practices and what most authoritarians practice is fueled by a belief that they are the ones, the in group is the ones being discriminated against. Right. And so Trump doesn't say, I don't like diversity. I don't like. You know, their argument is, of course we want everyone to be equal, but we are the ones being discriminated against. It's reverse racism. And so they can point to South Africa, where, by the way, there was apartheid till 1996. And the reason there's even conflict about the land there is because this tiny percentage of white South Africans, Afrikaners, own a gigantic percentage of the land. And so they are trying to basically rectify what happened after decades of apartheid in the country. Never mind all that. If they can look at, there's one country in the world where, oh, it's the white minority that is being discriminated against that is being targeted. Then they can say, see, this is what could happen in the United States. This is what could happen in Europe. Maybe not with black people from South Africa, but maybe it's immigrants from the Middle east, maybe it's immigrants from elsewhere. Right. It's just no matter how much power and wealth you have, in order to fuel the grievance politics, you need to be the one who is the persecuted minority somehow.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Or in this case, the persecuted majority.

[Jon Favreau]

Right, Right. But that's. They don't want. I mean, that's. I follow these accounts now because of the immigration shit. And they're like, they don't think that we're. They're the majority. Right. It's like it is 21st, it was 5 million immigrants let in, then 10 million, then 20 million, and suddenly it's like, it's a trillion. Pretty soon it's gonna be a trillion. Immigrants and only 10Americans on a different date.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'd like to talk to you about the accounts you're following and why you're following them. And maybe we should just have an intervention of sorts.

[Jon Favreau]

It's our friend Stephen Miller. It's Mike Davis now because I was arguing with him. I talked about this on Emma's nodding. I talked about this on offline this week. So you can listen to that. But really, I'm exposed to some real bad stuff these days.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes, I feel like Max is not doing his job if you're still doing this. So step up, Max.

[Jon Favreau]

Let me tell you, it's pretty dark. It's pretty dark.

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[Jon Favreau]

All right, so believe it or not, as I mentioned, the meeting went even further off the rails when NBC's Peter Alexander asked Trump about the $400 million Qatari luxury jet that the Department of Defense has now officially accepted as a gift. The President responded to Peter's question by losing his shit. Let's listen.

[Patient]

If they weren't fake news like this jerk that we have here, if we had real reporters, they'd be covering it. But the fake news in this country doesn't talk about that. They'll have him talking about. Why did a country give a free. Think. Think of this. Why did a country give an airplane to the United States Air Force? That's what that idiot talks about after viewing a thing where thousands of people are dead.

[Representative Lamonica McIver]

I'm sorry, I don't have a plane to give you.

[Patient]

I wish you did.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I take it.

[Patient]

I would take it. If your country offered the United States, United States Air Force a plan, I would take it. Okay.

[Jon Favreau]

Funniest moment of the meeting. Maybe funniest moment of the day.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And what a funny day it was.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, great line there.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Funniest moment in the meeting that featured a white genocide slideshow.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, basically. But don't worry, the corrupt date doesn't end there. Dan with corrupt date.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Ding ding, ding.

[Jon Favreau]

I know we need some.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Why do we not have sound for this?

[Jon Favreau]

Why do we not have a corrupt date? Sting. Yes, Elijah?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Anyone? What is happening?

[Jon Favreau]

This is not Elijah's responsibility. I'm just throwing him under the bus cuz it's fun to do. On Thursday night, Trump hosted the top 220 investors in his Trump meme. Coin for a black tie optional. Thanks for. Thanks for letting me know it's optional. Black tie optional. Dinner at his D.C. golf club. The top 25 buyers also had a private reception with Trump beforehand. NBC reported that the average seat ended up costing around a million dollars, which now they can afford because they just got another tax cut that's worth a million dollars. And that the approximate total those 200 plus investors spent to gain this kind of access to the President adds up to almost $400 million. Which means they can afford another Qatari jet. This time not as a gift. Trump can buy his own or his sons can. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt didn't have the easiest time trying to explain all of this on Thursday. Here she is taking a question from NBC's Garrett Hake. Garrett, go ahead, Caroline. You guys are very proud of your record on transparency. I have two transparency related questions for you.

[Representative Lamonica McIver]

Sure.

[Jon Favreau]

On the president's dinner tonight, will the White House commit to making a list of the attendees public so people can see who's paying for that kind of access to the President?

[Medical Announcer]

Ms. Well, as you know, Garrett, this question has been raised with the president. I have also addressed the dinner tonight. The president is attending it in his personal time. It is not a White House dinner. It's not taking place here at the White House. But certainly I can raise that question and try to get you an answer for it.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I don't think she's gonna expect. I don't think she's gonna try very hard.

[Jon Favreau]

You don't think she's gonna get that answer?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No, I don't think so.

[Jon Favreau]

You think it fixes everything now that it's not at the White House and.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It'S just, yeah, it's personal capacity. He can do whatever he wants.

[Jon Favreau]

His personal capacity.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You know, someone should tell the Supreme Court who said that Trump only has immunity in his presidential capacity.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, right. No, well, this is a. Oh, yeah. What is he going to do here? Does he take, is he, when he takes bribes, it's personal capacity.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes.

[Jon Favreau]

But when he just accepts gifts to the government and I don't even know what the official capacity for the meme coin is.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Look, once again, not a constitutional scholar here, but it does seem like he's going to take the money in his personal capacity. He's going to dole out the favors in his official capacity. So falls into a gray area that probably a majority of the Supreme Court is comfortable with.

[Jon Favreau]

We talked recently about some data that suggested the corruption message isn't breaking through to key voters yet. I guess we should keep trying harder. What do you think?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes. If one of the central themes of the Trump's presidency is about how he can get richer and just not to fact check the president of the United States, but the United States Air Force is temporarily holding the plane for him before he gets it in his personal capacity at the end. So not a gift to the government, a gift to Trump that's just being held by the government for a while. Important point here.

[Jon Favreau]

Also, did you read the New York Times story about the plane being officially accepted because they estimate it could cost up to $1 billion to retrofit the plane so that it is ready to be used as Air Force One.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's never going to be used as Air Force One. Never.

[Jon Favreau]

Where's that money? Where's the billion dollars coming from?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Because the tax bill they just passed, Right.

[Jon Favreau]

I was going to say, how much should we just cut from Medicaid? How much should we just cut from the aca?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But we jacked up defense spending in that same bill. So.

[Jon Favreau]

A billion dollars. So stupid.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The whole thing is so stupid.

[Jon Favreau]

The government has already spent $3.9 billion for the two new Air Force ones that Boeing has been working on. So we already have a contract that we paid taxpayers, paid $3.9 billion for the two jets that we thought we needed. And that was like the normal course of business. Now we get the $400 million temporary gift until Trump leaves office that they're gonna spend maybe a billion dollars retrofitting and. And the maintenance costs for an Air Force One, which now I guess will have three, is $135 million per year per plane.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Just the idea that Trump wanted this plane because he thought it was cool and he thought the Boeing was taking too long for his other new planes because the super cool plane he already had was not apparently cool enough for him. Just there's no way this other plane that they're going to have to basically tear down to the studs one to check it for bugs and other listening devices and then do all the things you have to do to the plane will be ready before the Boeing planes is impossible to fathom. The fact that I would be shocked if he flies one day as president on this plane. My guess is a bunch of taxpayer money goes into making it even cooler and then he will accept it at the back end in his personal capacity.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, that's just his. That's his to go bag.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, that's his gift bag at the end.

[Jon Favreau]

Gift bag at the end. Yeah. You get to take the plane with you when you leave the White House. Never, never flown in. So. Yeah. So he's just. I don't know. I really do think that the stories. We talked about this before, but like we just talked about the tax cuts for the rich people stealing food off kids plates and healthcare from millions of Americans. Meanwhile, he's making money at these dinners. He's taking $400 million jets. We gotta combine the stories. The story's the same story.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, it's all about him and not about you. And it's gonna hurt your life. That's the part that is really important here. The other thing, and this is why Democrats, we talked about this a little bit last week, should be pushing this message is the problem is not just the message, it's the messenger, is that we as a party, we actually frankly, don't have the credit. We'll get to this in a minute. On the credibility to deliver any messages right now with great efficacy, but especially the one we don't is corruption, because we are seen as defenders of that same broken system. And suppose people would actually take it on and fix it. There are people within our party who have the credibility to do that. Bernie Sanders, AOC Warren, Elizabeth Warren. I think in some cases, some people who are outside of government, outside of the federal government probably can, like Ruben Gallego may, because he seems to be able to. Younger folks like Wes Moore, some of the governors might be able to do it. But as a party, we have to not just make. We have to show people through our actions and our policies that we would actually take on corruption when we're in charge. And if you want to make the message work, you got to fix your messenger problem.

[Jon Favreau]

All right. Speaking of that, one last thing before we get to your interview with Representative Lamonica McIver. We have been saying since November that we can't draw too many decisive conclusions about what happened in the election based only on the exit polls, that we have to wait for the gold standard data, which comes from two places, Catalyst and Pew. We finally got the Catalyst data, and the headlines out of it were as unsurprising as they were depressing. Kamala Harris lost critical ground with young voters and people of color, especially men of color, especially young men of color. In fact, she gained ground only with married white women and not by much.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

One point gained one point.

[Jon Favreau]

One point. Yeah, that's one point.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And it's not clear what they rounded up from to get there.

[Jon Favreau]

And super voters in this report, which are people who voted in the last four elections, she did one point better with Biden among the super voters, but she lost a lot of ground among the irregular voters, people who have voted in just a few of the last four elections. As Amy Walter and Carrie Dan at the Cook Political Report put in their headline, the main conclusion from this report is, quote, the Obama coalition turned into the Trump coalition. Ouch. First off, can you explain for folks how Catalyst does what it does and why this is such good data?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Sure. This is a very complicated process, and I am at great risk of oversimplifying it, but Catalyst is a data firm. They ingest all the Voter file data around the country. And just so people understand voter data is public in the United States, states keep records of who's registered to vote. If those people voted, which elections they voted, not who they voted for, but if they voted in the election, which primary elections, which general elections, which special elections. Some states, I think it's about seven, have demographic information, race and gender information on the voter file. Most states, but not all states, have partisanship. So, you know, if someone's a Democrat or Republican or either a registered independent, or in some cases, just no party, no party status. And so we have gotten all the precinct level data from the election, so we know who voted in 2024 all across the country. Now, that's all come in. Catalyst then takes that data, they combine it with their voter file, which includes census data, commercial data, where they will ingest other information so you can get more information about people and parts of the country. Then they will use some modeling to help figure out, you know, it can be based on people's names, where they live, to help people understand demographic information, age, gender, and identify really all the voters in this country. And so they do this, and then they spend months going through it to compare it to not just the last election, but every election since 2012, which is as long as they've been doing this report. To make an assessment of where Democrats gained and lost, in this case, mostly lost ground. To fully understand who actually voted in previous elections, the Catalyst report has really upended some immediate post election takes. Right. There actually is a pretty dramatic shift in 2016 about how women voted based on the exit polls and the Catalyst data. This data gives us much more. This report, which I believe everyone who works in politics at any level should read, because it really tells a story of not just how Kamala Harris lost, but what has happened to the Democratic coalition over the last eight years. But it actually is fairly consistent with a lot of the takes that people had after the election about where Trump gained ground in the Democratic coalition. The numbers are a little different. There's a little more precise. But the idea that Trump gained with huge core parts of the Democratic coalition, including Latino voters and young voters, is borne out by this report.

[Jon Favreau]

To me, the biggest difference in this report in the exit polls is the gender dividend. Now, people had thought in the election there was going to be this huge gender divide. Then the exit polls showed it wasn't as big of a divide as maybe polls had suggested. Turns out it was Trump almost entirely.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Because Trump gained with men.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, that's what I'M saying, right, so Trump gained 2 points with women, but he gained 11 points with men, which is quite a.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And those gains with women were almost entirely, were entirely with Latino women. Because Kamala Harris, she lost ground almost everywhere, but she held ground with all forms of white women and black women.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. So you wrote a great message box about this and you noted how since election Day there's been this fierce argument about whether Harris lost because Biden voters didn't turn out, which some people argue means she wasn't progressive enough or because too many Biden voters switched to Trump, which others argue means that she was too progressive. Of course, you and I have talked about how Biden voters who stayed home aren't necessarily further to the left than Biden voters who switched to Trump. But. So we're simplifying the argument, but that is the argument that's out there. What was your take on the turnout versus persuasion effect from the Catalyst report?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

This will be deeply dissatisfying to many because it encodes nuance. But. But she lost because of both. It is clear in this data that a significant number of people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 voted for Donald Trump in 2024. It's also true that 30 million voters dropped out of the electorate from 2020 to 2024. Now some of that is people staying home. Some of it's people not voting intentionally. Some of it's people whose registration gets messed up because they moved or got purged off the rolls. Some of it's because people die in a four year period.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, we should say that every election there's a huge number of people who fall out of the electorate.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

This is a larger than normal drop off. It's by. It's not like twice as many, but I think it was like 26 million in the previous election drop off. But this is a large number. Catalyst estimates that that group is 55% Democrat. What this report cannot tell you is that they were 55% progressive. Right. That's the thing. The raw numbers make it clear that to win she had to do better with the people who didn't vote and stayed home and the people who did vote and switched their votes. This report doesn't look at why people vote. It's not a poll. They're not asking you all these questions. They're just analyzing existing data so you can't tell you the answer. The thing that is either way, the way the math works is she has to do better with both endeavors. We are being squeezed as a party. We are Losing people in the middle. And we are not getting. I guess the way I'd say this is I sort of reject the entire premise and I think you do as well, that ideology is the way to look at this. That you can assume that being more moderate is going to help you with swing voters in a way that being, and that being more progressive is going to help you with these drop off voters or these new voters. There's not real evidence to, to prove that. So I reject the argument on its face. But either way, both sides are wrong and both sides are right. We need to do both.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I mean, I also think that the drop off in the non battleground states, we've talked about this before was much larger. But there's a narrative out there after the election that there was like, you know, I forget how many million it was. This many million Biden voters stayed home, 19 million Biden voters stayed home. And she ended the race with Liz Cheney. And so people were born. You know, people weren't inspired and they stayed home. And there's all these reasons that she moved too much to the center. And that's not true. That narrative is just not true. That this report bears it out. Every single piece of data bears that out. That is not to say that there aren't some people who stayed home, but you have to. One way to think about it is a Biden voter. Let's say there's a young black man, right? Or young Latino man. That's where basically she lost the most ground. So there's a young Latino man who decides to stay home. And he stays home because he's pissed about inflation. He thinks that Joe Biden fucked up. He thinks Joe Biden's too old. He thinks there was too much inflation, prices were too high, but he doesn't like Donald Trump, so he's gonna stay home. Then there's another young Latino man who says, I don't like Joe Biden cuz of inflation and I think he's too old. And I don't really like Donald Trump, but maybe he'll make, maybe he'll bring prices down a little bit, so I'll vote for Donald Trump. Not much difference ideologically between those two voters, but one gets counted as a, I'm staying home and one gets counted as a switcher, right? So I think that's one way to think about all this. Anything else jump out at you from the report?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, there are two things. One, the main story of this is that Democrats are in a huge bit of trouble like this. It Just there's no way to look at this without recognizing the massive scale of our problems. And you can kind of tell yourself that things might be kind of okay by looking at just the shift from 20 to 24. But if you really want to assess where we are as a party, you have to look at the shift from 2016 to 2024. And this is particularly true with Latino voters. Okay.

[Jon Favreau]

In 20 or 2012.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Even with Latino voters, actually is the one group where Hillary Clinton in the Catalyst did better than Obama. She two points better in 2016. Hillary Clinton won 70% of Latino vote. Kamala Harris won 54%. It's a 16 point drop. And then you would like to think that gender, you know, this is all about men. It's not all about men. Latinas move 17 points in eight years. Latino men went 14 points in eight years. There is no path to. Latinos are the fastest growing population in the country. They are particularly politically powerful because of, of how their, how the population is distributed in electoral rich sunbelt states like Texas, Florida, Arizona, Nevada, et cetera. And so they're becoming more of the electorate and we are losing more of them at a very fast rate. If that trend continues, there is no path to Democrats winning elections. And so we have to take that. Everyone was telling themselves stories about that maybe 2020 was an aberration because Trump made gains there because of COVID Like there's big talk about COVID This is something bigger than that. And we have to address that. The second thing in here is that Democrats lost new voters for the first time. Obama got 58% of new voters in 2012. Biden and Clinton got 55%. Kamala Harris only got 49.5% of new voters, which speaks to the gains that Trump made with younger people and particularly young people of color who are coming into the electorate. And if that trend continues, we're in huge trouble. And so the message I take from this is anyone who thinks that we can get away with just tinkering around the edges, just hoping that Donald Trump becomes unpopular. They nominate some Yahoo in 2028 or we're going to ride the wave of tariffs and inflation to a narrow House victory is just rearranging the dictators on the Titanic. We have to be willing to ask very hard questions. We have to be willing to evaluate every premise, look at how we govern, campaign message across the board. Because right now, and this is where the Obama coalition, the Trump coalition point matters, is we are on the wrong side of political history right now. We are the party that is hoping for lower turnout, that the fewer people that vote, we have a better chance of winning, that we are losing ground with the fastest growing parts of the population, younger voters and Latinos. And that is a party that can win an election every once in a while if the stars align correctly. But that is a party that will look a lot like the Democratic party from the 60s until the 90s, where we maybe can win when Nixon gets impeached and when Nixon resigns and we win that election and then we lose for the next 12 years. Like, there has to be a fundamental change in approach, change in just, in all, we just have to really look at it, because there is no easy answer here to what's happening.

[Jon Favreau]

And adding to the challenge is those same voters are the voters most likely to not even hear what we're saying because we're doing poorly with irregular voters, meaning the voters who don't always show up. Irregular voters also tend to be the voters who don't pay close attention to politics or consume a lot of political news. And so what happened with Trump is. And we've, you know, talked about this before, but people who follow politics closely, follow the news closely, who vote in all the recent elections. Kamala Harris wins those voters by quite a big margin. All the people we're talking, we're all talking to each other. And Democrats have those people, have the super voters. But Trump won with people who don't follow politics that closely or people who get their most of their political news and information from social media. And they are not necessarily getting their information from social media, from political media on social media. It is information and media on social media that may touch on politics once in a while, but it may not. It may be cultural content, sports content, entertainment, whatever. And they're just getting sort of vibes from the information that they're consuming. And yet they are still showing up in presidential elections. Right. So it's not like they are apathetic, disconnected, and then they don't vote. They are voting, but they're voting without fully hearing the Democratic message.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes, that is, I mean, like, we can honestly talk about this for literally hours, and perhaps probably should, but we.

[Jon Favreau]

Know that the answer is just finding a Joe Rogan of the left.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes, that's exactly right. We are one. I've always said we're one podcaster away from a sustainable governing majority.

[Jon Favreau]

Isn't it funny? I was like, I thought that the Joe Rogan of the left, cliche, like, we left it behind a couple months ago, and then just this Week. I'm like, on Twitter. I'm looking around like, why is it back? What happened? Why are we talking about Joe Rogan at the fucking left again?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Who's that? New York Times story.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I'm glad we're not talking about that. Go read it if you want. You're not gonna hear about it from us. Yes, you mentioned talking about this for hours. One way people can listen to you talk about this more is by listening to this week's Polar Coaster.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'm so glad you did this and you did it so smoothly. Cause in our outline, it actually says, insert organic housekeeping here. So we're going to do this as organically and natural as we possibly can so far.

[Jon Favreau]

Reading the stage directions.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes, we are reading like a good Democrat. I am reading the stage directions. So on this week's Polar Coaster, Caroline and I dug into the Catalyst report and answered some questions from our Friends of the POD subscribers. But I also talked to Alexa Jain of Split Ticket, who is one of the smarter people in the data community.

[Jon Favreau]

So smart.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

How Democrats win the Senate in 2026 and how we can actually run the sort of candidates that can win Senate seats in the red states that Democrats used to have back in the day. It's a very smart conversation. I highly recommend it.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I love the Split Ticket crew. They're doing really, really great work. And you've also written about this in the message box as well.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

This is part two of the organic plug. Very important.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay. Yes. Do you want to organic this plug?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I'm going to organically do this. As I always say, if you like Pod Save America, you'll love the message box. My newsletter. See how organic and natural this is. Just today I wrote about how the passage of the House GOP budget bill is imperiling their chances of holding onto their very narrow majority. To subscribe and to get your first 30 days free, I was going to make that 30 days free offer only for the first hundred days, but Trump has made things so shitty and expensive, we're going to keep it going. So to do that, to sign up for the message box and get your first 30 days free, go to America's most cringeworthy website, crooked.com yeswedan that is crooked.com yeswedan and of course, to get.

[Jon Favreau]

Access to Polar Coaster, you can subscribe to [e-mail] friends and you also get ad free episodes of Pod Save America offline, Love it or leave it. Pod Save the World and all kinds of other exclusive subscriber Only goodies. And you'll be helping support independent media, which could use some support right now since all the corporate media around us are settling with Trump and paying him money. Not great, not great, not great. All right, when we come back, Dan's conversation with New Jersey representative Lamonica McIver. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Mental health awareness is growing, but there's still progress to be made. 26% of Americans who participated in a recent survey said they have avoided seeking mental health support due to fear of judgment. When people hesitate to get help, it doesn't just affect them, it impacts families, workplaces and entire communities. This mental health awareness month, let's encourage everyone to take care of their well being and break the stigma. The world is better when people are healthy and happy. Yeah, I used to think that too. I was like, well, I don't want to tell people I was going to therapy. Now I tell everyone who listens to this podcast.

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I don't shut up about it because it's great. And it's not like I went being like, whoa, my mental health is very poor. It's just, you know, you go and you feel better. You talk to someone, whether your mental health, you think it's good, whether it's bad, it could always be better. BetterHelp has over 10 years of experience matching people with the right therapist from their diverse network of more than 30,000 licensed therapists with a wide range of specialties. BetterHelp is fully online, making therapy affordable and convenient, serving over 5 million people worldwide. Easily switch therapists anytime at no extra cost. We're all better with help. Visit betterhelp.compsa to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H E L p.compsa we all belong outside.

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

Joining me today is Representative Lamonica McIver, who is charged this week with two criminal felony counts of assaulting, resisting, intimidating, and interfering with federal officials while conducting an oversight visit at an ICE detention facility in New Jersey. Representative McIver, welcome to Pod Save America.

[Representative Lamonica McIver]

Thank you so much, Dan, for having me. It's such a pleasure to be on with you today.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, thank you so much for joining us. And why don't you just start by telling me what happened on that day at the ICE facility in your district.

[Representative Lamonica McIver]

So we were basically there for an oversight visit. Myself, along with Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez, as both representatives in New Jersey, we were going on an oversight visit. We've done this before. We actually visited a location not too far from there, which was another ICE facility in our community used to doing this. People know it as congressional members. We have the right to go to an ICE facility without an appointment and ask for a tour of this facility. This facility has been open since May 1st. They've been receiving detainees, but there was a lot of back and forth with the city, the city administration, because they didn't necessarily have the proper permits. They didn't have a CEO. It's not a federal jail or prison. It's not a state jail or prison. So they have to abide by a local, you know, requirements. And so we went there, showed up for our oversight visit. We're waiting. We were immediately, you know, greeted with disrespect, confrontation. They were giving us the run around, telling us, hey, we got to call this person, that person. You know, you gotta wait. I mean, it was like back and forth to over an hour plus of waiting. And then, obviously, the video shows this whole commotion of a situation happening. And that is when ICE officials arrived. Multiple, over a dozen mask individuals, uniform camouflage, as well as administrators and Homeland Security arrived and immediately forgot about us, who were waiting there for a tour and went to go confront the mayor. It was crazy. It was an intense situation. We were trying to get answers. We were trying to speak with them, and they basically disregarded us. They had no regard for us. They did not want to talk with us, explain anything. I mean, let alone address the fact that we are here for an oversight visit. Like, this is what we're here for. Whatever you got going on, we don't know anything about that. We're just trying to go and have our oversight visit. And so it was just super unfortunate. And the chaos that is seen in all of the videos, ICE created that. They created the chaos, they created the confrontation, and it didn't have to be like that. Once again, we've done this before, and we were simply there to do our jobs.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So you're a member of Congress at a facility to do your oversight. Responsibilities coming out of that are criminal charges against you. What is your reaction to those charges and what are the next steps.

[Representative Lamonica McIver]

I mean, honestly, it is a very scary moment. I think it's really unfortunate. I'm a mom. I have a family. And to have these charges put against me, to see the possibility of being imprisoned for such a long time for these charges, it's really unfortunate. But at the same time, it's truly sad for America for something like this to be happening to a person that is not appointed by Donald Trump. I'm not appointed by Alina Haba. I am an elected police official where thousands of people in New Jersey expect for me to do my job. And so to know that I showed up there to do my job, and then I come out of this situation having felony charges charged against me is crazy. I went to court, obviously, yesterday via Zoom, because I'm here in Washington, D.C. working, and that was a formality. And now I'm looking forward to my day in court, looking for the next process and the next step of this all. But honestly, it's just. It's truly a scary time when, you know, doing your job, you know, showing up to do your job as a member of Congress can land you with felony assault charges.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You're a new member of Congress. Have your colleagues that you're with, the college you've spoken with, have they ever had an experience like the one you guys had where you were denied access to a facility before?

[Representative Lamonica McIver]

Not that I know of. I mean, I haven't heard anyone say it. Like I said, me, Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman and Representative Rob Menendez. We've been to a local location before where we got a tour, you know, of a facility. It's ran by a different, you know, group, a different private group. But, you know, we might have had some delay, but we were able to get a tour. You know, we've never experienced that before, like the situation that we experienced at Delaney Hall. But at the same time, you know, it's. It's. It's just unbelievable that something like that can happen. Right? You know, what are we doing? Why is this happening? Why can't we just show up and, you know, do our job, you know, as congressional members? It's. It's just super unfortunate.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

If you can. Can you talk a little bit about the specific interaction with the agent that this government has alleged that you pushed? I've seen the video, but if you could just talk a little about what happened in that moment, I think it'd be helpful for our listeners.

[Representative Lamonica McIver]

Well, there was a. It was a very tense situation. So there was a. You know, once again, this was a situation when you had three members of Congress, you had the mayor of the largest city in New Jersey, and you had protesters, which were peaceful protesters. This was something they would have been protesting for days and days at this location peacefully to have that interaction happen. I mean, literally, there was a lot of shoving and pushing that was going on, but I have no idea what agent they're talking about or what they're claiming. I mean, we don't know from the complaint that they submitted. I mean, we don't have an agent's name. People did not identify themselves to us where I can say, oh, this was agent such and such. So I had no idea about the complaint.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Can you talk a little bit about how you view these charges against you in the larger Trump administration effort to silence critics? Do you see this as part of a larger assault on democracy? I mean, this is a pretty unprecedented situation where you have the federal government, the executive branch from the other party, pressing criminal charges against a member of Congress for something involving their use of their actual exercise of their duties and free speech and right to assembly and all of those things. And so can you talk a little bit about that?

[Representative Lamonica McIver]

Well, it's a political intimidation. I mean, we've seen it over and over and over again with this administration since January 20th. We've seen it with judges, we've seen it with other leaders. We see him opening up investigations on people just because these are political. Who figures that he doesn't agree with what they say or they criticize the administration. He has literally weaponized every department, especially the doj, against people that he disagrees with. And so I'm the latest victim of that. And I am watching this play out. And if it can happen to me as a member who's just doing her job, it can happen to any member. But specifically just regular individuals who've been expressing their concerns with us about how they're being treated by ICE and Homeland Security. We can understand their concerns and their complaints based off what I personally experienced and the other members of Congress that were with me experienced. So it's definitely political intimidation. They want to make me, shut me up, stop me from doing my job, put fear in me, scare me. But at the end of the day, I will not wait for Dan. I am in this job. I. I signed up for this. I ran for office. The people of New Jersey elected me, and so I must serve. I must do my job, and they're not going to shut me up. Donald Trump is not going to prosecute me because I'm woke or whatever that means. Right. He's just not gonna do that to me.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

What is in the reaction of your colleagues? You've obviously been in Congress all night for the last. You probably haven't been to bed in a very long time, literally.

[Representative Lamonica McIver]

I had a sneak nap today, Dan.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, well, at least you woke up for the vote on, like, that republic. Who missed this vote. But just what have you heard from. You've been with all of your colleagues. Have you heard anything? What's the reaction from Democratic colleagues? You've heard anything from Republican colleagues, perhaps?

[Representative Lamonica McIver]

Well, my Democratic colleagues have been extremely helpful. The support, just them having my back, it's really been appreciative. I think that the caucus understands, the Democratic caucus understands that if they can use this new tool to charge Congress members for doing their job or for being a critic or speaking out against the administration, they know we are in deeper trouble. We know that our democracy is at stake here. We've seen Trump strip away pieces and pieces of our democracy each and every day. And this is a bigger situation than just me. It's a bigger situation than just the judge in Wisconsin. This is a situation where we have a president who has taken away the basic things that we love about America. The right to due process, the right to freedoms, the right to, you know, believe what we want to believe in and, you know, do how we want to do, you know, in this. In this world that we call America. This is why we're here. And to have this president stripping away our democracy every chance he gets, every hour on the hour, sometimes it's dangerous. We're heading down the wrong path, and we cannot, we have to, you know, push back against this. I think people need to stay woke and they need to stay awake and they need to stay engaged and informed regarding the situation. I think from the Republican caucus, obviously, we're seeing exactly what we expect. Right? They rather serve Trump than serve their constituents. And so what are they doing to me? They are putting in resolutions to get me kicked off committees. They're asking for me to be censured. Yesterday, Nancy May Ways, who's more concerned about me than serving her constituents, asked for me to put in a resolution for me to be expelled from Congress. These are the same people who said that January 6th rioters were good people. They supported Trump pardoning these individuals who beat police officers, who were hurt very badly, who stormed the Capitol. But today, they want to see me kicked out of Congress for doing my job. So this is what I'm seeing across the board. And like I said, Dan, I am committed to this work. I'm committed to my job. And none of this will bully me or waver or make me stop doing my job.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Last question for you. As we mentioned earlier, the House just passed the one big beautiful bill, as Trump calls it, otherwise known as a bill to cut taxes to the rich and pay for it by taking food and health care away from working class and poor Americans. What's your reaction to that passage of the bill? Where does it go from here?

[Representative Lamonica McIver]

Sad time. I honestly can't believe that Republicans are just more concerned and scared of Donald Trump than scared of the voters in their districts. To say that you're taking food off the table, cutting SNAP benefits, cutting Medicaid. I mean, people are going to die, Dan. Like hospitals are going to close. Funding is being stripped away from communities and specifically many of these communities that Republicans represent. And the fact that they're more scared of Donald Trump and they're serving him than serving the people that elected them, I mean, that's a sad situation. I mean, it's honestly disgraceful. And I hope that everything that we're seeing play out right now, today, tomorrow, yesterday, I hope that it really reflects for 2026 midterms. And I hope that voters remember what their members did to them and what they voted on, what they supported them serving Donald Trump and serving the people. I really hope that they have a good memory on this era that we're in.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Representative McIver, thank you so much for joining us. Good luck with everything that's happening for you, and I hope you get a little rest after this long night you've had.

[Representative Lamonica McIver]

Thank you so much, Dan. I look forward to being on again with you.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Please absolutely. Keep us updated on how it goes.

[Representative Lamonica McIver]

All righty. Take care.

[Jon Favreau]

That's our show for today. Hope everyone has a great long weekend. Even though Monday is Memorial Day, we will have a new show where Dan Lovett, Tommy and I will answer all the questions, some of the questions that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You submitted, the best questions, the best.

[Jon Favreau]

Questions that you submitted. So tune in for that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Bye, everyone.

[Jon Favreau]

If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free or get access to our subscriber discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our friends of the pod [e-mail] friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed. Also, be sure to follow Pod Save America on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube for full episodes, bonus content and more. And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Soldiers. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Reid Churlin is our executive editor and Adrienne Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kanter is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt de Groat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hethcoat, Mia Kelly Hellman, Molly Lobel, Kiril Pelaviev and David Toles. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

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Exactly what every business needs. Sign [e-mail] that's o d o o dot com.

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